Current Affairs Quiz - March, 2023

Notes:
The Debt Forgiveness Plan was announced the US Government in August last year. This plan vowed to cancel 10,000 USD of student loan debt for individuals earning less than 125,000 USD or for households earning less than $250,000 per annum.
Under this plan, those who are receiving Federal Pell Grants will be given an additional 10,000 USD in debt forgiven.

Notes:
The report titled ‘Mind the Gender Gap’ was released recently the CFA Institute. It is created based on the data from BRSR (Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report) disclosures.
The BRSR framework was released in 2021 by SEBI as a set of sustainability disclosure mechanism for private companies. According to the Mind the Gender Gap report, women’s participation rate in finance and related sectors is low in India. Only 21.7 percent of women are employed in financial services companies and only 15.9 percent are employed in key managerial positions.

Notes:
The SWAMIH Investment Fund is a social impact fund designed to provide debt financing for stalled and RERA-registered residential projects.
Managed by SBICAP Ventures Ltd, the Fund is sponsored by the Union Ministry of Finance. The Fund has provided final approval to nearly 130 projects worth around Rs 12,000 crore, and has raised Rs 15,530 crore to date.

Notes:
The second Meeting of Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion (GPFI) under G20 India Presidency concluded in Hyderabad.
The two-day meeting was led by GPFI Co-Chair and G20 India Presidency and saw participation from Ministry of Finance and Central Bank representatives from G20 and non-G20 countries and International Organisations.

Notes:
Swachhotsav, a 3-week long women-led cleanliness campaign under the Swachh Bharat Mission Urban 2.0, has been launched by Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri.
It aims to recognize and celebrate the shift from women in sanitation to women-led sanitation. The Women Icons leading Sanitation & Waste Management (WINS) Challenge-2023 was also announced during the launch event.

Notes:
SEBI’s Principle-based Framework for Cloud Adoption is a set of guidelines to ensure safe usage of cloud services by registered entities (REs) and cloud service providers (CSPs) in the securities industry.
It provides instructions on governance, risk, and compliance, choosing CSPs, data ownership and localization, due diligence by REs, security controls, legal and regulatory obligations, and vendor lock-in risks.

Notes:
The VLT Survey Telescope (VST) is located at the Paranal Observatory in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile and is adjacent to the four Very Large Telescope (VLT) Unit Telescopes.
It is the world’s largest telescope specifically designed to survey the sky in visible light. The program is a collaboration between the Italy’s OAC and the European Southern Observatory (ESO). The VLT Survey Telescope has recently captured the detailed image of IC 4701, an emission nebula found in the Sagittarius constellation.

Notes:
The Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin (Sousa chinensis) is a species of humpback dolphin that lives in the coastal waters of the eastern Indian and western Pacific Oceans. It is some-times known as the Chinese white dolphin in some regions.
A group of Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins was spotted recently off the coast of Injambakkam. Over 30 to 40 of these dolphins were found 500 meters away from the coast. Each dolphin had a unique coloration of pink and grey.

Notes:
The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), set up in 1994, is responsible for evaluating the quality of higher education institutions in India.
While undergoing NAAC’s assessment is not mandatory, the National Education Policy aims to get all higher educational institutes to obtain the highest level of accreditation within the next 15 years. As of January 31, 2023, only a small fraction of universities and colleges have been NAAC-accredited.

Notes:
Red tide is caused by a toxic algae species known as Karenia brevis. It occurs when the algae multiply in large numbers and form blooms, resulting in the water turning reddish-brown.
The algae produce the brevetoxins, which is fatal for aquatic life and capable of making humans sick. It was responsible for the deaths of over 2,000 tonnes of marine life between 2017 and 2018. Red tide has recently occurred in the coast of Florida.