Current Affairs Quiz - November, 2020

Notes:
The 8th India-Mexico Joint Commission Meeting was recently held through Video-Conference. The Meeting was co-chaired by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and his Mexican counterpart Marcelo Ebrard.
Both the countries agreed to promote economic strengths and work on strengthening their ‘Privileged Partnership’.

Notes:
The Adani Group, has recently taken charge of the Mangaluru International Airport. It had earlier won the concession to operate, manage and develop the airport.
The concession agreements for the operations, management and development of the three airports – Mangaluru, Ahmedabad and Lucknow through PPP mode were signed earlier this year, by the Ministry of Civil Aviation.

Notes:
Food Corporation of India and other Government agencies are set to procure 742 Lakh Metric tonnes of paddy during the ongoing Kharif season.
This is seen as a record high paddy procurement. The paddy procurement made by the Government last year was 627 Lakh Metric Tonnes. The number of purchase-centres this year have been increased from 30,791 to 39,122.

Notes:
The Government of India has proposed to import 10 lakh tonnes of potato, out of which 30,000 tonnes would be imported from Bhutan without license.
The import is being made in order to control the rise in prices of potato in India. The Centre has also planned to import 25,000 tonnes of onions before Diwali.

Notes:
As per the recent report released by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), 30 Indian cities will face increasing water risks in the next few decades.
According to the WWF Water Risk Filter report, 30 Indian cities, including Jaipur, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Mumbai among others, will face acute water risks. The report estimates that hundreds of millions of people in cities across the globe could face water risks.

Notes:
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has been signed by Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA). The MoU sets key targets for IRDAI to be achieved in the year 2020-21.
IREDA is a “Mini Ratna” Public Sector Enterprise under the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. It is categorized as a Public Financial Institution and NBFC by Reserve Bank of India.

Notes:
Duarte Pacheco of Portugal has been elected as the new President of Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU). He would hold the office for the period from 2020 to 2023.
The Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU) is an international organisation of various nations’ parliament. It was established in 1889 and is head quartered at Geneva, Switzerland.

Notes:
Visa has recently partnered with Indian leading private sector bank HDFC Bank and Digit Secure, to deploy PCI certified Tap to Phone card acceptance solution.
DigitSecure has become the first company based in Asia-Pacific to receive PCI security certification for deploying this technology. India has also joined a list of over 15 markets that provide Visa Tap to Phone technology for merchants.

Notes:
Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) has recently launched a challenge named “Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge”. It aims to develop and implement initiatives that would improve the quality of life of young children, caregivers and families.
It is a 3-year challenge that would be open for 100 Smart Cities, cities with population of more than 5 lakh and State/Union Territory capitals.

Notes:
External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar recently virtually addressed the first India -Nordic – Baltic Conclave.
The Nordic-Baltic Eight (NB8) co-operation framework includes eight countries namely Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, and Sweden.