Current Affairs Quiz - November, 2020

Notes:
An integrated foundation course for the Officer Trainees (OTs) of the Indian Civil Services named ‘AARAMBH’ was launched for the first time in 2019.
The Prime Minister has recently interacted with the Officer Trainees (OTs) of the Indian Civil Services at LBSNAA Mussoorie through a Video conference. This is a part of the AARAMBH course.

Notes:
India’s premier think tank Niti Aayog has recently released a draft model Act and rules on conclusive land titling, to be used by the states. The draft rules aim to reduce litigations and ease the land acquisition process for infrastructure projects.
The draft provides state governments with power to order for establishment, administration and management of a system of title registration of immovable properties.

Notes:
The Central government has extended the Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) for Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) till November 30.
As per the Finance Ministry, Loans amounting Rs 2.03 lakh crore have been sanctioned under the ECLGS to over 60 lakh borrowers, where the target was fixed at Rs 3 lakh core. Out of the loans, an amount of Rs. 1.48 lakh crore has been disbursed.

Notes:
As per the CEO of NITI Aayog, the number of Unified Payments Interface (UPI)-based transactions crossed the 2 billion mark in October 2020.
The UPI transactions grew 80 per cent from 1.14 billion transactions that were recorded in October 2019. This has signified that the digital mode of payments has been widely accepted by the people.

Notes:
Indian Institute of Science Bengaluru has entered into an MoU with R&D Centre of Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOCL).
The partnership aims to develop biomass gasification-based hydrogen generation technology for producing fuel cell-grade hydrogen. The testing and development would take place in IOCL’s R&D Centre in Faridabad.

Notes:
The government has announced that the Food Corporation of India (FCI) has been asked to tie up with rice mills for increasing supply of fortified rice.
The state-run organisation is asked to supply fortified rice through ration shops and other welfare schemes. Out of the 15 states identified for ‘Central scheme on fortified rice and its distribution via public distribution system (PDS)’, five states are implementing it in one district each.

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:
The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has recently issued notice to seek response from Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) and four State Governments regarding the ban on use of fire crackers from November 7 to 30 in the interest of public health and environment.
The NGT has also appointed a senior advocate Raj Panjwani and advocate Shibhani Ghosh to assist the tribunal as amicus curiae in the matter.

Notes:
As per the recent statement from the Earth Sciences Ministry, the Economic benefits from the use of weather forecasting services to farmers and fishermen since 2015 amounted to Rs 19,000 crore.
The Ministry cited a study it had commissioned from the research firm National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER). The Ministry also stated that this can record Rs 5000 crore, when extrapolated to the next five years.

Notes:
The United States of America (USA) has become the first nation in the world to formally withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.
This decision was made by the President Donald Trump in June 2017, but has been formalized now. USA can re-join the agreement any time in future. The Paris deal was drafted in 2015 to strengthen the global response against climate change.