Current Affairs Quiz - November, 2020

Notes:
The U.N. children’s agency UNICEF announced that around 2 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines will be sent to developing countries next year.
UNICEF has partnered with 350 airlines and freight companies to deliver vaccines and 1 billion syringes to poor countries, as part of COVAX initiative. Under the initiative led by GAVI vaccine group and WHO among others aims to deter hoarding Covid-19 vaccines.

Notes:
The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) Girish Chandra Murmu, has been elected External Auditor of Inter Parliamentary Union, Geneva.
He has been elected for the post for a three-year term. The CAG has held many significant posts in the recent pasts including the External Auditor of World Food Programme, WIPO, IAEA, UN WTO, IMO among others.

Notes:
Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin hosted the Leaders’ summit of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) 2020.
During the Papua New Guinea summit in 2018, APEC leaders did not issue a joint statement for the first time. Last year’s host Chile cancelled the annual summit due to violent domestic protests. This year, the APEC leaders issued a joint statement, pledging to work toward open trade and investment

Notes:
Ministry of Jal Shakti had constituted a multi-disciplinary Technical Committee to recommend innovative ‘field level solution’ technologies in Drinking Water and Sanitation for states and UTs.
The committee was chaired by the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India K Vijaya Raghavan. It also has other members from NITI Aayog, DST, CSIR, DRDO, IIT among others. The committee has recently recommended five technology solutions for states/UTs.

Notes:
China has successfully launched the Chang’e-5 lunar probe, to collect samples from the moon’s surface and return to earth.
In the country’s first attempt to retrieve materials from an extra-terrestrial body, the unmanned space mission was launched from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in the southern province of Hainan. The spacecraft was launched by a Long March-5 rocket.

Notes:
As per a recent survey conducted by Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) and Ernst & Young, Multi-national Companies regard India as their first option, in terms of investments across the globe.
Out of the total key decision makers of those MNCs, 82 per cent of them said that they have plans to expand their business in the next 2 to 3 years. After India, the second most favourable place is North America followed by the rest of Asia-Pacific.

Notes:
The Pilibhit Tiger Reserve (PTR), Uttar Pradesh and the state Forest department have bagged the first-ever international award- TX2.
The award has been announced for doubling the number of tigers in four years against a target of 10 years from 25 tigers in 2014 to 65 in 2018. UNDP (United Nations Development Program) virtually presented the award to the Principal Chief conservator of forest (wildlife) of the state.

Notes:
The tenth edition of the National Science film festival has been inaugurated in the state of Tripura. The festival will be held in virtual mode.
VigyanPrasar, an autonomous agency under the Department of Science and Technology, has been organizing this festival. This year, Vigyan Prasar is collaborating with the Tripura State Council of Science and Technology. As many as 372 films in different languages have been received.

Notes:
UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced to allocate millions of funds to establish a Counter Terrorism Operations Centre (CTOC) based in London.
The Finance Minister also allocated funds for recruiting Police officers, tackling economic crimes and for criminal justice system, which will include the new CTOC. The state-of-the-art facility is expected to be fully operational within five years

Notes:
The Government of India has recently reduced the import tax on crude palm oil from 37.5% to 27.5%. This step has been made by the Government to bring down food inflation.
India is the world’s largest importer of palm oil and it imports nearly 9 million tons of palm oil every year from Indonesia and Malaysia predominantly.