Current Affairs Quiz - November, 2020

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:
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:
RE-INVEST (Renewable Energy Investors Meet & Expo) is organised by the Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), to promote investment in renewable energy.
The 3rd edition of the Meet is scheduled to be held from November 26 to 28, 2020 with the theme of ‘Innovations for Sustainable Energy Transition’. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the virtual meeting. The first two editions were held in 2015 and 2018.

Notes:
HDFC Bank became the first bank in the Indian history to cross the Rs 8-trillion market capitalisation milestone.
The stock price has also surpassed its previous lifetime high and stood at Rs 1464 apiece on the BSE. The private sector bank now stands at third position in the overall market-cap ranking of listed companies, after Reliance Industries and Tata Consultancy Services that have crossed Rs 10 trillion.

Notes:
Union Cabinet has recently approved the merger of Lakshmi Vilas Bank (LVB) with DBS Bank India. The Reserve Bank of India had earlier proposed the merger of the private sector lender with the Indian arm of Singapore’s DBS Bank.
It also placed LVB under one-month moratorium and capped withdrawals for depositors. As a part of the amalgamation, DBIL will infuse fresh capital of Rs 2,500 crore into LVB.

Notes:
A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed by the Small Industries Development Bank of India (Sidbi) with the Tamil Nadu government to develop the ecosystem for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the state.
Under the MoU, Sidbi will deploy a project management unit (PMU) in the government of Tamil Nadu. It will undertake the process of designing the training and capacity-building programmes to be taken up by the state government in areas.

Notes:
China has removed the last remaining counties (regions) from a list of 832 extremely poor regions, drawn up in the year 2014.
China also announced that it has lifted 93 million people out of poverty since 2013. China sets its own national standard of extreme poverty, based on a per capita income threshold of 4,000 yuan per year, or around USD 1.52 per day, and other social factors.

Notes:
As per the recent report released by ‘Transparency International’, as many as 74 per cent of the respondents said corruption is one of the biggest problems in their country.
The report also highlighted that around 19 % paid a bribe in the last 12 months, to access public service and youngsters are more likely to pay a bribe or use personal connection to avail public service.

Notes:
NITI Aayog released a report titled ‘Mitigation and Management of Covid-19: Practices from India’s States & UTs’.
It is a compendium of practices from States and UTs with information about the initiatives implemented by states, districts, and cities in India for containing Covid-19 outbreak. The practices in the compendium have been divided under six sections.

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.