Current Affairs Quiz - November, 2020

Notes:
As per the recent statement of the International Energy Agency, China will surpass the United States to become the world’s biggest oil refiner in 2021.
The United States has been at the top in the list of oil refiners since the beginning of the oil regime in the mid-nineteenth century. Also, in 1967 the United States possessed over 35 times the refining capacity of China.

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:
Technology Giant Google has paid Rs 33,737 crore to Reliance Industries Limited’s (RIL) digital subsidiary, Jio Platforms Ltd.
Google will now hold 7.73% stake in Jio Platforms and has joined the list of global investors including Facebook, Silver Lake, General Atlantic among others. This is also the biggest-ever investment of Google in an Indian company.

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:
Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar has launched Sahakar Pragya, the 45 new training modules developed by the National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC).
The modules will impart training to primary cooperative societies in rural areas of the country. The National Cooperative Development Corporation is a statutory Corporation, under the aegis of Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare.

Notes:
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Invest India has recently launched the SDG Investor Map for India.
UNDP highlighted 18 investment opportunities areas (IOAs), which are in 6 important SDG (sustainable development goals) enabling sectors including education, healthcare, agriculture among others. This is expected to bridge the SDG financing gap occurred due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Notes:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched ‘Har Ghar Nal Yojana’ in the state of Uttar Pradesh. The scheme aims to provide piped water supply to over 4.1 million people in the two districts of Sonbhadra and Mirzapur.
The outlay of the project is Rs 5,555 crore. The scheme will also benefit over 3,000 villages to access piped water supply.

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 Honey FPO Programme of National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Limited. (NAFED) has been inaugurated by Minister of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Narendra Singh Tomar.
Beekeeping will be promoted as an occupation for unemployed women and tribal populations, through these Honey FPOs. A new Central Sector Scheme for Formation & Promotion of new 10,000 FPOs was launched and 2200 FPO clusters for 2020-21 are already allocated.

Notes:
The World Health Organisation has released ‘Guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behaviour’.
As per the guidelines, at least 150 to 300 minutes of moderate to vigorous aerobic activity per week is recommended for all adults. It also highlights that one in four adults, and four out of five adolescents, do not get enough physical activity, which causes a significant loss in productivity.