Current Affairs Quiz - November, 2020

Notes:
Indian-origin economist and author Lord Meghnad Desai has resigned as a member of the UK’s Opposition Labour Party, over its failure to tackle racism.
The 80-year-old peer was against the readmission of former party leader Jeremy Corbyn without apology, after being suspended. The Labour Party has been alleged of antisemitism over several years.

Notes:
The Twitter account of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has reached 1 million followers. The bank also became the first monetary authority in the world to reach this mile stone on its official Twitter handle.
RBI created its official Twitter account only in January 2012 and in the current financial year, as many as 2.5 lakh new followers joined the RBI handle. Central bank of Mexico is in the second place with 7.74 lakh followers, followed by Bank of Indonesia with 7.57 lakh. US Federal Reserve is at the fourth place.

Notes:
Union Food Processing Minister Narendra Singh Tomar has recently inaugurated a mega food park (MFP) at Phagwara of Kapurthala district in the state of Punjab.
The Mega Food park has been built at a cost of Rs 107.83 crores and spread over 55 acres of land. It is expected to benefit over 25000 farmers and create employment opportunities for more than 5000 people. 37 MFPs have been sanctioned in our country as on date, and 20 of them are functioning.

Notes:
Veteran Indian-American physician Ajay Lodha has passed away due to complications from Covid-19, at the age of 58, in the United States.
He is the former President of American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI). The physician has received several honours including the Ellis Island Medal of Honour in 2016. He was known for his contribution to the diaspora in the U.S, especially the Rajasthani community.

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:
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:
University of Lucknow, a public University in Uttar Pradesh, became the third University in India to have a commemorative coin of Rs 100 issued on its centenary year.
Prior to this, only Mysore University and Banaras Hindu University had received the honour. Prime Minister attended the celebration of Centennial Foundation Day of the University virtually and released special stamp and Rs 100 coin

Notes:
Argentina’s Football legend Diego Maradona, regarded as one of the greatest footballers of all time, passed away due to a cardiac arrest, the age of 60.
The country is to observe three-day mourning for the legendary footballer, who helped Argentina life the World Cup in 1986. Maradona made his debut in the country’s football team before the age of 16. He has won several awards including FIFA Player of the Century.

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:
As per the recent study conducted by the Central Pollution control board and IIT- Delhi, Indo-Gangetic plains continue to be the most polluted region in the country, in terms of PM 2.5 levels.
The study also revealed that the rate of increase in pollution levels southern and eastern India is greater than the Indo-Gangetic plains, between 2000 and 2019. It also found that air pollution in rural areas of the country increased similar to that of urban areas.