Current Affairs Quiz - November, 2021

Notes:
Kushagra Rawat of Delhi and Srihari Nataraj of Karnataka are Indian Aquatic champions, who have created new national records in 400m freestyle and 100 backstroke events respectively at the 74th Senior National Aquatic Championships.
Kushagra Rawat has created a new record of 3:53.68 seconds, which is 1.25 seconds lower than the previous record on 400 m freestyle, while Srihari Nataraj finished in 55.10 seconds in 100 m back stroke, there by beating his own national record created in 2019.

Notes:
The social networking giant Facebook is set to change its name and rebrand itself as “Meta”, as announced by its CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
The Company’s CEO has stated that the word “Meta” is derived from the Greek Word “Beyond”. It is stated that the company would not have any change in its corporate structure or functioning of its apps.

Notes:
India’s Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sushil Chandra led a three-member delegation to Uzbekistan to oversee the country’s presidential election.
Indian team has overseen the election as an international observer. Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev got over than 80% of the vote in the elections and was re-elected for a second five-year term. CEC Sushil Chandra and Uzbekistan’s election commission, led by Zainiddin Nizamkhodjaev, held a meeting on electoral cooperation.

Notes:
Scientists have discovered a species of human ancestors called ‘Homo bodoensis’ who lived around half a million years ago, in Africa during the Middle Pleistocene which is now known as Chibanian.
The term ‘bodoensis’ has been derived from a skull found in Bodo D’ar, Ethiopia. International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature allows name changes under strictly defined rules. That age saw the rise of our own species, Homo sapiens as well as our closest relatives Neanderthals.

Notes:
CAATSA-Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act is a 2017 law, which intends punish countries that did business with some countries including Russia.
Three Republican U.S. senators filed legislation to exempt India from sanctions for purchasing a Russian S400 missile defense system. This would create a 10-year exemption for member countries of the QUAD – Australia, Japan and India – from sanctions imposed by CAATSA.

Notes:
India has applied a USD 2 billion loan to purchase COVID-19 vaccines, from Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) along with the Asian Development (ADB).
Manila-based ADB is expected to finance USD 1.5 billion and Beijing-based AIIB is considering to provide USD 500 million. About 667 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines were expected to be procured through the loan.

Notes:
The Meeting of Heads of National Statistical Offices of BRICS Countries was held in virtual format, chaired by India. The Chief Statistician of India and Secretary, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) chaired the meeting.
During the meeting, the Joint Statistical Publication (JSP) 2021 and JSP-Snapshot 2021 for BRICS Countries were released. The theme of meeting was “NSOs efforts in monitoring Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)”.

Notes:
Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry presented the 14th edition of Urban Mobility India (UMI) Conference 2021.
Surat won the award for the city with the best public transport system, and Kochi was judged the city with most sustainable transport system. The awards were presented by Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri at Urban Mobility India conference. Nagpur’s multi-modal integration with Metro rail, Delhi’s Metro also won awards.

Notes:
‘Deusi Bhailo’ is a traditional festival which is celebrated on the third and fourth days of the ‘Tihar’ festival celebrated in Nepal.
Men and women will perform dance in groups during the celebration. On the occasion of Diwali in India and Tihar in Nepal, the Nepal embassy in New Delhi organised ‘Deusi Bhailo’ program.

Notes:
China successfully launched three new remote sensing satellites, belonging to the Yaogan-35 family. They were by a Long March-2D carrier rocket.
This launch marked the 396th mission for the Long March series carrier rockets. The rocket series successfully completed the 300th launch by putting a new communication satellite into orbit in 2019. The average number of launches per year has increased from 2.7 to 23.5.