Current Affairs Quiz - November, 2021

Notes:
The Social Justice and Empowerment Ministry has recently recommended that the National Fund to Control Drug Abuse may be used to carry out de-addiction programmes.
The fund was created in accordance with a provision of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, has a nominal corpus of ₹23 crore. The Act states that the fund would be used to combat illicit trafficking of narcotics, rehabilitating addicts, and preventing drug abuse. As the fund is being used only for policing activities, the Ministry proposed to add de-addiction to it.

Notes:
The United States has issued its first passport with an “X” gender designation. The country would also offer the option to non-binary, intersex and gender-nonconforming people early next year.
This is regarded as a milestone in the recognition of the rights of people who don’t identify as male or female. The department now also allows applicants to self-select their gender as male or female, not requiring them to provide medical certification.

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:
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:
Famous Kannada Actor Puneeth Rajkumar recently passed away after suffering a heart attack, at the age of 46.
He was the son of legendary actor Rajkumar. He was known to fans as “Appu” and “Power Star”. The actor began his career as a child star, when he was just six-months-old in 1976.

Notes:
World Meteorological Organisation released the ‘State of Global Climate 2021’ report. As per the report, the last seven years have been the warmest on record.
It also highlighted that global sea-level rise increased since 2013, reaching a new high in 2021.  The report attributed the record sea-level rise to warming up and acidification of ocean waters. The report was released was released in Geneva as the COP26 conference began in Glasgow. WMO also launched the Water and Climate Coalition.

Notes:
A study led by IIT Kharagpur researchers have found the presence of mineral bridgmanite, which is the most abundant mineral in the interior of the Earth, within the Katol L6 Chondrite meteorite.
The key findings of the study could help us understand the formation and evolution of the Earth. The meteorite fell near the town of Katol in Nagpur District of Maharashtra in 2012. This finding also adds evidence to the Moon-forming giant impact hypothesis.

Notes:
The National Mission for Clean Ganga is registered as a society under the Societies Registration Act 1860, and it is the implementation arm of National Ganga River Basin Authority.
The Mission has set a Guinness World Record for the highest number of photographs of handwritten notes uploaded on Facebook in one hour.

Notes:
Japan has announced a stimulus plan, under which the country will spend roughly 2 trillion yen ($18 billion) on cash payments to households with children under the age of 18.
This is a part of an economic stimulus plan aimed to tackle the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Under the plan, households with be entitled to receive 100,000 yen per child regardless of household income.

Notes:
Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA) is an international alliance dedicated to phasing out coal. 28 countries have recently joined the alliance at the COP summit.
This addition brings the total number of national governments involved to 48. The new members of PPCA include Ukraine, Poland and Singapore However, China, India and the United States, the three biggest burners of coal worldwide, have not joined the PPCA.