Current Affairs Quiz - November, 2023

Notes:
The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) has awarded two toll, operate, and transfer (TOT) bundles, namely 11 and 12, covering a total length of 400 km, for a total of Rs 6,584 crore.
The TOT model is designed to promote private sector involvement in the highway sector, with NHAI periodically awarding contracts for toll collection, operation, and maintenance of different National Highway segments under this arrangement.

Notes:
Escrowpay, a Digital Escrow payments platform, has received the first digital escrow regulatory fintech authorization from IFSCA, Gift City.
Recently, the startup has signed a definitive agreement to raise an additional USD 4 Million via issuance of warrants, taking its total fund raise till date to USD 6 Million.

Notes:
India is on track to operationally deploy its own long-range air defense system by 2028-29. This indigenous system is designed to detect and destroy a wide array of threats, including stealth fighters, aircraft, drones, cruise missiles, and precision-guided munitions at ranges of up to 350 km.
The ambitious project, known as Project Kusha, is under the purview of the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO). The Long-Range Surface-to-Air Missile (LR-SAM) is being developed to provide interception capabilities similar to the Russian S-400 Triumf air defense system recently inducted by the Indian Air Force (IAF).

Notes:
According to a report from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) titled ‘The Impact of Disaster on Agriculture and Food Security,’ there has been a significant increase in the frequency of extreme disaster events over the past five decades.
In the 1970s, the world experienced approximately 100 disaster events per year. However, in the last two decades, that number has risen to around 400 disasters annually on a global scale. This trend highlights the growing challenges and risks that disasters pose to agriculture and food security worldwide.

Notes:
Government e Marketplace (GeM) is a 100 percent Government owned & National Public Procurement Portal. Procurement of services from the Government e-Market (GeM) portal is expected to touch Rs 1.5 lakh crore this fiscal year. This is an increase from Rs 65,957 crore in 2022-23.
The CEO of GeM, P K Singh, said that service procurement was just Rs 3,069 crore in the fiscal year 2019-20. It reached Rs 65,957 crore in 2022-23. GeM has over 63,000 government buyer organizations and over 62 lakh sellers and service providers offering a wide range of products and services.

Notes:
In 2021, climate adaptation funding from public multilateral entities (such as the World Bank) and bilateral sources (from developed to developing nations) experienced a 15% decrease, as revealed in the 2023 Adaptation Gap Report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
This decline occurred despite the commitments made at the 26th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. These commitments aimed to double the support for adaptation finance from 2019 levels, targeting an annual sum of approximately $40 billion by 2025.

Notes:
A new study has found that the body plan of starfish is much more complex and distributed than previously thought, challenging the understanding of their evolution.
Using genetic and molecular tools, the research created a 3D atlas of gene expression in starfish, revealing that the “head” of a starfish is scattered across its body, raising questions about the evolution of these creatures.

Notes:
In South Africa, paleontologists have made a finding, challenging the notion that humans created the world’s oldest known burial site.
The research has unveiled the presence of remains belonging to small-brained distant relatives of humans at this burial site. These Stone Age hominids, known for their tree-climbing abilities, were unearthed approximately 100 feet underground in a cave system within the Cradle of Humankind, a UNESCO world heritage site near Johannesburg.

Notes:
Russian President Vladimir Putin signs a Bill, revoking Russia’s ratification of global nuclear test ban. Putin said that rescinding the ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, also known as the CTBT, would mirror the stand taken by the U.S., which has signed but not ratified the nuclear test ban.
The CTBT, adopted in 1996, bans all nuclear explosions anywhere in the world, but the treaty was never fully implemented. It is yet to be ratified by China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, Israel, Iran and Egypt.

Notes:
IndiaFirst Life Insurance Company Ltd (IndiaFirst Life), one of the private life insurers of the country, became the first Indian life insurance company to get the Gujarat International Finance Tec (GIFT) City’s International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) Registration.
It obtained registration from the International Financial Services Centre Authority (IFSCA) in September 2023 following approval from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) in August of the same year.