Current Affairs Quiz - November, 2023

Notes:
Indian authorities have opted to maintain the use of the American Cummins engine for the entire Zorawar light tank project.
Originally, the project was intended to incorporate a German engine, but it encountered delays due to a lack of German export control clearances known as BAFA clearance. As a result, the decision was made to proceed with the American engine. Zorawar light tank is a cooperative initiative between DRDO and the commercial company Larsen and Toubro.

Notes:
Dr. Mohamed Muizzu has been sworn in as the eighth President of the Republic of Maldives in a ceremony held at Male.
Minister of Earth Sciences Kiren Rijiju represented India at the swearing-in ceremony. Dr. Muizzu had defeated outgoing President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih in the runoff elections held in September.

Notes:
A biobank houses tissue samples of a lakh healthy people to enable researchers study the onset and progression of diseases.
The 20-crore state-of-the-art biobank, the first in south India and only the third such facility in the country was launched in Hyderabad. It would serve as a repository for future collaborative research to map onset and progress, prevention and reversal of diseases.

Notes:
WHO and the Ministry of Ayush signed the Traditional and Complementary Medicine ‘Project Collaboration Agreement’.
This agreement will mainstream Traditional and Complementary Medicine into India’s National Health System. The first contract was signed in 2016 to take Traditional Medical systems like Yoga, Ayurveda, Unani, and Panchakarma to the global level and the second contract was signed in 2017 to strengthen the system of Ayurveda, Unani and Siddha medical systems.

Notes:
The Cambridge Dictionary team chose hallucinate as its Word of the Year 2023 as it recognized that the new meaning gets to the heart of why people are talking about AI.
The Cambridge Dictionary added new AI-related definitions to the dictionary, including large language model (or LLM), generative AI (or GenAI), and GPT. Many existing words, such as hallucinate, have adopted additional AI-related meanings this year.

Notes:
The Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) bags prestigious SKOCH National Award- 2023 for its innovative Rs 1 Crore accident relief Sarige Suraksha Insurance Scheme for its staff which is the first in the history of transport organizations in the country.
SKOCH Group India is an independent think tank industry based in Delhi established in 1997, which has instituted SKOCH awards in 2003 for best governance, finance, technology and inclusive growth. SKOCH group selects the projects for awards based on benchmark performance and outcome.

Notes:
Food safety regulator FSSAI has launched the Food Safety Compliance System (FoSCoS) portal in four regional languages, apart from Hindi and English, in order to enhance user experience and accessibility.
The portal is now available in Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu and Marathi, apart from Hindi and English. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) also plans to launch the portal in Kannada, Punjabi, Malayalam, Assamese, Bengali and Odia soon.

Notes:
The UK has requested India to provide higher protection for its agricultural Geographical Indication (GI) products under the proposed free trade agreement (FTA).
Some British GI products include: Scotch whisky, Cheese. Indian legislation treats all products equally in terms of GI protection. Thirteen rounds of negotiations have been completed between India and the UK on the FTA.

Notes:
The United Service Institution of India (USI), the nation’s oldest think-tank founded in 1870 to engage in research and discussions on national security and military matters, hosted its Annual UN Forum 2023 in New Delhi.
This forum, focusing on ‘International Humanitarian Law and Peacekeeping,’ is a collaborative effort with the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Centre for UN Peacekeeping Operations.

Notes:
The World Health Organization’s South-East Asia regional office has warned that antimicrobial resistance (AMR) results in approximately 1.27 million deaths globally each year, with an estimated 389,000 casualties in South Asia.
Without immediate action, the WHO predicts that by 2050, AMR could lead to 10 million annual deaths worldwide, causing significant economic repercussions, including a potential decrease of up to 3.8% in global exports and a rise of $1 trillion in healthcare-related costs.