Current Affairs Quiz - October, 2021

Notes:
The International Maritime Organization is a specialised agency of the United Nations responsible for regulating shipping. It is headquartered at London.
World Maritime Day 2021 is celebrated every year on 30 September. IMO has declared 2021 a year of action for seafarers, who are facing hardship due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The World Maritime Theme for 2021 is “Seafarers: at the core of shipping’s future”. The IMO building, including the Seafarer Memorial, will be lit in blue light on World Maritime Day, to unite the maritime community.

Notes:
Delhi-based environmental organisation Legal Initiative for Forest and Environment (LIFE) has received the 2021 Right Livelihood Award.
The organisation empowers vulnerable communities to protect their livelihoods and claim their right to a clean environment. The award is known as Sweden’s alternative Nobel Prize. Other awardees include Cameroonian women rights activist Marthe Wandou, Russian environmental activist Vladimir Slivyak, and Canadian Indigenous rights defender Freda Huson.

Notes:
The Union Finance Ministry has extended the validity of the Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) by another six months till March 31, 2022, or till guarantees for the overall ceiling of Rs 4.5 lakh crore are issued, whichever is earlier.
The scheme is aimed to support micro, small and medium enterprises, by helping them deal with funds shortage and promote exports.  As of September 24, 2021, over Rs. 2.86 lakh crore worth of loans were sanctioned under the scheme

Notes:
Recently Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (SBM-U) 2.0 and Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) 2.0. The schemes would be implemented by Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, like their previous versions.
SBM-U 2.0 envisions to make all cities ‘Garbage Free’ and ensure grey and black water management in all cities. The outlay of SBM-U 2.0 is around ₹1.41 lakh crore. AMRUT 2.0 aims to provide 100% coverage of water supply to all households in around 4,700 urban local bodies and 100% coverage of sewerage and septage in 500 AMRUT cities.

Notes:
NITI Aayog recently released a performance assessment report of district hospitals in India, titled Best Practices in the Performance of District Hospitals.
The report is made with collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and WHO India. The assessment framework covers 10 Key Performance Indicators and a total of 707 district hospitals across all States and UTs participated in the assessment. The Health Management Information System (HMIS) data for the year 2017–18 was used as baseline. 75 district hospitals across 24 States and UTs emerged as top performers.

Notes:
Kilauea – one of the most active volcanoes on earth is located in the Hawaii islands. The volcano has recently started to erupt, raising the alert level to “warning” and the aviation code being changed to “red” in the region.
The US Geological Survey has confirmed the large-scale eruption in Halemaumau crater of the volcano. Prior to this, the volcano made a major eruption in 2018 which led to destruction of more than 700 houses and left thousands of residents displaced from the locality.

Notes:
The birth anniversary of India’s ‘Father of Nation’ Mahatma Gandhi is observed as the ‘International Day of Non-Violence’ every year, on October 2.
The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), in a resolution adopted in 2007, established the day as an occasion to spread the message of non-violence through education and public awareness. In 2004, Iranian Noble Laureate Shirin Ebadi proposed the idea of the commemoration.

Notes:
The Chief Justice of India (CJI), is also the Patron-in-chief of the National Legal Services Authority.
Recently, the six-week-long ‘The Pan India Legal Awareness and Outreach Campaign’ by NALSA was launched at Vigyan Bhavan. It was inaugurated by President Ram Nath Kovind on the occasion of Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary.

Notes:
To combat air pollution in Delhi, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal recently announced a 10-point “Winter action plan”.
The action plan focuses on dust control, using the PUSA bio-decomposer, installing smog towers and checking waste burning and vehicular emissions. The Chief Minister also urged the neighbouring states to retrofit thermal power plants in NCR areas with new technology. He also insisted the use of CNG-operated vehicles and cleaner fuel in industries in the region.

Notes:
The Prime Minister of India Shri. Narendra Modi has inaugurated the “Azadi@75 – New Urban India” – an urban conclave cum expo at Lucknow.
During the inaugural event, the PM handed over digitally the keys of Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana – Urban (PMAY-U) houses to 75,000 beneficiaries located in 75 districts of Uttar Pradesh.