Current Affairs Quiz - October, 2021

Notes:
Prime Minister recehntly virtually launched the Jal Jeevan Mission mobile application. It contains all details about the mission including the number of households that received water, quality of water etc. The application aims to improve awareness among stakeholders and for more transparency and accountability of schemes under the Jal Jeevan mission.
He also launched the Rashtriya Jal Jeevan Kosh. The fund facilitates contributions for providing tap water connection in every rural household, school, Anganwadi centre, etc. Contributions can be made by any individual, organisation, philanthropist, either in India or abroad.

Notes:
The Ministry of Textiles has approved continuation of Comprehensive Handicrafts Cluster Development Scheme (CHCDS) with a total outlay of ₹160 crore. The scheme will now continue up to March 2026.
Under the scheme, infrastructural support, market access, design and technology up-gradation support are provided to handicraft artisans.

 

Notes:
World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has recently released a report titled ‘The State of Climate Services 2021: Water report’.
The report was coordinated by WMO and includes input from more than 20 international organizations, development agencies and scientific institutions. As per the report, some 3.6 billion people globally had inadequate access to water for one month per year in 2018, which is expected to surpass five billion by 2050.

Notes:
Indian Railways had begun the construction work on the new 2.05 km Pamban railway bridge in Mandapam, which will connect Rameswaram to the mainland in Tamil Nadu.
The Ministry of Railways announced that this bridge will be operational from March next year. The new 2-km-long bridge, linking the island of Rameswaram in the Arabian Sea to the mainland, is set to replace the existing 104-year-old bridge. IT will have a 63-metre stretch, that will lift up vertically to allow passage to small ships.

 

Notes:
Vallilath Madhathil Madhavan Nair, the oldest living former diplomat of India, passed away at the age of 102.
He joined the Indian Civil Service or the ICS in 1942 and was allotted to the Bihar Cadre. He was permanently recruited to the Indian Foreign Service later. He had served in various important positions in the External Affairs Department and in charge of Commonwealth Relations. He retired from the IFS in the late 1970s.

Notes:
Meghalaya has recently launched the Meghalaya State Capability Forum. It is initiated under the ongoing State Capability Enhancement Project (SCEP).
Meghalaya State Capability Forum will include bi-monthly events, attended by public officials, academia and civil society members. Each event will focus on a theme of importance for Meghalaya’s development.

Notes:
India is set to host its largest naval exercise, Ex Milan, early next year. India has also invited 46 countries to take part.
The exercise will see the participation of all Quad countries while the U.S. being invited for the first time. Milan, which began in 1995, is a bi-annual exercise and brings together Navies of all the countries in the region. It was so far held at Port Blair but is now being shifted to Visakhapatnam.

Notes:
The Ministry of Women and Child Development has issued the detailed guidelines for PM CARES for Children Scheme.
The aim of the scheme is to ensure protection of children who have lost their parent(s) to COVID pandemic. The scheme is expected to continue till the year when every identified beneficiary shall turn 23 years of age.

Notes:
Tanzanian novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah won the 2021 Nobel Prize for his compassionate literary works on colonialism and refugees.
Abdulrazak Gurnah was born in 1948 and grew up on the island of Zanzibar in the Indian Ocean but arrived in England as a refugee at the end of the 1960’s. He was a professor of English and Postcolonial Literatures at the University of Kent, Canterbury and has published ten novels and several short stories.

Notes:
The Chhattisgarh government is set to declare the combined areas of the Guru Ghasidas National Park and Tamor Pingla Wildlife Sanctuary as a Tiger Reserve.
The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) approved the state government’s proposal. The new Reserve is located in the northern part of the state, bordering Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand. This is the fourth Tiger Reserve in Chhattisgarh, after the Udanti-Sitanadi, Achanakmar, and Indravati Reserves.