Current Affairs Quiz - October, 2021

Notes:
The International Day of the Girl Child is observed annually on October 11, to highlight the gender equality impacts. In 2011, the United Nations General Assembly declared October 11 as the International Day of the Girl Child, to recognise the challenges faced by girls.
This year, the UN urges the world to bridge the gender digital divide existing in diverse skills and jobs. It has highlighted on the gender digital divide in connectivity, devices, and use, skills and jobs.

Notes:
The Union Power Ministry has set a revised policy to use biomass pellets in coal-burning thermal power plants.
This guideline encourages the use of agricultural waste which is otherwise burnt by farmers, causing air pollution. The decision mandates three categories of thermal power plants to use a five per cent blend of biomass pellets along with coal. The policy will come into force in October 2022

Notes:
From the images captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, a team of astronomers led by Timothy Hamilton have discovered an unusual gravitational lensing configuration.
Named as ‘Hamilton’s Object,’ it consists of two images of a spiral background galaxy in a fold configuration and a third resolved image of the same spiral galaxy. Together, they create a tangential point configuration.

 

Notes:
Paleontologists have discovered the fossilized upper molar tooth of Hippopotamus antiquus from Westbury Cave, in the UK.
It is an extinct species of hippo that lived in Europe during a warm period between 2 and 1 million years ago. The species is said to had been much larger than the modern African hippo, weighing around 3 tons. It is known to have been more reliant on aquatic habitats.

Notes:
Former bureaucrat Amit Khare, who retired recently as higher education secretary, has been appointed as advisor to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
He has been appointed for two years on contract basis, as per a personnel ministry order issued. Mr Khare is a 1985 batch (retired) IAS officer of Jharkhand cadre.  The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved the appointment in the rank and scale of secretary to government of India.

Notes:
Indian American Satya Nadella, the Microsoft CEO, is among the corporate leaders to receive this year’s prestigious C K Prahlad award for Global Business Sustainability Leadership.
Created in 2010, the prestigious award recognises exceptional private-sector action that promotes sustainability, innovation and long-term business success. Four of Microsoft’s top leaders including Nadella received the honour for their collaborative leadership.  Microsoft aims to transform into a carbon negative company by 2030 and to remove all its historical emissions by 2050.

Notes:
The ‘International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction’ is observed every year on October 13. The 2021 edition of the day will focus on “International cooperation for developing countries to reduce their disaster risk and disaster losses”.
The International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction was started in 1989, after the United Nations General Assembly declared the day to promote a global culture of risk awareness and disaster reduction.

Notes:
A key UN biodiversity summit, with an aim to protecting biodiversity has commenced in China, which witnessed the participation of delegates from about 195 countries. Discussion on “30 by 30” agenda that would accord 30% of the Earth’s land and oceans protected status by 2030 is being discussed in the summit.
During the summit, Chinese Government has committed and pledged a sum of $233 million into a fund, to protect biodiversity in developing countries.

Notes:
World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF jointly released the 2021 State of The World’s Hand Hygiene report.
As per the report, all households in the world’s 46 least developed countries could have handwashing facilities by 2030 if the world invested less than $1 per person per year, in hand hygiene. An annual cost to governments on promoting handwashing with soap at home comes to 2.5% of the average government health expenditure in these countries.

Notes:
Actor William Shatner flew aboard a Blue Origin rocket-ship on a suborbital trip and landed in the Texas desert to become at age 90 the oldest person ever in space.
Blue Origin, U.S. billionaire businessman Jeff Bezos’s company carried out its second tourist flight. Shatner was one of four passengers aboard the fully autonomous New Shepard spacecraft. The four astronauts travelled above the internationally recognized boundary of space known as the Karman Line, about 100 km above Earth.