Current Affairs Quiz - October, 2021

Notes:
The Department of Posts has launched the digital version of the Postal Life Insurance policy bonds, also termed as “ePLI bond”.
The bond has been launched in collaboration with Digilocker. All Postal Life Insurance subscribers would be able to download the digital copy of their policy bond from digilocker. Both the Postal Life Insurance (PLI) and Rural Postal Life Insurance (RPLI) policy bonds are available in digital form. It shall be treated at par with the original policy bond issued by the Department of Posts.

Notes:
The eighth ministerial meeting of the India-U.S.A. Economic and Financial Partnership Dialogue held at Washington D.C.
The meeting was chaired by Union Minister for Finance & Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman and the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States Dr. Janet Yellen. During the meeting, discussions were held on recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, financial regulatory and technical collaboration, multilateral engagement, climate finance and anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism.

Notes:
Retired commodore Amit Rastogi, took over as the chairman and managing director of the National Research Development Corporation.
Amit Rastogi has been appointed to this position, after his service of 34 years in Indian Navy. NRDC is an enterprise of DSIR, Ministry of Science & Technology. It was established in 1953 to promote the development, promotion and transfer of technologies from various national R&D institutions.

Notes:
Vidyut Mohan, an Indian entrepreneur has been named the winner of Prince William’s inaugural Earthshot Prize under the “clean our air” category, for his innovation which recycles agricultural waste into sellable bio-products.
This prize is also called Eco Oscars and is awarded to innovators who strive to save the planet earth.

 

Notes:
Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is set to host a Hackathon titled “Aadhaar Hackathon 2021”.
According to a statement issued by the Ministry of Electronics and IT on Monday, the Hackathon is themed around two topics. The first theme is “Enrolment and Update”, which covers some of the real-life challenges being faced by the residents while updating their address. The second theme of the Hackathon is around the “Identity and Authentication”, for solutions to prove Identity without sharing the Aadhaar number or any demographics information.

Notes:
International Monetary Fund chief economist Gita Gopinath will return to Harvard University in January. She was the IMF’s first female chief economist, when she joined the fund in October 2018.
She led IMF’s analytical research on the Covid-19 pandemic, vaccination targets and on climate change mitigation. She was the John Zwaanstra Professor of International Studies and Economics at Harvard University. Now the economist is set to join the University again.

Notes:
Russia’s Energy Ministry signed an agreement with India’s Steel Ministry to increase coking coal supply to India up to 40 million tonnes per year.
The deal was signed at the Russian Energy Week Forum, held in Moscow. Russia currently supplies around 80 lakh tonnes of coal to India. The pact also aims for development of coal deposits, development of coal logistics and promotion of R&D in production.

Notes:
Tech Major Microsoft has launched a start-up program called AI Innovate along with an AI Playbook that will help start-ups in the country adopt the technology.
Microsoft has also been involved in two similar programs for agri-tech and health-tech startups. As per a 2020 report by Nasscom, data and AI have the potential to add $500 billion to the economy by 2025 and can account for 10% of the country’s GDP.

Notes:
NASA has selected a new space telescope proposal to study the recent history of star birth, star death, and formation of chemical elements in the Milky Way.
The gamma-ray telescope, called the Compton Spectrometer and Imager (COSI), is set to be launched in 2025 as NASA’s latest small astrophysics mission. COSI will study gamma rays from radioactive atoms produced when massive stars exploded. It will also probe the origin of our galaxy’s positrons, also known as antielectrons.

Notes:
Former US President Donald Trump has recently announced plans to launch a new social media network, called TRUTH Social.
Though he was active in social media, Mr Trump was banned from Twitter and suspended from Facebook after his supporters stormed the US Capitol. Last year, Twitter and Facebook even started deleting some of his posts or labelled them as ‘misleading’.