Current Affairs Quiz - October, 2021

Notes:
The 8th India-U.S.A. Economic & Financial Partnership Dialogue was held at Washington D.C recently, in which India was represented and Chaired by the Union Finance Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman. The meeting was co-chaired by Secretary of the Treasury of the United States Dr. Janet Yellen.
Discussions on macroeconomic outlook and economic recovery from COVID, financial regulatory and technical collaboration between the two countries were held.

Notes:
The Indian Army has bagged a gold medal at the Cambrian Patrol Exercise, which was held in the UK. The 4/5 Gorkha Rifles represented the Indian Army in the exercise.
The competition witnessed representation from 96-armed force teams of nations across the globe. This competition tests the ultimate levels of human endurance and team spirit and is considered as the “Olympics of military patrolling”.

Notes:
Every year, 16th October is observed as International Observe the Moon Night (InOMN), which is an event marking the night when moon is near the first quarter phase.
On this date, the moon will be in waxing gibbous, an intermediate phase in which it is not yet full. Celebration of this event is sponsored annually by the Solar System Exploration Division at NASA.

Notes:
The Border Roads Organization (BRO) is constructing a 500-metre tunnel near Nechiphu pass in Arunachal Pradesh.
It aims to cut down the travel time for vehicles going towards the forward base near China border. It primarily aims to bring down the time taken by military vehicles by six kilometres and 20 minutes. The Nechiphu tunnel is being constructed at an altitude of 5,600 feet under Project Vartak of BRO.

Notes:
India’s Harbhajan Singh and Javagal Srinath have been awarded life membership of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC).
They have joined sixteen other cricketers who were given the honour this year. Harbhajan is India’s third-highest wicket-taker in Tests (417 wickets) and more than 700 plus international wickets.  Srinath is an ICC Elite Panel Match Referee at present. He is a fast bowlers with 315 ODI wickets and 236 Test wickets.

Notes:
India is ranked at 71st position out of 113 countries in the Global Food Security (GFS) Index 2021, with an overall score of 57.2 points. It is a global report released by Economist Impact and Corteva Agriscience.
Ireland, Australia, the UK, Finland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Canada, Japan, France and the US shared the top rank with the overall GFS score in the range of 77.8 and 80 points on the index. The GFS Index considers 58 unique food security indicators including income and economic inequality.

Notes:
Union External Affairs Minister Jaishankar had his first visit to Israel as External Affairs Minister. He visited the country at the invitation of Alternate Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid.
The Minister unveiled a plaque at Ra’anana in northern Israel, in the memory of Indian soldiers who laid down their lives in the Battle of Tabsor during World War I.  The battle was fought in September 1918. India and Israel elevated bilateral relations to a strategic partnership during the visit of PM Modi to Israel in July 2017.

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) imposed a monetary penalty of Rs 1 crore on Paytm Payments Bank recently.
The penalty was for submitting information that did not reflect the factual position. It is an offence under Section 26 (2) of the Payments and Settlement Act. RBI also imposed a penalty of Rs Rs 27.78 lakh on Western Union Financial Services for non-compliance with Money Transfer Service Scheme (MTSS) directions.

Notes:
As per the Union Budget 2021-22, the total public health sector allocation stood at 1.2 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP).
The FICCI and KPMG in India released a report titled ‘COVID-19 Induced Healthcare Transformation in India’. As per the report, India needs to raise public health spending to 2.5 – 3.5 per cent of GDP to support healthcare transformation. The report also suggests to set up a district level Health System Index.

Notes:
Besides the well-known tiger mosquito Aedes albopictus, another species of this genus, Aedes koreicus, is expanding throughout Europe.
A paper published recently claims that the dangerous mosquitos have been spreading towards southwest Italy since they were found in the north in 2011. The expansion of foreign mosquito species has caused worries in Europe due to spread of diseases.