Current Affairs Quiz - October, 2021

Notes:
Blue Flag exercise is a biennial Defence Exercise involving Air Force missions from eight countries. As many as 85 Indian Air Force (IAF) personnel are taking part in the exercise along with five upgraded Mirage 2000 fighter aircraft.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar visited Israel’s Ovda Airbase to meet the Indian contingent participating in the exercise. The US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Greece and Israel are the other participating countries.

Notes:
Union Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways and AYUSH Sarbananda Sonowal inaugurated Ayush Van, a dedicated forest for Ayurvedic plants, at Gandhidham, Gujarat.
The Ayush Van was set up in 30 acres of land allotted by the Deendayal Port Trust (DPT). Tree plantation is being done to improve greenery in urban area and increase density of tree cover in the Kutch region.

Notes:
According to a new report released by climate tech startup Blue Sky Analytics, India is at the top in emissions related to crop burning.
India was responsible for 13% of total global emissions for the 2015-2020 period. India also contributed to 12.2 % to cropland fire emissions in 2020. Blue Sky Analytics, an Indian climate tech startup founded by an IIT alumnus, is also a part of global coalition “Climate TRACE”.

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:
National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) announced the launch of the NPCI Tokenization System (NTS).
The Token Reference On File (TROF) service will help millions of RuPay cardholders maintain the security of their financial data. This will enable tokenization of cards as an alternative to storing card details with merchants. The card details of cardholders will be secure at the RuPay Network Secure vault.

Notes:
Sri Lanka has received the first consignment of 3.1 million litres high quality non-harmful Nano Nitrogen liquid fertiliser from India.
This will help Sri Lanka in the cultivation of maize and paddy. The country’s President Rajapaksa had decided to impose a total ban on agrochemicals, to make Sri Lankan farming 100% organic. This decision to stop chemical fertiliser imports led to several protests among farmers.

Notes:
The UN En­v­­i­ron­ment Programme (UNEP), along with the leading rese­a­r­ch institutes released the 2021 Production Gap Report.
The report measures the gap between governments’ plan­ned production of coal, oil, and gas and the global production levels consistent with meeting Paris Agreement limits. As per the new report, governments plan to produce more than double the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than the consistent level to limit global warming to 1.5°C.

Notes:
The Archaeological Survey of India is an agency under the aegis of Union Ministry of Culture. It is responsible for archaeological research and the conservation of cultural monuments in the country. ASI was founded in 1861 by Alexander Cunningham.
ASI illuminated 100 monuments across the country in the Indian tricolour as India’s Covid-19 vaccination drive completed to administer one billion doses. The illumination was done as a mark of gratitude to Covid warriors who contributed in the fight against pandemic.

Notes:
Konkan Shakti 2021 is the first-ever tri-services joint exercise between India and the UK. The week-long exercise has begun recently.
The exercise will be a platform to share each other’s experiences and to showcase the cooperation between the two countries. The maritime component of the exercise will be conducted off India’s west coast and the Harbour phase will be held in Mumbai. The land phase of the exercise will be held at Chaubatia in Uttarakhand.

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.