Current Affairs Quiz - October, 2022

Notes:
NASSCOM Foundation and American Express have partnered to train and upskill 700 women graduates through an employment-linked training project, ‘
Under the ‘Women Empowerment Through Technology’ project, technology-based skill development and entrepreneurship training will be given to women. The technical courses include Cloud and Data Analytics, Blockchain, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence.

Notes:
Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) announced a collaboration deal with Google to promote Sanskrit.
ICCR and Google signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to advance the tech major’s artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML) language technology for translating Sanskrit literature to many other languages and vice-versa.

Notes:
Uttar Pradesh cabinet approved a Micro Small Medium Enterprises Promotion Policy (MSME) 2022 and Uttar Pradesh Bioenergy Policy-2022.
The state cabinet also approved a proposal to reorganise the State Planning Commission as the State Transformation Commission (STC) on the pattern of the Niti Aayog. STC would act as a policy think tank to the government as well as perform the work of planning commission.

Notes:
Uttarakhand received the first prize in two categories, for the best adventure tourism destination and all-around development of tourism from the Ministry of Tourism.
Vice President Jagdeep Dhankar presented National Tourism Awards 2018-19, on the occasion of World Tourism Day. He also launched photography and videography contest during the event.

Notes:
As per University Grant Commission (UGC) Guidelines, Higher Educational Institutions can now create up to 25 percent seats for foreign students.
Universities will be free to choose their admission policy for foreign students, while adopting a transparent admission process. This 25 percent of the supernumerary seats for international students will not include the students under exchange programmes.

Notes:
In October 2021, RBI announced the scale-based NBFC regulation, which has four layers: base layer, middle layer, upper layer and top layer.
Recently, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) released a list of 16 upper layer non-banking finance companies (NBFC-ULs) that must adhere to enhanced regulation. It includes LIC Housing Finance, Bajaj Finance, Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services, Shriram Transport among others.

Notes:
The University Grants Commission (UGC) has issued guidelines for engaging ‘Professors of Practice’ or distinguished experts from different fields at Higher Education institutions.
As per the guidelines, these professors are not required to have the educational qualifications generally mandated for teaching and they can be paid through corporate sponsorship or an honorarium. Distinguished experts with an experience of at least 15 years will be eligible for the scheme.

Notes:
The Bannerman’s Turaco, known in the Oku language as the Fen, is a bird deep cultural value for the people in Cameroon.
It has a heavy yellow bill with a dark red culmen and exposed nostrils. It also has a loud, distinctive call that can be heard up to 1 kilometre. As per experts, the bird, which is already under IUCN List of Threatened Species, could disappear entirely, if forest disappears. The number of birds estimated to be 1,500, are falling due to habitat destruction and tradition of hunting birds for feathers.

Notes:
The Indian Air Force inducted the first batch of indigenously developed Light Combat Helicopters, named Prachand, which are capable of firing a range of missiles and other weapons.
The Light Combat Helicopters (LCH) are developed by state-run aerospace major Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL). It has been primarily designed for deployment in high-altitude regions. It was inducted into the IAF at a ceremony in Jodhpur.

Notes:
The Telangana state government has introduced the ‘Aasara’ pensions, with an aim of ensuring secured life for all the poor people across the states.
It is a welfare scheme of pensions to old people, widows, physically disabled and beedi workers of the state.