Current Affairs Quiz - September, 2021

• Noted Bengali writer Buddhadeb Guha, who authored several popular books including Madhukari, recently passed away.
• The writer passed away at the age of 85. He had won several awards including the Ananda Purashkar and Sharat Puraskar.
• The author of Bengali literature, has written notable books, including ‘Koel’, ‘Kojagar’, ‘Madhukari’, ‘Jangalmahal’, ‘Charibeti’ etc.
• He is also the creator of two popular fictional characters in Bengali literature named ‘Rivu and Rijuda’.

• Unified Payments Interface (UPI) clocked more than 3 billion transactions for the second consecutive month in a row in August.
• In August, UPI logged 3.55 billion transactions worth Rs 6.39 trillion. This is an all-time high in terms of the volume and value.
• On a month-on-basis, UPI’s volume of transactions was up 9.5 per cent in August, and the value of transactions was up 5.4 per cent.
• The rapid increase in transactions indicate an increased adoption of digital payments by consumers during the Covid-19 pandemic.

• The Telangana government has recently launched a drone-based afforestation project, named ‘Hara Bhara’.
• The state has partnered with Marut Drones, a Hyderabad-based drone technology start-up, to launch the project.
• Under the initiative, the state government will plant 50 lakh trees across 12,000 hectares of land in forests in all the 33 districts of Telangana.
• Named the ‘Seedcopter’, it involves the preparation of the seed balls by the local women and welfare communities, which are dispersed via drones in the targeted areas.

• In Uttar Pradesh, many children have been diagnosed with a new mystery fever identified as Scrub Typhus.
• Several children are sick in the region surrounding Western Uttar Pradesh districts including Mathura, Agra, Firozabad etc.
• Scrub typhus, also known as shrub typhus, is caused by a bacterium called Orientia Tsutsugamushi.
• The infection spreads to people through bites of infected chiggers (larval mites).

• The C.1.2 variant of the Coronavirus disease was first reported from South Africa.
• The variant has now spread to at least six countries, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
• As per the Indian Government, India has no cases of the new C.1.2 coronavirus disease (Covid-19) variant detected so far.
• The public health body of the United Nations (UN) announced that it was monitoring the new C.1.2 virus strain.

• A Rural Enterprises Acceleration Programme named ‘Saath’ has been launched in the UT of Jammu and Kashmir, for the Self Help Group (SHG) women of the UT.
• This initiative was launched by the Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha.
• This aims to impart skills in women members of SHG and convert their small-scale business into large scale enterprises.

• The Union Territory of Ladakh has officially adopted snow leopard and black-necked crane as its state animals.
• These two species are endangered. The Black-necked cranes are endemic to the UT while the snow leopards are largely found in this region.
• As per IUCN, Black-necked crane is “Nearly Endangered” while snow leopard is placed in “vulnerable” category.
• The black-necked crane was the state bird of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir till August 2019.

Presently, various medical and paramedical institutions of the state are affiliated to different universities. This bill has been passed amidst strict opposition from various fronts.

With this, AGEL has completed the capital management plan presently has sufficient funds to achieve its stated target of 25GW by 2025. Green bonds are also known as climate bonds, are debt instruments used to finance projects which have a positive impact on the environment.

Under this scheme, the government encourages donations for development of social infrastructure like schools, drainage, sports complex etc in rural areas.