Current Affairs Quiz - September, 2021

Notes:
Government of Tamil Nadu recently announced its plan to set up India’s first Dugong Conservation Reserve in the Palk Bay on the southeast coast. Dugong or sea cow is an endangered marine mammal. It is facing extinction because of habitat loss, sea pollution, and loss of sea grass. Dugong is found in Gulf of Mannar and at Palk Bay in Tamil Nadu. With the help of community participation, Government will also construct a Dugong Marine Conservation Reserve in the Gulf of Mannar and Palk Bay area to protect the species.

Notes:
HDFC Bank has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC) to offer and strengthen credit support to MSMEs across India. Partnership with NSIC will help in boosting the MSME Sector growth which is the backbone of India in terms of economic development as well as job creation. Under this MoU, HDFC Bank will provide MSMEs a set of specially tailored schemes in order to enhance their competitiveness. HDFC Bank branches will also extend support to MSME projects in the areas they are located and other important industrial sectors in India.

Notes:
The Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) has signed a pact for providing reliable and sustainable power supply to security forces operating in remote, Naxal-affected and high-altitude areas. The MoU between the Navratna PSU BEL and the SFC Energy-AG, Germany, and FC TecNrgy Pvt Ltd (FCTec), signed recently, will ensure cooperation in addressing the emerging requirement of sustainable energy to the security forces through supply of hydrogen and fuel cells.

Notes:
Amazon India has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the industries and mines department of government of Gujarat to help drive e-commerce exports in the state. As part of the MoU, Amazon will train and onboard MSMEs from the state on Amazon Global Selling, enabling them to sell their unique Made in India products to millions of Amazon customers across more than 200 countries and territories.

Notes:
Bank of Baroda has topped the MeitY Digital Payment Scorecard for 2020-21 with a total of 86% marks on the scorecard. The scorecard ranks 44 banks (Public Sector Banks, Private Banks, Foreign Banks, Payments Banks, Small Finance Banks) on various parameters on the digital business.

Notes:
A workshop for Non-Governmental Organizations on Nutrition and Health was organized by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs on 09th September, 2021, as part of its POSHAN MAAH activities. The purpose of the workshop was to closely associate NGOs working with Ministry of Tribal Affairs in the mission of Sahi Poshan-Desh Roshan. The workshop was attended by more than 70 NGOs who are working in the health sector in tribal areas. The workshop was organized by Tribal Health Cell under Ministry of Tribal Affairs. This workshop was also organized in association with AIIMS.

Notes:
Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has handed over the first deliverable Firing Unit (FU) of Medium Range Surface to Air Missile (MRSAM) System to Indian Air Force (IAF). In a significant boost to defence capabilities of India, MRSAM was handed over to IAF at Air Force Station, Jaisalmer in Rajasthan. MRSAM is an advanced network centric combat Air Defence System. It was jointly developed by DRDO and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) in collaboration with Indian industry consisting of private and public sectors as well as MSMEs. It is a surface-to-air-missile, 4.5m in length. Contract for MRSAM programme was signed in February 2009. Under the contract, IAF was to buy 450 MRSAMs and 18 firing units at the value of $2bn.

Notes:
India and the United States have agreed to expand their energy partnership by adding emerging fuels to the list of areas of cooperation that previously included power and energy efficiency, oil and gas, renewable energy and sustainable growth. Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri co-chaired a virtual Ministerial meeting with the U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm to launch the revamped U.S.-India Strategic Clean Energy Partnership (SCEP).

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The central government has selected S.L.Tripathy as the Chairman-cum-Managing Director of United India Insurance Company Limited. He is currently General Manager and Director at The New India Assurance Company Limited.

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India’s first indigenously designed high ash coal gasification based Methanol Production Plant has been inaugurated at BHEL R&D Centre, Hyderabad. The plant was funded by Department of Science and Technology at the initiative of NITI Aayog, PMO-India and Ministry of Coal.