Current Affairs Quiz - September, 2023

Notes:
Indian men’s 4x400m relay team consisting of Muhammed Anas Yahiya, Amoj Jacob, Muhammed Ajmal Variyathodi and Rajesh Ramesh broke the Asian record.
The team qualified for the final round of the World Championships, for the first time. The earlier Asian record of 2:59.51 was in the name of Japanese team. The earlier national record was 3:00.25 set in 2021.

Notes:
Ministry of Education’s Innovation Cell and the All-India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) have launched the sixth edition of Smart India Hackathon (SIH) 2023.
Since its inception in 2017, the Smart India Hackathon has become a global model for hackathons and innovation frameworks. This event presents 239 problem statements, including 182 software challenges and 57 hardware challenges.

Notes:
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Fourth Partner Energy Private Limited signed a long-term loan of up to 1.2 billion Indian rupees to construct and operate a 25-megawatt solar photovoltaic-based power plant in the state of Tamil Nadu in India.
It is expected to generate about 50.7 gigawatt-hours of electricity annually and increase clean and low-cost energy supply to commercial and industrial customers.

Notes:
In a new study published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports, researchers have successfully extracted ancient DNA from a 2,900-year-old clay brick, uncovering a wealth of information about the plant life cultivated during that era.
The brick analyzed in this study was found in the palace of the Neo-Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II, located in the ancient city of Kalhu, in modern day Iraq.

Notes:
A total of 48 African countries have agreed to adopt the Kampala Ministerial Declaration on Migration, Environment and Climate Change (KDMECC) to address the nexus of human mobility and climate change in the continent.
It was co-hosted by the Governments of Kenya and Uganda with support from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Notes:
A team of technology experts of BITS Hyderabad, IIT Mumbai and IIT Kharagpur, has won Asian Development Bank’s grant of USD 3.99 lakh (₹3.32 crore) to develop TUTEM.
TUTEM stands for Technologies for Urban Transit to Enhance Mobility and Safe Accessibility. It aims for safe public transport travel in Hyderabad.

Notes:
WR Chess has triumphed as inaugural FIDE World Rapid Team Champions. Altogether, WR Chess secured 22 matchpoints, Freedom finished on 20, and third-placed MGD1 had 18.
WR Chess had one Indian- R Praggnananda, Freedom had two Indian players and MGD1 eight. When it comes to individual medals for board prizes, as many as seven Indians won either a Silver or Bronze medal.

Notes:
The Ministry of Textiles has approved the Startup Guidelines for Technical Textiles – Grant for Research and Entrepreneurship across Aspiring Innovators in Technical Textiles (GREAT) providing grant-in-aid upto INR 50 Lakhs for upto a period of 18 months.
Ministry of Textiles gives nod to 26 engineering institutions for introduction of Technical Textiles under National Technical
Textiles Mission.

Notes:
10 billion UPI transactions were performed for the first time in August in India, according to data from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which runs the real-time payments platform.
The real-time mobile payment platform is likely to end August with around 10.5 billion transactions with the cumulative value crossing the Rs 15-lakh-crore figure for the second consecutive month.

Notes:
Bhubaneswar and Guwahati will host India’s opening two home matches in the FIFA World Cup 2026 and AFC Asian Cup 2027 Preliminary Joint Qualification Round 2, the All India Football Federation announced.
India have been drawn in Group A of the Asian qualifiers, alongside Qatar, Kuwait, and the winners of the Preliminary Joint Qualification Round 1 fixture between Afghanistan and Mongolia.