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:
Tata Passenger Electric Mobility, a subsidiary of Tata Motors, has announced the introduction of its new brand identity, TATA.ev, for the EV business.
Tata has also revealed a logo for its .ev brand. The .ev brand will be used by Tata Motors’ Passenger Electric Mobility division and it will not cover Tata Motors’ electric commercial vehicles, as of now.

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:
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:
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:
17-year-old D Gukesh took over as the country’s top-ranked player from Viswanathan Anand in FIDE’s monthly rankings list.
It has been 37 years since anyone other than Anand holding the top position. The five-time World champion is currently ranked ninth, a spot below Gukesh on the world list, is semi-retired from active chess.

Notes:
National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has been granted the deemed-to-be-university status by the Ministry of Higher Education, Union Minister of Education Dharmendra Pradhan.
It was announced on the 63rd Foundation Day of the apex decision-making body for school education. He suggested setting up Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence labs in all seven regional centres of NCERT.

Notes:
SVAMITVA (Survey of Villages Abadi and Mapping with Improvised Technology in Village Areas) Scheme of Ministry of Panchayati Raj has been conferred with the prestigious National Award for e-Governance 2023 (Gold) for Application of Emerging Technologies for Providing Citizen Centric Services.
It was granted at the 26th National Conference on e-Governance (NCeG) organized by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG), Government of India in Indore.

Notes:
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) recently captured an image of India’s Chandrayaan-3 lander. Launched in 2009, the LRO’s primary mission is to create a 3D map of the Moon’s surface from a polar orbit. Equipped with seven science instruments, including a powerful telescope and camera system that can discern details as small as 2.5 meters across, the LRO has played a pivotal role in lunar geology, mineralogy, and environmental studies. It orbits the Moon in an eccentric polar mapping orbit. One of its remarkable instruments is a laser altimeter, which measures reflection times to produce precise 3D maps of the lunar surface. The spacecraft also carries instruments designed to explore dark craters for signs of water ice and a temperature sensor that uncovered the coldest spot in the solar system.

Notes:
The first Su-34 bomber crew to launch a Kinzhal missile in Ukraine received state awards. The Kh-47M2, known as “Kinzhal” (Dagger), is a Russian air-launched hypersonic ballistic missile capable of carrying conventional or nuclear warheads with a 480 kg payload, including a 10-50 kt thermonuclear option. It achieves speeds up to Mach 10 (12,350 km/hr) and has a range of 1,500-2,000 km. With an 8 m length, 1 m body diameter, and 4,300 kg launch weight, it’s launched from MiG-31 jets at 18 km altitude, maneuvering throughout its flight to evade air defense.