Current Affairs Quiz - September, 2023

Notes:
President Ram Nath Kovind inaugurated India’s first Artificial Intelligence (AI) school called as Santhigiri Vidyabhavan in Kerala’s capital city, Thiruvananthapuram.
The AI school is a result of a collaboration between iLearning Engines (ILE) USA and Vedhik eSchool.

Notes:
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen clinched the Dutch Grand Prix title for the third year in a row. He was followed by Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso and Alpine’s Pierre Gasly.
Verstappen secured his ninth consecutive victory in Formula One, matching Sebastian Vettel’s 2013 record.

Notes:
Simone Biles wins a record eighth all-around title at the U.S. Gymnastics Championships, a full decade after her first national title.
She won her first world title at the 2013 championships and she has won 25 medals at world championships, including 18 golds — higher than any men’s or women’s gymnasts in history.

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:
Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has approved an increase in minimum wages for labourers by Rs 26 per day. This increase would be effective from January 1, 2023.
He also announced that registered insured employees and their dependent families under the Employees State Insurance (ESI) Scheme of Rajasthan will also get the benefit of Mukhyamantri Chiranjeevi Swasthya Bima Yojana under the ESI category.

Notes:
Australia is set to hold a landmark national referendum in October to recognize the country’s Indigenous people in its constitution.
More than 17 million registered voters across the country will vote on October 14, to decide whether to amend the Constitution, in order to establish a new advisory body for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The historic referendum called “Voice to Parliament”, if approved, would recognize Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the country’s constitution.

Notes:
The Government of India and the Government of New Zealand have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to boost cooperation in civil aviation.
This will cover the scheduling of new routes, code share services, traffic rights and capacity entitlement. An Air Services Agreement was signed between New Zealand and India in 2016. The New Zealand and India have reviewed the existing arrangements relating to air service between the two countries.

Notes:
INDUS-X (India-U.S. Defense Acceleration Ecosystem), an initiative to build a defence innovation bridge by Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) of the Ministry of Defence, and the US Department of Defence (DoD).
It began an exercise to begin the Indo-US CrossLinx accelerator programme to prepare defence start-ups to expand to the US markets.

Notes:
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), announced the launch of Falcon blockchain-based project named ‘Falcon’.
It is an open-source project that aims to simplify the management and use of blockchains based on ‘Hyperledger Fabric’ and supported on Kubernetes clusters. Essentially, Falcon is expected to help developers innovate on blockchain-based payment solutions.

Notes:
United Nations Biodiversity has urged people globally to use the word ‘funga’ whenever they say ‘flora and fauna’, in order to highlight the importance of fungi.
Fungi, along with Animalia (animals), Plantae (plants), Protista, Archaea/Archaebacteria, and Bacteria or Eubacteria form the six ‘kingdoms’ of biology.