Current Affairs Quiz - September, 2023

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:
Bhaderwah Rajmash and Sulai honey of Doda and Ramban districts of Jammu and Kashmir, have been granted Geographical Indication (GI) tags.
In 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had gifted organic Sulai honey to Queen Elizabeth during his visit to Britain.

Notes:
Tharman Shanmugaratnam is the president-elect of Singapore. He was born on February 25, 1957. He is a popular politician who has won several parliamentary elections. In 2023, he resigned from all government positions and the PAP to run for the Singaporean presidential election. He won the election with 70.4% of the votes.
Shanmugaratnam was previously the Senior Minister of Singapore from 2019 to 2023. He also served as Deputy Prime Minister for eight years. He studied at the London School of Economics, Cambridge University, and Harvard University.

Notes:
The Advance Pricing Agreement (APA) programme is an initiative for promoting an investor-friendly and non-adversarial tax regime in India.
The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has recently released the fourth and fifth annual APA reports. The reports present key data and statistics pertaining to the APA programme.

Notes:
India is finalizing a Letter of Request (LoR) to the US government to acquire 31 MQ-9B Predator drones from General Atomics. These drones, a variant of the MQ-9 “Reaper,” offer remote or autonomous flight capabilities and also carry strike missiles for precise target elimination. Developed by General Atomics, the MQ-9B comes in two versions, SkyGuardian and SeaGuardian. The Indian Navy already operates the MQ-9B Sea Guardian since 2020. With a payload of up to 5,670 kg, the drone can fly above 40,000 feet for 40 hours, making it valuable for surveillance, warfare, and expeditionary roles, including integration into civil airspace.

Notes:
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has launched a set of innovative digital payment products during the Global Fintech Fest 2023 in Mumbai.
‘Credit Line on UPI’ enables pre-sanctioned credit lines from banks via the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), providing users with access to instant credit. ‘UPI LITE X’ facilitates offline payments, while ‘UPI Tap & Pay’ enhances digital payments through Near Field Communication (NFC) technology for QR code-based transactions. ‘Hello! UPI – Conversational Payments on UPI’ allows voice-enabled UPI payments in Hindi and English through UPI apps, telecom calls, and IoT devices.

Notes:
SEBI issued guidelines to strengthen cyber security and cyber resilience framework for stock exchanges and other market infrastructure institutions (MIIs).
As per the guidelines, MIIs shall maintain offline, encrypted backups of data and shall regularly test these backups at least on a quarterly basis to ensure confidentiality, integrity and availability.

Notes:
Amul will be the Official Sponsor of the Indian Contingent for the XIX Asian Games 2022 to be held in Hangzhou, China from September 23 to October 8 2023.
As part of this association, Amul will use the integrated logo in its communication to celebrate the efforts of the sportsperson. The XIX Asian Games 2022 will feature 482 events across 40 sports.

Notes:
A recent report from the World Bank reveals that online gig work is on the rise globally, particularly in developing countries.
The report estimates that approximately 435 million people worldwide engage in online gig work, with demand for such work increasing by 41% between 2016 and 2023. The report underscores the need for social protections and labor standards to address the challenges faced by gig workers worldwide.

Notes:
The Indian Air Force (IAF) recently conducted a historic test of the Military Combat Parachute System.
It was indigenously designed and developed by the Aerial Delivery Research and Development Establishment (ADRDE), an R&D lab of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).