Current Affairs [Monthly]

Notes:
The UN General Assembly has appointed Antonio Guterres as the UN Secretary-General for a second term, which commences from January 1, 2022 and ends at December 31, 2026. Volkan Bozkir, who is the President of 75th session of the UN General Assembly announced this appointment and administered the oath of office.
Antonio Guterres is a Portuguese politician serving the head of UN General Assembly since 2017.

Notes:
The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has developed a high-strength beta titanium alloy. This has been developed indigenously for manufacture of intricate aerospace components like slat/flap tracks, landing gear.
Key features of the alloy are good forgeability and high strength-to-weight ratio, which would provide excellent weight reduction.

Notes:
The United States Men’s National Team (USMNT) has won the CONCACAF Gold Cup 2021 by defeating Mexico in the finals. The final was held in the Allegiant Stadium, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. This 2021 championship win marks the 7th Gold Cup title won by US. This year’s tournament was the 16th edition of this biennial tournament which is organized by CONCACAF.

Notes:

• Operation Devi Shakti name has been given by India to its operation of evacuating its citizens from war-torn Afghanistan.
• External affairs minister S Jaishankar called the evacuation process as ‘Operation Devi Shakti’ while saluting the efforts of Indian Air Force and Air India.
• India has been carrying out the evacuation missions in coordination with the US and other countries.

Notes:
Singrauli based- Northern Coalfields Ltd (NCL), a Coal India arm under the Ministry of Coal has announced to start 75 “Fulwari Centers” in the Singrauli district of Madhya Pradesh.

This project ‘Fulwari’ aims to address the problem of malnutrition and associated physical and mental development problems of infants. Currently 25 centers are being operated successfully with the strength of around 220 kids of the age between 6 months to 3 years.

Notes:
The first ever India Internet Governance Forum (IIGF), an online event on Internet Governance, has been jointly organized by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI).
The 3-day online event was centred around the theme “Empowering India through Power of Internet”.  A report titled “Building an inclusive Digital Society for Rural India” by ICRIER/BIF was released during the event.

Notes:
Kolkata-based Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers Limited (GRSE) launched the first indigenous large survey vessel “Sandhayak”.
It is the first in the series of four ships under the Survey Vessel (Large) project for the Indian Navy. The previous ‘Sandhayak’ class of Hydrographic Survey Ships were built by GRSE and the first ship of that class got decommissioned in June 2021.

Notes:
‘International Women’s Day’ was officially recognized by the United Nations in 1977. International Women’s Day is celebrated in many countries, to recognise women for their achievement and create awareness about their rights.
This International Women’s Day, the campaign of UN is “Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow”. Another campaign of International Women’s Day is ‘Break the Bias’.

Notes:
The Union government has allowed manufacture and import of machine-made polyester national flags by amending the 2002 Flag Code of India.
The rules earlier permitted only flags made by “hand-spun and hand woven wool or cotton or silk khadi bunting”. The import of machine-made flags was banned in 2019.

Notes:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi participated in the celebrations of the 400th Parkash Purab of Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji at Red Fort in New Delhi.
The programme is being organized by the Government of India in collaboration with the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee. The Prime Minister also released a commemorative coin and postage stamp on the occasion.