Current Affairs Quiz - September, 2021

Notes:

• India’s Maisnam Meiraba created history by becoming the champion on debut at the Yonex Latvia International Future Series Badminton tournament in Jelgava.
• The four-day tourney was organized by the Latvian Badminton Federation, with the support of Badminton World Federation (BWF).
• 18-year-old Maisnam Meiraba clinched the title in his first ever senior international tournament.

Notes:

• India’s market capitalisation to GDP ratio has touched a 13-year high of 122%.
• This means, the listed companies in India are worth 122 per cent of India’s latest annualised gross domestic product (GDP).
• This is the highest since December 2008, when it reached an all-time high of around 150 per cent.
• India’s current m-cap to GDP ratio is nearly 55 per cent higher than the 15-year median ratio of 79 per cent.

Notes:

• Indian Army is participating in Exercise ZAPAD 2021, a multination exercise at Nizhniy, Russia from 3 to 16 September.
• The two-week military exercise named ‘ZAPAD 2021’ aimed at boosting anti-terror cooperation.
• More than a dozen countries from Eurasia and South Asia will also participate in the same exercise.  China and Pakistan are also expected to take part in the exercise as observers.
• A contingent of 200 personnel of the Indian Army will participate in an exercise.

Notes:

• Nigeria Central Bank announced plans to launch its own digital currency named the “eNaira”.
• The Central Bank will work with Bitt Inc as a technical partner to launch its own cryptocurrency.
• Nigeria barred banks and financial institutions from dealing in or undertaking transactions in cryptocurrencies, earlier.
• eNaira would operate as a wallet against which customers can hold existing funds in their bank account.

Notes:
Exercise Bright Star is a multinational military exercise, held once in two years at Egypt. This year’s exercise would witness participation from 21 countries including the USA.
The first such exercises were held in the year 1980 after signing of the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. The last Bright Star exercise was conducted in 2018, with 16 participating nations.

Notes:
The total Forex Reserves of India has sharply risen to 633 billion in last week of August 2021. This is primarily on account of additional of 12.57 billion SDR allocation by IMF to India, equal to 17.86 billion.

India’s SDR allocation is in proportion to its IMF quota of 2.75%. Foreign currency assets, Gold, Special drawing rights and the reserve position with IMF are the components of Forex reserves of the Reserve Bank

Notes:
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) opened a two-day Lunar Science Workshop 2021, to commemorate the completion of two years of operation of Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft around the lunar orbit.

Chandrayaan-2 has completed more than 9,000 orbits around the Moon. The imaging and scientific instruments on board have been relaying the required data. ISRO Chairperson also released the documents based on data from Chandrayaan-2, along with data from spacecraft’s orbiter payloads.

Notes:
India and Nepal have signed a MoU (memorandum of understanding), under which India would help Nepal in reconstruction of 14 cultural heritage and 103 health sector projects which were damaged during the 2015 earthquake. The total cost of these reconstruction is 420 crore Nepalese Rupees.

This is a part of India’s post-earthquake reconstruction package, under which India has committed a total grant of USD 250 million to Nepal.

Notes:
On 3rd September, 2021, the 11th BRICS Trade Ministers Meeting was held in a virtual mode, under the chairmanship of India. The Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Shri Piyush Goyal chaired the meeting and was attended by Trade and Economic Ministers of BRICS Countries.

India is chairing the BRICS 2021, under the theme BRICS@15: Intra BRICS Cooperation for Continuity, Consolidation and Consensus.

 

Notes:
The 28th edition of Singapore-India Maritime Bilateral Exercise (SIMBEX) was held at South China Sea. Due to the COVID pandemic, this year’s SIMBEX was conducted as an ‘at-sea only’ exercise without any physical intervention.

SIMBEX is the Indian Navy’s oldest bilateral maritime exercise with a foreign country.