Current Affairs Quiz - April, 2021

Notes:
India has announced 200,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines as a gift to the UN peacekeepers. It will be sent on March 27 and will be distributed to the peacekeeping missions.
With this, it will be possible to administer the double doses of COVID-19 vaccines to all 85,782 UN peacekeepers serving in 12 peacekeeping operations across the world.

Notes:
Mr K. VijayRaghavan has been given a one-year extension as the principal scientific advisor (PSA) to the Government of India.
As per the order issued by the Personnel Ministry, the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet approved the extension as the PSA for a period of one year. He provides objective advice to the Prime minister and Cabinet on matters related to science, technology and innovation.

Notes:
World Development Report 2021 has been released with the theme of ‘Data for Better Lives’— Leveraging greater value from data to help the poor
This is the first World Development Report which focused solely on the role of data for development. As the Covid pandemic made the global data inequalities even greater, the report speaks on how do we tap the full value of data, to ensure equitable access for poor people.

Notes:
The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Women’s Asian Cup India 2022 Organising Committee confirmed the venues of the tournament.
D.Y. Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai, TransStadia in Ahmedabad and the Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar will host the premier women’s football competition, from January 20 to February 6, 2022.

Notes:
Special forces of India carried out a joint military exercise with the US Special forces at Bakloh in Himachal Pradesh.
The 11th edition of the joint special forces exercise ‘Vajra Prahar 2021’ was held with an aim to share the best practices and experiences in joint mission planning and operational tactics. In February 2021, the Armies of both the countries carried out ‘Exercise Yudh Abhyas’.

Notes:
The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) released a report titled Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific 2021.
As per the report, India is estimated to record an economic growth of 7% in 2021-22. It also highlighted that maintaining low borrowing costs while controlling non-performing loans would be a challenge.

Notes:
The Lakhta Centre, which is located in St.Petersburg of Russia, has been awarded with the Emporis Skyscraper award 2019. This is the most prestigious award given to high rise architecture.
This building is 462 m tall. Russia has for the first time bagged this award since inception of this award 20 years ago.

Notes:
The Department of Science and Technology announced that Scientists have developed a new technique to track the huge bubbles of gas, which are ejected from the Sun.
This new technique will be used in India’s first solar mission Aditya-L1. A software named Computer Aided CME Tracking Software (CACTus) and CMEs Identification in Inner Solar Corona (CIISCO) algorithm have been developed.

Notes:
India’s largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) announced that it has signed a loan agreement of up to USD 1 billion with Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC). JBIC is wholly owned by the Government of Japan.
This loan intends to promote smooth flow of funds for the business operations of Japanese automobile manufacturers in India. SBI had signed a similar deal with JBIC in October last year. The beneficiaries include suppliers, dealers and the end users.

Notes:
Receivables Exchange of India (RXIL) is the invoice discounting platform for MSMEs. It is a TReDS (Trade Receivables Discounting System) Exchange Platform accredited by the RBI.
RXIL recently announced that it has discounted receivables of Rs 1,000 crores in a month. The platform has over 7000 registered MSMEs and have processed over 5,00,000 invoices, since its launch in 2017.