Current Affairs Quiz - January, 2023

Notes:
Department of Economic Affairs under the Ministry of Finance notifies changes in rates on small savings schemes.
Recently, the government hiked the interest rates on various small savings schemes including senior citizen savings scheme for the January to March quarter. The PPF will continue to earn 7.10%, while Sukanya Samriddhi account scheme will continue to earn 7.6% interest rate.

Notes:
Union Minister of Home and Cooperation, Amit Shah addressed the ‘Cooperative Beneficiaries Conference’ in Bengaluru, Karnataka
The first cooperative society in the whole country was established in Gadag district of Karnataka in 1905. The Minister announced that one cooperative society will be formed in every panchayat of the country. NABARD, NDDB and the Ministry of Cooperation have prepared an action plan to form 2 lakh new such cooperative societies in three years.

Notes:
The Minister of State for Electronics & Information Technology and Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, Rajeev Chandrasekhar announced Government of India is going to launch a Digital India Innovation Fund.
The Fund aims to catalyse Deep-tech Startups. He announced this during his address in the event of ‘New India for Young India: Techade of Opportunities’ program at the Catholic Bishop House Campus in Kerala.

Notes:
35-year-old Indian Chess player and former World rapid champion Koneru Humpy won Silver medal at World Blitz Chess Championship in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Savitha Shri, a 15-year-old girl from Tamil Nadu won bronze at the World rapid and blitz chess championship.

Notes:
Government of India sponsored the proposal for International Year of Millets (IYM) 2023 which was accepted by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).
Embassies of India across more than 140 countries will be participating in celebration of IYM during 2023. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, organized an opening ceremony for the International Year of Millets – 2023 at Rome, Italy.

Notes:
President Mohamed Irfaan Ali, the ninth President of Guyana,  is one among the 21 recipients of the 17th Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award (PBSA).
He will also be the Chief Guest at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas Convention will be held this time in Indore. US-based businessman Darshan Singh Dhaliwal, and DSB Group CEO Piyush Gupta are among 21 recipients.

Notes:
The Supreme Court of India is set to launch a project, to provide free access to official law reports of its verdicts to law students, lawyers and the general public.
The Electronic Supreme Court Reports (e-SCR) project will be unveiled on the direction of Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud. The project will be rolled out on the Supreme Court’s website and will be made available on the mobile application of Supreme Court of India and Judgment portal of National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG).

Notes:
Captain Shiva Chouhan, an officer from the Corps of Electronics and Mechanical Engineers, became the first woman officer to be operationally deployed at Kumar Post in the Siachen Glacier.
The post is located at an altitude of 15,632 feet. Kumar Post is named after late Colonel Narinder Kumar, who was instrumental in the Indian Army launching ‘Operation Meghdoot’ and securing the Siachen Glacier in 1984.

Notes:
A 49-year-old Missouri inmate was put to death for a 2003 killing, in the first execution of a transgender person in the United States.
A database on the website for the anti-execution Death Penalty Information Center shows that 1,558 people have been executed since the death penalty was reinstated in the country in mid-1970s.

Notes:
World Braille Day on January 4 is celebrated to honor the birth anniversary of Braille’s inventor, Louis Braille from France.
Braille, used by blind and partially sighted people, is a tactile representation of alphabetic and numerical symbols using six dots to represent each letter and number, and even musical, mathematical and scientific symbols.