Current Affairs Quiz - September, 2023

Notes:
Indian men’s 4x400m relay team consisting of Muhammed Anas Yahiya, Amoj Jacob, Muhammed Ajmal Variyathodi and Rajesh Ramesh broke the Asian record.
The team qualified for the final round of the World Championships, for the first time. The earlier Asian record of 2:59.51 was in the name of Japanese team. The earlier national record was 3:00.25 set in 2021.

Notes:
In a new study published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports, researchers have successfully extracted ancient DNA from a 2,900-year-old clay brick, uncovering a wealth of information about the plant life cultivated during that era.
The brick analyzed in this study was found in the palace of the Neo-Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II, located in the ancient city of Kalhu, in modern day Iraq.

Notes:
The 19th African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Environment ministers of the African continent have agreed to institute national and regional strategies to minimise environmental impacts in the extraction and processing of critical mineral resources.

Notes:
WR Chess has triumphed as inaugural FIDE World Rapid Team Champions. Altogether, WR Chess secured 22 matchpoints, Freedom finished on 20, and third-placed MGD1 had 18.
WR Chess had one Indian- R Praggnananda, Freedom had two Indian players and MGD1 eight. When it comes to individual medals for board prizes, as many as seven Indians won either a Silver or Bronze medal.

Notes:
The Goods and Services Tax (GST) revenues for August 2023 have shown a growth of 11 per cent year-on-year as it stands at Rs 1.59 lakh crore.
The increase is due to increased compliance and reduced evasion. In August 2022, the collection from GST was Rs 1,43,612 crore. Out of the Rs 1.59 lakh crore GST collected, CGST accounted for Rs 28,328 crore, SGST for Rs 35,794 crore, IGST for Rs 83,251 crore, and cess for Rs 11,695 crore.

Notes:
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman launched the Mera Bill-Mera Adhikar Scheme from Gurugram on September 1.
The scheme will be launched in the states of Assam, Gujarat, and Haryana; and the UTs of Puducherry, Daman & Diu, and Dadra & Nagar Haveli. Two bumper prizes of ₹1 crore each will be given away every quarter to the winners of Mera Bill Mera Adhikaar’.

Notes:
The new U.S. – India Renewable Energy Technology Action Platform (RETAP) under the Strategic Clean Energy Partnership has been launched.
RETAP was announced meeting in Washington D. C., between His Excellency Joseph R. Biden, President of the United States of America and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, when the two leaders announced the expansion of collaboration on new and emerging technologies to accelerate the clean energy transition.

Notes:
17-year-old D Gukesh took over as the country’s top-ranked player from Viswanathan Anand in FIDE’s monthly rankings list.
It has been 37 years since anyone other than Anand holding the top position. The five-time World champion is currently ranked ninth, a spot below Gukesh on the world list, is semi-retired from active chess.

Notes:
For most of August 2023, Rishikesh in Uttarakhand held the record as the wettest town in the country.
Between August 1 and August 25 the town received 1,901 millimetres of rainfall, according to Typhoon Research Centre of Jeju National University in South Korea. During the same period, the two wettest places in India and the world, Cherrapunji and Mawsynram, received 1,876.3 mm and 1,464 mm rainfall respectively.

Notes:
The European Space Agency (ESA) is helping India in tracking the Solar mission Aditya-L1.
It is offering deep space communication services and assisting with the validation of new flight dynamics software developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).