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📰 Use drones more effectively: Civil Aviation Ministry

 UPSC Civil Services MAINS Exam 2021: Essay Question Paper

1)  World Day of War Orphans 2022: History and Significance

•World Day of War Orphans is marked on 6 January to create awareness about the plight of children who have lost their parents due to conflict. In any conflict, children are one of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable groups present. Children who have been injured in a gunfight or separated from their families require particular care in order to heal the mental wounds of war, begin school, and restart normal life.

2)  Kerala’s High Court: India’s First paperless court

•The Kerala High Court is all set to become India’s first paperless court. Supreme Court judge Justice DY Chandrachud inaugurated the smart courtrooms on 1 January 2022. In the 1st phase six courtrooms, including the Chief Justice’s room, will be converted into smart courts. Also, case files will be made available to the lawyers on the computer screen.

3)  Ayush Minister lays foundation stone of International Yoga Academy

•Union Ayush Minister, Sarbananda Sonowal has laid the foundation stone of the Heartfulness International Yoga Academy in Hyderabad, Telangana. He also launched 75 crores suryanamaskar initiative as part of the Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav”. The academy tries to reach all levels of society through training programmes and these will be overseen by an international team.

•This the academy has therapeutic Yoga rooms for consultation, one to one training spaces or small group classes; pre-natal Yoga rooms; a lecture hall with  200 sitting capacity; a full-fledged recording studio with editing suites for pre-recorded wellness programs; a recording Yoga hall fully equipped for Live online Yoga Classes; a Yoga library with books from every Yoga Institutions and access to Yoga research articles.

4)  Himachal Pradesh became 1st LPG enabled & smoke free state of the country

•Himachal Pradesh became the first LPG enables, also, smoke-free state. This milestone was achieved due to the Ujjwala Scheme and Grahini Suvidha Yojana by Centre. The Ujjwala scheme was introduced by the government to get rid of the smoke. The Grahini Suvidha Scheme was introduced to assist the women of rural areas.

•Ujjwalla Yojna was started by the Centre government with the view to free the women of the country from indoor pollution. Along with this, the Himachal government also started the Grihini Suvidha Yojana to benefit as many women as possible, under the scheme.

5)  Atul Keshap appointed as President of US-India Business Council

•Indian-origin American diplomat Atul Keshap has been appointed as the President of the U.S.-India Business Council (USIBC) by the US Chambers of Commerce. His term is effective from January 05, 2022. The US Chambers of Commerce is the parent body of USIBC. Atul Keshap replaces Nisha Desai Biswal.

•Prior to this, Keshap served in Delhi as United States Chargé d’Affaires to India, leading the US Embassy team. The USIBC represents top global companies operating across the United States, India, and the Indo-Pacific.

6)  Google acquires Israeli cybersecurity startup Siemplify for $500 million

•Alphabet Inc-owned, Google has acquired Israeli cybersecurity startup Siemplify, in a deal worth $500 million. This acquisition will expand the U.S. tech giant’s security offerings in the country amid rising cyber-attacks. Siemplify will be integrated into Google Cloud’s Chronicle operation. As a part of Google Cloud’s security team, Siemplify will help companies better manage their threat response.

7)  RBI issued framework for offline digital payments

•Reserve Bank of India has issued a framework for facilitating small-value digital payments in offline mode using cards, wallets, mobile devices, etc, to push digital transactions in rural and semi-urban areas. The upper limit of an offline payment transaction was fixed at Rs 200, with a total limit of Rs 2,000 at any point in time. The framework will enable the Authorised Payment System Operators (PSOs) and Payment System Participants (PSPs), Acquirers and Issuers (banks and non-banks) to conduct small value offline digital payments.

•Under the offline mode, payments can be carried out face-to-face (proximity mode) using any channel or instrument like cards, wallets, and mobile devices. These transactions will not require an additional factor of authentication (AFA), the Reserve Bank of India said, adding that since the transactions are offline, alerts (by way of SMS and/or e-mail) will be received by the customer after a time lag.

8)  G Asok Kumar named as DG of National Mission for Clean Ganga

•Additional Secretary under the Ministry of Jal Shakti, G Asok Kumar was appointed as the new Director-General of the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) under the Ministry of Jal Shakti. He succeeded Director-General, Rajiv Ranjan Mishra. Kumar is popularly known as ‘the Rain Man of India’ for his excellent work in rainwater harvesting under the “Jal Shakti Abhiyan: Catch the Rain” campaign.

📰 10.74 lakh birds flock to Chilika, largest wintering ground in Indian subcontinent

Shankar IAS Monthly Current Affairs November 2021 PDF

1)  Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan launches NEAT 3.0

•Union Minister of Education, Dharmendra Pradhan has launched National Educational Alliance for Technology (NEAT 3.0), and regional language textbooks prescribed by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). NEAT 3.0 aims to provide the best-developed ed-tech solutions and courses to students on a single platform. It will be beneficial especially among the economically disadvantaged students. It is a Public-Private Partnership model between the Government (through its implementing agency AICTE) and the Education Technology companies.

•58 global and Indian ed-tech startup companies have come together for this solution and are offering 100 courses and e-resources to enhance learning outcomes, developing employable skills as well as overcome learning loss. The collaboration of global ed-tech companies and Indian start-ups by way of NEAT will help to build on the digital education bedrock of India.

2)  Odisha’s Ganjam district is now child marriage free

•Odisha’s Ganjam has declared itself a child marriage free district, the first in the State. The district administration has been able to stop as many as 450 child marriages and video-record 48,383 marriages in two years — 2020 and 2021. After verification, the Ganjam administration declared it a child marriage free district. Sarpanchs and task force committee members had sent recommendations that no child marriage had taken place in their respective areas.

3)  Ladakh celebrated traditional new year ‘Losar Festival’

•The Losar Festival in Ladakh is celebrated at the onset of the New Year in the traditional schedule of Tibetan Buddhism. It is celebrated by the Buddhist Community in the Ladakh region. The Losar is a 15 days festival, from the start of the Tibetan Lunar calendar, marking the 1st day of the 11 months in the Tibetan Calendar. Losar is a Tibetan word that means ‘New Year’.

•The festivities began with the celebration of Birth and Nirvana Anniversary Je Tsongkhapa with illuminations of religious places like Monasteries,  Stupas, residential and other places. The eve of the Losar festival is also celebrated with memorial food offerings for the departed loved ones.

4)  Alka Mittal becomes 1st women head of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation

•Director HR in ONGC, Alka Mittal has been given the additional charge as the new interim chairman and managing director (CMD) of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), the largest oil and gas producer in India. She is the first woman to head the top post at the Maharatna company. She replaces Subhash Kumar who superannuated on December 31. He was also serving as an interim head.

•Alka Mittal has been appointed for a period of six months with effect from January 1, 2022, or till the appointment of a regular incumbent to the post, or until further order, whichever is the earliest.

5)  Sudan’s Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok announces resignation

•Prime Minister of Sudan, Abdalla Hamdok has announced his resignation on January 02, 2022. The decision follows a military coup that caused political deadlock and widespread pro-democracy protests in the country. The 66-year-old Hamdok served as the 15th Prime Minister of Sudan from 2019 to 2022.

•Mr Hamdok called for a dialogue to agree on a “national charter” and to “draw a roadmap” to complete the transition. The October coup had upended Sudan’s plans to move to democracy after a popular uprising forced the military’s overthrow of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir and his Islamist government in April 2019.

6)  Nippon India MF launches India’s first Auto ETF 2022

•Nippon Life India Asset Management Limited, asset manager of Nippon India Mutual Fund (NIMF), has announced the launch of India’s First Auto sector ETF – Nippon India Nifty Auto ETF. Nippon India Nifty Auto ETF will predominantly invest in stocks comprising of the Nifty Auto Index in the same proportion as the Index. It will provide exposure to Top 15 (as per Nifty Auto Index methodology) companies representing auto-related sectors like Automobiles 4 wheelers, Automobiles 2 & 3 wheelers, Auto Ancillaries, and Tyres.

•The Nippon Auto ETF will start operation from January 5, 2022 to January 14, 2022. The minimum investment amount required is Rs 1,000 and in multiples of Rs 1 aftermath. The investment objective of the scheme is “to provide investment returns closely corresponding to the total returns of the securities as represented by the Nifty Auto Index before expenses, subject to tracking error. However, there can be no assurance or guarantee that the investment objective of the Scheme will be achieved.

7)  Zishaan A Latif won Ramnath Goenka Award in Photo journalism

•Zishaan A Latif won Ramnath Goenka Award in the Photo Journalism category. He won the award for his photo essay, The arduous struggle for inclusion in the NRC, which was published in The Caravan in October 2019. He documented the plight of people who were dropped from the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and put a face to an untold human story. About a month after the NRC list was released, Latif made his way through four districts in Assam, documenting people’s struggle for inclusion in the NRC.

8)  CryptoWire introduces India’s first global index of cryptocurrencies IC15

•CryptoWire, a global crypto super app that is a special business unit of TickerPlant, announced the launch of India’s first index of Cryptocurrencies – IC15, which is a rule-based broad market index by market capitalisation. The IC15 tracks and measures the performance of the top 15 widely traded liquid cryptocurrencies listed on leading crypto exchanges of the world, the company stated.

•The Mumbai-based company has been designed to provide insights into crypto mining and the true benchmark and a mirror of the underlying crypto market, a barometer of the industry in a sense, with a diversified representation of overall market sentiments.

9)  RBI named Ajay Kumar Choudhary and Deepak Kumar as new Executive Directors

•The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has appointed Deepak Kumar and Ajay Kumar Choudhary as new executive directors (ED) with effect from 03 January. Prior to being promoted as ED, Deepak Kumar was heading the department of information technology of RBI, while Ajay Choudhary was Chief General Manager-in-Charge, Department of Supervision.

10)  Apple becomes world’s first company to hit $3 trillion M-Cap

•The stock market value of Apple Inc. hit $3 trillion and became the world’s first company to do so. The market cap of Apple hit $182.86 per share, which made it the world’s first company to touch the $3 trillion mark. However shortly after hitting the mark, the share value dipped below it and did not rise again until the market closed. The iPhone maker passed $2 trillion in 2020 and over $1 trillion in 2018.

•The world’s most valuable company reached the milestone as investors bet that consumers will continue to shell out top dollar for iPhones, MacBooks and services such as Apple TV and Apple Music. In China, the world’s largest smartphone market, Apple continued to lead for the second straight month, beating rivals such as Vivo and Xiaomi, recent data from CounterPoint Research showed.

📰 States told to share intel on common grid