ANSWER: B

WHY IN NEWS?

• US-based Ohmium International has started India’s first green hydrogen electrolyzer manufacturing unit at Bengaluru, Karnataka. The factory will manufacture India-made Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) hydrogen electrolyzers. Green hydrogen is made from non-fossil sources as against blue hydrogen that is made from fossil sources.
• Making green hydrogen in India will give a cost advantage for manufacturers rather than going for imports. The gigafactory will manufacture India-made Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) hydrogen electrolyzers with an initial manufacturing capacity of about 500 MW per year and will scale it up to 2 GW per year.
• The PEM hydrogen electrolyzer is the main equipment for the production of green hydrogen as it uses power generated from renewable resources to break water into hydrogen and oxygen.

ANSWER: A

WHY IN NEWS?

• The world’s largest and tallest observation wheel is set to be unveiled in Dubai, UAE on October 21, 2021. The observation wheel called as ‘Ain Dubai’, is 250 m (820 ft) in height, located at Bluewaters Island.
• The record-breaking wheel is 42.5 m (139 ft) taller than the current world’s tallest observation wheel, High Roller, in Las Vegas, measuring 167.6 m (550 ft).

ANSWER: D

WHY IN NEWS?

• BharatPe has launched a “12% Club” app that will allow consumers to invest and earn up to 12 per cent annual interest or borrow at a similar rate. BharatPe has partnered with LenDenClub (RBI-approved NBFC) for this app and lending arrangement.
• Consumers can invest their savings anytime by choosing to lend money on the “12% Club” app. Apart from this, consumers can avail of collateral-free loans of up to Rs 10 lakh on the 12 per cent Club app for tenure of 3 months.

ANSWER: A

WHY IN NEWS?

• Ministry of Jal Shakti has launched a ‘100 days campaign’ named SUJALAM to create more and more Open Defecation Free (ODF) Plus villages by undertaking wastewater management at the village level.
• The Campaign would help in the management of the wastewater and in turn, would help to revive the water bodies through the creation of 1 million Soak-pits and also other Greywater management activities. The campaign started on August 25, 2021, is part of the ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’ celebrations.

The three focus areas of the SUJALAM campaign are:

• Construction of 1 million soak pits;
• Retrofitting of toilets and
• Access to toilets for new households.

ANSWER: D

WHY IN NEWS?

• The 5th edition of Indo- Kazakhstan Joint Training Exercise, “KAZIND-21” will be held from August 30 to September 11, 2021, at Training Node, Aisha Bibi, Kazakhstan. The joint training exercise will boost the bilateral relations between India and Kazakhstan Armies.
• The Exercise is also a platform for the Armed Forces of India & Kazakhstan to train for Counter Insurgency/ Counter-Terrorism operations in the mountainous, rural scenarios under UN mandate.
• The Indian Army contingent represented by a battalion of the Bihar Regiment consists of a total of 90 personnel led by a Contingent Commander. The Kazakhstan Army will be represented by a company group.
• The scope of Joint Exercise includes professional exchange, planning & execution of the operation in counterterrorism environment at sub-unit level and sharing expertise on skills at arms, combat shooting and experiences in Counter Insurgency/ Counter-Terrorism operations

ANSWER: C

WHY IN NEWS?

• Former India footballer O Chandrasekharan, popularly known as Olympian Chandrasekharan in his home state Kerala, passed away.
• Chandrasekharan, who played as a defender, was a member of the Indian team in the 1960 Rome Olympics the last time the country participated in football at the Games.

ANSWER: A

WHY IN NEWS?

• India’s first sectoral index in the Agri commodities basket i.e. GUAREX was launched by the National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange Limited (NCDEX).
• GUAREX is a price based sectoral index that tracks the movement in the futures contracts of guar gum refined splits and guar seed on a real-time basis. This index product will offer a lot of opportunities to the value chain.
• The weightage of guarseed and guar gum refined splits in the index will be 63 per cent and 37 per cent, respectively. The index futures will be cash-settled. Initially, Guarex futures contracts expiring in September and October will be made available for trading.

ANSWER: B

WHY IN NEWS?

Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs, Nirmala Sitharaman, launched the fourth edition of Public Sector Bank (PSB) Reforms Agenda called ‘EASE 4.0’ for the financial year 2021-22.

About:

• It is a simplified, tech-enabled and collaborative banking.
• On the occasion, finance minister launched the annual report for PSB Reforms Agenda EASE 3.0 for the year 2020-21 and also witnessed the awards ceremony to felicitate the best performing banks on EASE 3.0 Banking Reforms Index.

Best performing banks on EASE 3.0

• SBI, Bank of Baroda (BoB), and Union Bank of India (UBI) won the awards for best performing banks on the basis of EASE index.
• Indian Bank won the award for best improvement from baseline performance.
• SBI, BoB, UBI, Punjab National Bank and Canara Bank also won the top awards across different themes of PSB Reforms Agenda EASE 3.0.

Reforms under EASE 4.0

EASE 4.0 reforms look after four key initiatives to be adopted by public sector banks:

1. Smart lending backed by analytics
2. 24×7 banking with resilient technology & cloud-based IT systems
3. data enabled agriculture financing and
4. Collaboration with the financial ecosystem.