ANSWER: B

• Kisan Diwas or National Farmers Day was observed on December 23 across the country to praise the farmers as they are the spine of India. The day was chosen to honour the birth anniversary of the fifth Prime Minister of India, Choudhary Charan Singh.

About National Farmer’s Day 2021

• National Farmers Day is celebrated every year, especially in those states which are actively engaged in farming, such as Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, among others.

National Farmers Day 2020: History

• Chaudhary Charan Singh, the Kisan Leader, served the country for a very short period, from July 28, 1979, to January 14, 1980. He introduced several welfare schemes for the farmers and wrote several books on farmers and their problems, depicting various solutions to improve the lives of the farmers of the nation. Therefore, the government, in 2001, decided to mark Charan Singh’s birth anniversary as Kisan Diwas.
• Chaudhary Charan Singh followed the famous slogan – “JAI JAWAN JAI KISAN”, which was given to the farmers by Lal Bahadur Shastri, the second Prime Minister of India.

ANSWER: C

• Gabriel Boric Font is the president-elect of Chile, having won the 2021 presidential election run-off vote on 19 December 2021.

About Gabriel Boric

• Gabriel Boric, a former student activist, is elected Chile’s youngest president
• At 35, Boric will be the nation’s youngest leader and by far its most liberal since President Salvador Allende, who died by suicide during the 1973 military coup that ushered in a brutal 17-year dictatorship.
• He will assume office at the final stage of a yearslong initiative to draft a new constitution, an effort that is likely to bring about profound legal and political changes on issues including gender equality, Indigenous rights and environmental protections.

ANSWER: B

• Yogi Adityanath-led Uttar Pradesh government is set to distribute free smartphones and tablets to about one crore final year students in the state, starting from December 25.

About ‘Free Smartphone Yojna’

• The launch of new scheme marks the birth anniversary of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
• Number of students, including girls, from every district of the state likely to get benefit from the scheme.
• The state government will offer cellphones and tablets to students in their last year of high school and higher as part of the program.
• The chief minister will hand away 60,000 smartphones and 40,000 tablets to the youths.
• The candidate must be a student and a resident of Uttar Pradesh.
• Students in their last year of MA, BA, BSc, ITI, MBBS, MD, BTech, and MTech, among other programs, will be given priority.

ANSWER: C

• India recently successfully tested the locally developed surface-to-surface missile Pralay, the second test of the conventional missile in two days. The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) tested the missile from the Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Island off the Odisha coast.

About Pralay Missile

• Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) recently successfully conducted maiden flight test of indigenously developed surface-to-surface missile ‘Pralay’, from Dr A P J Abdul Kalam Island off the coast of Odisha.
• The new missile followed the desired quasi ballistic trajectory and reached the designated target with high degree accuracy, validating the control, guidance and mission algorithms. All the sub-systems performed satisfactorily. All the sensors deployed near the impact point across the eastern coast, including the down range ships, tracked the missile trajectory and captured all the events.
• The missile is powered with solid propellant rocket motor and many new technologies.
• The missile has a range of 150-500 kilometre and can be launched from a mobile launcher.
• The missile guidance system includes state-of-the-art navigation system and integrated avionics.

ANSWER: D

• Emma Raducanu has won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award, rounding off an incredible year where she became the first British women in 44 years to win a Grand Slam singles title at the U.S. Open.

About the awards

• The award is decided by a public vote from a list of shortlisted nominees, which this year included Raducanu, diver Tom Daley, swimmer Adam Peaty, heavyweight world champion Tyson Fury, footballer Raheem Sterling and Paralympic cyclist Dame Sarah Storey.

ANSWER: A

• Protests are taking place across Kerala against SilverLine, a semi high-speed railway project that envisages trains running at 200 km/h between the state’s northern and southern ends. The project, estimated to cost Rs 63,940 crore, is billed as one of the biggest infrastructure plans being pushed by the Pinarayi Vijayan government.

About the SilverLine project

• The proposed 529.45-km line will link Thiruvananthapuram in the south to Kasaragod in the north, covering 11 districts through 11 stations.
• When the project is completed, one can travel from Kasaragod to Thiruvananthapuram in less than four hours at 200 km/hr.
• On the existing Indian Railways network, it now takes 12 hours.
• The deadline for the project, being executed by the Kerala Rail Development Corporation Limited (KRDCL), is 2025. KRDCL, or K-Rail, is a joint venture between the Kerala government and the Union Ministry of Railways created to execute big railway projects.