Daily Current Affairs Quiz: December 30, 2023

ANSWER: A                       

ANSWER: B

ANSWER: B

ANSWER: C

• Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued its list of Domestic Systemically Important Banks (D-SIBs).
• SBI, ICICI Bank, and HDFC Bank are still categorized as Domestic Systemically Important Banks (D-SIBs), according to the central bank.

DEFINITION

• D-SIBs are systemically important due to their size, cross-jurisdictional activities, complexity and lack of substitute and interconnection.
• It also means that the bank is too big to fail.
• If DSBs fail, there would be significant disruption to the essential services to the banking system and the overall economy.
• According to RBI, based on the bucket in which a D-SIB is placed, an additional common equity requirement has to be applied to it.
  • In case a foreign bank having a branch presence in India is a Global Systemically Important Bank (G-SIB), it has to maintain additional CET1 capital surcharge in India as applicable to it as a G-SIB.

ANSWER: D

• A Warli paintings art exhibition was organised by Inherited Arts Forum (IAF) recently.

ABOUT WARLI PAINTINGS

• The ritualistic tribal art originated in the Sahyadri Mountains in Thane district, Maharashtra.
• It can be traced back to 10th century AD but was first discovered and appreciated for its distinctive style only in the early 1970s.
• The art was traditionally practised by women of the Warli tribe called Suvasinis, who decorated the Lagn Chowk or the wedding square.
• Layers of cow dung slapped on the walls of village homes formed the canvas.
• When the dung dried, they were painted in mud brown to create a background, and bamboo-stick paint brushes were used to meticulously craft scenes, figures, and objects.
• The triangles, circles and lines in austere white against a mud brown background align to tell stories of village life and the customs and traditions there on walls and canvasses.
• Warli represents the daily routine of rural life, the relationship of the tribal people with nature, their gods, myths, traditions, customs, and festivities.

Other facts

• Jivya Soma Mashe is known as the father of Warli art.
• He was the first male artist to enter the female-dominated bastion of Warli art.

ANSWER: B

• Japan’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) spacecraft entered into orbit around the moon after a months-long journey, and ahead of its planned moon-landing attempt in January 2024.
• Its apogee (farthest point) in this orbit is 4,000 km and perigee (closest point) is 600 km above the lunar surface.
• If the attempt succeeds, Japan will become only the fifth country to soft-land a robotic craft on the natural satellite, months after India succeeded with its Chandrayaan 3 mission in August.

About SLIM

• SLIM is a spacecraft built and launched by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) on September 7, 2023, from the Tanegashima spaceport.
• It weighed only 590 kg at launch.
• SLIM was launched together with XRISM, a next-generation X-ray space telescope, onboard an H-2A rocket.
  • The X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM) is a joint mission of the JAXA and NASA, with contributions from the European Space Agency (ESA) and Canadian Space Agency as well.
  • It aims to observe X-rays coming from deep space and to identify their wavelengths with unprecedented precision.

ANSWER: A

• An international team of researchers have developed a method to model the observable signs of a kilonova explosion from the explosive merger of two orbiting neutron stars.
• Neutron stars are superdense astrophysical objects formed at the end of a massive star’s life in a supernova explosion.
  • Sometimes, neutron stars orbit each other in binary systems.
  • These systems constantly lose energy by emitting gravitational waves until they eventually collide and merge.
  • Such mergers let researchers study the physical properties of the most extreme conditions in the universe.
  • For example, the conditions of these high-energy collisions lead to the formation of heavy elements like gold.

ANSWER: D

• An earthquake of magnitude 6.3 on the Richter scale occurred in Japan’s Kuril Islands

ABOUT KURIL ISLANDS

• The Kuril Islands are stretched from the Japanese island of Hokkaido to the southern tip of Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula separating the Okhotsk Sea from the North Pacific Ocean.
• These are located on Pacific Ring of Fire and contain at least 100 volcanoes, of which 35 are still active, and many hot springs.
• Dispute
  • The Kuril Islands dispute between Japan and Russia is over the sovereignty of South Kuril Islands that comprise of Etorofu island, Kunashiri island, Shikotan island and the Habomai island.

ANSWER: C

• Cybersecurity researchers have identified a potent variant of the infamous ‘Chameleon Trojan’ malware, posing a substantial risk to Android device users.
• This advanced version exhibits the alarming ability to disable biometric authentication methods, including fingerprint and face unlock, to sneakily access sensitive information.
• The malware strategically attaches itself to legitimate Android applications, such as the widely used Google Chrome, effectively avoiding immediate detection.
• Operating discreetly in the background, Chameleon Trojan can disable biometric security measures, specifically targeting PINs.

ANSWER: A

• The Centre govt. recently appointed Nina Singh as the Director General of CISF.
• She has become the first woman to head this force.
• Singh, a 1989-batch IPS officer of Rajasthan cadre, is currently working as Special DG, CISF.
• She has been appointed to the post till her superannuation on July 31, 2024.

ANSWER: B

• Former European Commission President Jacques Delors, who was a key figure in the creation of the euro currency died
  • He was 98.
• From 1985 to 1995, he served as the head of the European Commission, overseeing a transformative decade marked by significant strides in the bloc’s integration.
• This period witnessed milestones such as the establishment of the common market, the implementation of the Schengen accords for travel, the initiation of the Erasmus programme for student exchanges, and the introduction of the euro as the bloc’s single currency.