Daily Current Affairs Quiz: October 17, 2023

ANSWER: A

ANSWER: C

ANSWER: D

ANSWER: B

• Global Survey Report on Persons with Disabilities and Disasters 2023 was recently released by UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction.
• The survey captured over 6,000 responses from 132 countries to evaluate progress on government policies that should be offering protection.
• An initial survey focused on disability was conducted in 2013.

MAJOR FINDINGS

• Persons with disabilities face a “shocking lack of support” with no progress in the last decade, despite a huge increase in climate disasters worldwide.
• Specifically, 84% of respondents in 2023 reported not having a personal preparedness plan in case of a disaster, such as knowing evacuation routes, available shelters and stocking up on emergency supplies.
• Even with sufficient advance warning, 17% PwDs face a lot of difficulties in evacuating.
• 86% PwDs reported no participation in community level DRR decision-making and planning.

ANSWER: C

• The PM Gati Shakti initiative, aimed at transforming the infrastructure growth in the country, has reached its two-year milestone.

ABOUT PM GATI SHAKTI

• The government launched the PM Gati Shakti program in 2021, with the goal of achieving self-reliance and a $5 trillion economy by 2025.
• To realise this vision, there was a pressing need to establish a comprehensive and efficient multimodal transportation and last-mile connectivity infrastructure across the country.
• PM Gati Shakti aims to achieve these objectives through integrated planning and coordinated project execution involving all relevant ministries and state governments.
• The primary aim of this initiative is to enhance multimodal connectivity, improve logistics efficiency, and address crucial infrastructure deficiencies to ensure seamless movement of people, goods, and services across the nation.
• The program also seeks to integrate the infrastructure schemes of various ministries and state governments, including Bharatmala, Sagarmala, land ports, UDAN, and more.

MAJOR ACHIEVEMENTS

• The government has evaluated more than 300 central and state projects worth ₹11.58 lakh crore in two years.
• The projects evaluated under PM Gati Shakti include over 200 state projects worth over ₹5,000 crore for improving logistic infrastructure and 156 critical infrastructure gap projects for first and last-mile connectivity.
• Among the central infrastructure projects, 45 railway projects worth ₹6.06 lakh crore and 47 road projects worth ₹4.19 lakh crore were evaluated, besides eight projects worth ₹79,000 crore of the housing and urban affairs ministry and one project of over ₹ 20,000 crore of the new and renewable energy ministry.
• As per the analysis, the initiative has significantly improved the ease of doing business by bringing down the pre-alignment finalisation time for infrastructure projects from three-four months earlier to one month now.
• Besides, the NOC approvals for all projects are now digitised and integrated via the Gati Shakti portal unlike earlier.

ANSWER: B

• Israel used David’s Sling air-defense system to intercept Hamas rockets.
• David’s Sling is a highly sophisticated and state-of-the-art anti-missile defense system developed jointly by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Raytheon.
• David’s Sling system includes a missile firing unit, a fire control radar, a battle management station, and the interceptor.
• It is a long range air and missile defense system.
• It can protect any country that uses it against large-calibre rockets, short-range ballistic missiles, and other developing threats.
• It has been designed for “plug and play” insertion into fielded air and missile defense systems – open architecture.
  • Next-generation multi-sensor seeker.
  • Cost effective.

ANSWER: A

• The PM congratulated Grandmaster Raunak Sadhwani who had won the FIDE World Junior Rapid Chess Championship in Sardinia, Italy.
• Raunak scored 8.5 over 11 rounds to win the Championship ahead of Arseniy Nesterov of Russia, who scored 8.
• Raunak became a grandmaster at the age of 13.
• He is the ninth youngest player in history and the fourth youngest Indian to be awarded the title.

About FIDE (Federation International des Echecs) or International Chess Federation

• FIDE is constituted as a non-governmental institution.
• Founded – 1924
• HQ- Lausanne, Switzerland
• Motto is “Gens una sumus,” which is Latin for “We are one family.”
• It is the governing body of the sport of chess and regulates all international chess competitions.
• It was recognized by the International Olympic Committee as a Global Sporting Organization in 1999.
• It has 199 countries as affiliate members (including India), in the form of National Chess Federations.

ANSWER: A

• The Indian government has designated August 23^rd as National Space Day
• On August 23rd of this year, the Chandrayaan 3 mission achieved a groundbreaking milestone by successfully landing on the South Pole of the Moon.
• India became the fourth country to land on the moon and the very first to reach the vicinity of the South Pole of the Moon.

ANSWER: C

• International Day for the Eradication of Poverty is celebrated every year on 17^th
• The day is dedicated to create awareness and promote global measures for the prevention of poverty.
• On 22 December 1992, the General Assembly declared 17 October as the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty
• The theme of International Day for the Eradication of Poverty 2023 is “Decent Work and Social Protection: Putting Dignity in Practice for All.”

ANSWER: A

• The Bhootnath bridge in Kullu has been finally restored for light vehicles after about four-and-a-half years.
• It is built across Beas river.
• The 95-metre double lane bridge, constructed at a cost of Rs 10 crore, had developed cracks and inclined from the centre in November 2018 within 5 years of its inauguration.