Daily Current Affairs Quiz: September 11, 2023

ANSWER: B

ANSWER: C

ANSWER: A

ANSWER: A

• United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced a record climate aid commitment of $2 billion for the Green Climate Fund on the last day of the two-day G20 Summit in New Delhi.

About GCF:

• The GCF was set up in 2010 under the UNFCCC’s financial mechanism to channel funding from developed countries to developing countries to allow them to mitigate climate change and also adapt to disruptions arising from a changing climate.
• The Green Climate Fund will support projects, programmes, policies and other activities in developing country Parties using thematic funding windows.
• It is intended to be the centrepiece of efforts to raise Climate Finance of $100 billion a year by 2020.
• The Fund will promote the paradigm shift towards low-emission and climate-resilient development pathways by providing support to developing countries to limit or reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to the impacts of climate change, taking into account the needs of those developing countries particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.
• The Fund will strive to maximize the impact of its funding for adaptation and mitigation, and seek a balance between the two, while promoting environmental, social, economic and development co-benefits and taking a gender-sensitive approach.

ANSWER: C

• Astronomers have discovered the first “bubble of galaxies,”
• Bubble of galaxy is an unimaginably huge cosmic structure measuring one billion light-years across that is thought to be a fossilized remnant from just after the Big Bang.
• The bubble spans 820 million light years away from the milkyway.
• The heart of the bubble is the Bootes supercluster of galaxies, which is surrounded by a vast void sometimes called “the Great Nothing”.
• The bubble contains several other galaxy superclusters, including the massive structure known as the Sloan Great Wall.
• Formation – The discovery confirms a phenomenon first described in 1970 by US cosmologist Jim Peebles.
• He theorised that in the primordial universe the churning of gravity and radiation created sound waves called Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAOs).
• As the sound waves rippled through the plasma, they created bubbles.
• Around 380,000 years after the Big Bang the process stopped as the universe cooled down, freezing the shape of the bubbles.
• The bubbles then grew larger as the universe expanded, similar to other fossilised remnants from the time after the Big Bang.

ANSWER: B

• NASA announced the successful completion of its Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) aboard the Perseverance Mars Rover.

About MOXIE:

• It was sent by NASA on the Perseverence and made by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
• It works like a tree, splitting carbon dioxide absorbed from the atmosphere to produce pure oxygen.
• The instrument produced 6 grams of oxygen per hour, similar to a moderate-sized tree.
• Inside Moxie, Martian air is first filtered in and pressurised.
• It is then sent through the Solid OXide Electrolyzer (SOXE), which electrochemically splits the carbon dioxide-rich air into oxygen ions and carbon monoxide.
• The oxygen ions are isolated and recombined to form breathable, molecular oxygen (O2).

ANSWER: B

• Global Fintech Fest (GFF) is the largest fintech conference, jointly organized by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the Payments Council of India (PCI), and the Fintech Convergence Council (FCC).
• It Aim is to provide a singular platform for fintech leaders to foster collaborations and develop a blueprint for the future of the industry.
• GFF is a platform where policymakers, regulators, industry leaders, academics, and all major FinTech ecosystem stakeholders converge once a year to exchange ideas, share insights, and drive innovation.
• GFF’23 Theme: Global Collaboration for a Responsible Financial Ecosystem.
• The theme of GFF 2023 highlights the critical need for global collaboration to build a financial ecosystem that is inclusive, resilient, and sustainable.

FINTECH:

• Fintech (Financial technology) is used to describe new technology that seeks to improve and automate the delivery and use of financial services.
• The key segments within the FinTech space include Digital Payments, Digital Lending, BankTech, and Cryptocurrency.
• FinTech spans various sectors, including education, retail banking, fundraising, nonprofit, and investment management, making it a rapidly growing industry with significant business expansion and job creation.

 ANSWER: B

• State Bank of India (SBI), the country’s largest bank, launched the ‘Nation First Transit Card’ to improve commuting experiences and encourage the use of digital payments.
• The innovative ‘Nation First Transit Card’ aims to simplify digital ticket fare payments within a single card for various transport modes including metro, buses, water ferries, parking, and more.
• Apart from transport payments, the card can also be used for retail and e-commerce transactions.
• The ‘Nation First Transit Card’ is powered by RuPay and National Common Mobility Card (NCMC) technology, making it a potential game-changer for millions of Indians in their daily commute.

 ANSWER: C

• At the ASEAN-India summit, the prime minister announced the decision to establish an Indian Embassy in Dili, Timor-Leste.
• Timor Leste joined the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2022 as an Observer, before becoming its full member.

ASEAN

• ASEAN is considered one of the most influential groupings in the region, and India and several other countries including the US, China, Japan, and Australia are its dialogue partners.
• ASEAN agrees to admit Timor- Leste as its 11th member
• Timor- Leste applied for membership of the ASEAN in 2011.
• It was officially recognised as an independent country by the United Nations in 2022, making it Asia’s youngest country.

ANSWER: D

• Novak Djokovic defeated Daniil Medvedev to win his fourth U.S. Open and a record-equalling 24th Grand Slam singles title, avenging his loss to the Russian in the final two years ago.
• The Serbian is the first man to win three Grand Slam events in the same season four times, crowning his impending return to world number one in the most fitting of ways inside Arthur Ashe Stadium.