Daily Current Affairs Quiz: September 15,2021

ANSWER: A

WHY IN NEWS?

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi has inaugurated the Sardardham Bhavan in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, via video conferencing. He also performed the “Bhoomi Pujan” of the Sardardham Phase-II Kanya Chhatralaya (girls’ hostel) project.
• Both these establishments are dedicated to the “Iron Man of India,” Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. The project is developed by the Vishwa Patidar Samaj.
• The state-of-the-art Sardardham Bhavan provides separate hostel facilities to girls and boys from rural areas who aspire for better career prospects.
• Phase I of the Sardardham Bhavan project is built over an area of 11,672 square feet at an estimated cost of Rs 200 crore, near the Vaishnodevi circle in the Ahmedabad-Gandhinagar border area. It will house 1,600 students, including 800 boys and 800 girls.
• The Phase II of the Sardardham project is expected to house around 2,000 girl students. The project will be built at the cost of another Rs 200 crore.

ANSWER: B

WHY IN NEWS?

• India’s largest open-air fernery has been inaugurated in Ranikhet of Uttarakhand. The new centre will serve the dual objective of ‘conservation of fern species as well as ‘create awareness about their ecological role and promote further research.
• The fernery is home to a large number of fern species, some of which are endemic to the state, some hold medicinal value while some are threatened species that demand care and conservation.
• The Ranikhet fernery has around 120 different types of fern, spreads over four acres of land at an altitude of 1,800 metres.
• The facility has been developed under Central Government’s Compensatory Afforestation Management Funds Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) scheme, by the Research Wing of Uttarakhand Forest Department over a period of three years.

ANSWER: C

WHY IN NEWS?

• Former managing director of Mahindra & Mahindra Pawan Kumar Goenka has been appointed as the chairperson of the Indian National Space Promotion Authorization Centre (In-SPACe). During his R&D tenure in M&M, he led the development of the Scorpio SUV.
• IN-SPACe functions as an independent nodal agency under the Department of Space, Government of India. Goenka, an IIT alumnus, had been associated with two major automobile companies – General Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra – in his professional career that spanned over four decades. He retired as the MD of the company on April 1, 2021, after spending 27 years with the Mahindra Group.

ANSWER: D

WHY IN NEWS?

• Author Susanna Clarke won the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2021 for her novel ‘Piranesi’. Novelist and Booker-winner Bernardine Evaristo chaired the Women’s Prize judging panel this year.
• ‘Piranesi’ is narrated by a man living in a labyrinthine, statue-filled house — alone except for a visitor known as the Other — that comprises his whole universe.
• Susanna Clarke: English author known for her debut novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.

ANSWER: D

WHY IN NEWS?

• Daniel Ricciardo (McLaren, Australian-Italian) has won the Formula One Italian Grand Prix 2021 title held at Autodromo Nazionale Monza track, Italy. This is the first victory for McLaren in 9 years.
• Lando Norris came second while Valtteri Bottas came third in the F1 race. Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen crash out of Italian Grand Prix 2021 due to collision.

ANSWER: C

WHY IN NEWS?

• Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel has announced the launch of ‘Millet Mission’, which aims to provide proper price rates to farmers for minor cereal crops.
• The initiative is also a step towards the Chief Minister’s vision for the state to become India’s millet hub.
• To implement the mission, the state government has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Indian Institute of Millet Research (IIMR), Hyderabad and the collectors of 14 districts of the state.
• Other important benefits under the Millet Mission to farmers will include input assistance for millet, procurement arrangements, aid farmers in the processing of crops and ensure that the farmers get the benefit of the expertise of experts.

ANSWER: A

WHY IN NEWS?

• Civil aviation minister Jyotiradtiya Scindia has launched a first of its kind “Medicine from the Sky” project in Telangana. The project has aimed at transporting vaccines and other essential products to remote areas using drones.
• The Medicine from the Sky project will be taken up on a pilot basis in 16 green zones in Telangana and later scaled up on the national level based on data.
• “This ‘Medicines from the Sky’ project will be taken up in 16 green zones.
• The data will be analysed for three months.
• Along with the health ministry, IT ministry, state government and the Centre will together analyse the data and make a model for the whole country.

ANSWER: D

WHY IN NEWS?

• Nuakhai Juhar, the agrarian festival of Western Odisha, was celebrated with religious fervour and tradition. It is celebrated 1 day after the celebration of Ganesh Chaturthi.
• Nuakhai is a crop festival celebrated by people of Western Odisha and Southern Chhattisgarh, to welcome the new rice of the season. Nua means new and khai means food. So, the festival of nuakhai is a festival to celebrate newly harvested food by the farmers

ANSWER: B

WHY IN NEWS?

• Haryana has topped among all other states of the country in terms of installation of off-grid solar pumps under Pradhan Mantri Kisan Urja Suraksha Evam Utthan Mahaabhiyaan (PM-KUSUM), as per the data by the Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy.
• Haryana has installed 14,418 pumps against 15,000 sanctioned pumps for the year 2020-21. Haryana was given a target of 15,000 pumps for the year 2020-21 with a total cost of Rs 520 crore.
• The centrally-sponsored PM-KUSUM scheme was launched in 2019 with the target to install 20 lakh standalone solar pumps.
• Under this scheme, farmers have to bear 40 per cent of the pump’s cost, while the central and state governments subsidize the remaining 60 per cent for solar pumps that have a capacity of up to 10 HP.
• However, Haryana and some other states have provided additional top-up on the subsidies, which has reduced the farmer’s share to less than 25 per cent

ANSWER: A

WHY IN NEWS?

• Justice  Venugopalhas been named as the new Acting Chairperson of the appellate tribunal, National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT). This is the third time in a row that an Acting Chairperson is at the helm of the NCLAT, after the retirement of permanent Chairperson Justice S J . Mukhopadhaya on March 14, 2020.
• The NCLAT was constituted under Section 410of the Companies Act, 2013 for hearing appeals against the orders of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT).
• It is also an appellate tribunal for hearing appeals against the orders passed by NCLT under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), and by the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI).
• It is also the appellate tribunal to hear and dispose of appeals against any direction issued or decision made or order passed by the Competition Commission of India (CCI).