Current Affairs - Current News

• On 20th October 2021, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) released Production Gap Report 2021.
• The Production Gap Report — first launched in 2019 — tracks the discrepancy between governments’ planned fossil fuel production and global production levels consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C or 2°C.

After the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD, also known as the Quad or QUAD) - a strategic dialogue between the United States, India, Japan and Australia, a new ‘Quad’ is emerging.

• Recently, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and his counterparts from Israel, the US and the UAE have agreed to establish a forum for economic cooperation at a virtual quadrilateral meeting (on 18 October 2021).

On 2nd October 2021, the Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) launched a web portal – ‘Wetlands of India Portal’.

• The portal is a single point access to all information relating to wetlands.

The Union Culture Ministry and International Buddhist Confederation, in association with the government of Uttar Pradesh, is organising the Abhidhamma Day (20th October 2021) on the auspicious occasion of Ashwin Poornima.

• The day marks the end of three-month rainy retreat - Varshavaas or Vassa - for the Buddhist monks and nuns during which time they stay at one place and pray.

Aiming to roll out an overhauled Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) from kharif 2022, the government has constituted a working group comprising officials from Centre, key crop-producing states and top executives of public sector insurance companies to suggest “sustainable, financial and operational models.”

On 16th October 2021, Lucy spacecraft was launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, USA.

• Lucy will be the first spacecraft to study Jupiter's Trojan Asteroids.
• As well as the Trojans, Lucy will do a fly-by of an asteroid in the solar system’s main asteroid belt, called Donald Johanson in honor of the lead discoverer of the fossilized human ancestor known as Lucy, from which the NASA mission takes its name.

Food systems worldwide depend on the labour of rural women.They raise and process crops, and prepare and distribute their products, ensuring that their families and communities are nourished.

• However, these same women often have less access to food, and suffer higher risk of hunger, malnutrition and food insecurity, when compared with men.

In the 2021 Global Hunger Index, India ranks 101st out of the 116 countries. Last year India was ranked at 94th.

• With a score of 27.5, India has a level of hunger that is ‘serious’.
• The report was prepared jointly by Irish aid agency Concern Worldwide and German organisation Welt Hunger Hilfe.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has issued a Small Finance Bank (SFB) licence to ‘Unity Small Finance Bank’ - a consortium of Centrum Financial Services Limited (CFSL), the small business lending arm of the Centrum Group, and Resilient Innovations Private Limited (BharatPe), a fintech company.

• This new bank license has been issued by the RBI after a gap of nearly 6 years.

On 12th October 2021, state-owned Power Finance Corporation Ltd (PFC) accorded the ‘Maharatna’ Status by Govt. of India.

• Incorporated in 1986, PFC is the largest Infrastructure Finance Company today, exclusively dedicated