Daily Current Affairs Today MCQ : 08 February 2023 Quiz

Australia’s T20 World Cup-winning captain Aaron Finch has announced his retirement from the T20Is, this brings an end to his international cricket career for Australia spanning 12 years.

Earlier, the opening batsman had announced retirement from the 50-over format in September last year. Finch also played five Test matches for Australia.

Aaron Finch career:

Finch made his international cricket debut in a T20I against England in 2011. He made his ODI debut against Sri Lanka in 2013.

Finch made his Test debut against Pakistan in 2018. Finch became a permanent part of the leadership group in the absence of regular captain Steve Smith and vice-captain Warner.

Finch retires from T20I cricket after 103 caps for Australia, leading the country in 76 of those matches.

He retires as Australia’s leading run-getter in the format, having scored 3120 runs at an average of 34.28 and a strike rate of 142.5.

His career-best 172 came against Zimbabwe in 2018 and is also the best individual score in the format.

Anil Agarwal-led Vedanta Ltd named David Reed as the CEO of its semiconductor unit, where it is looking to invest USD 20 billion to manufacture chips essential for mobile phones to laptops and TV sets..

The group is planning to start manufacturing semiconductors at Gujarat’s Dholera in two to three years.

Reed was previously the Executive Vice President and General Manager of Global Operations at NXP Semiconductors.

In September 2022, Vedanta signed an MoU with Gujarat government to set up India’s first semiconductor fab unit, a display fab unit, and a semiconductor assembling and testing unit in the state.

Vedanta Group has earlier announced that the group has earmarked investments of up to USD 20 billion for semiconductor business, and it plans to invest USD 15 billion in the first 10 years.

Vedanta will look at making a 28 nanometer (nm) chipset.

The semiconductors will be manufactured in joint venture with Taiwanese electronics company Foxconn. Vedanta holds a 63 per cent interest and the remaining is with Foxconn in the joint venture.

Vedanta Limited:

Industry: Mining, Oil and Gas, Electric utility

Founded: 1979

Headquarters: Mumbai, India

Chairperson: Anil Agarwal

CEO: Sunil Duggal

Google has announced that it will launch an artificial intelligence chatbot called ’Bard’ in the coming weeks.

The new AI-powered chatbot is based on Google’s LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications) technology and draws on information from the web to "provide fresh, high-quality responses".

It can help people explain complex topics, such as discoveries from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, to a 9-year-old, or learn about the best football players and get training drills to build skills.

ChatGPT was introduced in the month of November last year. Since then, OpenAI has revealed the extraordinary capabilities of ChatGPT and its impact on daily lives. Google has been working on AI for the past six years and it has finally revealed Bard.

Google is releasing Bard initially with a lightweight model version of LaMDA, which requires less computing power, making it easier to scale to more users and get more feedback. The company plans to combine external feedback with its internal testing to enhance Bard’s responses and to ensure higher ’quality, safety and groundedness in real-world information’.

ChatGPT:

ChatGPT is an AI chatbot system.

The Yuva Sangam is an initiative of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to build close ties between the youth of the North East Region and rest of India under the spirit of Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat.

Under the initiative over 20 thousand youth will travel across the country and gain a unique opportunity of cross-cultural learning.

The program is an opportunity for the youth of the North East to explore the country.This Wide Cultural Exchange Program will also give an opportunity to the country’s youth to celebrate the ancient culture and natural diversity of India. Out of one thousand, 300 students will be from the North East region.

’Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat, Yuva Sangam’, the youth of 18 years to 30 years will get an opportunity to see different states of the country, to understand their art, culture and languages.

Second year law student at Harvard Law School, Apsara A. Iyer has been elected the 137th president of the Harvard Law Review.

She is the first Indian American woman to hold the position.

Harvard Law Review, was founded in 1887 and is among the oldest student-run legal scholarship publications.

Apsara Iyer’s distinguished predecessors in the role include Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and former president Barack Obama.

She aims to include more editors in the process of reviewing and selecting articles and upholding the publication’s reputation for “high-quality” work.

Apsara Iyer:

Iyer graduated from Yale in 2016 and received a bachelor’s degree in Economics and Math and Spanish.

Iyer worked in the office in 2018 before coming to the Law School, and took a leave of absence after her first year studying law to return to the role.

Iyer has previously been involved in the Law School’s Harvard Human Rights Journal and the National Security Journal and is also a member of the South Asian Law Students Association.

Indore Municipal Corporation has ranked top in cleanliness survey for six consecutive years, has become the country’s first civic body to launch green bonds, seeking to raise Rs 244 crore for a 60-mw solar plant at its water pumping station.

The public issues of the green bonds will be open for subscription from February 10-14. The issue will be listed on the National Stock Exchange.

The drinking water department of the city administration spends over Rs 300 crore in annual electricity charges. Its Juladh pumping station, by the Narmada river falling in the Khargone district, is the biggest pumping station for the city.

The balance amount will come from the Centre: Rs 41 crore as viability gap funding and Rs 26 crore or 13 per cent special incentives that the Centre offers to municipalities for launching bonds. The Centre caps this 13 per cent incentive for only up to Rs 200 crore of bond sales.

Green bonds:

A green bond is a debt security issued by an organization for the purpose of financing or refinancing projects that contribute positively to the environment and/or climate. A green bond is alternatively known as a climate bond.

Pakistan’s former president General Pervez Musharraf, who seized power in a coup in 1999, has died aged 79.

The former leader - who was president between 2001 and 2008 - died in Dubai after a long illness.

He had survived numerous assassination attempts, and found himself on the front line of the struggle between militant Islamists and the West.

He supported the US "war on terror" after 9/11 despite domestic opposition.

In 2008 he suffered defeat in the polls and left the country six months later.

When he returned in 2013 to try to contest the election, he was arrested and barred from standing. He was charged with high treason and was sentenced to death in absentia only for the decision to be overturned less than a month later.

He left Pakistan for Dubai in 2016 to seek medical treatment and had been living in exile in the country ever since.

The Nepal Cricket Association has appointed former Indian cricketer Monty Desai as the head coach of the Nepal national cricket team.

He will replace another former Indian cricketer Manoj Prabhakar, who resigned from his post in December 2022. Nepal Cricket Association has signed a two-year deal with Monty Desai.

Monty has been the head coach of teams like West Indies, Canada, UAE. Monty has also served as the head coach of the Rajasthan Royals team in the Indian Premier League (IPL).

A total of 24 people had applied following a call for application by the CAN for the post of the national coach of Nepali national cricket team.

Nepal is currently preparing for the triangular one-day series as part of the ICC Men’s World Cup Cricket League Two tournament.

The tournament featuring Nepal, Scotland and Namibia is being held in Nepal from February 14.

Nepal:

Capital: Kathmandu

President: Bidhya Devi Bhandari

Prime minister: Pushpa Kamal Dahal

Currency: Nepalese Rupee

Managing Director & CEO, Manappuram Finance Ltd, VP Nandakumar has bagged the Hurun India’s award for his remarkable achievements in the world of business.

He received The Hurun Industry Achievement Award 2022 from top Hurun India officials at a function held in Mumbai.

Adi Godrej, chairman, Godrej Group, Cyrus S Poonawalla, Managing Director, Serum Institute of India Ltd, Kris Gopalakrishnan, co-founder, Infosys Ltd and Sanjiv Goenka of RPG Group were the earlier recipients of this award.

India delivered fifty buses to Sri Lanka at the Presidential Secretariat premises as Sri Lanka celebrated its 75th Independence Day.

High Commissioner of India Gopal Baglay handed over the buses to Sri Lanka’s President Ranil Wickremesinghe.

Ashok Leyland, the commercial vehicle maker Ashok Leyland had bagged the contract for supplying 500 buses to the Sri Lank Transport Board.

The order is a part of a Line of Credit extended by the Export-Import Bank of India, under the Economic Assistance Scheme of the Indian government.

In January, India gave 75 buses as part of its support to strengthen the transport of its southern neighbor which is going through its worst economic crisis since the 1948 independence from the British colony.

India has handed over 165 buses so far, as the registration of 40 is already being done.

President Wickremesinghe has instructed to use all the buses received from India to strengthen the transport services in rural Sri Lanka.

India has also handed over 125 SUVs to the Sri Lanka Police under the line of credit to help with the mobility restriction issues faced by the security personnel.