- Ankur Sachdev
Current Affairs Dated November 28, 2021
The current affairs updates for this week will cover a total of 10 different national and international events. The content has been curated to tell you about the number of Covid-19 cases across India as well.
The topics that we will talk about are Portugal becoming the 4th country to stop burning coal, WhatsApp’s 2 new safety features, and the Reserve Bank of India imposing a monetary penalty of ₹1 crore on the State Bank of India, to mention a few.
Current Affairs Dated November 22, 2021 (Monday)
Corona Cases
The number of Corona Cases across India was as follows:
Confirmed - 3,45,18,901
Recovered - 3,39,34,547
Deceased - 4,65,911
Delay In E2E Encryption For Facebook Messenger And Instagram
E2E, or End-to-End encryption, has been keeping Meta’s messaging services going for many people. It guarantees that your conversations are safe and no one has access to read them except for you and the receiver.
WhatsApp is way ahead in comparison to Facebook Messenger and Instagram. Meta initiated the process to roll out the security feature earlier in 2016. It was expected to complete the roll out; however, it has been delayed until 2023. E2E encryption worked for users who accessed the Secret Conversation feature on the platform.
The reason has not been revealed but Antigone Davis, the Head of Safety at Meta, has assured that the company is working with experts to get the roll out of E2E encryption right in its current attempt.
No Coal Burning In Portugal
The Southern European country has become the 4th EU country to stop burning coal. Portugal has declared that it will not burn coal to produce electricity.
The three EU countries that implemented a similar action before Portugal are Belgium, Austria, and Sweden. Belgium stopped using coal in 2016 and Austria & Sweden stopped using coal to produce electricity last year. Portugal took the decision after its last coal-fired plant did not generate electricity.
The campaign director for Europe Beyond Coal, Kathrin Gutmann, said that the driving force behind countries taking such a decision was the public's desire for climate action along with coal’s dire economics. The coalition aims to phase out the usage of coal in Europe by 2030.
Current Affairs Dated November 23, 2021 (Tuesday)
Corona Cases
The number of Corona Cases across India as reported on Aarogya Setu App was as follows:
Confirmed - 3,45,26,480
Recovered - 3,39,46,749
Deceased - 4,66,147
China To Tighten Its Control For Better Internet Environment
The dictatorship prevails in the name of democracy and attempts are made to create a better environment by curbing the online activities of the citizens. China surprises everyone almost every day with such highlights.
The central internet regulator of China, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), has announced that it would take measures to tighten the supervision on how celebrity information is disseminated on the internet. The move comes amid China’s attempts to crackdown the fan culture in the country.
The regulator has said that the decision has been taken to ensure that a positive and healthy virtual environment is created in China. Some measures that would be taken include controlling the personal details of celebrities that are published on the internet and where their advertisements are placed on different internet sites.
WhatsApp Comes Up With Two More Safety Features
An instant messaging platform is as safe as its features make it safe. This goes for every platform that has been developed. The one that we will be talking about is Meta’s WhatsApp.
WhatsApp, in a bid to make the users feel safer, has come up with two more features. These features are Flash Calls and Message Level Reporting. Flash Call is about verifying that a user is an actual person who is not trying to imitate someone else. He or she would get an automated call on top of SMS at the time of registration. The call would happen within the app itself.
Message Level Reporting enables a user to quickly report a message to WhatsApp. A user will have to long-press a message to report or block the sender of the message. Both the features are additions to the existing safety features. Similar privacy features are scheduled to be launched for the desktop version as well. The features are currently for Android users only and iOS users will have to wait a little longer.
Current Affairs Dated November 24, 2021 (Wednesday)
Corona Cases
The number of Corona Cases across India was as follows:
Confirmed - 3,45,35,763
Recovered - 3,39,57,698
Deceased - 4,66,584
Reddit To Shutdown Dubsmash
The trend of creating short videos appears to be everlasting. The sentence sounds confusing but hold on for a while.
Dubsmash will be taken off the digital world on February 22, 2022. Reddit made this announcement and added that it plans to integrate the app with its platform. The video-sharing social network was acquired by Reddit in 2020 for an undisclosed amount. Since then, Reddit witnessed a rise in the graph in terms of watch hours by 70% and daily activities by 30%.
In simple words, Dubsmash will now be a complete part of Reddit. The decision is reportedly driven by the success achieved by TikTok, Instagram’s Reel, and YouTube’s Shorts.
PMGKAY Extended Till March 2022
The beneficiaries will continue to receive the relief of free ration till March 2022 as the Union Cabinet has decided to extend PM Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana, also known as PMGKAY.
The relief was initially scheduled to end on November 30, 2021. However, Anurag Thakur, a member of Lok Sabha, announced that PMGKAY had been extended. The beneficiaries who are covered by the National Food Security Act will continue to receive the free ration. The extension comes in the wake of economic disruption that has been caused due to the Covid-19 outbreak.
The extension is expected to cost a food subsidy of around ₹64,031, with almost 163 lakh metric tonnes of food grains to be counted as the outgo. The Central Government provides 5 kilograms of food grains every day to 80 crore beneficiaries for free.
Current Affairs Dated November 25, 2021 (Thursday)
Corona Cases
The number of Corona Cases across India as reported on Aarogya Setu App was as follows:
Confirmed - 3,45,44,882
Recovered - 3,39,67,962
Deceased - 4,66,980
A 12-Hour Prime Minister
Sweden got its first-ever Prime Minister in history but her term turned out to be short-lived. Magdalena Andersson resigned within 12 hours of becoming the first woman Prime Minister of Sweden.
The first female Prime Minister of Sweden, Magdalena Andersson, resigned from her position within 12 hours of assuming it. Her resignation came in after her government failed to get the financial budget cleared in the Parliament. This led to the Green Party quitting the Parliament.
The bill also faced a refusal from the Center Party. The coalition remains united to keep Sweden Democrats away from the role in the Government due to its anti-immigration policies but the future of Magdalena Andersson remains in dark. She is expected to be put forward for a new vote in the coming days by the Speaker of the Parliament.
More Employment Opportunities In Tamil Nadu
Employment Opportunities are expected to increase in Tamil Nadu. The credit goes to the Government for signing a Memorandum of Understanding with 59 companies.
The MoUs signed by the MK Stalin-led Government are collectively worth approximately ₹35,200 crores. The MoUs signed at the investors’ summit will generate employment for 76,795 people in the state.
Companies that have signed the MoU are L&T, TVS, and Adani Enterprises, to name a few. The pacts are related to the businesses like data centers, retail outlets, and aerospace. The Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu expressed his confidence in achieving the goal of becoming a 1-trillion dollar economy.
Current Affairs Dated November 26, 2021 (Friday)
Corona Cases
The number of Corona Cases across India was as follows:
Confirmed - 3,45,55,431
Recovered - 3,39,77,830
Deceased - 4,67,468
A New AR Game Is In Town
Fold AR runs in the same metaverse as that of Pokemon Go. The players would find a lot of familiarities but with one major difference.
The AR game has been launched by Niantic, the maker of Pokemon Go, and Fold, a payment company. Fold AR leverages the trend of Cryptocurrency by allowing the players to earn rewards after every 10 minutes. The rewards are offered in terms of Bitcoin.
Players will have to click a block to solve the puzzle and earn the reward. As a surprise, a player may end up receiving a Poison Pill, something that restricts a player to play the game for 60 minutes. Fold AR is available in the Fold App. It can be played by visiting the Play section in Fold App.
The State Bank Of India Will Have To Loosen Its Pockets
Certain rules have to be followed even if you are one of the biggest banks in India. This became more evident after the Reserve of India imposed a monetary penalty on the State Bank of India.
The monetary penalty imposed by RBI is worth ₹1 crore. The penalty levied on SBI for violating subsection (2) of Section 19 of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949 (theAct), is now due to be paid by SBI. Basically, the amount of shares held by SBI as a pledge in its borrower companies exceeded 30% of their paid-up shares.
This affected the value of SBI shares on the exchange board. The shares of SBI underperformed as compared to the benchmark of 3.58% settled by NIFTY Bank. The value of SBI shares dropped by 4.09%.
This is all for this week's current affairs.
*Disclaimer: The information has been presented in this blog after reviewing various news articles. In case you find any article, or if you have any article, that states some facts differently, then share them in the comment section. Please keep the publishing date of the article in mind as it may be an update on the article which was published previously, or it may contain outdated information if it was published before the date mentioned in this blog. The blogger is not responsible for any transaction that happens between the reader and the brand.