Current Affairs December 2021

India’s First Indigenous Hydrogen Fuel Cell Bus

India’s first indigenously developed and manufactured Hydrogen fuel cell bus was launched on 15 December 2021 in Pune. CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory (NCL) and CSIR-Central Electrochemical Research Institute (CECRI) developed the Hydrogen Fuel Cell Technology in collaboration with Sentient Labs, an R&D innovation lab incubated by KPIT Technologies.

PM Inaugurated Kanpur Metro Rail

 First phase of Kanpur Metro Rail was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 28 December 202. The highlight of this project are given below.

Main Points of Kanpur Metro

  • The First Phase completed 9 km long section from IIT-Kanpur to Moti Jheel area in Kanpur city has been inaugurated by PM Narendra Modi.
  • He inspected the Kanpur Metro Rail Project and took a metro ride from the IIT metro station to Geeta Nagar.
  • The entire length of the project in Kanpur is 32 km and is being built at a cost of over Rs 11,000 crore.
  • The work on Kanpur Metro started on November 15, 2019.
  • Daily commercial operations will begin from December 31, 2021.
  • The European Investment Bank (EIB) has proposed to invest 650 million euro in Kanpur Metro, its second-biggest operation outside the EU till date. EIB is the European Union’s official bank and the world’s largest international public bank. The EIB had earlier sanctioned a 450 million euro loan for the development of Lucknow Metro.

Purvanchal Expressway passes through 9 districts of Uttar Pradesh

  • Purvanchal Expressway is a 340.8 Km long, 6-lane wide (expandable to 8) access controlled expressway.
  • This Expressway is India’s longest expressway.
  • 3.2 km long airstrip constructed on the Expressway in Sultanpur district.
  • PM inaugurates Purvanchal Expressway on 16 November 2021.
  • This expressway connects  Chand Saray in Lucknow District  with Haydaria village on NH-31 in Ghazipur district.
  • It passes through 9 districts of Uttar Pradesh i.e. (from west to east) Lucknow, Barabanki, Amethi, Sultanpur, Ayodhya, Ambedkar Nagar, Azamgarh, Mau and Ghazipur.

Badminton World Championship: Srikanth Kidambi and Lakshya Sen wins Medal

Badminton World Federation (BWF) World championship 2021  was held between 12th December 2021 and 19th December 2021 in Huelva, Spain.  Srikanth Kidambi and Lakshya Sen of India won the Men’s Singles Silver and Bronze Medal respectively.

Winners of BWF World Championship 2021:

EventWinner (Gold)Runner up (Silver)Bronze
Men’s SinglesLoh Kean Yew (Singapore)Srikanth Kidambi (India) Lakshya Sen (India)
Women’s SinglesAkane Yamaguchi (Japan)Tai – Tzu Ying (Chinese Taipei)He Bingjiao (China)

Highlights

  • Srikanth Kidambi became the first ever Indian to reach the World Championships final in the men’s singles and win a silver medal.
  • Lakshya Sen, (Age 20 years) win the Bonze Medal in the tournament.
  • PV Sindhu fails to defend Women’s Singles World Championship title and she loses to Tai Tzu in quarterfinals

Largest Space Telescope James Webb

Largest and most Powerful space telescope named James Webb has been launched on 25th December 2021 from the French Guiana.

Highlights

  • James Webb is largest and most powerful space telescope.
  • NASA, European and Canadian space agencies jointly build and launched this space telescope.
  • It has been launched on December 25 (Christmas Day) 2021 from French Guiana Space Center. The Guiana Space Centre also called Europe’s Spaceport, is a French and European spaceport  in French Guiana, a region of France in South America. Operational since 1968, it is particularly suitable as a location for a spaceport.
  • European Ariane rocket was used to launch.
  • The space telescope will be located 1.6 million kilometers away from the earth.
  • James Webb Telescope use the infrared imaging to scanning the objects.