Current Affairs

Quad

About: 

• It is a four-nation alliance of India, Australia, USA and Japan which was established in 2007. 
• It is often dubbed as an "Asian" or "mini" NATO, and is viewed as a counterbalance to China's military and economic clout in the Indo-Pacific region. 
• The 2020 US-China Economic and Security Review Commission shows China's growing power projection along the Indian Ocean rim with military or economic activities in countries like Pakistan Sri Lanka, Maldives, Myanmar and Bangladesh.
• Interestingly, the QUAD, which used to be known as the quadrilateral security dialogue, is now known as the quadrilateral framework to indicate it has gone beyond a narrow security dialogue.

Evolution: 

• The group, which began with an ambitious geostrategic vision 14 years ago, failed to take off initially due to hesitation among the four nations and objections by China 
• In December 2012, Shinzo Abe again floated the concept of Asia’s “Democratic Security Diamond “involving Australia, India, Japan and the USA to safeguard the maritime commons from the Indian Ocean to the western Pacific.
• In November 2017, India, the USA, Australia and Japan gave shape to the longpending "QUAD" Coalition to develop a new strategy to keep the critical sea routes in the Indo-Pacific free of any influence (especially China). 
• Since then, QUAD has taken several steps to bolster military and strategicties with a series of working- and ministerial-level meetings

Participation in Malabar Exercise: 

• In 2020, all four QUAD Countries - Japan, India, Australia and the USA took part in the Malabar exercise. 
• Malabar exercise is an annual trilateral naval exercise between the navies of India, Japan, and the USA which is held alternately in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. 

Grammy Awards 

• Popularly known as Grammy Award, it is originally named Gramophone Award, presented annually in the United States by the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences (NARAS; commonly called the Recording Academy) to honour artistes in the music industry for their exceptional work in a year. 
• It was started in 1959 to respect the performers for the year 1958. Once it was made, the committee decided to call it Grammy as a tribute to Emile Berliner’s gramophone. 

Categories 

• The “General Field” are four awards that are not restricted by genre: 
• Album of the Year 
• Record of the Year 
• Song of the Year 
• Best New Artiste
  Winners are selected from more than 25 fields, which cover such genres as pop, rock, rap, R&B, country, reggae, classical, gospel, and jazz, as well as production and postproduction work, including packaging and album notes. The honorees receive a golden statuette of a gramophone.