Notes:
Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs (MoHUA) launched the Swachhata Start-Up Challenge to encourage innovative start-ups to transform the sanitation and waste management sector.
The challenge has been launched in partnership with Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) and Agence Française de Développement (AFD). It seeks to promote enterprise development under Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban 2.0 (SBM-U 2.0).

Notes:
The drug regulator has granted Serum Institute of India’s Covishield and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin Covid-19 vaccines “conditional market authorisation”.
Since January last year, the two vaccines have been available under “Emergency Use Authorisation” (EUA). They have to submit the safety and efficacy data every six months, under the new authorisation against 15 days earlier. This is different from the Full Market Authorisation.

Notes:
The National Conference on Agriculture for Summer Campaign 2021-22 was held through video conference. It is also called as Zaid Conference. Zaid crops are grown between Kharif and Rabi Seasons
Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Kumar Tomar attended the conference. The objective is to review the crop performance during the preceding crop seasons and fix crop-wise targets for the next summer season in consultation with State Governments.

Notes:
‘International Customs Day’ is observed every year on January 26, across the world with the United Nations as the host. It recognises the role of customs officials and agencies in ensuring flow of goods across the world borders.
The Customs Cooperation Council (CCC) announced the observance of ICD in 1953. CCC was renamed as World Customs Organization (WCO) in 1994. The theme of 2022 is ‘Scaling up Customs Digital Transformation by Embracing a Data Culture and Building a Data Ecosystem’.

Notes:
The 2022 Winter Olympics, officially the XXIV Olympic Winter Games is scheduled to take place from 4 to 20 February 2022 in Beijing and its neighbouring town in China.
A report released by Sport Ecology Group and Save Our Winters has stated the dangers of artificial snow to be produced in the Olympics on athletes’ bodies. It also warned on water wastage that happens for the snow at these games.