Current Affairs Quiz - April 2022

Notes:
A group of lawmakers have introduced a bill in US Congress to recapture nearly 3,80,000 unused family and employment-based visas.
The ‘Jumpstart our Legal Immigration System Act’ seeks to reduce Green Card backlog, particularly affecting immigrants from countries like India and China. It would allow immigrant US residents eligible for adjustment to Legal Permanent Residence (LPR) status.

Notes:
Indonesia is the world’s largest producer and exporter of Palm Oil. At present, the country is facing a palm oil crisis, due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Indonesia requires its exporters to set aside 30 per cent of palm oil products for domestic use, up from the previous 20 per cent, to tackle the shortage. Massive price spikes for food and energy caused by Ukraine War will push over 40 million people into extreme poverty. India, the world’s biggest buyer of edible oil, relies on Indonesia for over half of its palm oil imports.

Notes:
The National Medical Commission (NMC) has released draft guidelines on how the doctors will be registered to practice medicine.
The guidelines seek to create a dynamic national medical register, with a unique ID assigned to each student who qualifies NEET. Their professional qualification will be added to the same ID. At present, every state maintains its own medical register. The draft also includes guidelines for registration of foreign doctors who come to India for higher education.

Notes:
Mission Raftaar introduced by the Indian Railways in 2016-17 targeted an average speed of 50 kmph for mail/express and 75 kmph for freight trains by 2021-22.
A recent audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) found that travel time of trains has increased over the past few years, and overall punctuality of trains has declined. The punctuality of mail/express trains over IR declined from 79 per cent (2012-13) to 69.23 per cent (2018-19) at the terminating stations.

Notes:
On 7 April, UNESCO commemorates the International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.
The day was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 2003. The date marks the beginning of the genocide perpetrated against members of the Tutsi minority by the Hutu extremist-led government. Over 1 million Tutsi were systematically murdered along with Moderate Hutu and others who opposed the massacres.

Notes:
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has scrapped the charges levied on USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Services Data) messages.
USSD enables financial and banking transactions in feature phones. So far, the charge was 50 paise per USSD session. A charge of 50 paise per USSD session has been deducted so far.

Notes:
Hyderabad-based National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), one of the centres of the Indian Space Research Organisation, manages data from aerial and satellite sources.
Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and NRSC have signed a pact for technical collaboration. NRSC would be developing ‘Bhuvan-Aadhar’ portal providing information and locations of the Aadhaar centres across India.

Notes:
The Defence Ministry announced that 25% of the domestic capital procurement budget, amounting to more than Rs. 21,000 crore will be earmarked for private industries in the financial year of 2022-23.
Rs. 1500 crore will be earmarked for procurement from start-ups. Ministry of Defence had earlier decided to earmark 68% of the capital procurement budget for the entire domestic industry during the financial year of 2022-23.

Notes:
IIT Madras researchers have launched the country’s first Made-in-India polycentric prosthetic knee called ‘Kadam’.
It was developed by a team at TTK Center for Rehabilitation Research and Device Development (R2D2) at IIT Madras. The affordable prosthetic knee can increase community participation, access to education, livelihood opportunities.

Notes:
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami launched the ‘Corruption-Free Uttarakhand App-1064’.
The application aims to make the state corruption-free and ensure that governance in the state is carried out in a transparent manner. The application will be available in both Hindi and English.