Current Affairs Quiz - December, 2022

Notes:
Passport Index 2022, published by Arton Capital, is the ranking of the world’s strongest and weakest passports.
India has ranked 87 in the world’s strongest passport list, while UAE ranked first, followed by Germany, Sweden, Finland, Luxembourg, Spain France. While Afghanistan stood last, Pakistan stood at 94.

Notes:
Haryana Government issues orders which prohibit dismissing an employee without a proper enquiry. The move comes after a recommendation of Punjab and Haryana high court which states that authorities have been ignoring the law regarding dismissal of an employee under Article 311 (2) (b) of the Constitution.
Article 311 empowers the competent authority to dismiss, remove or reduce in rank a government employee subject to various riders.

Notes:
Bernard Arnault & family, who own the LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton group of luxury brands, were briefly placed in the top position on Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaires List.
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk was at second position for a while after a fall in his automobile company Tesla’s shares. With a net worth of USD 185.4 billion, Musk is now again followed in the Forbes list by Arnault at USD 184.7 billion

Notes:
The delegations from Sweden and Nepal last week visited the National Health Authority (NHA), to study India’s Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana.
NHA is the government department that is responsible for implementing the PMJAY scheme. The health assurance scheme aims to provide a health cover of ₹5 lakh per family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospitalization to over 100 million poor families.

Notes:
Sushmita Shukla, Indian-origin veteran of the insurance industry, has been appointed as First Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
The appointment was approved by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System of New York. She has been appointed as First Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, effective March 2023, as the second-ranking officer.

Notes:
Major social media company Twitter said it would let users buy subscriptions to Twitter Blue to get a blue checkmark and access special features.
Twitter is attempting to launch its premium service, a month after a previous attempt failed. The blue checkmark was originally given to companies, celebrities, government entities and journalists verified by the platform.

Notes:
Union MSME Minister Narayan Rane stated in a written reply in the Lok Sabha that more than 8,40,000 jobs created by Startups in country.
These jobs have been generated by 84 thousand government recognized start-ups. The start-ups are spread in 640 districts with 45 percent of them being from tier-2 and tier-3 cities. Over 100 Indian start-ups have achieved the status of Unicorn.

Notes:
A Japanese start-up ispace Inc launched the country’s first-ever Moon mission with the help of SpaceX.
A Japanese lunar lander carrying two rovers and payload lifted off via a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. It also became the first commercial spacecraft to land on the moon. The launch of Hakuto-R lander was originally scheduled for late November 2022.

Notes:
Ministry of Culture has set up seven Zonal Cultural Centres (ZCCs) with headquarters at seven places namely Patiala, Nagpur, Udaipur, Prayagraj, Kolkata, Dimapur and Thanjavur.
These centers aim to conserve and develop art, culture and crafts across the country. The government provides regular annual grant-in-aid for conducting various activities and programmes to ZCCs. ZCCs organize a minimum 42 Regional Festivals for promotion of art and culture every year.

Notes:
South Africa and Kenya have recently announced the Just Transition Initiative to tackle plastic pollution in an inclusive manner.
The Just Transition initiative was launched in the aftermath of negotiations on Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) to phase out plastic held in Uruguay. The initiative aims to create decent work opportunities for waste-pickers and other workers in the plastic value chain.