Current Affairs Quiz - December, 2022

Notes:
US President nominated Joe Biden Indian American Richard Verma to top diplomatic position in State Department.
Indian-American lawyer Richard R. Verma has been appointed as the Deputy Secretary of state for management and resources. Verma is currently the chief legal officer and head of global public policy at Mastercard. He has previously served as the U.S. ambassador to India and assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs during former president Barack Obama’s tenure.

Notes:
As per a new research, two-thirds of Antarctica’s native species, including emperor penguins, are under threat of extinction or major population declines by 2100.
This is due to current trajectories of global heating. The study was conducted by scientists, conservationists and policymakers from 12 countries.  It has identified emperor penguins as the Antarctic species at greatest risk of extinction, followed by other seabirds and dry soil nematodes.

Notes:
Under Atal Innovation Mission, grant-in-aid of up to Rs. 10 crores for a maximum period of 5 years is provided to establish the Atal Incubation Centre (AIC)
Atal Incubation Centre (AIC) at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) recently signed agreements with MSMEs for incubation of newer technologies into commercial products.

Notes:
Taliban has banned women from working for domestic and foreign non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Afghanistan.
This order by has been condemned by the United Nations, which said the move violated fundamental rights.  The order of Taliban comes just days after female students were banned from universities.

Notes:
Sitiveni Rabuka has been elected as the new Prime Minister of Fiji, after his People’s Alliance party secured the backing of Social Liberal Democratic party.
Frank Bainimarama’s reign as leader of Fiji has ended almost 16 years since he made himself as the Prime Minister after a coup in 2006.

Notes:
The bar-headed goose, considered one the world’s highest flying birds, recently visited the Muttukadu backwaters in Tamil Nadu.
As many as seven bar-headed geese made a temporary stop at Muttukadu. Bar-headed geese, native to Central Asia, are capable of flying through the passes of the highest mountains with speedy winds freezing temperatures.

Notes:
The Indian Institute of Sciences (IISc), ARTPARK (AI and Robotics Technology Park) and Google have partnered together for ‘Project Vaani’ Initiative.
The digital project aims to map the language diversity of India by collecting speech sets of about a million people across 773 districts. The project aims to record over 150,000 hours of speech, part of which will be transcribed in local scripts. The goal is to boost development of automatic speech recognition, speech to speech translation and natural language understanding.

Notes:
As part of India’s G20 presidency, the Minister for Electronics & Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw has launched the ‘G20 Digital Innovation Alliance” (G20-DIA)’.
He also launched the ‘Stay Safe Online’ campaign to increase awareness about the safe practices to be used while being online. MeitY is the Nodal Ministry for the G20 Digital Economy Working Group (DEWG). During India’s G20 presidency, MeitY will focus on three priority areas, namely Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), Cyber Security, and Digital Skill Development.

Notes:
The US Census Bureau said the world’s population is projected to be at 7.9 billion on New Year’s Day 2023.
This is an increase of 73.7 million since January 2022 and an increase in global population of 0.9 percent over the previous year. The Census Bureau projected that there will be 4.3 births and two deaths globally every second in January 2023.

Notes:
‘Forks in the Road: My Days at RBI and Beyond’ book is a memoir of Dr C. Rangarajan, the 19th Governor of the Reserve Bank of India and a former Member of Parliament.
The book includes his journey as an economist and RBI Governor and sheds lights on some of the hidden truths surrounding India’s economic history including the account of 1991 reforms.