Current Affairs Quiz - February 2022

Notes:
North Korea has confirmed that it fired a Hwasong-12 mid-range ballistic missile. This is the first time it has tested a weapon of that size since 2017.
Japan and South Korea detected the launch of the intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), which is the seventh weapons test done by North Korea this month.

Notes:
Italian President Sergio Mattarella has been elected to a second term in the recent round of elections.
Mattarella was reconfirmed with a broad majority, in the voting done by lawmakers and regional representatives. The 80-year old Jurist-Academic has been serving as the country’s President since 2015.

Notes:
Manipur got its first-ever good freight train connectivity post independence, as the first freight train arrived at the Rani Gaidinliu station of the north-eastern state.
Earlier, a passenger train from Silchar in Assam reached the Bongaichungpao railway station in Manipur. This is a part of the 111 km long Jiribam-Imphal new line project, which will connect Imphal with Guwahati.

Notes:
US President Joe Biden designated Qatar a major non-NATO ally, during a meeting with the ruling leader of Qatar at the White House.
This is seen as a symbolic honour to Qatar for its assistance with evacuations from Afghanistan and in ending last year’s Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

Notes:
Italian Space Agency, the Italian Ministry of Defense and the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Scientific Research funded the Cosmo-SkyMed Second Generation FM2 (CSG-2) satellite.
It was launched aboard the two-stage SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket by SpaceX from Florida station. The system consists of two satellites, which are designed to observe Earth using synthetic aperture radar (SAR).

Notes:
Antonio Costa is serving as the current Prime Minister of Portugal since 2015. The 60-year old leader of Socialist Party has been re-elected for the second term in the snap general election.
The vote was called in November last year after former Communist and Left Bloc allies joined the right to strike down his minority government budget.

Notes:
Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL) has commenced India’s first-of-its-kind project of mixing Hydrogen into Natural gas system at Indore, Madhya Pradesh.
The hydrogen blended natural gas will be supplied to Avantika Gas Limited, one of GAIL’s Joint Venture Company with HPCL, which is operating in Indore. This is a pilot project to establish the feasibility of blending hydrogen in City Gas Distribution (CGD) network.

Notes:
The Union Budget has reduced the Alternate Minimum Tax (AMT) to be paid by Cooperative societies to 15 per cent.
At present, cooperative societies are required to pay AMT at the rate of 18.5 per cent, while companies pay the same at 15 per cent. The Budget proposed to reduce the surcharge from the 12 per cent to 7 per cent, for cooperatives with total income of Rs 1 crore up to Rs 10 crore.

Notes:
Two new Ramsar sites were announced on the occasion of World Wetlands Day. They are: Khijadiya wildlife sanctuary in Gujarat and Bakhira wildlife sanctuary in Uttar Pradesh.
India has a network of 49 such sites covering 10,93,636 hectares, which is the highest in South Asia. The Union Environment Ministry had earlier notified the Sultanpur National Park and Bhindawas wildlife sanctuary in Jhajjar as Ramsar sites in Haryana.

Notes:
An ancient temple dating from the early centuries of Buddhism has been unearthed in the Swat Valley in northern Pakistan.
The temple dates from about the middle of the second century BCE, at a time when Gandhara was ruled by the Indo-Greek kingdom. It was built above an earlier Buddhist temple that may have dated from as early as the third century BCE.