Current Affairs Quiz - February 2022

Notes:
The Delhi government has digitised the whole process of disbursement of Pension. The entire process, from filling the application form to disbursement of pension, will be online.
The Social Welfare Department of the state has implemented the process successfully. It also announced that there will be no hindrance or delay in pension cases.

Notes:
The ACT Accelerator is a multinational and multi-institutional initiative launched by G-20. It includes WHO, CEPI, FIND, GAVI the Vaccine Alliance, UNICEF, the World Bank and governments, to raise financial support of R&D, production and equitable access to COVID-19 tests, therapies and vaccines.
The ACT-Accelerator Facilitation Council’s has called for ‘Fair share’ of financing that the richer countries should contribute to the ACT-Accelerator’s global response.

Notes:
Scientists in the United Kingdom have achieved a new milestone in producing nuclear fusion energy, or imitating the way energy is produced in the Sun.
A team at the Joint European Torus (JET) facility in central England generated 59 mega joules of sustained energy during an experiment. A kg of fusion fuel contains about 10 million times energy of that of a kg of coal, oil or gas.

Notes:
Geo-location technology specialist TomTom has released the 11th edition of its annual TomTom Traffic Index. It is a report analysing traffic trends seen in 404 cities in 58 countries, during 2021.
India fared better than the global average of 10% decrease in congestion. But, four cities from India featured in the Index’s global top-25 list namely Mumbai (5th), Bengaluru (10th), and New Delhi (11th) and Pune (21st).

Notes:
Pratham Foundation annually conducts an extensive survey in schools, to analyse the learning outcome of students.
Recently, it released the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER, West Bengal). As per the report, the basic reading and numerical abilities of school children in West Bengal have reduced during Covid-19, without class rooms.

Notes:
According to figures released by the US Census Bureau, India-US bilateral goods trade was worth USD 113.391 billion from January to December 2021.
This is the largest volume of goods trade in a calendar year in India-US economic history. India exported goods worth over USD 73 billion, and imported goods worth over USD 40 billion dollars. In 2020 trade fell to USD 78.2 billion due to pandemic, from the high of USD 92.1 billion in 2019.

Notes:
Acromegaly is caused by excessive secretion of growth hormone, most often from a tumor in the pituitary gland. The disorder causes increased height when it manifests in childhood and adolescent age group.
The Fairbank’s disease (Multiple epiphyseal dysplasia) patient usually requires management of pain and orthopaedic procedures.  As per Health Ministry, patients of both these diseases are getting treatment at various tertiary health facilities in India.

Notes:
A piece of amber with a well-preserved juvenile ‘Retinosaurus hkamtiensis’ was recovered from the near the Jade mines in Myanmar
The newly-identified lizard species was trapped in an araucarian tree resin about 110 million years ago. It is a representative of Scincoidea, a superfamily that includes skinks, armoured lizards and night lizards.

Notes:
One Ocean Summit is being organised by France in cooperation with the United Nations and the World Bank.
India supported the French initiative of a ‘High Ambition Coalition on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction’. Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended the conference and said that India is committed to eliminating single-use plastic.

Notes:
Belarus is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest.
Russia and Belarus have started joint military exercises close to the Belarusian border with Ukraine. Russia has already amassed forces along its own border with Ukraine, and in the annexed Crimean peninsula.