Current Affairs Quiz - February 2022

Notes:
The Department of Science & Technology (DST) has established the National Centre of Excellence in Carbon Capture and Utilisation (NCOE-CCU) at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay.
This is India’s first such centre centrally funded by the DST. This Centre of Excellence explores the potential of Carbon Capture and Utilization (CCU) technologies, which will help India achieve its climate change goals.

Notes:
The researchers from the United Kingdom found an ancient Roman settlement site while investigating the route of the construction of upcoming high-speed railway called HS2.
In a recent excavation, Scientists could find 40 decapitated skeletons, which were likely to have been executed criminals. Many of these were buried in graves with their severed heads placed between their legs or at their feet. The team earlier found 1,200 coins, pottery, cutlery, gaming dice, bells and lead weights.

Notes:
Elon Musk’s Starlink has lost 40 of the 49 satellites causing them to fall from orbit before they could be commissioned.
They were caught in a Geomagnetic storm a day after they were launched. A geomagnetic storm is a temporary disturbance of the Earth’s magnetosphere caused by a solar wind shock wave. It also occurs when cloud of magnetic field interacts with the Earth’s magnetic field.

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:
The number of killings as a part of ‘Witch Hunting’ is the second-highest in Odisha, after Jharkhand, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).
The Odisha State Commission for Women (SCW) has recently sought stringent provisions in the Odisha Prevention of Witch Hunting Act 2013. It also demanded that branding of victims be treated as heinous crime and punishable in the State.

Notes:
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Union road transport and highways Minister Nitin Gadkari inaugurated the Munger Ganga Bridge.
It is named after the state’s first Chief Minster Sri Krishna. It is the third rail-cum-road bridge across the Ganges, at Munger in the Indian state of Bihar.

Notes:
Mount Etna is an active strato-volcano located on the east coast of Sicily in Italy. Recently, the volcano has erupted causing a volcanic storm.
Volcanic storms can happen in particularly violent eruptions or with volcanoes located near the sea. Volcanologists observed volcanic lightning over the Mount Etna in 2021, after the one witnessed in 2015.

Notes:
India is ranked 46 on the EIU’s Democracy Index report, which was released recently. In the Global index, India has scored 6.91.
Norway and New Zealand got the top two places respectively, while North Korea, Myanmar, Afghanistan were placed at the bottom. India has the lowest score of 5 on political culture and the highest score of 8.67 on electoral process and pluralism.

Notes:
The Government has approved the umbrella scheme of modernisation of police force for the next five years (2021-22 to 2025-26) with a financial outlay of Rs 26,275 crore.
More than Rs 18,000 crore of this money has been allotted towards security related expenditure in Jammu and Kashmir, Left Wing Extremism areas and the Northeast.

Notes:
The Tata Group has appointed Ilker Ayci, former Turkish Airlines Chairman, as Air India’s Managing Director and CEO.
The decision is in line with the Tata Group’s plans to appoint an expatriate chief to run Air India, which it took over from the Indian government recently.