Current Affairs Quiz - February 2022

Notes:
NITI Aayog has announced the five most improved aspirational districts in the Agriculture and Water Resources sector for December 2021.
Malkangiri in Odisha tops the list. It is followed by Chhatarpur in Madhya Pradesh and Baramulla in Jammu and Kashmir. This is as per the Delta Rankings published by NITI Aayog.

Notes:
As per a recent research, Kaziranga National Park in Assam, is releasing more carbon than it is absorbing.
The National Park is home to the largest-population of the one-horned rhinoceros in the world. Usually, forests absorb more carbon than they release, which makes them carbon sinks. This is mainly due to decreasing rainfall in the region.

Notes:
A team of Indian Scientists has recently identified the next-generation probiotic bacterium Lactobacillus Plantarum JBC5.
The bacterium promoted healthy aging on a model organism called Caenorhabditis Elegans. The team from Institute of Advanced Study in Science and Technology (IASST), Guwahati, has also developed a yogurt using this probiotic bacterium.

Notes:
The Indian Railways has notified the Indian Railway Management System (IRMS) which will unify the eight existing services of the transporter.
IRMS is a new Group ‘A’ Central service and only the officers of IRMS will be eligible to become the functional members and chairman/CEO of the railway board.

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:
International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed every year on 11 February. The United Nations calls for women’s full and equal access to and participation in science.
The day also celebrates those that are leading action and innovation around the world. As per UN Women, only 33 per cent of researchers are women, and they are awarded less research funding than men, and are less likely to be promoted.

Notes:
French president Emmanuel Macron hosted the high-level session of the One Ocean summit in the city of Brest.
Nearly 27 EU states and 16 others agreed to pursue a global agreement by the end of year, to regulate sustainable use of oceans all across the globe. Many countries joined the “High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People” and “the High Ambition Coalition on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction”.

Notes:
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has captured its first visible light images of the surface of Venus from space.
Parker used its Wide-Field Imager (WISPR) to image the entire night side in wavelengths of the visible spectrum and extending into the near-infrared. Venus’ surface is usually hidden from sight as it is covered in thick clouds.

Notes:
Every year, World Radio Day is celebrated on February 13 with an aim to highlight the importance of radio.
The member states of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) first declared this day in the year 2011. It was later adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2012 as an International Day.

Notes:
Veteran Nobel-winning virologist Luc Montagnier died in Paris recently. He won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2008 for the discovery of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus that causes AIDS, along with his colleague Francoise Barr-Sinoussi.
He had also shared half of the Nobel with German scientist Harald zur Hausen for his discovery of Human papilloma viruses that cause cervical cancer.