Current Affairs Quiz - February, 2023

Notes:
Lavani folk art is a traditional art form in which women dancers wearing brightly coloured sarees, perform on stage before live audience. This indigenous art form gained popularity during the Peshwa era in the 18th century.
There are various sub-genres of Lavani. The most popular among them is the Shringarik or the erotic kind. A younger generation of women dancers is accused of vulgarising the traditional folk-art form.

Notes:
A report titled ‘Fossil Fuel Prices and Inflation in India’ was released recently by Cambridge Econometrics. According to this report, fossil fuel-related items like transport and household energy contributed to 20 percent of India’s annual rate of inflation between April and May 2022.
Between January 2021 and August 2022, prices of fuel and power surged nearly 5 times faster than the overall consumer price in India. This has increased household expenses on fuel and electricity.

Notes:
Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai has announced ₹9,698 crore-worth projects in the State Budget 2023-23 for comprehensive development of Bengaluru city.
Under the Amrutha Nagarothana Scheme, works worth ₹6,000 crore are being implemented in Bengaluru. Development of 108 km of roads has been taken up under the high-density corridors scheme.

Notes:
Nepal has celebrated ‘National Democracy Day’ recently, to commemorate day when the Nepali people stood against the then autocratic Rana regime.
This event ended the 104 years of the Rana regime and subsequently established democracy for the first time in the country.

Notes:
ULTRASAT, Israel’s first telescope mission, is set to be launched into a geostationary orbit in early 2026 through a partnership between NASA and the Israel Space Agency.
The ultra-violet observatory will focus on observing short-duration space events such as supernovae and the merging of neutron stars, utilizing its wide field of view to quickly capture ultraviolet light from such sources.

Notes:
The US administration has unveiled a new Commercial Arms Transfer (CAT) policy that places greater emphasis on human rights in its arms export policy,
This is in contrast to the Trump-era policy that gave more importance to commercial considerations. The new policy covers the review of government-to-government weapons transfers, security assistance, and licensed commercial sales of US-origin military equipment overseen by various government departments.

Notes:
Phosphor-gypsum, a by-product of fertilizer production, is composed of gypsum but is weakly radio-active due to naturally occurring uranium and thorium.
It is not commonly used in construction due to concerns about its radioactivity, resulting in indefinite storage. The NHAI is exploring the possibility of using phosphor-gypsum waste material in the construction of national highway and achieve circular economy. An Indian fertilizer company recently constructed a road using the neutralised phosphor-gypsum waste material.

Notes:
The Indian Navy’s Information Fusion Centre for Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR) is located in Gurugram.
It is a regional maritime security centre that was launched in 2018. It aims to promote maritime security in the western Indian Ocean. It recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Regional Coordination Operations Centre (RCOC) of Seychelles.

Notes:
The I2U2 Group consists of four countries – India, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States.
Recently, the inaugural I2U2 Business Forum was organized in Abu Dhabi. This meeting discussed the possibility of building integrated agricultural facilities across India.

Notes:
Mad cow disease, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), is a fatal and progressive disease affecting the central nervous system of adult cattle.
Brazil, one of the world’s largest beef exporters, has temporarily suspended its beef exports to China after a confirmed case of mad cow disease.