Current Affairs Quiz - January 2022

Notes:
The Maharashtra Legislative Council passed the Maharashtra Public University Act, 2016 (Third Amendment) bill.
It seeks to give more powers to the Higher and Technical Education Minister in the state-run varsities. The bill also allows the minister to make recommendations to the Governor who is the chancellor of the universities. It also proposes appointment of the Minister as pro-chancellor of the universities.

Notes:
Senkaku Island is an uninhabited island chain in the East China Sea that has been administered by Japan for several decades. China and Japan are claiming the island.
Senior Defence officials from Japan and China held their first high-level dialogue and agreed to establish a hotline in order to avoid physical conflict. China calls the Senkaku island group as Diaoyu and says it has a historical claim.

Notes:
World Customs Organization (WCO) has been issuing the Harmonised system of Nomenclature (HSN) codes, to classify and regulate global trade since 1988. It maintains and periodically updates the codes in line with the changing nature of global trade.
From January 1, 2022 onwards, the HSN codes that are used to classify the internationally traded items are set to be updated. The latest set of codes (HSN 2022) will be used to capture the trade in several of new fields.

Notes:
The newly discovered Begonia gigantic, is claimed to be the world’s largest specimen of a Begonia species.
Begonia is one of the largest plant genera, with over 2050 known species. Though most Begonias are small weeds, this new species grows on slopes along streams at elevation of 450–1400 m. The species are distributed in southern Tibet. The conservation status is ‘Endangered’ as per the IUCN Red List.

Notes:
The Sahitya Akademi announced a list of 22 winners of the Yuva Puraskar and the Bal Sahitya Puraskar for 2021.
The Sahitya Akademi award was separately announced for literary works in 20 languages in various categories like poetry, novels, short stories, plays, biography and autobiography, book on criticism.  Tamil feminist writer Ambai, Kannada’s DS Nagabhushan, Telugu’s Goreti Venkanna, and English author Namita Gokhale are among the winners.

Notes:
Iran has launched a satellite carrier rocket ‘Simorgh’ bearing three research devices into space, as per the country’s media.
‘Simorgh’ translates to ‘Phoenix’ in Iran language. The country has launched the devices at an altitude of 470 kilometres (290 miles). United States unilaterally withdrew from the nuclear deal in May 2018 and re-imposed sanctions against Iran.

Notes:
Thirty white rhinos were transferred from South Africa to Rwanda in a Boeing 747 chartered plane. This is the largest single transfer of white rhinos ever undertaken.
The rhinoceros species is threatened by illegal poaching. Southern white rhino, one of two subspecies of white rhino, is considered “almost endangered” by the International Union for Conversation of Nature (IUCN).

Notes:
China complained to the United Nations that its space station was forced to avoid collisions with satellites launched by his Starlink Internet Services project.
As per China’s claim to the Vienna-based United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, the country’s space station had two close encounters with Starlink satellites this year. Starlink is a satellite internet network operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

Notes:
The GST Council decided to defer the increase in the rate for textiles to 12% from 5%. It has referred the matter to a panel of Ministers, to review Rate Rationalisation.
The GST on all readymade textile items, except those made with cotton, was earlier hiked to 12 per cent. The GST on footwear, except those below Rs 1,000, was also hiked to 12 per cent from 5 per cent. State representatives from Gujarat, West Bengal, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu opposed the hike.

Notes:
The girl child savings scheme Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana will earn 7.6% as interest as of January 2022.
The Government of India has recently announced that the interest rates on small savings schemes will remain unchanged for Q4 2020-21, including NSC and PPF which would earn 7.1 per cent and 6.8 per cent, respectively.