Current Affairs Quiz - January 2022

Notes:
North Macedonia’s Parliament elected a new cabinet under a new Social Democratic leader, Dimitar Kovacevski.
He succeeds his Social Democratic predecessor, Zoran Zaev. The new Prime Minister announced that his immediate tasks are tackling the ongoing energy crisis and key talks with Bulgaria. The Republic of North Macedonia is a country in Southeast Europe.

Notes:
Centre-right lawmaker Roberta Metsola has been selected as the third woman to head the European Parliament.
The 43-year-old from the European Union’s smallest nation Malta is also the youngest President of the European Parliament. She is viewed as a political moderate in spite of the controversy over her anti-abortion stance.

Notes:
Manipur, Meghalaya, and Tripura were formed in 1972 with the enactment of North-Eastern Areas (Reorganisation) Act, 1971.
The three states were formed on January 21, 1972 and the day has been celebrated as the Statehood Day every year. Meghalaya was a part of Assam before it attained complete statehood and Tripura was a Union Territory before it attained statehood.

Notes:
The ‘Living Root Bridges’ are found in Meghalaya. They are made from rubber tree roots, known as ‘Ficus elastica’ tree and their tangled roots provides a stable alternative to wooden bridges.
Recently, the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) has underlined some green rules for the living root bridges to get the UNESCO World Heritage Site tag. Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma sought UNESCO recognition on its 50th statehood day – January 21.

Notes:
Kiribati is one of the most isolated islands in the world. It is located in Oceania and is about 4,800km from Australia.
Until last week, Kiribati had recorded just two Covid cases. After the passengers on the first international flight tested positive for Covid, the country has imposed its first lock-down.

Notes:
India celebrates National Girl Child Day on January 24 every year. It is an initiative undertaken by the Ministry of women and child development, to create awareness and provide opportunities to the girls of India.
The government of India, in 2008, declared January 24 to be celebrated as the National Girl Child Day every year.

Notes:
Last year, the Centre decided to celebrate Bose’s birth anniversary as ‘Parakram Diwas’ (the day of valour), West Bengal announced that the day would be observed as ‘Desh Nayak Diwas’ (the day of the national hero).
The Prime Minister unveiled the hologram statue of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose at India Gate, until a grand statue of the freedom fighter will be installed. This year is 125^th birth anniversary of Netaji.

Notes:
The Assam government is set to confer the state’s highest civilian award ‘Assam Baibhav’ on industrialist and philanthropist Ratan Tata.
The state will also confer Assam Baibhav, Assam Saurav and Assam Gaurav Awards. The Assam Saurav award will be conferred on fiver personalities including Olympics medallist Lovlina Borgohain.

Notes:
‘VRR Auction’ stands for Variable rate repo auction. Repo is the rate at which RBI lends short term loans to Banks. A part of it is done at a fixed rate and some of it is a variable rate.
The Reserve Bank of India said it will conduct an overnight variable rate repo auction under liquidity adjustment facility (LAF) for an amount of Rs 75,000 crore. On January 20, the RBI conducted an overnight variable rate repo (VRR) auction of Rs 50,000 crore.

Notes:
After massive protests, the Serbia government has cancelled the licenses for lithium mining to Rio Tinto, a multi-national mining organisation.
The Jadar is a river in western Serbia, 75 km long tributary of the Drina river. Serbians staged protests against Rio Tinto’s plans to mine lithium in the Jadar valley near Lozinca town in the country.