Current Affairs Quiz - January 2022

Notes:
Veteran archaeologist, art historian and Padma Bhushan awardee R Nagaswamy has passed away at the age of 91.
He was the first director of Tamil Nadu government’s Department of Archaeology. He played a key role in bringing back the Chola-era bronze Nataraja to Tamil Nadu Nagaswamy founded the Institute of Epigraphy and Archaeology in 1973. He had also excavated many sites in Tamil Nadu, including Korkai, the ancient Pandyan port.

Notes:
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) released its World Economic Outlook January 2022 assessment.
As per the update, India is estimated to grow at 9% in 2021-2022, down from 9.5% projected in October 2021. It also projects 9% growth for the Indian economy in 2022-23 Global economic growth will dip from 5.9% in 2021 to 4.4% in 2022.

Notes:
The Government approved the plan for the amalgamation of the Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative Bank (PMC Bank) with Unity Small Finance Bank (USFBL).
USFBL is a joint venture between Centrum Financial services and digital payments platform BharatPe. All the branches of the PMC Bank will function as branches of USFBL with immediate effect.

Notes:
The Ministry of Electronics and IT, Government of India, has given approval to Kerala for setting up India’s first ‘Graphene Innovation Centre’.
The state-run Digital University Kerala (DUK), along with CMET-Trichur, is to set up “India Innovation Centre for Graphene”, an R&D incubation centre. It will be implemented with the support of Government of Kerala, and Tata Steel Ltd will be the industrial partner of the centre. Graphene is the thinnest and strongest material in the world and could replace indium in OLED screens.

Notes:
A number of tribal people of Pal and Dadhvav villages had gathered on the banks of Her river in 1922., led by Motilal Tejawat, to protest against the land revenue system and laws related to Jagirdar and Rajwada imposed by the British rulers.
Around 1,200 tribals were martyred, after the firing order issued by Major H.G. Sutton.  The Gujarat tableau on Republic Day depicted the 1922 incident, to pay tributes to ‘Pal Dadhvav martyrs’

Notes:
UNESCO has added ‘Clinker Boats’ to its list of traditions that represent the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden jointly sought the UNESCO designation. It is a Nordic Tradition and for thousands of years, wooden sailboats enabled the peoples of Northern Europe to undertake trade.

Notes:
The Kerala Bird Atlas released recently is said to be Asia’s largest bird atlas in terms of geographical extent, sampling efforts, and species coverage.
It is also the first-of-its-kind state-level bird atlas in India, and was conducted as a citizen-driven exercise with the participation of over 1000 volunteers. The Atlas has provided data about the distribution of various bird species across major habitats.

Notes:
India Pavilion at EXPO2020 Dubai launched the USD 150-million fund India-UAE venture capital fund in the UAE.
It is the first such fund to be set up in the UAE. The fund aims to invest and nurture promising startups through an accelerator to fuel the growth of India-UAE start-ups. It will be funded by investors across UAE, India and GCC countries.

Notes:
Objects that turn on and off in the Universe are called as transients. Slow transients like supernovae appear over few days and disappear after a few months. Fast transients like neutron star (pulsar) flash on and off within milliseconds or seconds.
Recently, Astronomers using the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) telescope have discovered a spinning object that pulses every 18.18 minutes. They suggest that it could be an ‘Ultra-long-period magnetar’. It is located at just an ultra-long-period magnetar from the Earth.

Notes:
France’s Justice Ministry has been hit by cyber-attack from a group known as LockBit 2.0. The group locked the ministry’s files and asking for ransom from the Government.
The country has launched investigation on the attack. As per government sources, no criminal records have been affected.