Current Affairs Quiz - January 2022

Notes:
Kumbalangi became the first-ever sanitary napkin-free village in the country. It is located in the Ernakulam district of Kerala.
It is part of ‘Avalkayi’ (for her) campaign being implemented in the Ernakulam constituency, under which menstrual cups are distributed to women aged 18 and above. Kumbalanghi was declared a model village by the Kerala Governor. It also holds the title of India’s first model tourist village.

Notes:
Organic light-emitting diode (OLED) is a type of LED (Light-Emitting Diode) in which emissive electroluminescent layer is a film of organic compound that emits light in response to an electric current. This is a competitive alternative to liquid crystal displays (LCDs).
Recently, team of researchers from University of Minnesota, MIT, Korea Institute of Industrial Technology and Pusan National University have demonstrated a printing technique which produces fully 3D-printed flexible OLED displays.

Notes:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that January 16 will be celebrated as National Start-up Day every year.
The prime minister also said this decade is the ‘techade of India’. With over 61,000 recognised startups by the Department for promotion of industry and internal trade (DPIIT), the government acknowledges India as the world’s 3rd largest start-up ecosystem.

Notes:
The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) released the India State of Forest Report (ISFR) 2021.
As per the report, the forest cover has increased to 7,13,789 sq km, or 21.71% of India’s geographical area. It is an increase of 1,540 sq km. Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha, Karnataka and Jharkhand contributed the most to increase in forest cover, and the Northeast reported the biggest losses.

Notes:
In 2017, the Kerala Government formed a three-member commission headed by Justice K Hema (retired), former bureaucrat KB Valsalakumari and veteran actress Sharada as members. The commission was formed to scrutinise problems faced by women in the Malayalam film industry.
The Government in Kerala recently formed a three-member panel to study and work out a plan to implement the recommendations of the Justice Hema Commission report.

Notes:
India has announced a USD 900 million loan to Sri Lanka to build up its depleted foreign reserves and for food imports,
Sri Lanka is also negotiating a USD one billion loan from India to import goods from the country. There has been a shortage of almost all essential commodities in the island nation, due to a shortage of dollars to pay for the imports.

Notes:
World Economic Forum’s ‘BiodiverCities by 2030 Initiative’, in collaboration with the Alexander von Humboldt Institute and the Government of Colombia has recently released a report.
As per the new report, cities contribute nearly 80 per cent to the global economy and also account for nearly three-fourths of greenhouse gas emissions. Nearly half of the GDP in cities around the world or USD 31 trillion is at risk of disruption from nature loss.

Notes:
‘Houthi movement’ is an Islamist political and armed movement which emerged from Northern Yemen in the 1990s.
The Iran-aligned Houthi movement said it had carried out an attack on the United Arab Emirates. Abu Dhabi police said three fuel tanker trucks exploded near storage facilities of oil firm ADNOC and a fire broke out at a construction site at Abu Dhabi International Airport.  They were possibly caused by drones.

Notes:
The Oltet river valley in Romania is a famous place for fossil deposits. Recently, a fossilised right arm bone has been found in the valley.
The fossil was studied using new scanning techniques and the results revealed that it was a new species of the Smutsia genus. It was named Smutsia olteniensis after the Oltet river valley. The species is said to have lived during the Pleistocene period about 1.9 and 2.2 million years ago.

Notes:
Global internet body ICANN-supported Universal Acceptance Steering Group has roped in Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma as UA Ambassador.
The Group works on developing and recommending standards for languages script that are not currently used to access the internet. He is also part of a working group formed by the Ministry of Electronics and IT to prepare a roadmap on universal acceptance and multilingual internet.