Current Affairs Quiz - January 2022

Notes:
Streets for People Challenge is the flagship initiative of Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.  Recently the Ministry announced eleven winning cities for the Streets for People Challenge, and ten winning cities for the pilot stage of the Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge.
The Ministry also launched Season-2 of India Cycles4Change and Streets for People Challenges and a book titled ‘Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge: Stories from the Field”.

Notes:
India announced Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure at UN Climate Action Summit in New York in 2019.
The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) Raising Day is annually marked on January 19. NDRF was formed on the same day day in 2006. NDRF functions under the aegis of the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Notes:
Ace Indian Cricketer Smriti Mandhana is the only Indian to feature in the ICC Women’s T20I Team of the Year for 2021. Smriti had scored 255 runs in 9 matches and was among the top 5 leading run-scorers in the year.
There were no Indians in the ICC T20I Men’s Team of the Year for 2021, led by Pakistan’s Babar Azam. Pakistan also had two more players including Mohammad Rizwan and Shaheen Afridi.

Notes:
Former Comptroller and auditor general of India Vinod Rai has been appointed as the independent chairman of Unity Small Finance Bank (SFB) and Reserve Bank of India has granted its approval in this regard.
The Bank has also onboarded Sandip Ghose (RBI veteran) and Basant Seth (former CMD of Syndicate Bank) into its business group.

Notes:
Ramisyllis kingghidorahi, is a new ringed worm, which was discovered in waters off Sado Island, Japan. Marine biologists have discovered this third species of branching syllid worm.
Among over 20,000 species of annelids (ringed worms), only 2 branching species with a modified body-pattern were known until now namely Syllis ramosa and Ramisyllis multicaudata.

Notes:
United Kingdom based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) released the report titled “Connecting the Dots: Plastic pollution and the planetary emergency”.
As per the report, a new global plastics treaty focussing on the entire lifecycle of plastics needs to be developed urgently. This was also proposed in the draft resolution by Peru and Rwanda at the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA).

Notes:
‘Spices Board’ is a regulatory and export promotion agency of Spices, working under the aegis of Ministry of Commerce and Industry. It is headquartered at Kochi, Kerala.
Spices Board launched the country’s first virtual platform for spice exports “Spice Xchange India”. India exports 225 different spices and spice products to more than 180 countries. It is a 3D virtual platform which aims to connect India’s spice exporters with buyers from around the world, using AI.

Notes:
The Indian Government has dropped Gandhiji’s personal favourite “Abide With Me” hymn from the Republic Day celebrations.
The hymn, which was written by Henry Francis Lyte, a Scottish Anglican minister, has been played in the Indian Beating Retreat ceremony since 1950. It has been replaced by Kavi Pradeep’s “Aye Mere Watan Ke Logon” which was written in the wake of the Sino-Indian War.

Notes:
‘Humid heat’ refers to conditions that are either hot and dry or hot and humid enough to cause decreases in labor productivity.
As per a recent study, India lost around 259 billion hours of labour annually between 2001 and 2020 due to the impacts of humid heat. The loss of these productive hours cost India USD 624 billion (Rs 46 lakh crore). Globally, humid heat caused 677 billion hours of lost labour each year, worth USD 2.1 trillion (Rs 156 lakh crore).

Notes:
‘INS Khukri Memorial’ is a Indo-Pakistani War memorial commemorating a frigate attacked by a Pakistani submarine in 1976.
INS Khukri, the lead ship of the Indian Navy’s Khukri class corvettes and an indigenous surface-to-surface missile fitted vessel, was handed over to Diu administration.  Built by Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders, the ship was commissioned in 1989, in Mumbai. The ship was decommissioned in December 2021 and sent to Diu, for public display in INS Khukri Memorial.