Current Affairs Quiz - January 2022

Notes:
Mumbai- based think-tank People’s Research on India’s Consumer Economy (PRICE) conducted ‘ICE360 Survey 2021’.
As per the survey, the annual income of the poorest 20% of Indian households, which has been constantly rising since 1995, fell 53% in the pandemic year 2020-21 from their levels in 2015-16. While, the richest 20% saw their annual household income grow 39%. This is seen as a ‘K-shaped recovery’.

Notes:
The ‘Contingency Fund of India’ is held by the Finance Ministry’s Department of economic affairs on behalf of the President of India.
It can be operated by executive action and used during disasters and related unforeseen expenditures. Recently, the Government has tweaked spending norms for Contingency Fund, allowing 40 per cent of the total corpus to be placed at disposal of the expenditure secretary.

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.

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 scientific team at CSIR-CDRI, Lucknow along with their industry partner Biotech Desk have successfully developed the indigenous RTPCR Kit INDICoV-OmTM for specific detection of the Omicron variant.
Most of the RT-PCR-based diagnostic kits do not confirm whether Covid infection is caused by the Omicron variant. Also various current Omicron tests have several limitations.

Notes:
Andhra Pradesh has notified Andhra Pradesh has 13 new districts under AP Districts Formation Act, Section 3(5). The total number of districts in Andhra Pradesh is now 26.
The state has 25 Lok Sabha constituencies and each is supposed to be made a revenue district. Only Araku constituency is split into two new districts. Manyam and Alluri Sitarama Raju, named after the legendary Telugu freedom fighter, are the two new tribal districts

Notes:
In new research, a team of scientists at Tufts University demonstrated long-term regrowth of limbs in an African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis).
They achieved this restoration of an amputated hindlimb after a 24-hour exposure to a five-drug cocktail delivered by a silicone wearable bioreactor. The researchers are exploring ways to extend this to human beings

Notes:
Union Minister for Power R K Singh interacted with renewable energy developers, industry and various government representatives to discuss on the Draft policy on the energy storage system’.
The Minister also indicated that people may be free to set up standalone energy storage systems (ESS). The Government has planned to de-license the setting up of those systems, under the policy for ESS.

Notes:
NeoCov stands for Neoromicia, the species of bat that have been infected with the virus. This virus is associated with MERS Coronavirus and not the SARs-CoV-2.
Recently news about the virus discovered in South Africa amongst bats is being circulated widely. However the World Health Organization has said that whether NeoCov coronavirus poses a threat to humans requires further study.

Notes:
‘Great Barrier Reef’ is the world’s largest coral reef system located in Australia. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has recently announced a further one billion Australian dollars ( USD 703m) to protect the Great Barrier Reef.
The reef is under threat from global warming and the government is criticised for supporting fossil fuels.