Current Affairs Quiz - January 2022

Notes:
Former Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe was conferred with the Netaji Award 2022 by the Netaji Research Bureau on the 125th birth anniversary of the freedom fighter, Netaji Subash Chandra Bose.
Consul general of Japan in Kolkata, Nakamura Yutaka, received the honour on behalf of former PM Shinzo Abe.

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:
Nagaland state was carved out of Assam in 1963 and the two states share a 512.1-km-long border.  Nagaland has been demanding Naga Hills and all Naga-dominated areas in the then North Cachar and Nagaon districts of Assam, to be part of the state.
The Governments of Nagaland and Assam announced that they are ready for out-of-court settlement of the long pending inter-state boundary dispute.

Notes:
The International Monetary Fund’s board urged El Salvador to drop Bitcoin from its status as legal currency.
El Salvador last year sought a $1.3 billion IMF loan. IMF has urged the country to strip the legal tender status of Bitcoin due to its large risks. This is also said to be a major obstacle for the country’s efforts to get a loan from IMF.

Notes:
The President of India Ram Nath Kovind approved to confer 128 Padma Awards this year, on the eve of the 73rd Republic Day.
The 89-year old Kirana gharana Vocalist ‘Prabha Atre’ was awarded the Padma Vibhushan.  She holds a world record for releasing 11 books on music in Hindi and English from a single stage. She established the ‘Swarmayee Gurukul’. Radheyshyam Khemka (Posthumous; Literature, UP), General Bipin Rawat (Civil Service) and Kalyan Singh (Posthumous; Public Affairs, UP) were also awarded the Padma Vibhushan.

Notes:
The United States House of Representatives unveiled the ambitious America ‘Creating Opportunities for Manufacturing, Pre-Eminence in Technology, and Economic Strength’ Act of 2022, or the America COMPETES Act of 2022.
It proposes to open up new arenas for talented individuals from across the world with a new start-up visa. The bill also provides grant to encourage semiconductor production in the US and to improve supply chain resilience and manufacturing.

Notes:
India has initiated an anti-dumping probe against imports of Vinyl Tiles from China, Taiwan and Vietnam, following a complaint by domestic players.
It is a type of tiles, used for covering the floors in residential and commercial buildings.The Commerce Ministry’s Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) is probing the dumping of Vinyl Tiles. Dumping of the product is affecting the domestic industry which started commercial production in 2019.

Notes:
The National Conference on Agriculture for Summer Campaign 2021-22 was held through video conference. It is also called as Zaid Conference. Zaid crops are grown between Kharif and Rabi Seasons
Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Kumar Tomar attended the conference. The objective is to review the crop performance during the preceding crop seasons and fix crop-wise targets for the next summer season in consultation with State Governments.

Notes:
Veteran Author Ruskin Bond released his latest book titled, “A Little Book of India: Celebrating 75 years of Independence”
The 87-year-old Indian author of British descent has depicted the physical and spiritual attributes of India. It is a record of some of the author’s memories and impressions of the country. Ruskin Bond is the recipient of Sahitya Akademi Award, Sahitya Akademi’s Bal Sahitya Puraskar, Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan.

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.