Current Affairs Quiz - January 2022

Notes:
Republic Day celebration includes recognition and honouring the brave personnel in the Armed Forces and police. There are eight categories of awards given to honour the recipients for their work in their respective fields.
It includes Padma Awards, Gallantry Awards (Param Vir Chakra, Mahavir Chakra, Vir Chakra, Ashoka Chakra, Kirti Chakra, Shaurya Chakra), The President’s Police Medals, Correctional Services Medal, The President’s Fire Medals, Civil Defence & Home Guards Medals and Jeevan Raksha Padak.

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:
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:
Scientists from IIT Kharagpur have developed a portable, inexpensive device for detecting oral cancer. The estimated cost per device is within USD500.
The new technology enables a clinician in a community health centre detect potential vulnerable cases early enough, during the first examination.

Notes:
The findings of the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) Chhattisgarh (Rural) 2021 were released recently.
As per the survey, the proportion of primary school children who cannot recognize letters of the alphabet has doubled since 2018. Only a fewer students can now do basic subtraction or division. The survey covered over 46,000 children in 1,677 villages.

Notes:
India hosted first India-Central Asia Summit in a virtual format. Prime Minister Narendra Modi stressed on the need for India and Central Asian countries to define an ambitious vision, as the relations completed 30 years.
The event that saw a participation of the Presidents of five countries, including Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

Notes:
A total of 246 rebels from the Tiwa Liberation Army (TLA) and United Gorkha Peoples Organisation (UGPO), formally surrendered and laid down arms in Assam.
TLA was formed in 2014 and UGPO was formed in 2007. They deposited 277 types of arms, grenades and 720 rounds of ammunition. As many as 462 former militants of five different terrorist outfits had surrendered last year in the state.

Notes:
The Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve (STR) of Tamil Nadu has been awarded the prestigious TX2 Award after its tiger number doubled since 2010.
STR is a protected area and tiger reserve in the Western Ghats in the Erode District of Tamil Nadu. The reserve is a part of the Nilgiri biosphere landscape, which is the home to world’s largest tiger population. The awards are presented by the Conservation Assured Tiger Standards (CATS), Global Tiger Forum (GTF), IUCN’s ITHCP, UNDP, WWF among other stakeholders.

 

 

Notes:
Former Finance Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg has authored a book titled , “The $10 Trillion Dream”.
It explores the policy issues that India faces today and suggests reforms for it to become a USD 10 trillion economy by the mid-2030s. S C Garg is an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and was appointed as Finance Secretary in 2019.