Current Affairs Quiz - January 2022

Notes:
The Union Cabinet approved the extension of the National Commission for Safai Karamcharis (NCSK) for three years with effect from April 1, 2022.
NCSK was constituted as a statutory body in 1994 by ‘National Commission for Safai Karamcharis Act, 1993. The tenures have been extended several times. It works under Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment. As per official data, there were 58,098 manual scavengers identified in the country as on December 31, 2021.

Notes:
A Census in Assam’s Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve has found that the National Park has at least 868 swamp deer, down from 907 counted in 2018 due to the two floods.
In the census of wetland birds, a total of 66,776 numbers of birds of 126 species were enumerated, out of which 42,205 birds were counted in the Kaziranga National Park area while 24,571 numbers of birds were counted in Laokhowa and Burachapori Wildlife Sanctuaries of Assam.

Notes:
India’s first ever District Good Governance Index (DGGI) was released in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
In the composite ranking of the index, the Jammu district tops the list followed by districts of Doda, Samba, Pulwama and Srinagar in the UT. The Index is a framework document which assesses the performance under ten governance sectors with 58 indicators.

Notes:
The Peruvian Government declared a 90-day “environmental emergency” in damaged coastal territories, after 6,000 barrels of crude oil spilled into the sea.
The incident occurred at the La Pampilla refinery, where the “Mare Doricum” tanker belonging to the Spanish energy firm Repsol was transporting 965,000 barrels of crude oil. The spill has caused death of marine wildlife and the spill is investigated as an environmental pollution crime.

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:
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), in association with ICEA, released a five-year roadmap and vision document for the electronics sector.
Titled “USD 300 bn Sustainable Electronics Manufacturing & Exports by 2026”, this is the second volume of a two-part Vision Document. The first part titled, ‘Increasing India’s Electronics Exports and Share in GVCs,’ was released in November 2021.

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:
According to lawsuits by Washington, D.C., and three other states, Alphabet Inc.’s Google deceived consumers by recording their location even after users tried to turn off the company’s tracking on their smartphones and web browsers.
The suit alleges that Google tracks people’s movements using information from its search engine, Maps app, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth services. While Google said that it has  built privacy features into our products and provided robust controls for location data.

Notes:
The country’s first woman Rafale fighter jet pilot Shivangi Singh was part of the Indian Air Force tableau at the Republic Day parade.
Last year, Flight Lieutenant Bhawna Kanth became the first female fighter jet pilot to be part of the IAF tableau. Shivangi is only the second woman fighter jet pilot to be part of the IAF tableau. She was commissioned in the IAF’s second batch of women fighter pilots. She was flying MiG-21 Bison aircraft before flying the Rafale.

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.