Current Affairs Quiz - January 2022

Notes:
National Tourism Day is celebrated in India on January 25 every year. The theme for National Tourism Day 2023 was ‘Rural and Community Centric Tourism’. The Ministry of Tourism announced this theme to promote rural tourism and encourage community participation across the country.

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:
‘Koozhangal’ from India won the best film award in the Asian Film Competition section at the 20th Dhaka International Film Festival. It was directed by P S Vinothraj from Tamil Nadu.
Best Actor Award went to Jayasurya for Ranjith Sankar-directed film Sunny. The Best Script Writer Award went to Indranil Roychowdhury and Sugata Sinha for India-Bangladesh film Mayar Jonjal. The special audience award was given to Aimee Baruah Directed film Semkhor. India won 4 out of 17 awards.

Notes:
India has paid USD 29.9 million in United Nations regular budget assessments for the year 2022. India is a non-permanent member of the 15-nation Security Council and its two-year term will end on December 31, 2022.
As of January 21, 2022, 24 Member States have paid their regular budget assessments in full. Iran, Guinea and Vanuatu paid sufficient dues to the UN regular budget to regain their voting rights. Only Venezuela and Papua New Guinea don’t have the right to vote in the 193 member body.

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 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:
The Ministry of Electronics and IT, Government of India, has given approval to Kerala for setting up India’s first ‘Graphene Innovation Centre’.
The state-run Digital University Kerala (DUK), along with CMET-Trichur, is to set up “India Innovation Centre for Graphene”, an R&D incubation centre. It will be implemented with the support of Government of Kerala, and Tata Steel Ltd will be the industrial partner of the centre. Graphene is the thinnest and strongest material in the world and could replace indium in OLED screens.

Notes:
‘International Customs Day’ is observed every year on January 26, across the world with the United Nations as the host. It recognises the role of customs officials and agencies in ensuring flow of goods across the world borders.
The Customs Cooperation Council (CCC) announced the observance of ICD in 1953. CCC was renamed as World Customs Organization (WCO) in 1994. The theme of 2022 is ‘Scaling up Customs Digital Transformation by Embracing a Data Culture and Building a Data Ecosystem’.

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:
‘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.