Current Affairs Quiz - January, 2023

Notes:
Savitribai Phule is formally recognised as India’s first woman teacher. She was born on January 3, 1831, in Maharashtra’s Naigaon village.
Along with her husband and social activist Jyotirao Phule, Savitribhai opened the country’s first girls’ school in Bhidewada, Pune, in 1848. They challenged oppressive caste-based social norms and made the downtrodden to pursue education.

Notes:
A team made up of international scientists have recently discovered 20 new frog species in Madagascar.
The team placed the frogs within the genus Mantidactylus and subgenus Brygoomantis. Before now, the group had just 14 members, but now has received 20 new members, and as per the researchers a lot of them sound like a creaking door or a gurgling stomach.

Notes:
The founder of cryptocurrency company FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried faces eight criminal counts, including wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy, among others
He recently pleaded not guilty Manhattan federal court, to charges of defrauding investors related to the collapse of the crypto exchange. He is accused of redirecting the deposits of FTX customers without their consent to his Alameda Research hedge fund.

Notes:
The United Kingdom announced that a record 87.6% of power generated into the grid came from zero-carbon sources like wind, nuclear and hydropower.
This was announced by National Grid Plc’s Electricity System Operator. 67% of Britain’s power came from wind, with 19% from nuclear and 9.5% from gas-fired power stations. A wind generation record was also set with almost 21 gigawatts of output.

Notes:
Six entities have been allowed to test their fintech products to prevent and mitigate financial fraud as part of the fourth cohort under the RBI’s regulatory sandbox scheme.
The Reserve Bank announced the the fourth cohort under the regulatory sandbox in June 2022 for the prevention and mitigation of financial fraud. The six entities are — Bahwan Cybertek, Crediwatch Information Analytics, enStage Software (Wibmo), HSBC in collaboration with Wibmo, napID Cybersec and Trusting Social.

Notes:
The ruling Taliban has signed a deal with a Chinese company to extract oil from northern Afghanistan’s Amu Darya basin.
The agreement is the first major international energy extraction deal the Taliban signed since taking control of Afghanistan in 2021.

Notes:
‘SPRINT Challenges’ was launched to give a boost to the usage of indigenous technology to Indian Navy
Recently, the Indian Navy has inked an agreement with Sagar Defence Engineering for acquiring armed autonomous boat swarms. This is the 50th contract that has been signed under ‘SPRINT’ challenge.

Notes:
As per a recent study by real estate consulting firm CBRE South Asia, Bengaluru led the rank in office space absorption.
Office space absorption in the city stood at 1.7 million square feet during the October-December 2022 period. Technology sector accounted for 43 per cent, while engineering and manufacturing was at 17 per cent.

Notes:
Union Minister of State Science & Technology; Dr Jitendra Singh released the theme for the ‘National Science Day 2023’, titled “Global Science for Global Wellbeing”.
The National Science Day (NSD) is celebrated every year on 28 February to commemorate the discovery of the ‘Raman Effect’ since 1986. On this day Sir C.V. Raman announced the discovery of the ‘Raman Effect’.

Notes:
India and the United Kingdom marked the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas by exchanging letters to formalise the Young Professionals Scheme.
The scheme allows up to 3,000 graduates in age bracket of 18-30 to get a two-year visa to study in each other’s countries. It aims to pave a way for the youth to understand the culture of one another. The launch of the ‘Young Professionals’ scheme was announced in November 2022 at G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia.