Current Affairs Quiz - July 2022

Notes:
The Group of 7 (G7) leaders from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the US have concluded a two-day summit.
They also announced goals of an open and cooperative international Climate Club towards establishing it by the end of 2022. The G7 leaders also condemned “Russia’s illegal and unjustifiable war of aggression against Ukraine”.

Notes:
Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce and Industry has released ‘Start-ups Ranking 2021’.
The ranking focuses on seven reform areas. Gujarat, Karnataka and Meghalaya were categorised as best performers while Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Mizoram and Ladakh have an emerging start-up ecosystem. Kerala, Maharashtra, Odisha, Telangana and Jammu and Kashmir were ranked as the top performers section.

Notes:
The UN Ocean Conference 2022 concluded with the unanimous adoption of the Lisbon Declaration “Our Ocean, our future, our responsibility.”
More than 150 countries agreed to scale up science-based and innovative actions to address the ocean emergency. The Lisbon Declaration takes into account the capacity challenges being faced by the developing countries, mainly the Small Island Developing States and Least Developing Countries.

Notes:
The Central Government has levied windfall tax on domestic crude oil producers. Domestic producers sell crude oil to domestic refineries at international parity prices, thus making windfall gains.
The Government also hiked the import duty on gold and imposed export duties on petrol, diesel and aviation turbine fuel (ATF). These are the initiatives to reduce pressure on the rupee, reduce the current account deficit (CAD), and increase the domestic supply of petroleum products. Special additional excise duties of Rs 6 and Rs 13 per litre on export of petrol and diesel were announced.

Notes:
Peter Brook, one of the greatest theatre directors of the 20th century, passed away recently at the age of 97.
He is also regarded as one of the world’s most innovative theatre directors. He was known for staging Peter Weiss’s “Marat/Sade” and Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”. He is known for bringing nine-hour adaptation of the Sanskrit epic “The Mahabharata” from France to New York in 1987.

Notes:
Scientists have discovered the world’s largest water-lily belonging to the genus Victoria at Kew Gardens in south-west London.
The species has been named Victoria boliviana, in honour of Bolivian partners in the research. The leaves of the newly discovered waterlily species grow up to three metres. The current record for the largest plant of the species is held by La Rinconada Gardens in Bolivia, with leaves of 3.2 metres.

Notes:
The 30 NATO allies signed the accession protocols for Sweden and Finland, sending the membership bids of the two countries to the alliance capitals for legislative approvals.
The 30 ambassadors and permanent representatives have to formally approve the decisions of last week’s NATO summit. Turkey warned that it could still block the process if the countries fail to fully meet Turkey’s demand to extradite terror suspects.

Notes:
Delhi will host its first ever government-backed shopping festival from January 28 to February 26 2023.
As per the Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, the festival will have 200 concerts for entertainment, food walks. It was one of the projects proposed in the Rozgaar Budget 2022-23 presented by deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia.

Notes:
‘Eoscansor cobrensis’, the 305-Million-Year-Old Fossil is the oldest known Tree-Climbing Reptile. It belonged to Varanopidae, an extinct family of reptiles that resembled monitor lizards.
The ancient reptile measured 24.5 cm and weighed 58.3 g. The reptile lived in New Mexico during the Pennsylvanian sub-period of the Carboniferous period. The aspects indicate that it was a climber, and arboreal (living in trees).

Notes:
The Padma Multipurpose Bridge, the longest bridge in Bangladesh, was inaugurated by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in June 2022.
The 6.15-km-long Padma Multipurpose Bridge, constructed at a cost of nearly USD 3.87 billion is one of the largest projects Bangladesh has ever undertaken. After World Bank withdrew from funding the project, Bangladesh opted for self-funding.