Current Affairs Quiz - June 2022

Notes:
The World Health Organization (WHO) released a report titled ‘Tobacco: Poisoning Our Planet’ to coincide with World No Tobacco Day.
It found that the tobacco industry is responsible for the annual loss of eight million human lives, 600 million trees, 200,000 hectares of land, 22 billion tonnes of water, and releases about 84 million tonnes of CO2 into the Earth’s atmosphere. The report called for steps to make the industry more accountable for the destruction.

Notes:
Maharashtra has overtaken Uttar Pradesh (UP) to regain its position as India’s top sugar producer, in the year 2021-22, after five-year gap.
The state’s output for the 2021-22 crushing year-October-September- stood at 138 lakh tonnes (lt). That is highest ever beating the previous 107.21 lakh tonnes of 2018-19. Maharashtra is followed by Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka.

Notes:
Former State Bank of India Deputy Managing Director Natarajan Sundar has been appointed as the Managing Director and CEO of NARCL (National Assets Reconstruction Company Ltd) as MD & CEO.
NARCL is the joint initiative of Public and Private Sector Banks, and is expected to takeover bad loans from banks and focus on resolution and recoveries. NARCL has shareholding from 15 Indian Banks and Canara Bank is the sponsor bank.

Notes:
Soft robots are robots that are flexible and unlike traditional robots can be used to perform more delicate functions.
Soft robots can be programmed to execute specific tasks such as reaching into difficult gaps or holding onto delicate objects.

Notes:
United States Department of Defense (DoD) announced the authorization of a security assistance valued at up to USD 700 million.
The assistance has been announced to meet critical Ukrainian needs for its fight. This authorization is the eleventh drawdown of equipment from the country for Ukraine since August 2021. The United States has now committed USD 5.3 billion in security assistance to Ukraine.

Notes:
Croatia is set to adopt the euro currency from the start of 2023 after meeting all the criteria to join the European Commission.
This move will make Croatia the 20th European country to use the single currency. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement that Croatia has made a step towards adopting the Euro common currency.

Notes:
Maharashtra government has decided to make six Road Transport Office’ (RTO) services online. People, who need a permanent driving licence or verification for an international driving licence will need to go to the RTO.
Maharashtra’s transport department provides 80 online services and now six more services have been included.

Notes:
Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC) partnered with Accenture to digitally transform its lending business.
The collaboration includes a cloud-native lending platform with digital workflows for application, loan processing, credit underwriting and decision- making, disbursement and loan servicing. A machine learning-based decision engine is also used for risk mitigation.

Notes:
The world’s largest plant- the ribbon weed (Posidonia australis) has recently been discovered off the West Coast of Australia.
It is a sea-grass which is measured to be 180 km in length. Ribbon weed rhizomes can usually grow to around 35cm per year and with this, the scientists arrived at its lifespan of 4,500  years. It has double the number of chromosomes than other similar plants, and managed to survive the volatile atmosphere of the Shark Bay.

Notes:
Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare and Chemicals and Fertilizers Mansukh Mandaviya inaugurated National Food Laboratory of FSSAI at Raxaul in Bihar.
This laboratory has been established under the Indo-Nepal bilateral agreement to reduce the time in the testing of imported food samples brought into Raxaul from Nepal.