Current Affairs Quiz - June 2022

Notes:
West Nile fever was first detected in 1937 in Uganda. The vector-borne infection is spread by the Culex species of mosquitoes. The fever was first detected in Kerala in 2011.
A 47-year-old man died due to West Nile fever in Kerala’s Thrissur district. It is the first fatality in the state caused by the disease in the last three years.

Notes:
Israel archaeologists have recently found a 2,100-Year-Old ancient farmstead at the archaeological site of Horbat Assad in Israel.
They also unearthed loom weights used for weaving garments, large ceramic storage vessels, and iron agricultural implements, including various picks and scythes. The ancient coins retrieved date the farmstead to the second half of the second century BCE.

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:
NTPC Ltd, India’s largest integrated energy producer has issued renewed Biodiversity Policy 2022, aligned with environmental and sustainability policies.
NTPC was the first PSU to issue Biodiversity Policy in the year 2018. The Public sector undertaking, formerly known as National Thermal Power Corporation Limited, also became a member of the India Business & Biodiversity Initiative (IBBI) in the same year.

Notes:
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan attended the ‘National Conference of School Education Ministers’ in Gujarat.
The Conference was organised by the Department of School Education & Literacy of Union Education Ministry and Education Ministry of Gujarat. It aims to focus on strengthening the education ecosystem in the country with a focus on the implementation of National Education Policy 2020, skilling in schools, and digital initiatives.

Notes:
The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Forum 2022 started from 15 March in a virtual format with the final week held physically from 30 May to 3 June 2022 at the ITU Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.
The forum was held under the theme of ‘ICTs for Well-Being, Inclusion and Resilience: WSIS Cooperation for Accelerating Progress on the SDGs’. The WSIS Forum is co-organized by ITU, UNESCO, UNDP and UNCTAD.

Notes:
The ‘International Week of Solidarity with the Peoples of Non-Self-Governing Territories’ is observed from May 25 to May 31.
In the UN Charter, a Non-Self-Governing Territory is defined as a Territory “whose people have not yet attained a full measure of self-government.” At present, there are 17 Non-Self-Governing Territories remaining.

Notes:
The Times Higher Education (THE) released the 2022 edition of the Asia University Rankings with universities from 31 countries and territories.
India is the third most-represented country, with 71 universities making it to the list. Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore is the only institute to make the top-50 list at 42^nd rank. JSS Academy of Higher Education and Research (65^th), IIT Ropar (68) and IIT Indore (87) were in top 100 list.

Notes:
The Martin Ennals Foundation has decided to posthumously pay homage to Father Stan Swamy. He was a Jesuit priest and tribal rights activist from Jharkhand who had been arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case. He worked closely with Adivasi communities to safeguard their land, forest and labour rights.
The Geneva-based foundation presents the award regarded as the Nobel Prize for human rights defenders every year. The recipients of this year’s awards include Daouda Diallo from Burkina Faso, Pham Doan Trang from Vietnam and Abdul-Hadi Al-Khawaja of Bahrain.

Notes:
The Chandigarh UT Administration and the Indian Air Force (IAF) signed an MoU on the Indian Air Force Heritage Centre.
The centre will have simulators, decommissioned aircraft, aero engines and other IAF artefacts. The centre will also include virtual reality and AI technology. The Heritage Centre will be informative and motivate the country’s youth to join the armed forces.