Current Affairs Quiz - June 2022

Notes:
The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) and the Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar have jointly unveiled a new supercomputer called Param Ananta.
It was launched in phase two of the central government’s National Supercomputing Mission (NSM). The supercomputer is capable of offering peak performance of 838 teraflops. With this, India has 15 supercomputers disclosed to the public, with a combined performance capability of 24 petaflops.

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:
The National Health Authority (NHA) under its flagship scheme of Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) has launched a public dashboard. It has information on the mission’s progress at state level.
The dashboard will display detailed information on core registries under the mission – Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA) numbers, Healthcare Professionals Registry (HPR) and Health Facility Registry (HFR).

Notes:
‘Hurricane Agatha’, the first of the Pacific season hit Mexico and the casualties climbed to at least 10 dead and around 20 missing in southern Mexico.
Heavy rains triggered landslides and flooding in the country. The storm was the strongest to make landfall along Mexico’s Pacific coast in May since record keeping began in 1949. Mexico is regularly hit by tropical storms on both its Pacific and Atlantic coasts, between May and November.

Notes:
‘Frontier’ became the world’s fastest supercomputer, according to the Top500 list of world’s most powerful supercomputers with Linmark benchmark score of 1.1 exaflops.
It is a supercomputer built using Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) architecture and equipped with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) processors. It surpassed Fugaku, Japan’s supercomputer jointly developed by RIKEN and Fujitsu Ltd., which topped the supercomputer benchmarking index in 2020.

Notes:
The Union Cabinet expanded the scope of the public procurement portal Government e-Marketplace (GeM) to allow cooperative societies to register as buyers.
This would help cooperatives in getting competitive prices through an open and transparent process. Over 8,54,000 registered cooperatives and their 270 million members will be benefitted. The registration of cooperatives as buyers was not covered within the existing mandate of GeM, so far.

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:
Railway Protection Force (RPF) launched a pan India drive “Operation Mahila Suraksha” was launched from May 3 to May 31, 2022.
During this drive, RPF has arrested more than 7,000 persons who were travelling in the coaches reserved for women without being authorised. RPF also rescued 150 women from becoming victims of human trafficking. Another pan India initiative “Meri Saheli” is also operational to provide safety and security to lady passengers.

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:
India’s Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu is on a three-nation tour, reached Senegal, a West African country.
India signed three MoUs with the country on 1) visa-free regime for Diplomatic and Official passport holders; 2)renewal of Cultural Exchange Progarmme (CEP) for the period 2022-26 and 3) bilateral cooperation in youth matters.