Current Affairs Quiz - June 2022

Notes:
The annual World Competitiveness Index compiled by the Institute for Management Development was recently released.
India has registered the sharpest rise among the Asian economies, with a six-place jump from 43rd to 37th rank on the index due to gains in economic performance. Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China were the top-performing Asian economies. Denmark was placed on top, while Switzerland slipped from the top to the second position.

Notes:
The UN refugee agency, UNHCR released the ‘2022 Global Trends Report’. As per the report, 100 million people have now been forced to flee their homes globally.
UNHCR also highlighted worldwide food insecurity, the climate crisis, war in Ukraine and other emergencies from Africa to Afghanistan as leading causes. As per the report, the number displaced by war, violence, persecution and human rights abuses stood at 89.3 million, by the end of 2021.

Notes:
NPCI International, the international arm of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Lyra Network of France for ‘Acceptance of UPI & Rupay Card in France.
India is doing 5.5 billion UPI transactions in a month. France is the first Western country with which India has partnered to expand its UPI services.

Notes:
European Space Agency’s Gaia mission has released a set of new data, which has revealed the phenomena of ‘starquakes’.
Starquakes are massive movements on the surface of stars similar to earthquake. The star-mapping Gaia probe has covered almost 1.8 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy. The data has also revealed the largest chemical map of the entire Milky Way, showing the DNA of millions of stars.

Notes:
The Shriram Group has secured RBI approval for the merger of Shriram City Union Finance and Shriram Capital Ltd with Shriram Transport Finance Company.
This consolidation is set to create the largest retail finance NBFC in the country. The merger would help the group bring together all its lending products. The Group announced that it would focus on digital lending, with distribution on a newly built super application.

Notes:
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) notified the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for telecom in 2021, aimed towards incentivising design-led manufacturing in the sector.
Recently the DoT has extended the PLI scheme by one year, and has amended the scheme to raise the incentive rate by an additional 1 per cent. The Centre will provide additional incentives of over Rs 4,000 crore.

Notes:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Centre for Brain Research (CBR) at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) campus, Bengaluru.
The Centre has been set up at a cost of Rs 280 crore. It is developed as the first research facility which focuses on conducting vital research to provide evidence-based public health interventions to manage age-related brain disorders.

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Myelodysplastic syndrome is a rare type of blood cancer that affects the body’s ability to make healthy blood cells in the bone marrow. It obstructs the body’s ability to produce blood cells. Its treatments range from blood transfusion to chemotherapy or stem cell transplantation.

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The UNGA has adopted the resolution to designate June 24 as the International Day of Women in Diplomacy. Its purpose is to promote the full and equal participation of women at all levels of diplomacy.

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Gotland is an island belonging to Sweden in the Baltic Sea. A new ‘smart road’ capable of charging big electric vehicles has been constructed in this island. The threat of electrical shocks from these wires is eliminated as they are buried under the road.