Current Affairs Quiz - June 2022

Notes:
Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari inaugurated the ‘Industrial Decarbonization Summit 2022’ in New Delhi.
The focus is on the Road Map for Carbon Neutrality by 2070. The Minister emphasized on maintaining equilibrium between ecology, environment and development. He also spoke about the government’s priority on green hydrogen, Bio-ethanol, Bio-LNG and Bio-CNG.

Notes:
Europe’s biggest start-up conference – Vivatech 2020 has recognized India as the ‘Country of the year”
Union Minister of Electronics and IT Ashwini Vaishnaw inaugurated the India pavilion at the Vivatech technology exhibition. Around 65 start-ups from India are participating in the conference with government support. India has created 100 unicorns in few years while Europe has created 26 unicorns.

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 Government has cleared the appointment of new chief justices in five high courts, as per the Law and Justice Ministry.
Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan will be appointed as the Chief Justice of the Uttarakhand High Court and Telangana High Court. Justice Amjad Ahtesham Sayed and Justice Shinde Sambhaji Shiwaji will take over as the Chief Justice of Himachal Pradesh High Court and Rajasthan High Court. Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Rashmin M Chhaya were appointed as the Chief Justice of the Delhi and Guwahati High Courts respectively.

Notes:
Bangladesh Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) recently clarified that the Padma Bridgeis not part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
It is a multipurpose road-rail bridge across the Padma River, the main distributary of the Ganges. When completed it will be the largest bridge in Bangladesh and the first fixed river crossing for road traffic. BRI or the ‘One Belt, One Road’ initiative is a flagship programme of President Xi Jinping for trade and connectivity and India has raised concerns over the BRI projects.

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UNESCO King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa Prize or the Use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in Education was established in 2005 with the help of the Kingdom of Bahrain. It gives recognition to the innovative use of ICT in the education sector.

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South Africa was the last member country to join the BRICS in the year 2010. Other BRICS countries are Brazil, Russia, India and China. Together, these countries account for around 40 per cent of the global population and some 30 per cent of the global GDP.

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The Varada River in central Karnataka is a tributary of Tungabhadra River. The state government of Karnataka is currently facing criticism from environmentalists for the proposed Bedti-Varada river linking project. The Bedti-Varada river-linking project seeks to pump about 524 million cubic metres (mcm) of water from Sirsi in Uttara Kannada to arid regions of Raichur and Koppal districts. It has met with strong opposition from local activists, who say that project will destroy 2,125 acres of forests in the ecologically sensitive parts of Western Ghats.

Notes:
Santhal or Santal are India’s third largest scheduled tribe community after Gonds and Bhils. The Santhali population is mainly distributed in Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal. NDA Presidential election candidate Droupadi Murmu’s home district, Mayurbhanj, is one of the districts having dense concentration of the Santhali people. Droupadi Murmu belongs to Santhal tribe. Apart from her, Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren, Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) Girsh Chandra Murmu, who was the first Lt Governor of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, Union Jal Shakti Minister Biseswar Tudu also belong to Santhal community.

Notes:
Two countries – Ukraine and Republic of Moldova – were granted the status of candidate country by the European Council. This paves the way towards them becoming the members of the European Bloc.