Current Affairs Quiz - June 2022

Notes:
June 27 is celebrated as the Micro-Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs) Day. The day is aimed at raising public awareness of the contribution of MSMEs to global economic growth and sustainable development.
The United Nations General Assembly declared the day in the year 2017. According to the UN, formal and informal MSMEs account for 70 per cent of the total employment and 50 per cent of the GDP. Moreover, the sector makes up for 90 per cent of all firms.

Notes:
Odisha’s Dhenkanal forest department has announced plans to install automatic sirens near its national highway to protect elephants from accidents.
These sensor-based sirens will ring and a red light will turn on when elephants cross the road to alert drivers within a distance of up to 1 kilometre.  The pilot project has been initiated by ‘Change’, a voluntary organization.

Notes:
An informal inter-governmental grouping called the Partners in the Blue Pacific (PBP) was launched by the United States, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
It is a five-nation ‘informal mechanism’ to support Pacific islands and to boost diplomatic, economic ties in the region. The Indo-Pacific region accounts for 63 per cent of the global GDP and 46 per cent of the world’s merchandise trade.

Notes:
Avinash Kulkarni has been selected as the CEO of India Debt Resolution Company (IDRCL). It was formed to resolve more than ₹83,000 crore of bad loans to be acquired by the government-backed National Asset Reconstruction Company (NARCL).
He was the Chief executive of India Resurgence Asset Reconstruction Company (IRARC) and also had served in SBI. Another SBI veteran Natarajan Sundar was selected as CEO of the NARCL in April 2022.

Notes:
Ministry of Education released the Performance Grading Index for Districts (PGI-D) for 2019-20, and noted that schools across India performed poorly under the category of digital learning.
The top performing districts were Jaipur, Sikar and Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan. The PGI-D structure has 600 points, under six categories – Outcomes, Effective Classroom Transaction, Infrastructure Facilities & Student’s Entitlements, School Safety & Child Protection, Digital Learning and Governance Process.

Notes:
State Bank of India’s latest Ecowrap recent report stated that ‘Income inequality in India has been on a decline since FY17’.
The report noted that India also fared well during coronavirus pandemic in terms of navigating income shocks across population.  Sikkim and Goa led the states with a ratio of per capita income exceeding 3.

Notes:
Centre for Neuroscience (CNS), IISc reseachers have developed algorithm to study brain activity. Using ‘Regularized, Accelerated, Linear Fascicle Evaluation, or ReAl-LiFE’ algorithm, enormous amounts of data generated from diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging (dMRI) scans of the human brain can be analysed.
Using ReAL-LiFE, the team could evaluate dMRI data over 150 times faster than existing state-of-the-art algorithms.

Notes:
Hermit is the name of the latest sophisticated spyware seen in the news. It is believed to have targeted iPhones and Android devices in Italy and Kazakhstan.
The spyware has been developed by an Italian vendor called RCS Lab. Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) put out a detailed blog post recently, explaining how they believed Hermit was used to target devices.

Notes:
Social media giant Meta and Ministry of Tribal Affairs announced to extend their collaboration to launch the second phase of Going Online As Leaders (GOAL) programme.
The first phase of GOAL involved digital mentorship programme to tribal youth. In the second phase 10 lakh women and youth entrepreneurs will be mentored. The programme will create a platform for more than 50,000 self-help groups and 10 lakh families associated with TRIFED to market their products globally.

Notes:
Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) maritime military exercise is a biennial exercise led by the USA. Twenty-six nations are expected to participate in the operations, which began recently.
The 28th biennial exercise aims to promote an open and free Indo-Pacific region as maritime tensions escalate with China. The event will feature the latest US weapons systems, including unmanned surface vessels.