Current Affairs Quiz - November, 2022

Notes:
Over 140 people including 40 women and 34 children were killed in the collapse of a 135-year-old suspension bridge on Machchhu river in Morbi.
The 754-feet bridge on the Machchu river was built during British rule in the 19th Century. It collapsed four days after it was reopened, after being closed for over seven months for repair and renovation work. It is a popular tourist attraction known as Julto Pul (swinging bridge).

Notes:
Ministry of Defence, Government of India, has approved to set up the ‘DRDO Industry Academia-Centre of Excellence’ (DIA-CoE) at Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IIT Roorkee).
The Facility will receive financial assistance from the DRDO, Government of India. Key research areas include, Smart Infrastructure and Hardened Structures for Defence Applications, Energy Storage Devices, Landslide, Snow, and Avalanche Studies, Pulsed Laser and Specialty Fiber, among others.

Notes:
The World Health Organisation (WHO) released the Global TB Report 2022, which notes the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the diagnosis, treatment and burden of disease for TB.
India’s TB incidence for the year 2021 is 210 per 100,000 population, compared to the baseline year of 2015. There has been an 18% decline which is 7 percentage points better than the global average of 11%. India is placed at 36th position in terms of TB incidence rates.

Notes:
Meghalaya government signed an MoU with the Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises (CGFTMSE), to facilitate flow of credit to the MSE sector.
The MoU was signed CGTMSE under the Union Ministry of MSME to implement the ‘Meghalaya Credit Guarantee Scheme’. Currently, loans taken by MSME borrowers are covered under CGTMSE against a risk coverage of 75 per cent of the loan amount under various MSME schemes.

Notes:
The University Grants Commission (UGC) has instructed all higher educational institutions to observe a ‘Bharatiya Bhasha Divas’ on December 11 every year.
The Day aims to celebrate language harmony and promote Indian languages. The move came after recommendations of a committee constituted by the Ministry of Education last year to emphasise the importance of Indian languages.

Notes:
‘Permacrisis’, a term that describes ‘an extended period of instability and insecurity’, has been named Word of the Year 2022 by Collins dictionary
The word relates to the challenges posed by climate change, the war in Europe, a cost-of-living crisis and political chaos. It was first used in academic contexts in the 1970s. In 2020, Collins picked “lockdown” as its word of the year and last year, it opted for “NFT- Non-fungible token”.

Notes:
China has released plans to further expand the global reach of its home-grown Beidou satellite navigation system.
It is named as the country’s alternative to America’s Global Positioning System (GPS). Beidou set up a first of three Continuously Operating Reference Stations (CORS) for its network in Thailand in the year 2013.

Notes:
SpaceX launched its Falcon Heavy rocket, sending several U.S. military satellites into orbit. This is the most powerful launched ever from the Earth.
This was SpaceX’s 50th launch of 2022 as SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9 rocket has launched 49 missions so far this year. The present pace of the space company is a launch every 6.10 days.

Notes:
As per the 2022 WTW Global Gender Wealth Equity report, women will have 74 per cent of the wealth accumulated by men, when they retire.
In Asia-Pacific (APAC), India had the worst gender wealth gap (64 per cent), more than the global average. A major factor for this is India’s gender pay gap for professional and technical roles. Another factor is that opportunities for women in leadership positions are limited, with only 3 per cent of women in workforce at senior positions.

Notes:
Renowned women’s rights activist Ela Bhatt, who is also the founder of SEWA (Self Employed Women’s Association), passed away recently.
SEWA was formed as a trade union of women working in the unorganized sector, which now has two million members. The 89-year-old, also a Padma Bhushan recipient, was a pioneer in the field of women empowerment and received international recognition.