Test: June 2022 Weekly Current Affair - 3 - UPSC MCQ

Minister of Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw has launched ‘Innovation Policy for Indian Railways’, to encourage participation of start-ups.
Also referred as ‘Start-Ups for Railways’, the policy seeks to provide up to Rs. 1.5 Crore to innovators on equal sharing basis. Indian Railways will support in the form of 50 percent capital grant, assured market, scale and ecosystem.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi chairs the country’s ‘first national conference of chief secretaries’ in Dharamsala in the month of June 2022.
The conference will be a major step towards further strengthening partnership between Centre and the state governments. Three themes have been identified for deliberations including Implementation of the National Education Policy; Urban governance; crop diversification and achieving self-sufficiency in oilseeds, pulses and other agri-commodities.

Kerala has been ranked first in Asia in Affordable Talent in Global Startup Ecosystem Report (GSER).The State has also been ranked fourth in global ranking in the GSER, from its previous rank of 20.
It is released by Startup Genome and Global Entrepreneurship Network. Kerala founded ‘Kerala Startup Mission’ in 2006 to become a start-up powerhouse. As per the report, Kerala is suitable for investments in artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics.

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.

A team of scientists has discovered a new species of bamboo-dwelling bat from a bamboo forest in Meghalaya.
It was named as ‘Glischropus meghalayanus’ after the state of Meghalaya, which is celebrating its 50 years of statehood. With this discovery, the total number of bat species from India stands at 131 species with Meghalaya registering the highest bat diversity with 67 species.

The Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru was named the best regional airport in India and South Asia title in the 2022 Skytrax World Airport awards.
The award is based on the feedback from the customers in a globally conducted survey about experience from check-in to arrivals, transfers, shopping, security, immigration and arrangements in the departures gates. The Bengaluru airport had also won the Best Airport and Aviation Innovation Award at Wings India Awards earlier.

The fourth edition of Khelo India Youth Games 2021 concluded in  Panchkula and the hosts Haryana grabbed  the top position in the medal tally with 52 gold, 39 silver and 46 bronze medals.
Maharashtra and Karnataka were at the second and third places respectively. The fourth edition of the Khelo India Youth Games saw participation of athletes from over 36 states and Union Territories competing in 25 different sports.

India’s Union Cabinet has approved the proposal on the agreement between the Government of India and the United Nations on a ‘Way Finding Application’ to be used in the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG).
The Office is housed at the historic Palais des Nations. In view of the complexity of buildings and huge participation, India announced to develop the ‘Way Finding Application’ to UN on the occasion of its 75th anniversary in 2020. The estimated outlay for development and maintenance of the App is USD 2 Million.

The Uttar Pradesh cabinet approved a proposal to set up Pilibhit Tiger Protection Foundation under the provisions of Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.
The cabinet decided to give incentives to set up units in the state’s first proposed medical device park. It was also decided to implement the Pt Deendayal Upadhyay Kisan Samridhi Yojana in the state till 2026-27.

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.

India and other member countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) supported an initiative of China to organise a joint border operation ‘Solidarity-2023’ for the border agencies of the member countries next year.
India’s Border Security Force (BSF) Director announced this at the conclusion of the eighth meeting of the heads of border authorities of the competent bodies of SCO member states, which was held in Delhi, under the chairmanship of India.

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.

Karnataka government has launched software for Aadhar-based, single-window registration for the schemes, to provide easy access to farmers to benefits distributed under various government schemes.
The ‘Farmer Registration & Unified Beneficiary Information System’ (FRUITS) software facilitates single registration using an Aadhar card and Karnataka’s Bhoomi digitised land record system. The state departments of agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry, revenue, food, civil supplies and fisheries are covered under the initiative.

The Union Cabinet has approved a proposal of the Department of Telecommunications for the auction of 72 GHz of spectrum for a 20-year-period.
It will make way for providing 5G services to public and enterprises. 5G services is said to be about 10 times faster than 4G.The Cabinet also decided to enable the development of ‘Private Captive Networks’ to promote innovation in industry 4.0 applications.

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.

India hosted the SCO’s Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (SCO-RATS) Meeting in its capacity as chair of the SCO-RATS.
The meeting aims to deliberate on security challenges, including threats of terrorism. Delegations from China, Pakistan and other member nations of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) attended the meeting in New Delhi. India hosted a meeting of counter-terror experts from the SCO countries in May 2022.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) recently released a document titled “Payments Vision 2025”, with guidelines on payments.
The document also focussed on the architecture of digital finance. It includes regulations for BigTechs and fintechs in payments; guidelines on payments involving ‘Buy Now Pay Later’ (BNPL) services; introducing the central bank digital currency (CBDC); and linking credit cards and credit components of banking products to the Unified Payments Interface (UPI).

The Central Institute of Educational Technology (CIET), a unit of the NCERT has been awarded with the UNESCO’s King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa Prize for the use of ICT (Information And Communication Technology) in Education for the year 2021.
The institution has used ICT under the ‘PM eVidya’ scheme during the Covid pandemic. The PM eVIDYA programme was launched as part of the ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan’ in May 2020 to unify all efforts related to digital, online, on-air education Each prize-winner receives USD 25,000, a medal and a diploma.

The Ministry of Defence launched ‘Agnipath’ a major defence policy reform for recruitment of soldiers, sailors and airmen into the Indian Army, Indian Navy and Indian Air Force.
The personnel recruited under the scheme on short-term contractual basis will be called Agniveers. . Of the 50,000 recruited annually, 25 per cent will be allowed to continue for 15 years under permanent commission, to reduce the defence pension bill. 30 percent of monthly salary of Agniveers will be set aside, along with equal government contribution under Seva Nidhi programme.

The leaders of the West Asian QUAD – India, Israel, the US and UAE will meet for the first ever virtual summit. The meeting has been called by the White House and will be addressed by the US President Joe Biden.
US President Joe Biden is also making a visit to West Asia – Israel and Saudi Arabia. The White House has given a new acronym to identify the new grouping as I2U2: India, Israel and UAE and the US. Recently, UAE and Israel had signed a Free Trade Agreement (FTA), while India and the UAE too have signed a Free Trade Agreement (FTA).

The Ministry of Education (MoE) announced the launch of a special three-year skill based bachelor degree programme for ‘Agniveers’.
The degree programme offered by the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) will be recognised both in India and abroad for employment and education. Agniveers are the defence personnel to be recruited under the newly launched ‘Agnipath’ scheme.

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.

China recently launched its third aircraft carrier named ‘Fujian’. It is also the country’s most advanced and the first fully domestically built naval vessel.
Fujian is the name of China’s eastern coastal province of Fujian. Liaoning and Shandong are names of the two previous aircraft carriers of China. China plans to have around five aircraft carriers while the next carrier is expected to be nuclear-powered.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan announced that the data bank of Expatriate Malayalees will be expanded by conducting the Kerala Migration Survey.
A ‘Pravasi data portal’ will be prepared for the survey while the state will conduct an extensive global registration campaign. The Chief Minister addressed online the valedictory meeting of the third edition of the Loka Kerala Sabha.

The Chilika Lake, located in Odisha is Asia’s largest brackish water lagoon. According to a census conducted by Chilika Development Authority (CDA) in collaboration with The Fishing Cat Project (TFCP), the lake has 176 fishing cats.
This is the world’s longest-running research and conservation project on fishing cats, which began in 2010 and is currently underway in two states in India: West Bengal and Odisha. West Bengal declared fishing cats the state animal in 2012 and the fishing cat was announced as Chilika Lake’s ambassador in 2020.