Test: June 2022 Weekly Current Affair - 4 - UPSC MCQ

Union Minister for Housing & Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri recently launched a project for skill training of construction workers called ‘NIPUN’ i.e. National Initiative for Promoting Upskilling of Nirman workers.
It is an initiative of Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs (MoHUA) under the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Urban Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NULM). It aims to train over 1 lakh construction workers, through skilling and upskilling programmes and provides them with work opportunities also in foreign countries.

The National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC) is the nodal agency responsible for protecting India’s critical information infrastructure. It was established in 2014 under Section 70A of the IT Act, 2000. It is part of the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), an intelligence agency under the NSA.

The UN announced world’s first-ever floating city named Oceanix City in April this year. It is going to be set up off the coast of South Korea’s second-largest city, Busan. The construction process is going to commence next year.

The Tenth Schedule, which is popularly known as the Anti-Defection Act, became part of the Indian Constitution as the result of the 52nd Amendment Act, 1985. It sets grounds for the disqualification of legislators on the grounds of defection to another political party. It was recently making news due to Maharashtra Political Crisis.

Observed on June 23, UN Public Service Day aims to recognize the importance of public institutions and public servants in ensuring the development of all sectors across the globe.
The 2022 theme is “Building back better from COVID-19: Enhancing innovative partnerships to meet the Sustainable Development Goals”.

US President Joe Biden and other G7 leaders re-launched the “Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment” at their annual gathering at Schloss Elmau in Germany.
It aims to raise USD 600 billion in private and public funds over five years, to finance infrastructure in developing countries and counter China’s Belt and Road project. The United States would mobilise USD 200bn in grants, federal funds and private investment over five years, while Europe will mobilise 300 billion euros.

NITI Aayog released a report titled ‘India’s Booming Gig and Platform Economy’ recently. The Indian gig workforce is expected to expand to 23.5 million workers by 2029-30, a 200 per cent jump from 7.7 million now.
The report estimates that gig workers will form 4.1 per cent of the total workforce in India by 2029-2030, from 1.5 per cent now. The report stated 47 per cent of the jobs are medium-skilled, about 22 per cent are high-skilled, and about 31 per cent are low-skilled.

The ‘Dak Karmayogi’ e-learning portal of the Department of Posts was launched by Ashwini Vaishnaw, Minister of Communications.
This portal has been developed in-house under vision of ‘Mission Karmayogi’, conceptualized by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to promote efficiency of Government employees. The portal will enhance the competencies of about 4 lakh Gramin Dak Sevaks and employees by providing uniform standardized training content online or in blended campus mode.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi participated in the eighth International Day of Yoga (IDY) celebrations in Karnataka’s Mysuru. The theme of this year’s Yoga Day celebrations is ‘Yoga for Humanity’.
Over 25 crore people across the world took part in various events and doing yoga in unison. A programme in coordination with the Ministry of External Affairs has also been organised for a mass Yoga Protocol around the world on the day following the movement of the sun.

Former US President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863 to free African Americans in secessionist Confederate states from slavery. It remained ineffective for more than two years as the slave owners withheld this information from their slaves. The last of the enslaved African Americans were freed on June 19, 1865 – two months following the end of the Civil War.

The Bashi Channel, which connects the South China Sea with the western Pacific Ocean, is a waterway between the Philippines’ northern island of Luzon and the Taiwanese island of Orchid. It is part of the Luzon Strait, which connects the Philippine Sea to the South China Sea.

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.

Odisha’s Capital Region Urban Transport (CRUT) authority introduced the Mo Bus Service in November 2018 to promote smart technologies and safe transportation for women riders
It was recently recognised by the UN’s Public Service Awards for 2022.

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) launched its annual ranking of the world’s most liveable cities- Global Liveability Index for 2022.
173 cities were ranked based on a range of criteria, including infrastructure, availability to green space, political stability, crime rates, and health care. Vienna (Austria), Copenhagen (Denmark) and Zurich (Switzerland) were the top three cities in the index.

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.

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.

The Multinational Peacekeeping Exercise “Ex Khaan Quest -2022” was conducted at Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia.
The exercise provided a platform for mutual learning and sharing best practices amongst the armies from 16 Nations. The Indian contingent consisting of personnel from the Ladakh Scouts participated in the exercise. Mock tactical operations as per United Nations (UN) mandate among other exercise were held.

Article 263 of the Indian Constitution allows the President to establish the Inter-State Council, which brings together government entities on a common platform for discussing various governance issues. The Inter-State Council was established in 1990. Its chairman is the Prime Minister and its members include chief ministers and administrators of states and union territories.

The Russian enclave Kaliningrad is located on the Baltic Sea. It is sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland. It was captured by the USSR from Nazi Germany in April 1945. It became part of the USSR territory as the result of the Potsdam Agreement. It was recently in news because of a row after Lithuania decided to ban goods part of EU sanctions from moving through its territory to reach Kaliningrad.

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.

A joint India-UK Commonwealth Diplomatic Academy programme was recently announced by the foreign ministers of the UK and India.
It aims to equip diplomats from all Commonwealth member states with expertise and skills required for addressing emerging challenges that have global-level impact. This academy programme will be hosted in New Delhi. This was announced during the 26th Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), which was held in Rwanda, East Africa from June 24 to 2

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.

The Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying is set to launch the One Health Pilot project in Bengaluru.
It will help develop a roadmap for a national project to prevent future outbreaks of zoonotic diseases by using better response mechanism and management and incorporating global best practices. DAHD in collaboration with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and CII as partner is implementing the One-Health Framework project in Karnataka and Uttarakhand.

Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) instituted “National Highways Excellence Awards” (NHEA) in 2018, to incentivize stakeholders in the highway construction and maintenance process.
It aims to recognize and award companies for the best-performing road assets and toll plazas across the country. Performance during construction, operations and maintenance, innovation, greenery, tolling stages of highway development will be rated along with the field of road safety.

A 300kg stingray caught in the Mekong River in Cambodia is the biggest freshwater fish ever documented in the world.
Though there is no official database of the world’s biggest freshwater fish, the previous largest recorded fish was a 293kg Mekong giant catfish caught in Thailand in 2005. The Mekong River flows from the Tibetan Plateau through China, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.