SPOTLIGHT

Monthly Current Affairs

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RBI - NABARD - SEBI

SPOTLIGHT – FEBRUARY
2022
Table of Contents
NATIONAL NEWS .......................................................................................................................... 2

STATE NEWS ............................................................................................................................... 47

AGRICULTURE AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT ....................................................................... 61

DEFENCE NEWS ......................................................................................................................... 63

MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING ................................................................................... 67

INTERNATIONAL NEWS ............................................................................................................ 70

REPORTS AND INDICES ............................................................................................................ 79

BANKING AND ECONOMY ........................................................................................................ 87

GDP FORECASTS ......................................................................................................................117

APPOINTMENTS ........................................................................................................................118

IMPORTANT DAYS.....................................................................................................................123

AWARDS .....................................................................................................................................127

SPORTS .......................................................................................................................................130

MISCELLANEOUS ......................................................................................................................134

QUESTIONS ................................................................................................................................139

pg. 1
 NATIONAL NEWS
1. According to the National Leprosy Eradication Programme’s (NLEP) data, India accounts
for over half (almost 60%) of the world's new leprosy patients.
• Bihar, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal,
and Jharkhand contributed 76% of the new leprosy cases.
• However, India was declared Leprosy free in 2005.
• As per WHO’s data, 114,451 new leprosy cases were detected in India in 2019-20 which
accounted for 80% of the cases of southeast Asian countries.
• As per NLEP, annual new case detection stands at 4.56 per 100,000 population.
• In India, the percentage of children who are affected by leprosy stands at 5.76%.
• As per NLEP, the number of leprosy cases in India has witnessed a significant decline.

2. Economic Survey 2021-22 – India ranks at the 3rd position globally in average annual net
gain in forest area from 2010-2020.
• During the 10 years, India added an average of 2,66,000 hectares of additional forest area
every year.
• Forests covered 24% of India’s total geographical area accounting for 2% of the world’s
total forest area in 2020.
• Madhya Pradesh with 11% of India’s total forest cover, had the largest area under
forests in 2021, followed by Arunachal Pradesh (9%), Chhattisgarh (8%), Odisha (7%) and
Maharashtra (7%).
• Mizoram (85%), Arunachal Pradesh (79%), Meghalaya (76%), Manipur (74%) and
Nagaland (74%) were the top five States in terms of highest proportion of forest cover to the
geographical area of the State in 2021.
• The top 10 countries account for 66% of the world’s forest area.
• Of these, Brazil (59%), Peru (57%), Democratic Republic of Congo (56%) and Russia
(50%) have half or more of their total geographical area under forests

3. 11th India–Oman Joint Military Cooperation Committee Meeting (JMCC) on bilateral

defence cooperation was held in New Delhi on January 31, 2022.

pg. 2
 • During the meeting, the two sides reviewed the progress made in military-to-military
engagements, including joint exercises, industry cooperation and various ongoing
infrastructure projects.
• Both sides also discussed conducting the Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief
(HADR) exercise involving the three services and enhancing the scope and complexities of
the existing joint exercises.

4. 30th foundation day of the National Commission for Women (NCW) was celebrated on Jan
31.
• A program was organized to celebrate the day, on the theme of ‘She The Change Maker’.
• Topics of Discussions – “Women Entrepreneurs Driving the Change”; “Women in
Decision Making”; and “Digital Empowerment of Women”
• NCW was founded in January 1992 as a statutory body under the National Commission
for Women Act, 1990.

5. Ministry of Heavy Industries has notified the Scheme on Enhancement of

Competitiveness in Capital Goods Sector – Phase 2.
• Purpose – To provide assistance to common technology development and service
infrastructure
• Launch year – Phase 1 in 2014; Phase 2 in 2022
• Financial outlay – Rs.1207 Crores (Budgetary support – Rs.975 Crore and Industry
contribution – Rs.232 Crore)

6. Union Budget 2022-23 –

• Digital Ecosystem for Skilling and Livelihood (DESH) portal has been launched to
empower citizens to skill, reskill or upskill through online training.
• A digital university will be established to provide access to personalised learning
experience at their doorsteps.
o The university will be built on a networked hub-and-spoke model.
• National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF) will be aligned with dynamic industry
needs.

pg. 3
 • 750 virtual labs in science and mathematics, as well as 75 skilling e-labs will be set up in
2022-23 to promote critical thinking skills and to give space for creativity.
• Start-ups will be promoted to facilitate ‘Drone Shakti’ through varied applications and for
drone-as-a-service (DrAAS).
• PM e-VIDYA will be expanded from 12 to 200 TV channels.
• Sovereign Green Bonds will be issued to finance projects of climate-friendly
infrastructure.
• 75 Digital Banking Units in 75 districts of the country will be established by Scheduled
Commercial Banks.
• Govt will set up an Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming and Comics (AVGC) promotion
task force for boosting talent in the animation and gaming sector.
o India presently has around 10% share in the global AVGC market and has the
potential to reach 20-25% by 2027
• RAMP Program (Raising and Accelerating MSME Performance) will be launched with the
objective of making MSMEs more resilient, competent and efficient.
o Total outlay – Rs.6000 Crore
o Period of implementation – 5 years
• Defence sector – 68% of the capital goods procurement budget will be allocated for
domestic industry in 2022-23, up from 58% in 2021-22.
o Defence R&D will be opened up for industry, startups and academia with 25% of
defence R&D budget earmarked.
• Fiscal Deficit of States – states would be allowed a fiscal deficit of 4% of gross state
domestic product, of which 0.5% will be tied to power-sector reforms.

7. In previous year’s budget (i.e., Union Budget 2021-22), Govt has announced to set up
“National Land Monetisation Corporation” to speed up the process of monetisation of land
and non-core assets of public sector entities.
• So far, CPSEs have referred 3,400 acres of land and other non-core assets for
monetisation.

pg. 4
 • National Land Monetisation Corporation (NLMC) is incorporated as a 100%
Government-owned entity with an initial authorised share capital of Rs 5,000 crore and
subscribed share capital of Rs 150 crore.
• As per the Economic Survey of 2021-22, there is an aggregate monetisation potential of
Rs 6 lakh crore through core assets of the central government over a four-year period from
2021-22 to 2024-25.
• NITI Aayog is spearheading the monetisation of core assets and Department of
Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) is spearheading the monetisation of
non-core assets.

8. GAIL has launched India’s first-of-its-kind project of mixing hydrogen into the natural gas
system.
• Purpose - to use hydrogen in the City Gas Distribution (CGD) network. The blended
Compressed Natural Gas or CNG (hydrogen + natural gas) will be supplied to the
vehicles in Indore.
• The project has been initiated in Indore, Madhya Pradesh.
• The hydrogen blended natural gas will be supplied to Avantika Gas Ltd, one of GAIL’s joint
venture with HPCL, for retailing of CNG to automobiles and piped natural gas to
households in Indore.

9. Ministry of Culture has announced to nominate Hoysala Temples of Belur, Halebidu and
Somnathapura in Karnataka for the World Heritage List for the year 2022-2023.
• Halebidu, earlier known as Dwarasamudra, was the capital of Hoysala empire.

pg. 5
 • The ‘Sacred Ensembles of the Hoysala’ have been on UNESCO‘s Tentative List since
2014.

10. The Global Centre of Excellence in Affordable and Clean Energy was launched at IIT
Dharwad, Karnataka.

11. Union Budget 2022-23 – ‘One Nation, One Registration’ scheme was announced to improve
the ease of doing business and living in India.
• Besides this, 25,000 compliances have been eliminated and 1,486 union laws have also
been revoked to make it easier to do business in the country.
• Special Economic Zones Act, 2005 will be replaced with new legislation to encourage the
development of enterprise and hubs.

12. India now has a total of 49 Ramsar sites, covering an area of over 10 lakh hectares, the
highest in South Asia.
• On the World Wetlands Day (February 2), Khijadia Wildlife Sanctuary in Gujarat and
Bakhira Wildlife Sanctuary in Uttar Pradesh have been added to the Ramsar site.
• Bhindawas Wildlife Sanctuary, the largest wetland in Haryana is a human-made freshwater
wetland

13. Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, has commissioned Param Pravega
supercomputer under the National Supercomputing Mission.
• It is one of the most powerful supercomputers in India and it is the “largest in an Indian
academic institution”.
• Param Pravega supercomputer has a total supercomputing capacity of 3.3 petaflops.
• Param Pravega has Intel Xeon Cascade Lake processors for the CPU nodes and NVIDIA
Tesla V100 cards on the GPU nodes.

14. IIM-Ahmedabad will establish the India’s first research chair in ESG in collaboration with the
National Investment and Infrastructure Fund Limited (NIIF).

pg. 6
 • The newly formed 'NIIF Chair in ESG at IIMA' will work closely with the Arun Duggal ESG
Centre for Research and Innovation at IIMA.

15. ‘Beating Retreat’ ceremony will be organized at Delhi.

• The ceremony will feature a show of thousand drones.
• The drone show has been organised by startup 'Botlab Dynamics' and supported by the
IIT-Delhi and the Department of Science and Technology.
• 'Beating Retreat' is a centuries-old military tradition.

16. India has signed an interim agreement confirming its commitment to work on the mega
science project — Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO) — proposed to be the
world’s largest radio telescope.
• The agreement will be valid for 1 year.
• TIFR – National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA) signed the agreement on behalf
of India.
• SKA will be built in Australia and South Africa and is headquartered in the United
Kingdom.
• SKA is a joint effort of many countries. It is expected to be operational by the end of this
decade.

17. Central Government has approved the continuation of Scheme of Assistance to National
Sports Federations (NSFs) with an outlay of Rs. 1575 crore for 15th Finance Commission
Cycle (2021-22 to 2025-26).
• The Scheme of Assistance to NSFs is the flagship Central Sector Scheme and the main
source of funding for preparation of national teams for all major national and international
competitions like Olympics, Commonwealth Games etc.

18. Ministry of Education has announced to include millets in the mid-day meal scheme, also
known as ‘PM POSHAN’ scheme.
• 2023 is the International Year of Millets.

pg. 7
19. Ministry of Tourism has included Punaura Dham in Bihar in the Ramayana circuit of
Swadesh Darshan Scheme.
• The destination of Punaura Dham has been included under PRASHAD Scheme of the
Ministry of Tourism.

20. The Aravalli Biodiversity Park in Gurugram, Haryana, has been declared as India’s first
“other effective area-based conservation measures” (OECM) site, on the occasion of
World Wetlands Day.
• The OECM tag is provided by the International Union for Conservation of Nature
(IUCN).
• OECM sites are not protected areas like wildlife sanctuaries but support rich diversity. They
are just governed to protect the biodiversity of the area.

21. International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) has
celebrated its 50th anniversary at its global headquarters in Hyderabad, India.
• ICRISAT was established on 28th March 1972 in India.
• During the anniversary celebrations, two research facilities were inaugurated at ICRISAT
– Climate Change Research Facility on Plant Protection and Rapid Generation
Advancement Facility.
• These two facilities are dedicated to the smallholder farmers of Asia and sub-Saharan
Africa.

22. National Medical Commission (NMC) has issued guidelines that the fee of 50% seats in
private medical colleges and deemed universities should be at par with the fee in
government medical colleges in the country.
• National Medical Commission Act, 2019 reconstituted the NMC.
• Chairperson of NMC - Suresh Chandra Sharma

pg. 8
23. IIT-Hyderabad has announced to set up the Suzuki Innovation Centre on its campus.
• For this, the IIT-Hyderabad has signed a contract with Suzuki Motor Corporation.

24. India will install an intelligent transportation system (ITS), procured from Republic of Korea,
at its 701-km Mumbai-Nagpur Super Communication Expressway.
• This expressway is set to be India’s longest expressway.
• Purpose – This first of its kind system will ensure the safety of motorists and to prevent
accidents.
• Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) is the nodal agency for
developing the eight-lane expressway, which is set to be the fastest in the country with a
speed of 150 km per hour, at a cost of Rs 55,000 crore.
• Economic Development Cooperation Fund (EDCF) of the Republic of Korea is
providing financial assistance for the ITS system at the expressway.

25. 'Swachhta Saarthi Fellowship 2022' has been announced by the Office of the Principal
Scientific Adviser to the government of India under its 'Waste to Wealth' mission.
• Purpose – to honour the young innovators who are engaged in community work of
waste management, waste awareness campaigns, waste surveys etc. and to
implement actions to reduce waste for a greener planet.
• Eligibility criteria of the fellowship is divided in three categories -
o Category-A: Open to school students from 9th to 12th standards engaged in waste
management community work.
o Category-B: Open to college students (UG, PG, Research students) engaged in
waste management community work.
o Category-C: Open to SHGs or sanitary workers.
• Remuneration for different categories -
o Category-A: An amount of Rs. 500/- per month would be given as fellowship for a
period of 1 year.
o Category-B: An amount of Rs. 1,000/- per month would be given as fellowship for a
period of 1 year.

pg. 9
 o Category-C: A maximum of 2 citizens from the same SHG can apply an amount of
Rs. 2,000/- per month would be given as fellowship for a period of 1 year.
• Application Portal – wastetowealth.gov.in/fellowship-home

About the Nine National Missions of PM-STIAC –

• PM-STIAC – Prime Minister's Science, Technology, and Innovation Advisory Council
S.
Missions Lead Agencies Purpose
No.
o Ministry of Electronics o To make opportunities and
and Information progress in science and
National Technology technology accessible to all in
i) Language o Ministry of Human their mother tongue and,
Translation Resource Development o To remove the barrier that a
o Department of Science requirement of high-level of
and Technology proficiency in English poses.
o Department of Science o To understand and control of
and Technology quantum mechanical systems.
o Department of Space o This mission is essential for
o Department of Atomic national security and development
Quantum Energy of quantum computers, quantum
ii) Frontier o Defence Research and chemistry, quantum
mission Development communication, new materials,
Organisation quantum sensors, and quantum
o Ministry of Electronics cryptography
and Information
Technology
o NITI Aayog o To leverage the use of ai in
Artificial
o Department of Science addressing societal needs in areas
iii) Intelligence
and Technology such as healthcare, education,
(AI) mission
agriculture, smart cities and

pg. 10
 o Ministry of Electronics infrastructure, including smart
and Information mobility and transportation.
Technology o This mission focuses on industry-
o Department of academia collaborations.
Biotechnology
o Ministry of Environment, o Comprehensive documentation of
Forests and Climate india’s biodiversity with the
Change potential for cataloguing and
o Department of mapping all lifeforms in india
Biotechnology o Expansion of knowledge in
ecosystem functioning that will
inform restoration efforts;
National
enhanced options for agricultural
iv) Biodiversity
production and livelihood;
Mission
establishment of vibrant
biodiversity-based sustainable
economy anchored on a
foundation of the reliable
information system; and public
engagement for security and the
general well-being of society.
o Department of Science o To develop vehicle sub-systems
and Technology and components specific to indian
o Department of Heavy requirements
Electric Industries o To assist speedy adoption of
v)
Vehicles o Ministry of New and electric vehicles by making their
Renewable Energy use viable
o Ministry of Power
o NITI Aayog

pg. 11
 o Department of o To construct comprehensive
Biotechnology reference maps of genomes and
o Department of Health to understand the dynamics of
Bioscience Research how exposure to different
vi) for Human o Department of Health environments impact human
Health o Department of Science bodies.
and Technology
o Department of Atomic
Energy
o Department of o An initiative by the office of the
Biotechnology principal scientific advisor
Waste to o Department of Science o To address the issues of waste
Wealth - and Technology disposal, deteriorating air quality
Swachh o Ministry of Environment, and increasing river pollution by
vii)
Bharat, Unnat Forest and Climate leveraging technologies.
Bharat Change
mission o Ministry of Urban
Development
o Swachh Bharat Abhiyan
o Ministry of Earth o To scientifically explore the deep
Sciences oceans towards improving our
o Department of understanding of the blue frontier
Biotechnology o Address issues arising from long
o Department of Space term changes in the ocean due to
Deep Ocean o Ministry of New and climate change
viii)
Exploration Renewable Energy o Focus areas –
o Oil and Natural Gas § Development of
Corporation technologies for deep sea
o Defence Research and exploration and exploitation
Development of living (biodiversity) and
Organisation

pg. 12
 o Geological Survey of non-living (minerals)
India resources;
o National Hydrographic § Development of underwater
Office vehicles and underwater
o National Biodiversity robotics;
Authority § Development of ocean
climate change advisory
services;
§ Technological innovations
and conservational
methods for sustainable
utilisation of marine bio-
resources;
§ Offshore based
desalination techniques;
and,
§ Renewable energy
generation.
o Invest India o To boost the innovation
ecosystem by connecting
innovators across industry,
individuals and to the market
AGNIi o To help in commercialising
(Accelerating innovative solutions
ix) Growth of o To provide a platform for
New India’s innovators to bring their
Innovations) technology ready products and
solutions to industry and the
market
o Thus, boosting the ‘techno-
entrepreneurship’

pg. 13
26. Central Government has decided to continue the Scheme of “Rashtriya Yuva
Sashaktikaran Karyakram” for 2021-22 to 2025-26 with an outlay of Rs 2,710.65 Crore.
• Purpose - for developing the personality and leadership qualities of the youth and to
engage them in nation building activities
• Ministry – It is Central Sector Scheme of the Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports.
• Eligibility for youth - 15-29 years, in line with the definition of ‘youth’ in the National
Youth Policy, 2014.
o In case of adolescents, the age limit is 10 to 19 years.
• Sub-schemes of the RYSK –
i. Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan (NYKS)
ii. National Youth Corps (NYC)
iii. National Programme for Youth & Adolescent Development (NPYAD)
iv. International Cooperation
v. Youth Hostels (YH)
vi. Assistance to Scouting & Guiding Organizations
vii. National Young Leaders Programme (NYLP)
• Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports has been granted the fund of Rs. 41.60 Crore for
creation of National Yuva Volunteer Registry under the RYSK Scheme.
• Some of the programs organized under RYSK –
o National Youth Parliament
o National Youth Festival
o North-East Youth Festival
o Neighbourhood Youth Parliament
o International Youth Exchange Programmes
o International Youth Summits/Meetings/conferences viz. BRICS Youth Summit,
Youth-20 Summit, IBSA Youth Summit, Commonwealth Youth Meetings, SCO
Meetings etc.

pg. 14
27. Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions has launched “Innovations in
Public Administration” program of Capacity Building Commission (CBC) of Mission
Karmayogi.
• Purpose - to identify successful innovations in public service pioneered by civil servants.
• CBC Knowledge Repository will be created to store the data on innovations and
implement them in the country.
• Innovation Portal will also be launched for civil servants to capture successful
innovations for effective governance.

28. ISRO has demonstrated hack-proof quantum communications technology.

• The technology was developed by Ahmedabad-based Space Applications Centre and
Physical Research Laboratory.
• This technology would ensure safe and secure communication among the facilities of ISRO.

29. Railway Protection Force (RPF) has launched ‘Operation AAHT’, a nationwide operation, to
curb human trafficking.

30. Ministry of Power has launched the Powerthon-2022 hackathon to find technology driven
solutions to solve the complex problems in power distribution.
• The competition has been launched under the Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme
(RDSS).
• Participants – Start-ups, Technology Solution Providers (TSPs), Educational and
Research Institutions, Equipment Manufacturers and State Power Utilities and other power
entities.
• Themes of the Hackathon – Total 9
o Demand/load forecasting,
o AT&C (Aggregate Technical and Commercial) loss reduction,
o Energy theft detection,
o Prediction of DT (Distribution Transformer) failure,
o Asset inspection,
o Vegetation management,

pg. 15
 o Consumer experience enhancement,
o Renewable energy integration and,
o Power purchase optimisation.

About the RDSS (Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme) –

• Launched in 2021, this umbrella scheme aims to improve the operational efficiencies and
financial sustainability of discoms (excluding Private Sector DISCOMs).
• Purpose – to provide finance for strengthening the supply infrastructure of discoms (power
distribution companies).
• RDSS is a Reform-based and Result-linked Scheme.
• Tenure – till 2025-26.
• Umbrella Scheme – All the existing power sector reforms schemes such as Integrated
Power Development Scheme, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana, and Pradhan
Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana will be merged into this umbrella program.
• Targets of RDSS –
o Reducing AT&C losses to 12-15%,
o Eliminating the cost-revenue gap by 2024-25, and
o Improving the quality & reliability of the power supply.

31. Ministry of Commerce and Industry has approved the continuation of Indian Footwear and
Leather Development Programme (IFLDP) from 2021-22 till 2025-26 with an approved
financial outlay of ₹1,700 crore.
• Purpose of IFLDP – development of infrastructure for the leather sector, address
environmental concerns specific to the leather sector, facilitate additional investments,
employment generation and increase in production.
• Sub-schemes under IFLDP –
o Sustainable technology and environmental promotion;
o Integrated development of leather sector (IDLS);
§ Proposed Outlay – Rs 500 cr.

pg. 16
 § Aim – assistance would be provided to the sectoral units for their
modernization/capacity expansion/technology up-gradation on or after 1
January 2020.
o Establishment of institutional facilities;
o Mega Leather Footwear and Accessories Cluster Development;
o Brand promotion;
§ The govt would provide 50% assistance of total project cost subject to a limit
of ₹10 crore for each brand in the next three years to promote ten Indian
brands in the international market.
o Development of design studios (new sub-scheme with a proposed outlay of ₹100
crore)
§ Development of design studios would promote marketing/export linkages,
facilitate buyer-seller meets, display designs to international buyers and work
as an interface for the trade fairs.

32. Dr Mansukh Mandaviya, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare, has launched the
Intensified Mission Indradhanush 4.0 – the universal vaccination program.
• Coverage - 416 districts (including 75 districts identified for Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav)
across 33 States/UTs in the country.
o In the first round (Feb-April 2022), 11 states will conduct IMI 4.0.
• Basis of selection of 416 districts - vaccination coverage as per the NFHS-5 report,
Health Management Information System (HMIS) data and burden of vaccine preventable
diseases.
• Other Launches –
o “IMI 4.0 portal”
o “Operational Guidelines for IMI 4.0”
o “Strengthening Immunization in Urban Areas-A framework for Action”
o A handbook for “Mahila Arogya Samiti on Urban Immunization”

Additional Facts –

pg. 17
 • Mission Indradhanush was launched in December 2014 to cover vaccinate pregnant
women and children in pockets of low immunization coverage, high-risk and hard-to-reach
areas and protect them from vaccine preventable diseases.
• Mission Indradhansuh was also identified as one of the flagship schemes under Gram
Swaraj Abhiyan (16,850 villages across 541 districts) and Extended Gram Swaraj
Abhiyan (48,929 villages across 112 aspirational districts).
• Till date, ten phases of Mission Indradhanush have been completed covering 701 districts
across the country.
• The Full Immunization Coverage among children aged 12-23 months of age has
increased from 62% (NFHS-4) to 76.4% (NFHS-5).

33. ISRO has decommissioned INSAT-4B communication satellite as per the international
guidelines.
• Decommissioning of INSAT-4B has complied with the UN and the INTER Agency Space
Debris Coordination Committee (IADC) recommended space debris mitigation
guidelines.
• INSAT-4B was launched in 2007 for DTH and other communication services.
• INSAT-4B is the 21st Indian GEO satellite to undergo Post Mission Disposal (PMD).

34. Ministry of Food Processing Industries has announced the extension of the 'Pradhan
Mantri Kisan Sampada Yojana’ (PMKSY) till March 2026 with an allocation of Rs 4,600
crore.
• PMKSY is a comprehensive package which will lead to creation of modern infrastructure
with efficient supply chain management from farm gate to retail outlet.

About the Scheme –

• In May 2017, the Centre had launched SAMPADA (Scheme for Agro-Marine Processing
and Development of Agro-Processing Clusters) with an allocation of Rs 6,000 crore.
• In August 2017, the scheme was renamed as PMKSY.
• PMKSY is an umbrella scheme incorporating ongoing schemes of the ministry like
Integrated Cold Chain and Value Addition Infrastructure, Food Safety and Quality

pg. 18
 Assurance Infrastructure, Infrastructure for Agro-processing Clusters, Creation / Expansion
of Food Processing and Preservation Capacities and Operation Greens.

35. ASEAN-India High Level Conference on Renewable Energy was organized on the theme of
“Experience and Innovations for Integrated Renewables Market”.
• Organizers - Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Ministry of External Affairs, and The
Energy and Resource Institute (TERI) from India, and ASEAN Centre for Energy (ACE)

36. IIT-Madras has established a new inter-disciplinary water management and policy centre
named as ‘AquaMAP’.
• Purpose - to offer smart solutions for water problems by designing scalable models using
innovative technologies.
• Professor Ligy Philip is the Principal Investigator of AquaMAP.
• Aqua Map comprises a governing body chaired by director of IIT Madras and an advisory
board that includes eminent people in the area of water technology, management, and
policy.

37. Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog and US Agency for International Development have
partnered under the SAMRIDH – Sustainable Access to Markets and Resources for Innovative
Delivery of Healthcare – initiative.
• Purpose - To improve access to affordable and quality healthcare for vulnerable
populations in tier-2 and tier-3 cities, and rural and tribal regions.
pg. 19
 • SAMRIDH was launched in 2020 by NITI Aayog, in partnership with USAID and IIT-Delhi,
with Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India, National Health Authority
and NATHEALTH as its technical partners.
• SAMRIDH is a financing facility which combines public and private funds to create market
based health solutions.

38. Parliament’s Standing Committee on Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, headed by
Shiv Sena member Prataprao Jadhav, has made some recommendations regarding
MGNREGA scheme.
• Number of days guaranteed under the committee should increase from 100 to 150.
• Department of Rural Development should adopt a ‘pragmatic’ approach for disbursal of
funds under MGNREGA to ensure quick and seamless payment of wages and material and
sufficient availability of funds.

39. Union Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways aims to develop 65 lighthouses on
public-private-partnership mode.
• Under the initiative, the Centre will re-develop 5 lighthouses in Odisha to promote tourism
in PPP mode.
o ‘False Point’ island lighthouse off Kendrapara coast (only coastal lighthouse in
Odisha)
o Paradip lighthouse
o Gopalpur lighthouse
o Chandrabhaga lighthouse
o Puri lighthouse
• India had identified 71 lighthouses to increase lighthouse tourism.

40. Ministry of Culture will organise a 2-day Global Summit on ‘Reimagining Museums in
India’ in Hyderabad, Telangana on Feb 15-16.
• Participants - India, Australia, France, Italy, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, United
Kingdom
• The summit is being organized under the aegis of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav.

pg. 20
 • Purpose – to discuss good practices in maintaining museums.
• Themes of the Summit - Architecture and Functional Needs; Management; Collections
(including Curation and Conservation practices); and Education and Audience
Engagement.

41. Union External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar has met Sri Lankan Foreign Minister
G. L. Peiris in New Delhi.
• Both nations discussed prospects of economic investment initiatives to strengthen the
island nation and exchanged views on the fishermen issue.
• Recently, USD 400 million SAARC currency swap facility was extended to Sri Lanka.
• Also, the Asian Clearing Union’s (ACU) settlement of USD 515.2 million was deferred by
two months.
• Another USD 500 million Line of Credit for the purchase of fuel from India has also been
extended.

42. AYUSH Minister Sarbananda Sonowal has launched a dedicated store for Ayurvedic
products on Amazon.in.
• The Ministry is also promoting the Ayu-Raksha kit, Bal-Raksha kit and Swasthya Raksha
kit developed by All India Institute of Ayurveda for protecting the people from COVID.
• Ministry of AYUSH has increased the Ayush market size from USD 3 billion in the year
2014 to USD 18 Billion.

43. Central Govt has announced to fully fund certain road projects under the PM Gram Sadak
Yojana, instead of its usual share of 60% funding.
• The allocation under PMGSY has been increased by 35% to Rs 19,000 crore for FY23
from Rs 14,000 crore revised estimates for FY22.
• The Union Budget 2022-23 announced Rs 1 trillion loan to states for capital expenditure.
This 50-year loan is without interest.
• The Rs 1 trillion will be tied to urban reforms, including digitalisation, digital payments,
optical fibre network and Gati Shakti.

pg. 21
 • This loan is given under the ‘Scheme for Financial Assistance to States for Capital
Investment’.
• In 2021-22, the outlay of the ‘Scheme for Financial Assistance to States for Capital
Investment’ was Rs 15,000 crores, which has been increased to Rs 1 trillion for FY23.

44. ISRO has launched its radar imaging satellite EOS-04 onboard the PSLV-C52 launch vehicle
successfully from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.
• Along with EOS-04, INSPIREsat-1 and INS-2TD satellites were also launched onboard the
PSLV-C52 mission.
• Inspiresat-1 – A student satellite developed by Indian Institute of Space Science and
Technology (IIST), in association with University of Colorado in the US.
• INS-2TD – A technology demonstrator satellite developed by ISRO. After this, India-Bhutan
joint satellite (INS-2B) will be launched.

45. India’s first commercial-scale biomass-based hydrogen plant will be set up in the Khandwa
district of Madhya Pradesh.
• The plant will produce a tonne of hydrogen per day, from 30 tonnes of biomass feedstock.
It will also produce biochar and methane.
o Biochar is the charcoal obtained from the plant matter or other organic matter. It is
put back into the soil to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
• Plant owners – Joint Venture formed by Watomo Energies Ltd (UP) and Biezel Green
Energy (promoted by Prof. Preetam Singh of IIT BHU) with an investment of ₹24 crore.
o Biezel Green is the technology partner.

Additional Facts -
• Biezel Green is in talks with Swaraj Green Power and Fuel Ltd for setting up a biomass-
based hydrogen-cum-biochar plant.
• Swaraj Green had earlier announced that it would set up Asia’s largest ethanol plant that
would produce 1,100 kilo litres of ethanol a day.

46. 100th Textile train was operated by the Western Railway zone.

pg. 22
 • Route – from Chalthan in Surat, Gujarat to Sankrail in Kharagpur, in West Bengal

47. Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, Prof K Vijay Raghavan, had soft-
launched (beta-version) Swarajability portal.
• Swarajability is India's first AI-based job portal for persons with disabilities.
• It was launched to widen their opportunities with tech applications.
• The platform aids people with disabilities like visual, hearing impairment, and locomotive
disorders seeking employment.
• IIT-Hyderabad provided expertise for the Artificial Intelligence component.
• Visual Quest India is the developer and Youth4Jobs offered its experience in skilling,
disability, and job linkages. The project is funded by Kotak Mahindra Bank.

48. According to a written reply of Law Minister Kiren Rijiju to Rajya Sabha, India has about 21
judges per million people.
• This is based on Census 2011.
• The judge to population ratio (judge per million population) with respect to sanctioned
strength of judges is 21.03 as on December 31 2021.
• The sanctioned strength of the apex court is 34 while it is 1,098 for the 25 high courts.

49. 4th India-UK Home Affairs Dialogue was held in a virtual mode.
• The Dialogue covered a wide range of issues including Homeland Security, Cyber Security,
Extradition cases, Migration and Mobility.

50. According to Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Shri Rameswar Teli’s written
reply to a question in the Lok Sabha, there are total 23 refineries in India with a total refining
capacity of 249.22 million metric tons per annum (MMTPA).
• Out of these 23 refineries, 8 refineries are integrated with Petrochemicals.

51. Australian Trade Minister Dan Tehan has visited India to advance negotiations for a
proposed free trade agreement (FTA).

pg. 23
 • Both countries will conclude the FTA - Australia-India Comprehensive Economic
Cooperation Agreement - by the end of 2022.
• India and Australia are discussing the possibility of allowing Indian students to extend
their visas for an additional period of three-five years.

52. Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has launched Support for Marginalized
Individuals for Livelihood and Enterprise (SMILE) scheme.
• Purpose - To provide welfare measures to the transgender community and the people
engaged in the act of begging.
• Launch year – 2021-22 (up to 2025-26)
• Outlay – Rs.365 Crore

53. Union Minister for Power, New and Renewable Energy, R K Singh, has set the target for
replacing diesel with renewable energy in the agricultural sector by 2024 to achieve the
target of zero diesel use in the agricultural sector by 2024.
• PM-KUSUM scheme aims to solarise the agriculture sector by ensuring solar-run irrigation
systems.

54. India and Australia have set up an 'aggressive’ 30-day timeline to finalise the early harvest
agreement (EHA).
• Australia was India’s 15th largest trading partner in FY21.
• Early harvest agreements are used to open up bilateral trade between two countries on a
restricted list of goods and services. These EHAs are a precursor to a more comprehensive
Free Trade Agreement.

55. President of India, Shri Ram Nath Kovind inaugurated the new Darbar Hall at Raj Bhavan,
Mumbai.

56. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman launched the first colour souvenir coin on
'Panchtantra' on the occasion of 17th foundation day of Security Printing and Minting
Corporation of India Limited (SPMCIL).

pg. 24
57. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne
have conducted talks in Melbourne, Australia.
• Australia has launched 'Maitri' Scholars Program to provide over USD 11 million for 4
years to support Indian students to study in Australia's world-leading universities.

58. National Health Authority has announced the integration of Ayushman Bharat Digital
Mission with the Aarogya Setu app.
• It will allow the users to create the 14-digit unique Ayushman Bharat Health Account
numbers from the app.

59. Under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, the Ministry of Electronics
and IT has banned 54 Chinese apps citing the risks to internal security.

60. India has sent emergency Covid-19 medication supplies to Kiribati (a country in Oceania).
• Kiribati Capital – Tarawa
• Kiribati Currency – Dollar

61. Department for Promotion of Industry & Internal Trade (DPIIT, India) and Ministry of
Economy, Trade and Industry, Japan have conducted a joint meeting to review the progress
under Japanese Industrial Townships (JITs) in India.

pg. 25
About JIT -
• JIT program was announced by Prime Minister Abe and Prime Minister Modi in September
2014. Since 2015, India and Japan are conducting meetings under the JIT program.
• The program was launched to offer business environments in which Japanese companies
can smoothly establish production sites and operate their businesses.
• So far, 114 Japanese companies been set up across JITs.
• Neemrana (Rajasthan) and Sri City (Andhra Pradesh) industrial townships host majority of
the Japanese companies.

India-Japan Trade and Investment -

• As the 5th largest investor, Japan has contributed over USD 36.2 Billion in cumulative
investments since 2000.
• Japan’s investment was concentrated in key sectors like automobiles, Electronics System
Design & Manufacturing (ESDM), Medical Devices, Consumer goods, Textiles, Food
processing and Chemicals.

62. The Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS) for Modernisation of State Police Forces is being
implemented since 1969-70 by Ministry of Home Affairs.
• Objective - to gradually reduce the dependence of the State Governments on the Army
and the Central Armed Police Forces to control internal security and law and order
situations by equipping the State Police Forces adequately and strengthening their training
infrastructure
• Extension - 2021-22 to 2025-26
• Centre’s share in the scheme for FY21-26 - Rs. 26,275 crore
• The scheme has seven components.

63. Update on FAME India Phase II scheme –

• FAME – Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric vehicle
• Tenure – 2019 to 2024
• New incentives – On an average, 5,000 two-wheelers are incentivised per week.

pg. 26
 o The incentive was earlier ₹10,000 per kilowatt hour (kWh), now it has been
increased to ₹15,000 per kWh.
• Govt Spending – Total outlay is Rs 10,000 crores under Phase II.
o But, only Rs 1400 crores have been spent so far.
• Union Budget 2022-23 allocation for FAME India Scheme - ₹2,908.28 crore

64. Ayana Renewable Power Pvt. Ltd. has partnered with Hyderabad-based Greenko Group for
storage of 6-gigawatt hour (GWh) of power in hydro pump storage plants that Greenko is
building at Pinnapuram in Andhra Pradesh.
• This is the first of its kind project.
• Under the project, the stored renewable electricity (generated from cheap sources) will be
used in off-peak hours for generating more electricity from hydropower plants for the peak
hours.
• Greenko has India’s largest operational clean energy portfolio of 7.3 GW and is building
30 GWh of storage capacity as part of its plan to set up an energy storage cloud platform
of 100 GWh.

65. Ministry of Ports, Shipping, and Waterways has sanctioned over Rs 24 crore for dredging
in Gomati, a transboundary river between India and Bangladesh.
• 10 jetties will also be set up for a waterway project.
• Dredging is the act of removing silt and other material from the bottom of bodies of water.

66. A four-member delegation headed by Rear Admiral Saif bin Nasser bin Mohsin Al Rahbi,
Commander, Royal Navy of Oman has paid a goodwill visit to headquarters of Western Naval
Command, Mumbai.

67. 3rd India-Maldives Defence Cooperation Dialogue has been held in Maldives.
• From India, Ajay Kumar (Defence Secretary) and Maj Gen Abdulla Shamaal from Maldives
co-chaired the meet.

pg. 27
68. Central govt has constituted the Ken-Betwa Link Project (KBLP) Authority to implement
the first initiative under the National River Interlinking Policy.
• KBLPA will be headed by a CEO at the level of additional secretary to the Government
of India and assisted by five additional CEOs at the level of joint secretary/chief engineer
and one director finance.
• The Central govt has also constituted a steering committee, under the chairmanship of
chaired by Secretary of Department of Water Resources, to ensure the implementation
of the KBLP.

About National River Interlinking Policy -

• The Ken-Betwa Link canal will be 221 km long, including a 2-km long tunnel.
• The National River Interlinking Policy seeks to bring nearly 11 lakh hectares of land
under irrigation in the parched Bundelkhand region straddling Uttar Pradesh and Madhya
Pradesh.

69. Ministry of Tribal Affairs has sanctioned ₹2.26 Crores for various activities pertaining to
Medaram Jathara 2022.
• Medaram Jatara is the second-largest fair of India, after the Kumbh Mela, celebrated by
the second-largest Tribal Community of Telangana- the Koya tribe for four days.
• This year, it is being celebrated from 16th-19th February, 2022.

70. Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment, Dr Virendra Kumar, has launched
the Scheme for Economic Empowerment of DNTs (SEED) at Dr Ambedkar International
Centre, New Delhi.
• Objective of the scheme - welfare of De-notified, Nomadic and Semi Nomadic
Communities.
• Components of the scheme –
o Educational empowerment- Free coaching to students from these communities for Civil
Services, entry to professional courses like medicine, engineering, MBA, etc.
o Health Insurance through PMJAY of National Health Authority
o Livelihoods to support income generation

pg. 28
 o Housing (through PMAY/IAY)
• Estimated Expenditure – Rs 200 crore
• Tenure – 5 years (FY22 to FY26)
• Portal – Online portal for easy registration of tribal people and to create a repository of the
data on these communities.

Steps taken so far -

• Setting up of Development and Welfare Board for DNTs, SNTs &NTs (DWBDNCs) in 2019.
Shri Bhiku Ramji Idate is the present Chairman of Development and Welfare Board for De-
notified, Nomadic Communities.
• Setting up of Renke Commission (2008)

71. Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) has organized Darkathon -2022 in New Delhi to find
solutions to counter drug trafficking through darknet across the globe.
• The initiative aims at involving students, youth and technical experts to find effective
solutions to unravel the anonymity of darknet markets.
• Prize money – winner (Rs 2.5 Lakh), first Runner-up (Rs 2 lakh), second runner-up (Rs 1.5
lakh).
• Director General of NCB - SN Pradhan

72. India will assume the Presidency of G20 on 1 December 2022 till 30 November 2023.
• For this, Union Cabinet approved setting up of a G20 Secretariat and its reporting
structures, which will be responsible for implementation of overall policy decisions and
arrangements.
• The Secretariat will be functional till February 2024.
• The Secretariat will be guided by an Apex Committee, headed by the Prime Minister, and
comprising Finance Minister, Home Minister, External Affairs Minister, and G20 Sherpa
(Commerce & Industry, Textiles, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Minister),
to provide overall guidance to India’s G20 Presidency.
• A Coordination Committee will also be set up to oversee all G20 preparations and report
to the Apex Committee.

pg. 29
73. 4th India-Australia Energy Dialogue was co-chaired by Minister for Power and New &
Renewable Energy, Mr. R.K. Singh, and Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, Mr.
Angus Taylor.
• A Letter of Intent was signed between India and Australia for cooperation on New and
Renewable Energy Technology by scaling up manufacture and deployment of ultra-low-
cost solar and clean hydrogen.

74. Minister of External Affairs, Dr S Jaishankar, has paid an official visit to Australia and
Philippines.
• 4th Quad Foreign Ministers’ Conference 2022 was held in Melbourne.
o Quad Summit 2022 will be held in Tokyo, Japan.
• 1st edition of India- Australia Foreign Ministers’ Cyber Framework Dialogue was co-
chaired by Jaishankar along with Marise Payne, Australian Foreign Minister.
• In Philippines, bilateral discussion was held. This was his first visit to the country as
External Affairs Minister.

75. Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has approved project proposals for over 60,000
houses across five states — Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka
and Rajasthan.
• The approval was made at the 58th meeting of Central Sanctioning and Monitoring
Committee (CSMC) under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban).
• The total investment under the mission stands at Rs 7.52 lakh crore, with central assistance
of Rs 1.87 lakh crore.

76. NITI Aayog has launched a first-of-its-kind Fintech Open month for bringing together
regulators, Fintech professionals and enthusiasts, industry leaders, start-ups, and
developers on a common platform to collaborate, exchange ideas, and innovate.
• Theme of the month - ‘OPEN’

pg. 30
 • Objectives of the month - 1) encourage an OPEN ecosystem across the FinTech industry;
(2) Foster co-innovation and growth; (3) Ensure financial inclusion and leverage new
models like Account Aggregator to unleash the next wave of fintech innovation.

77. India has announced to expand its SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG)
network of laboratories for genomic sequencing and surveillance in the neighbourhood as
part of the fight against COVID-19.
• The INSACOG will be expanded to neighbouring nations.

78. Minister of State for Culture & Parliamentary Affairs Shri Arjun Ram Meghwal launched the
career counselling workshop 'Pramarsh 2022' for the students of the Bikaner District region,
Rajasthan.
• Organizer - National Institute of Career Services (NICS) which comes under the Ministry
of Labour & Employment and educational start-up Edumilestones.

79. Ministry of Power has notified the Green Hydrogen/ Green Ammonia Policy.
• National Hydrogen Mission was launched on India’s 75th Independence Day (i.e. 15th
August, 2021).
• This will help in meeting the target of production of 5 million tonnes of Green hydrogen
by 2030 and the related development of renewable energy capacity.
• Hydrogen and Ammonia are envisaged to be the future fuels to replace fossil fuels. Thus,
the policy focuses on producing hydrogen and ammonia by using renewable energy,
termed as green hydrogen and green ammonia.
• Key features of the policy –
I. Green Hydrogen / Ammonia manufacturers may purchase renewable power from the
power exchange or set up renewable energy capacity themselves or through any other,
developer, anywhere. Open access will be granted within 15 days of receipt of
application.
II. The Green Hydrogen / Ammonia manufacturer can store his unconsumed renewable
power, up to 30 days, with distribution company and take it back when required.

pg. 31
 III. Distribution licensees can also procure and supply Renewable Energy to the
manufacturers of Green Hydrogen / Green Ammonia in their States at concessional
prices which will only include the cost of procurement, wheeling charges and a small
margin as determined by the State Commission.
IV. Waiver of inter-state transmission charges for a period of 25 years will be allowed to the
manufacturers of Green Hydrogen and Green Ammonia for the projects commissioned
before 30th June 2025.
V. The manufacturers of Green Hydrogen / Ammonia and the renewable energy plant shall
be given connectivity to the grid on priority basis to avoid any procedural delays.
VI. To ensure ease of doing business a single portal for carrying out all the activities
including statutory clearances in a time bound manner will be set up by Ministry of New
and Renewable Energy.
VII. Manufacturers of Green Hydrogen / Green Ammonia shall be allowed to set up bunkers
near Ports for storage of Green Ammonia for export / use by shipping. The land for the
storage for this purpose shall be provided by the respective Port Authorities at applicable
charges.

80. NITI Aayog, in association with PhonePe, has launched the first-ever open-to-all hackathon
to develop path-breaking solutions for the fintech ecosystem.
• The Hackathon will provide an opportunity for innovators, digital creators and developers
from all over India to think, ideate and code.
• Prize - Rs 5 lakhs

81. 8th Annual Meeting of the Indo-German Working Group on Quality Infrastructure was
held virtually.
• Participants - Indian Ministry for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and the
German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy
• The Working Group meets annually since 2013, and identifies areas of cooperation to
support and strengthen quality infrastructure in India and to promote bilateral trade.
• Work Plan 2022 has been signed between India and Germany for ensuring collaboration
towards well-functioning and resilient systems of quality infrastructures.
pg. 32
 • A publication on “United in Quality and Safety” was released for providing information
about the quality infrastructure in Germany and the European Union to understand
Quality Infrastructure regime in Europe and in Germany.

Global Quality Infrastructure Index (GQII) -

• India is placed at 7th position on standardization aspect, 9th for Accreditation activities and
19th for the Metrology related activities.
• India scored 95.6 out of 100 and is ranked at 10th place in the world for overall quality
infrastructure environment in the country.
• The Global Quality Infrastructure Index (GQII) study was conducted by the Germany.

82. Ministry of Education has approved the ‘New India Literacy Programme’ for the next 5
years, aligning with the National Education Policy (NEP)
• The Ministry has decided to use ‘Education for All’ instead of ‘Adult Education,’ as the latter
was not representing all non-literates in the age group of 15 years and above across all
state and union territories.
• Objectives - to impart education among the adults, who are aged 15 or above.
o Not only the foundational literacy and numeracy will be provided but critical life skills
such as financial literacy, digital literacy, commercial skills, along with holistic adult
education courses in arts, sciences, technology, culture, sports, and recreation will
be covered under this scheme.
• Estimated Outlay - Rs 1037.90 crore (central share of Rs 700 crore and state share of Rs
337.90 crore)
• Tenure - 2022-27
• Mode - The scheme will be implemented via online mode through volunteerism.
o However, the training will be provided on a face-to-face mode to learners.
• Target - Foundational Literacy and Numeracy is 5 crore learners using Online Teaching,
Learning and Assessment System (OTLAS) in collaboration with National Informatics
Centre, NCERT and NIOS.

pg. 33
83. Union Cabinet has approved the continuation of the capacity development (CD) scheme
till March 2026 or further review, whichever is earlier.
• Outlay - ₹3,179 crore
• Ministry - Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation
• Objective - to augment infrastructural, technical as well as manpower resources for getting
effective and reliable official statistics.
• Components - two sub schemes viz. support for statistical strengthening (SSS) and
economic census (EC).

84. Railway Protection Force has launched the “Operation Nanhe Farishte” to rescue children
who were abandoned on the railway stations.
• Under the operation, the Railway Protection Force (RPF) have rescued 1045 Children (701
Boys+344 Girls) in the month of January, 2022.

85. Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has interacted with the beneficiaries of Pradhan
Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban) in virtual mode, under the “Labharthiyon (beneficiary) se
Rubaroo” initiative.
• This initiative was launched for monitoring the progress of projects under the PMAY-U by
interacting with beneficiaries directly.
• This was the 22nd edition of the programme hosted by the Ministry with beneficiaries of
different States/UTs.

86. India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will hold a virtual summit.
pg. 34
 • The two leaders - Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Sheikh
Mohamed bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan - will also “discuss bilateral cooperation and
exchange views on regional and international issues of mutual interest

87. 21st edition of the World Sustainable Development Summit (WSDS) has been organized by
The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), Delhi.
• Theme - Towards a Resilient Planet: Ensuring a Sustainable and Equitable Future

88. ‘Meri Policy Mere Haath’ Campaign will be launched under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima
Yojana (PMFBY).
• Purpose – to deliver crop insurance policies to farmers at their doorstep, along with all
information regarding the campaign.
• The PMFBY scheme was launched in 2016.
• PMFBY enters the seventh year of implementation with the upcoming Kharif season.

89. Ministry of Education has approved the scheme of Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan
(RUSA) for continuation from 2021-22 till 2025-26.
• RUSA is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS) for funding the state government
universities and colleges to achieve the aims of equity, access and excellence.
• Outlay – Rs 12,929.16 crores (Centre’s share - Rs 8,120.97 crores + States’ share - Rs
4,808.19 crores).
pg. 35
 • It has been envisaged to support around 1,600 projects under the new phase of the
scheme.
• Under the new phase of the scheme, state governments will be supported for gender
inclusion, equity initiatives, ICT, enhancing employability through vocationalisation and skill
upgradation.

90. TransUnion CIBIL has partnered with FICCI to launch a unique nationwide MSME
Consumer Education Programme for spreading awareness about credit management.
• Purpose - to empower MSMEs with knowledge on how to build a good credit history and
CIBIL rank to avail easier and faster access to finance.
• This programme will start with MSME clusters in Maharashtra, Assam and Tripura. It aims
to reach thousands of enterprises across key MSME clusters in India.

91. First Biosafety level-3 (BSL-3) containment mobile laboratory of South Asia was
inaugurated in the Nasik district of Maharashtra.
• Purpose - to investigate newly emerging and re-emerging viral infections that are highly
infectious and of lethal potential to human beings.
• This lab is a significant contributor to enhancing healthcare infrastructure in India under the
Pradhan Mantri Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission.

92. Central Govt, the State Govts of Karnataka and Odisha and the World Bank have signed a
$115 million (Rs 869 crore) worth of REWARD Programme.
• REWARDS stands for Rejuvenating Watersheds for Agricultural Resilience through
Innovative Development Programme.
• Purpose of REWARDS – to help national and state institutions adopt improved
watershed management practices to help increase farmers’ resilience to climate change,
promote higher productivity and better incomes.
• Financing Agency - International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD)
• Share in Financing - Karnataka ($60 million), Odisha ($49 million), and the Centre’s
Department of Land Resources ($6 million)
• Maturity Period - 15 years, including a grace period of 4.5 years

pg. 36
 • Targets of Indian Govt - Restoring 26 million hectares of degraded land by 2030 and
doubling farmers’ income by 2022-23.

93. Central government has approved the implementation of Phase II of the Inter-Operable
Criminal Justice System (ICJS) project by the Ministry of Home Affairs.
• Extended Tenure - from 2022-23 to 2025-26
• Outlay for FY23-FY26 - Rs 3,375 crore
• Objective of ICJS - ICJS is a national platform for integrating the main IT system used
for delivery of Criminal Justice in the country.
o IT systems – Police (through Crime and Criminal Tracking and Network Systems),
e-Forensics for Forensic Labs, e-Courts for Courts, e-Prosecution for Public
Prosecutors and e-Prisons for Prisons.

94. Union Minister of Civil Aviation Jyotiraditya Scindia flagged off the first direct flight between
New Delhi and the heritage city of Khajuraho (Madhya Pradesh) under the Regional
Connectivity Scheme-UDAN.
• Private carrier SpiceJet was awarded the Delhi-Khajuraho-Delhi route under the RCS-
UDAN 3.0.
• 48th edition of the Khajuraho Dance Festival will be held between February 20 to 26.

95. Central government is planning to revamp the Department of Commerce, Ministry of

Commerce and Industry.
• Under the plan, there is a proposal to set up a dedicated trade promotion body and a
trade remedies review committee.

96. A Supreme Court bench including Justices KM Joseph and S Ravindra Baht has dispelled
the gender cap imposed on the orchestral bars in Maharashtra.
• The Govt of Maharashtra had put a cap of 4 males and 4 females each in an orchestra of
eight members.
• According to SC, limit of performers should not exceed the eight members but there
should not be any restriction on gender composition.

pg. 37
97. Vigyan Sarvatra Pujyate — a countrywide, week-long science festival — was inaugurated at
the Vigyan Bhavan in Delhi, as a part of the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav programme.
• Vigyan Sarvatra Pujyate (meaning ‘science is worshipped everywhere’) aims to showcase
India’s achievements in S&T in the 75 years of independence.
• Organizers - Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the government of India and the
Ministry of Culture.
• Four themes have been identified for the week-long celebration.
o ‘Annals of Science’,
o ‘Milestones of Modern S&T’
o ‘Swadeshi Paramparik Inventions & Innovations’
o ‘Transforming India’
• The program will end on National Science Day (February 28).

98. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla is leading a Parliamentary delegation to the UAE from India.
• This is the first ever visit under the bilateral exchange of Parliamentary Delegations from
either side.

99. Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare Mansukh Mandaviya has inaugurated two new
Departments and two new Research Centres at International Institute for Population
Sciences (IIPS) in Mumbai.
• New Departments - 'Department of Survey Research and Data Analytics' and the
'Department of Family and Generations'
• New Centres - 'Centre of Demography of Gender' and 'Centre for Ageing Studies'

100. Central govt has released the draft of “India Data Accessibility & Use Policy 2022”.
• As per the policy, all the data collected, maintained, and generated, by every government
ministry and agency will be open and shareable.
• Indian Data Council (IDC) and the India Data Office (IDO) will be in charge of forming
data standards and enforcing them. IDC will act as the regulatory authority.

pg. 38
 • IDO will be set up under the Ministry of Electronics and IT to streamline data sharing and
access sharing across the government and other stakeholders.
• India Data Council, comprising India Data Officer and Chief Data Officers of departments
of central and state governments, will be constituted for undertaking tasks that require
interactions across ministries, departments and state governments.

Need for the India Data Accessibility & Use Policy 2022 (facts from the draft policy) -
• The number of active internet users in India is expected to increase by 45% to touch 900
million by 2025 from 622 million in 2020.
• India is likely to have 330 million 5G subscribers by 2026.
• Emerging technologies are expected to generate $1 trillion in economic value for India.
• Digital economy will be spearheading the $5 trillion economy ambition by contributing 20%
to the country's nominal GDP and sustaining 60-65 million jobs by 2025.

101. Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) has organised a crafts exhibition-cum-fair
at Bikaner House in New Delhi.
• Title of the fair - ‘Coalescence: Craft-Culture-Community-Climate’
• ICCR President - Vinay Sahasrabuddhe
• There will be a seminar on ‘Indian Cinema and Soft Power’ in collaboration with Film and
Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune.
• Also, in collaboration with Hyderabad’s Foreign Language Institute, ICCR will design
courses to teach languages from countries like Indonesia and Kazakhstan in India, in
addition to existing courses in French, German and Spanish.

102. India and France have agreed on a Roadmap on Blue Economy and Ocean
Governance.
• Purpose - to contribute to scientific knowledge and ocean conservation and ensure that the
ocean remains a global common, based on the rule of law.

103. Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has certified four police stations
of New Delhi as ‘Eat Right Campus’.

pg. 39
 • Premises in Delhi are recognised as “Eat Right Campus” under the “Sehatmand Delhi
Programme”.

104. IIT-Roorkee has organised a regional farmers’ awareness program under Gramin
Krishi Mausam Sewa (GKMS) project.
• The IIT has also launched an app 'KISAN' for providing easy access to the Agromet
Advisory Services to farmers on their mobile phones.
• Farmers can now easily access these bulletins on their mobile phones through the 'Kisan'
App.

105. Union Minister for Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Shri Giriraj Singh have
released Rural Connectivity GIS Data collected under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak
Yojana in public domain.

106. Central government has approved the continuation of the Umbrella Scheme of “Border
Infrastructure and Management” (BIM) from 2021-22 to 2025-26.
• The cost of the scheme from 2021-22 to 2025-26 will be Rs 13,020 crore.
• The scheme aims to develop infrastructure across the Indo-Pakistan, Indo-Bangladesh,
Indo-China, Indo-Nepal, Indo-Bhutan and Indo-Myanmar borders.

107. Ministry of External Affairs has released ‘The Indian Way’ paper to be distributed
among the Indian Heads of Mission in foreign countries.
• The paper has been released to improve India’s repute in international domain in the wake
of India’s declining democracy rankings.

108. The Shyama Prasad Mukherji Rurban Mission (SPMRM) was launched in 2016 to
develop 300 clusters in the country holistically by providing economic, social and physical
infrastructure facilities.
• So far, Rural Development Ministry has approved 296 clusters under the Mission.
• Rurban clusters are identified across the country’s rural areas showing increasing signs of
urbanization.

pg. 40
 • The mission aims to transform these Rurban clusters by stimulating local economic
development, enhancing basic services, and creating well planned Rurban clusters.
• Provision of Urban Amenities to Rural Areas (PURA) is the predecessor of SPMRM,
announced in 2003.

109. Ministry of Education has approved the continuation of the Central Sector Scheme
(CSS) National Means-cum-Merit Scholarship Scheme (NMMSS) till 2025-26.
• Changes in the Eligibility Criteria - income ceiling increased from Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 3.5
lakh per annum.
• Objective of the scheme - to award scholarships to meritorious students of economically-
weaker sections to deter them from dropping out at class 8 and encourage them to continue
their education at secondary stage.
• Scholarship amount - Rs 12,000 per annum per student to 1 lakh selected students of
class 9 every year and their continuation and renewal in classes 10 to 12 for study in state
government, government-aided and local body schools.
• Exam - Students are selected for award of scholarships through an exam conducted by
state and UT governments.
• Portal - National Scholarship Portal
• Payment - Scholarships are disbursed directly into the bank accounts of students by
electronic transfer through Public Financial Management System (PFMS) following DBT
mode.
• Launch year - 2008-09

110. Ministry of Women and Child Development has extended the PM CARES for Children
Scheme till February 28, 2022. Earlier, the scheme was valid till December 31, 2021.
• All eligible children can now be enrolled till February 28 to avail benefits of PM CARES for
Children Scheme.

111. Union Minister for Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Shri Giriraj Singh has
launched the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Gramin (PMAYG) Dashboard for stringent
monitoring of the implementation of the scheme.

pg. 41
 • So far, 1.73 crore PMAY-G houses have been completed against the target of 2.62 crore
houses.
• The Minister asked the officials to make the portal public to make it ''Aam Janta Ka Portal"
in reality.

112. NITI Aayog and World Resources Institute (WRI), India, with the support of GIZ India,
have conducted a virtual consultation workshop on ‘Financing for Decarbonization of
Transport’ as part of the NDC-Transport Initiative for Asia (NDC-TIA) project.

113. Matsya 6000 undersea submarine vessel, developed under the Deep Ocean Mission, will
be completed by 2024.
• Matsya 6000 is designed by ISRO and National Institute of Ocean Technology.

114. Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare has released two reports of the Institute
for Competitiveness - ‘COVID-19-India’s Vaccine Development Story’ and ‘India's COVID –
19 Vaccination Administration Journey’.

115. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar paid an official visit to Germany and France.
• India and France have committed to abide by the ‘EU-India Strategic Partnership: A
Roadmap to 2025’.
• Both nations extend their support to the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for
Sustainable Development (2021-2030).
• India and France plan to set up an India-France partnership on the blue economy and
ocean governance (dialogue for enabling cooperation).
• It will have four pillars – institutional, economic, infrastructure, and scientific and academic.
• NITI Aayog and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, France will be executing the project.
• India and France have been implementing GOAT (Goa ATlantic cooperation in Marine
Science and Technology) programme in Brest, France in 2020.
• The GOAT program is being run by "Campus mondial de la mer” and the Indian Institute of
Technology, Goa.
• Jaishankar has also attended the EU Ministerial Forum on Indo-Pacific in Paris, France.

pg. 42
 • In Germany, he attended the Munich Security Conference 2022.

116. Indian Railways will set up the India’s biggest world-class wrestling academy at
Kishanganj locality in Delhi.

117. Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd. (BHEL) has successfully commissioned a 1.7-megawatt
solar photovoltaic plant at Bina in Madhya Pradesh for the Indian Railways.
• It is Indian Railways’ first solar power plant.
• The plant will directly feed power to traction systems of Indian Railways.
• Indian Railway is all set to become the world's first 100% green railway with net-zero
emission by 2030.

118. 3rd anniversary of the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) Scheme was
celebrated.
• The scheme was launched on 24th of February in 2019 to provide income support to all
landholding farmer’s families across the country and enable them to meet expenses related
to agriculture as well as domestic needs.
• Under PM-Kisan, an amount of Rs 6,000 per year is transferred in three equal instalments
of Rs 2,000 into the bank accounts of the farmers subject to certain exclusion criteria
relating to higher-income status.

119. National Strategy on Additive Manufacturing has been released by the Ministry of
Electronics and IT.
• The strategy aims to increase the share of India to 5% in global additive manufacturing
within 3 years. It also aims to add USD 1 billion in GDP in 3 years.
• Additive manufacturing refers to 3D printing.

120. Ministry of Science and Technology has launched the National Policy Guidelines on
Bio-Medical Innovation and Entrepreneurship in New Delhi.
• The vision of this policy is to create an innovation-led entrepreneurial ecosystem in India
with the ultimate goal of positively impacting human health and well-being.

pg. 43
 • The policy aims to give more importance to research and innovation to become self-reliant
in India.

121. A Large Area Soft X-ray Spectrometer (CLASS), a payload on-board Chandrayaan-2
Orbiter, has detected solar proton events.
• These events significantly increase the radiation exposure to humans in space.

122. Ministry of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj has launched an Ombudsman App
for MGNREGA.

123. Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), Ministry of Culture, has launched Devayatanam, a
one-of-a-kind conference on temple architecture of India, at Hampi, Karnataka.
• It is a part of the celebration under Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav.
• The conference provides a platform to discuss, deliberate and disseminate the grandeur of
Indian temples, art and architecture to the world.

124. Central government has approved the continuation of the Immigration Visa Foreigners
Registration Tracking (IVFRT) Scheme till March 31, 2026.
• Financial outlay – Rs 1,364.88 crore
• Objective – to modernise and upgrade Immigration and Visa services. It also aims at
registration of foreigners, and tracking of their movements in India.

125. Union Minister for Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises, Narayan Rane, announced the
establishment of MSME-Technology Centre with an outlay of Rs. 200 Crore in Sindhudurg,
Maharashtra.

126. The High Commission of India in Dhaka has launched the Suborno Jayanti Scholarship
for promoting education and professionalism in India for Bangladeshi citizens.
• 1000 Suborno Jayanti Scholarships (SJS) for students including 500 seats by Indian
Council for Cultural Relations and 500 for officials under Indian Technical and
Economic Cooperation (ITEC) were announced in 2021.

pg. 44
 • A dedicated web portal for this scholarship was launched.

127. The/Nudge Foundation, and Ashirvad Pipes, in partnership with the Office of the
Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India has launched “The/Nudge Prize –
Ashirvad Water Challenge”.
• Participants - start-ups and innovators working on solutions to provide clean drinking water
to the underprivileged and rural households.
• The initiative aims to support solutions that address population-scale water challenges.

128. Union Government is planning to promote India’s medical facilities and infrastructure
under a new ‘heal in India’ campaign.
• The campaign also plans to standardise processes and treatment packages for foreign
nationals.
• “Heal by India” initiative is meant to generate job opportunities abroad for our trained
professionals in the sector, especially those in the allied health care sector that has huge
demand outside India.

129. India’s largest reclining statue of Lord Buddha is being built in Bodh Gaya, Bihar.
• Built by Buddha International Welfare Mission, the statue will be 100 feet long and 30 feet
high.
• It is being developed under the Buddhist Circuit of the Swadesh Darshan scheme.

130. Bangladesh-Bhutan-India-Nepal (BBIN) Motor Vehicles Agreement was signed in 2015

to facilitate unrestricted cross-border movement of cargo, passenger, and personal vehicles
between these four countries.
• Under the agreement, trucks carrying export-import or transit cargo can move inside the
territories of other countries without trans-shipping to local trucks at border land ports.
• Only Bhutan has not ratified the agreement. The other three countries have ratified it.
• With Bhutanese parliament deciding not to endorse the plan over sustainability and
environmental concerns, a meeting of the other three countries was held to discuss the next
steps in operationalising the agreement for the free flow of good and people between them.

pg. 45
 • India, Bangladesh, and Nepal have signed an MOU to implement the BBIN MVA at a
meeting held in New Delhi, India.
• Technical and knowledge support to the meeting was provided by the Asian
Development Bank (ADB).
• Columbo, Sri Lanka is going to host the BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-
Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) Summit.

131. Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Textiles are organizing “Jharokha-Compendium of

Indian handicraft/ handloom, art and culture” event as part of the Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav.
• It will be a PAN India celebration which will be held at 16 locations in 13 states and UTs.
• The first event under this celebration is being organized at Rani Kamlapati Railway
Station in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh.

132. ‘PARAM Ganga’ – first ‘Made in India’ Peta-scale supercomputer – has been installed at
IIT Roorkee.
• The supercomputer was developed by the Centre for Development of Advanced
Computing (CDAC) under the National Supercomputing Mission (NSM).
• The new supercomputer is a 1.66 PFLOPS (Peta Floating-Point Operations Per Second)
supercomputing device.
• National Supercomputing Mission (NSM) is a joint initiative of the Ministry of
Electronics & Information Technology and the Department of Science and
Technology (DST).
• It is being implemented by the C-DAC and the IISc-Bangalore.

pg. 46
 STATE NEWS
1. Punjab has unveiled ‘Shera’ – the election mascot of Punjab.

2. Andhra Pradesh government has enhanced the retirement age for its employees from 60 to
62 years.
• Governor Biswabhusan Harichandan promulgated the AP Public Employment
(Regulation of Age of Superannuation) (Amendment) Ordinance, 2022 to this effect.

3. Operation Sadbhavana (Goodwill) has been operationalised by the Indian Army in Jammu &
Kashmir.
• The mission aims to address aspirations of people affected by terrorism.
• Focus areas of the mission – Development of infrastructure, education, community
projects, women and youth empowerment, health and sanitation.

4. Kerala government has signed an MoU with the Social Alpha’s Energy Lab named “Clean
Energy International Incubation Centre” (CEIIC).
• Purpose - to support innovative and clean energy technology programmes in Kerala.
• Signatories of the MoU – Kerala Development & Innovation Strategy Council (KDISC) and
Energy Management Centre (EMC), Kerala and CEIIC.

5. Public Works Department (PWD), Delhi has decided to dedicate a nearly 1 km-long stretch
in North Delhi to Olympic champions such as Neeraj Chopra, PV Sindhu, Ravi Dahiya and
others.
• This stretch will be known as “Olympics Vithi” or “Olympics Boulevard”.
• It is a part of Delhi govt’s ambitious streetscaping project.
• It will be developed on Road Number 51 from Mukundpur Chowk to MCD colony near
Model Town.
pg. 47
 • 15-20 feet high Statues of Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics 2020 winners will be installed
on this road.

6. Amaravati is retained as the capital city of Andhra Pradesh.

• The state govt has withdrawn the plan of establishing three capitals in the state.

7. Central govt has approved renaming of three places in Madhya Pradesh namely
Hoshangabad Nagar as "Narmadapuram", Shivpuri as "Kundeshwar Dham" and Babai as
"Makhan Nagar".
• Babai has been renamed after the renowned journalist and poet Makhanlal Chaturvedi.

8. Tamil Nadu has passed the Anti-NEET Bill, 2022.

• The Bill aims to provide for admission to undergraduate courses in medicine, dentistry,
Indian medicine and homeopathy on the basis of marks obtained in the qualifying
examination.
• The anti-NEET Bill also provides for the students of government schools to get 7.5%
horizontal quota in medical admission.

9. Chhattisgarh has implemented 'One Nation One Ration Card' (ONORC) plan.
• The Department of Food & Public Distribution has reviewed the progress of States/UTs
towards the implementation of ONORC plan.

10. Meghalaya CM Conrad K. Sangma has inaugurated the Shillong Technology Park, a state
government project to house IT companies within a single complex.
• Shillong Technology Park is one of the 300 ambitious projects of the state government,
which will be inaugurated 2022 as part of Meghalaya’s Golden Jubilee year.

11. The foundation stone for 3rd border haat has been laid at Kamalpur, Tripura at India-
Bangladesh border.
• It will strengthen India-Bangladesh relations.
• The Haat (marketplace) is expected to be able to accommodate 100 vendors on each side.

pg. 48
 • Border Haats are unique modes of duty-free trading space between the two countries
where locally grown products are sold to people living within a radius of 5 Km of the Haat
on specific days of the week.

12. Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel has launched 'Rajiv Yuva Mitan Club Yojana' in the
state in September 2021.
• The clubs will be established at the Gram Panchayat level and in urban bodies for
leadership capacity, skill development among the youth in the state.

13. Karnataka has signed an MoU with Ather Energy to set up 1,000 fast charging stations
across the state.
• The ESCOMs would be the nodal agency to provide all technical support and government
agencies would coordinate with them to share their available spaces for the charging
stations.
• Ather Energy will provide free charging services for the electric two-wheeler vehicles.

14. The first consignment of 200 metric tonnes of food grain was carried by the cargo vessel
MV Lal Bahadur Shastri from the Inland Water Terminal at Gaighat, Patna to Pandu,
Guwahati through Bangladesh.
• This is the first time, the foodgrain consignment is moving on the Indo Bangla Protocol
(IBP) route covering the river Ganga and Brahmaputra.
• This is part of ‘Project Arth Ganga’ that aims to reengineer the Jal Marg Vikas Project
(JMVP) to generate economic activities around the Ganga river.
• The JMVP project aims to create infrastructure worth Rs. 4600 crore for capacity
enhancement of Ganga river for safe and sustainable movement of vessels up to 2000
tonnes.

15. Mission for Economic Empowerment of Traditional Artisans and Craftsmen (MEETAC),
Manipur, and the National Institute of Design have created the craft map of Manipur.
• The map contains details of craft products (including the GI-tagged products), along with
their origin.

pg. 49
 • Purpose – to provide equal, concentrated attention to all art forms
• Examples –
o Longpi (black earthenware) from Longpi village – made without using potter’s wheel
o ‘Moirang phee’ from Moirang village – diaphanous Manipuri half sari
o Thangjam Leikai from Imphal district – knives and agricultural tools

More details –
• The attention to this map was drawn after Konsam Ibomcha Singh received the 2022
Padma Shri for doll-making craft.
• Lourembam Bino Devi has also won Padma Shri 2022 award for preserving the State’s
‘leeba’ applique textile art for more than five decades.

16. The regulating authority of Chilika lake – the largest brackish water lake in South Asia –
Chilika Development Authority (CDA) has carried out an annual flora and fauna survey of
the lagoon.

pg. 50
 • The seagrass vegetation was found over an area of 172 sq. km., an increase from 169 sq.
km. of last year.
• Now, Chilika has 33% of India’s seagrass area.
• The lake has been maintaining around 150 steady population endangered Irrawaddy
dolphins – only found in Asia, that too, from India (Chilika lake) to Indonesia.
• Chilika lake (in Odisha) is known as the largest habitat of migratory birds in India,
particularly during the winter.
• It hosts migratory waterfowl from the Caspian Sea, Lake Baikal, Aral Sea, remote parts of
Russia, Kirghiz steppes of Mongolia, Central and South East Asia, Ladakh and the
Himalayas.

17. West Bengal has launched ‘Paray Shikshalaya’ (meaning ‘an open-air classroom in the
neighbourhood’) programme for students of class 1 to 7.
• Purpose - to encourage students who dropped out of schools during the Covid-19
pandemic to continue their education.
• Schools which do not have open-air spaces will conduct the classes in neighbourhood
parks and grounds.

18. For the first time, an exclusive leopard counting census in Assam's forest and non-forest
areas has begun in the leopard density areas of Amingaon in Kamrup district.
• In India, 14 tiger reserves have received the accreditation of Global Conservation
Assured | Tiger Standards (CA|TS).

19. Surat has become the 1st city to have Bullet ready train station.
• The Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project is the country's first bullet train route.

20. Tiger population has increased in the Sariska Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan’s Alwar district,
driven by habitat management.
• The tiger population in the wildlife sanctuary has gone up to 25.

pg. 51
21. Karnataka Government gives Rajyotsava Awards to honour people from different walks of
life, akin to the Padma Awards at the national level.
• From 2023 onwards, Karnataka govt will not receive applications for this award. Instead, a
panel will be formed six months prior to the date of announcements to select the achievers
for the awards.

22. Karnataka State Rural Livelihood Promotion Society (KSRLPS) has signed an MoU with
Amazon India to support the growth of women entrepreneurs in rural areas of the state.

23. Kanchoth or Guari Tritya festival is celebrated in J&K.

24. Jammu & Kashmir has become the first Union Territory to be onboarded on the National
Single Window System (NSWS).
• Union Minister for Commerce and Industry, Textiles and Consumer Affairs, Food and Public
Distribution launched the platform in September 2021 on pilot basis.
• NSWS is a digital platform that serves as a guide for investors to identify and apply for
approvals as per their business requirements.
• NSWS is linked with India Industrial Land Bank (IILB).
• 45 industrial parks of J&K are listed on IILB.
• 20 ministries/departments and 14 states/UTs are onboarded on NSWS. So far, more than
1,250 investors are registered on the portal.

25. World’s Largest Igloo Café named as ‘Snowglu’ has been established at Gulmarg, J&K.

26. UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has signed an MoU with the Maharashtra
government to support its 'Majhi Vasundhara' campaign.

pg. 52
 • The MV Campaign aims to the energy and environmental dimensions of sustainable
development.

27. White-Cheeked Macaque (Macaca leucogenys) has been spotted in Arunachal Pradesh.
• The Macaques are native to only south-eastern Tibet and Arunachal Pradesh.

28. ReNew Power has commissioned Gujarat’s first solar-wind hybrid project at Bharuch.

29. Rajasthan government has signed various MoU and Letter of Intent with major companies in
the renewable energy sector for an investment of Rs 3.05 lakh crore under the Invest
Rajasthan Campaign.
• With this investment, more than 90,000 MW of renewable energy will be produced in the
state.
• The companies included 5 PSUs -- NTPC, NHPC, SJVN Limited, THDC India Ltd and SECI
-- and private players such as Reliance, Axis and SAEL.

30. Karnataka govt has launched “Nanna Shale Nanna Koduge” (meaning ‘My School, My
contribution’) app.
• Purpose - to collect donations for addressing infrastructure needs of government schools,
optimal use of hearing aids, shortage of teachers, and utilisation of Corporate Social
Responsibility (CSR) funds.

31. J&K administration has signed an MoU with the New Zealand G2G, a public sector
company, for transforming the sheep farming sector in the Union Territory.
• Purpose - to improve farmer’s remuneration, transfer of technology in research,
development as well as marketing and value addition of sheep products of J&K.
• The livestock sector contributes 4.11% to J&K’s GDP and 25.6% of total Agriculture GDP.
According
• Separately, J&K administration has also partnered with Oyo Rooms for launching a rural
home stay project.

pg. 53
32. Telangana has signed an MoU with British Council to renew their partnership in education,
English and arts to create opportunities for the youth of Telangana.

33. J&K L-G Manoj Sinha has launched a QR code-based mechanism for certification and
labelling of handmade carpets of the union territory.
• It is the first of its kind in the country.
• With the QR-based application, customers can check and verify the authenticity and other
requisite details of carpets produced in Jammu and Kashmir.
• J&K govt is already introduced Export Incentive Scheme.
• Under this scheme, incentive of 10% of the total volume of GI certified handicrafts and
handloom products exported to any country, with maximum reimbursement up to Rs 5
crores, shall be provided to eligible exporters.

34. A new Skill and Entrepreneurship Development University is being planned at Kalyana-
Karnataka region in the state of Karnataka.

35. Andhra Pradesh Police has initiated ‘Operation Parivartan’, a special operation undertaken
to eliminate the cultivation of cannabis.

36. West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar has prorogued the state Legislative Assembly
from February 12, implying that the state government will have to take permission from the
governor for the next session and it should begin with his speech.
• Article 174 – It gives the authority to the Governor to summon, prorogue (discontinue), and
dissolve the state legislative assembly.

37. Statue of Equality (216-ft tall idol of Medieval era Bhakti saint Sri Ramanujacharya) was
unveiled at Srirama Nagaram, Telangana by President Ram Nath Kovind.
• This golden statue is made up of pancha loha (Pañcadhātu - an alloy of gold, silver, copper,
zinc, and iron).
• At Srirama Nagaram, 108 vaishnavaite shrines have also been set up along with the Statue
of Equality.

pg. 54
 • The ceremony marks the 1,000 years of the birth of the saint poet at Muchintal, Telangana.

38. The renowned Jaisalmer Desert Festival, also known as Maru Mahotsav of the Golden
City, was held at Pokaran village in Jaisalmer, Rajasthan.
• Regional folk dances such as Kalbelia, Kachhi Ghodi, Gair will be performed.

39. Union Minister for Ports, Shipping & Waterways and AYUSH, Sarbananda Sonowal, has
inaugurated “Nikarshan Sadan Dredging Museum”.
• Dredging Corporation of India has developed the museum at its campus in Visakhapatnam.
• Dredging is the act of removing silt and other material from the bottom of bodies of water.

40. Gujarat government has signed an MoU with QX Global Group Limited (a global business
process management company) for the holistic development of the IT and ITeS (Information
Technology Enabled Services) sector in the State.

41. Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council, Leh has launched a new scheme
Kunsnyoms for differently-abled persons in the district.
• Kunsnyoms (meaning Equal for All, Fair for All) scheme aims inclusive and accessible
Ladakh.
• Under the new scheme, Leh Hill council is providing assistive devices, technologies to
needy people at 90% subsidy.

42. India's first-ever cable-stayed rail bridge named as ‘Anji Khad Bridge’ is being developed
as part of the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla railway link in Jammu and Kashmir.
• The Anji Khad Bridge will connect the Katra-Reasi section at the Udhampur-Srinagar-
Baramulla route.
• Anji Khad Bridge is situated over the Anji river.
• It will connect the Katra-Reasi section at the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla route.

43. Pasuvula Panduga - cattle festival - is annually observed in Andhra Pradesh (Rangampet
village) during Kanuma (3rd day of the Sankranthi Festival).

pg. 55
44. Delhi police has launched the first of its kind ‘Smart Card Arms License’ (SCAL) that will
replace the existing arms license booklet.
• SCAL will be printed in-house after verification of data of the arms license holder.
• The SCAL has been designed and developed in coordination with the National e-
Governance Division under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.

45. Bihar announced to celebrate February 15 as “Shahid Diwas” in the memory of the 34
freedom fighters who were killed by police in Tarapur town (now subdivision) of Bihar’s Munger
district 90 years ago.

46. Gujarat Biotechnology Policy 2022-27 has been unveiled with an expected capital
investment of over Rs 20,000 crore for providing assistance to more than 500 industries in the
state and creating over 1.20 lakh new employment opportunities.
• Objectives – providing capital expenditure and operation expenses assistance to special
projects, with up to 25% of the total capital expenditure up to a maximum of Rs 200 crore
and up to 15% of the total operating cost up to a maximum of Rs 25 crore per annum.
• Assistance will also be provided on term-loans of up to Rs 100 crore at an interest rate of
7%, with an annual ceiling of Rs 7 crore, and an interest of three per cent paid on- term
loans of above Rs 100 crore, with an annual ceiling of Rs 20 crore.

47. Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan has announced a slew of welfare schemes
for Dalits, on the occasion of birth anniversary of Guru Ravidas (15th century Bhakti saint from
Dalit category) on February 16.
• The Global Skill Park, which is being built in Bhopal, would be named after Guru
Ravidas.
• The state government will expand the reach of the 'Deendayal Antyodaya Rasoi Yojana'
to ensure that no one goes hungry.
• The state also announced 'Sant Ravidas Swarozgar Yojana' to provide self-employment
opportunities to Dalits.

pg. 56
 o Under the scheme, loans up to Rs 25 lakh will be provided. The govt will pay 5%
interest on this loan.
• The state is also launching the Chief Minister's Scheduled Caste Special Project, under
which a grant of up to Rs 2 crore will be given to SC youths for self-employment, skill
up-gradation, innovation.
o Other than this, the state government has made a provision of Rs 30 crore for
development of SC-dominated villages.
• The state government will launch the 'Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar Economic Welfare
Scheme,' under which loans up to Rs 1 lakh will be provided for purchasing low-cost
equipment or to cover requirement for small capital.

48. Rajasthan has the maximum households electrified through the solar-based standalone
system, under the Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana – ‘Saubhagya’.
• Rajasthan is followed by Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, and Bihar respectively.
• On the other hand, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Jammu and Kashmir UT had nil
beneficiaries under the initiative.

About ‘Saubhagya’ -
• ‘Saubhagya’ was launched in October 2017 to achieve universal household
electrification by providing last mile grid connectivity and electricity connections to all
households in rural and all poor households in urban areas across the country.
• The scheme also envisages solar based standalone systems for the un-electrified
households where electricity grid extension is not possible.

49. Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has approved proposals worth Rs 235 crore to
Andhra Pradesh under the 'Garbage Free Cities' vision.
• This is the largest one-time approval of funds for legacy dumpsite (mountains of years-
old waste) remediation.
• Centre's share in these proposals will be Rs 77.66 crores. With these funds, Andhra
Pradesh is seeking remediation of over 42 lakh MT of waste in 28 ULBs (urban local
bodies).

pg. 57
 • Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban 2.0 - launched on October 1, 2021 – envisages the
creation of 'Garbage Free Cities' by 2026.
• One of the major objectives under the SBM-Urban 2.0 is 'Lakshya Zero' dumpsite to
remediate 16 crore metric tonnes (MT) of legacy waste dumpsites occupying nearly
15,000 acres of city land.
• The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) had also celebrated 'Azadi Ka Amrit
Mahotsav' from January 17-31 on the theme of 'Smart Cities, Smart Urbanisation'.

50. Madhya Pradesh has changed the name of MP Professional Examination Board as MP
Karamchari Chayan Aayog.
• The Board was earlier known as Vyavsayik Pareeksha Mandal or Vyapam.

51. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has inaugurated Asia's biggest Bio-CNG plant - the Gobar-
Dhan plant - in Indore, Madhya Pradesh.
• The Gobar-Dhan plant will have the capacity to treat 550 tonnes of segregated wet organic
waste and produce around 17,000 kg CNG and 100 tonnes of organic compost per day.
• HDFC Bank has partnered with Indore Clean Energy Private Limited (ICEPL) for the
development of the plant, under its ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance)
commitment.

52. Assam government has announced to launch a four-year mentorship programme called
Project Arohan to provide skill training to students.
• Tata STRIVE (skill development branch of Tata Trusts) will provide support to the project.

53. Taj Mahotsav 2022 will take place at Agra, UP from March 20 to March 29.
• Theme - Azadi ke Amrit Mahotsav sang, Taj ke rang
• The celebrations of Taj Mahotsav started in 1992.

54. Jammu and Kashmir has launched the ‘Janbhagidari Empowerment’ portal.
• The portal is a user-friendly digital platform to provide details to the citizens regarding the
developmental works in their areas.

pg. 58
55. Kerala has organized the Huddle Global 2022 Festival – a virtual global technology
conference.
• Google and Kerala Startup Mission will launch the Google for Startup Accelerator
initiative to provide guidance and mentorship to the startups.
• Paul Ravindranath is the head of Google for Startups Accelerator, India.

56. Central govt has launched the ‘Janbhagidari Empowerment’ portal in J&K UT.
• It is a one stop interactive and user-friendly digital platform giving detailed insights to the
people into the nature, status and the number of developmental works being executed in
their areas.
• The portal will also provide information on various govt schemes.

57. Assam has launched India’s first night navigation mobile application for ferries plying on
Brahmaputra river.
• Developers – state’s transport department in association with K Raju, the principal scientist
of IIT Madras.
• An MOU has been signed between Common Service Centre (CSC) with State Transport
Department to provide online services at the panchayat level. Under the MOU, Vahan (for
vehicles) and Sarathi (for drivers) based online services will be provided.

58. Delhi has introduced 11 new Specialised Schools of Excellence in 2022, taking the total tally
of such schools to 31.
• Purpose - to equip students with world-class facilities and instructors for cutting-edge
curriculum and learning in specialised fields.

59. Vedanta group firm Cairn Oil & Gas has discovered oil in a block of Barmer district of
Rajasthan.
• The discovery has been named 'Durga'.

pg. 59
60. Jammu and Kashmir Police has started a women safety squad in Srinagar city to help
women in distress.

61. The tenure of the Delimitation Commission of J&K has been extended by two months.
• The panel is headed by Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai (former Supreme Court judge).
• The commission was set up in March 2020.

62. Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has approved the Rs 1,000 crore project
for cleaning up Mula, Mutha and Mula-Mutha (confluence of both rivers) rivers in Pune.

63. Upper Bhadra Project in Karnataka has received the status of a national project.
• Upper Bhadra Project was launched in 2009.

64. Rajasthan presented its state budget for 2022-23. Elections in Rajasthan are due for 2023.
• Old pension regime (before the introduction of the National Pension Scheme, 2004) will
be introduced for state employees.
• For the first time, a separate budget for agriculture was announced.
• ₹5,000 crores was allocated for Krishak Sathi Yojana and adoption of mission mode for
11 thematic areas.
• Schemes highlighted in the state budget - Chiranjeevi Health Insurance Scheme; Indira
Gandhi Urban Employment Guarantee Scheme (to be launched on the lines of MGNREGA)
• Rajasthan Eligibility Examination for Teachers (REET) was proposed in the budget.

65. J&K administration has allowed 51% foreign direct investment (FDI) in its industrial
sector.
• Target is to have Rs 100 crore investment in the UT.

66. Meitei community – from Manipur – is demanding the Scheduled Tribe (ST) status for itself.

pg. 60
67. Delhi government will build India’s first electronic waste eco-park, with dismantling,
segregating, refurbishing, storage, testing, plastic recycling and precious metal extraction
facilities.
• The e-waste park is being planned in Narela industrial area and will be spread across 20
acres.

68. President Ram Nath Kovind has inaugurated the year-long celebration to mark the 400th
birth anniversary of the great Ahom general Lachit Borphukan in Guwahati.

AGRICULTURE AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT

1. In 2020-21, India became the 5th largest exporter of millets in the world.
• 2023 – International Year of Millets
• 2018 – National Year of Millets in India
• Production – from 14.52 million tonnes in 2015-16 to 17.96 million tonnes in 2020-21
o Grown in 21 states in India
• Exports – worth US $26.97 million; 41% of total global production
• Top 3 Exports Destinations – Nepal (US$ 6.09 million), the UAE (US$ 4.84 million), and
Saudi Arabia (US$ 3.84 million)
• Salient features of Millets –
o A rich source of protein, fibre, minerals, iron, calcium and have a low glycaemic
index
o Notified as Nutri-cereals by GoI in 2018
o Grown in arid and semi-arid tracts under low rainfall (200-600 mm) conditions
o Resilient to drought, photo-insensitivity, climate change, etc.
o Examples of Nutri-cereals - sorghum (Jowar), pearl millet (Bajra), finger millet
(Ragi/Mandua), and small millets like little millet (Kutki), kodo millet (Kodo), barnyard
millet (Sawa/Jhangora), foxtail millet (Kangni/Kakun), and proso millet (Cheena)
• Statement of Intent – In Dec 2021, NITI Aayog and UN World Food Program partnered to
support India in taking a global lead in knowledge exchange, building resilient livelihoods for

pg. 61
 small-holder farmers and adaptation capacities to climate change and transforming food
systems

2. Union Government has approved the Integrated Plant Nutrition Management Bill 2022 that
empowers it to fix maximum selling price of fertilizers and control its quality and
distribution.
• Key features of the bill –
o Establishment of Integrated Plant Nutrition Management Authority of India to
regulate the manufacturers of fertilisers.
o Promotion of balanced fertilisers, including bio-fertilisers, bio-stimulates, nano-
fertilisers and organic fertilisers and their sustainable use.
o Maximum selling price for fertilisers and control the quality as well as
distribution of fertilisers.
o Simplification of the process for the manufacture, production, distribution and
price management of fertilisers in India
o Empowers Central Govt to fix the rates for fertilisers having different periods of
storage or for different areas or for different classes of consumers.
o No person can manufacture, sell, import for sale, or market without obtaining the
appropriate registration from the authority.

3. 2nd Advance Estimates of Production of Major Crops for 2021-22 has been released by the
Ministry of Agriculture and Farmer Welfare.
Food grains Production Estimate
Rice 127.93 million tonnes. (record)
Wheat 111.32 million tonnes. (record)
Nutri / Coarse Cereals 49.86 million tonnes
Maize 32.42 million tonnes. (record)
Pulses 26.96 million tonnes.(record)
Tur 4 million tonnes.
Gram 13.12 million tonnes.(record)
Total Food grain production 316.06 million tonnes (record)

Oilseeds Production Estimate

pg. 62
 Groundnut 9.86 million tonnes
Soyabean 13.12 million tonnes
Rapeseed and Mustard 11.46 million tonnes.(record)
Total Oilseed production 37.15 million tonnes

Other crops Production Estimate

Sugarcane 414.04 million tonnes.(record)
Cotton 34.06 million bales (each of 170 kg)
Jute & Mesta 9.57 million bales (each of 180 kg)

4. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has inaugurates ‘Kisan Drone Yatra’ by flagging off 100
Kisan drones in 16 states of the country.
• This is an initiative of the Garud Aerospace.
• In the Union Budget 2022-23, Finance Minister highlighted the ‘Drone Shakti’ motto to
encourage use of drones.

5. Central government is planning to commence ‘purple revolution’ in Ramban district, J&K

for enhancing the lavender cultivation.
• The revolution is being planned under the CSIR- Indian Institute of Integrative
Medicine’s Aroma Mission through Ministry of Science and Technology on the lines of
Doda and Reasi districts.

DEFENCE NEWS
1. Ministry of Defence has announced to recruit women as fighter plane pilots in the Indian
Air Force on a permanent basis.
• In 2015, the Ministry launched an experimental scheme to appoint women as fighter plane
pilots. So far, 16 women have been appointed as such.
• Now, Defence Ministry has given clearance to make this scheme a permanent one.

2. Naval version of Rafale helicopter - Rafale-M jet - was tested from INS Hansa in Goa.
• Boeing’s Super Hornet (aka F/A-18 jet), which is also being offered to India, is expected to
undergo similar tests at INS Hansa next month.

pg. 63
3. INS Vagir – 5th in the list of Kalvari class submarines built under the Project 75I -
commenced its sea trial.
• The submarine was launched in November 2020 by Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Ltd
(MDL).
• Last year, INS Vela, the fourth submarine in the series of six submarines of Project-75, was
inducted into the Navy.
• The Scorpene (Kalvari) Class submarines are being built in India by the MDL, under
collaboration with Naval Group, France.

4. Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL) and the Indian Army have signed a contract worth Rs 3,000
crore approx. for the manufacture and supply of Konkurs-M anti-tank guided missiles.
• BDL is also offering Konkurs-M missiles for export to friendly foreign countries.
• BDL is also offering Man-Portable Anti-Tank Guided Missiles, Nag, Milan-2T, and Amogha,
in addition to Konkurs M, for export.
• Konkurs-M is a second generation, mechanised infantry anti-tank guided missile, to destroy
armoured vehicles equipped with explosive reactive armour.

5. The Cochin Shipyard Limited (CSL) has delivered the three Floating Border Out-Post
(FBOPs) vessels to the Border Security Force (BSF).
• With this, the Shipyard has delivered six vessels out of nine FBOPs being built for the BSF.

6. Ministry of Defence has signed a pact with Bangalore based NewSpace Research and
Technology to develop a High Altitude Pseudo Satellite (HAPS).
• The HAPS will be able to conduct surveillance operations and support communications
by staying airborne for months at a stretch.
• The HAPS will be developed under the ministry's Innovations for Defence Excellence
(iDEX) initiative.
• The HAPS programme will have Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) as the lead
prototype development partner.

pg. 64
7. Commander of Royal Saudi Armed Forces, Lieutenant General Fahd Bin Abdullah
Mohammed Al-Mutair visited New Delhi to meet Chief of Army Staff General MM Naravane.
• Both of them discussed ways to further enhance the bilateral defence cooperation.

8. DefExpo 2022 (biennial event) will be held in Gandhinagar, Gujarat from March 10 to 14,
2022.
• Theme – India-The Emerging Defence Manufacturing Hub
• The second India Africa defence dialogue is set to take place on March 12 on the sidelines
of the DefExpo 2022 in Gandhinagar, Gujarat.

9. Indian Navy's warship INS Visakhapatnam carried out the test-firing of BrahMos supersonic
cruise missile.
• INS Visakhapatnam (first stealth guided missile destroyer under the Project 15B) has now
reached Visakhapatnam to take part in President's Fleet Review and MILAN 2022 exercise.

10. Indian Navy is procuring a total of 24 MH-60R Multi-Role Helicopters from the USA.
• The first batch of three MH-60R Multi-Role Helicopters is likely to arrive India by July 2022.
• MH-60R helicopters are manufactured by Lockheed Martin Corporation.

11. Singapore Air Show 2022 was held at Changi Exhibition Centre, Singapore.
• India’s Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas MK-1 participated in the show.

12. Indian Air Force and Royal Air Force of Oman have announced to conduct ‘Eastern
Bridge-VI’ exercise from Feb 21-25 at Air Force Station Jodhpur.
• Edition - 6th edition

13. Multilateral air exercise ‘Cobra Warrior’ will be held at Waddington, U.K. from March 6 to 27.
• From India, five Tejas helicopters will participate in the exercise.
• Other participants - Belgium, Saudi Arabia, Sweden and USA

pg. 65
14. For the first time, a joint team of scientists from DRDO and IIT-Delhi, in the country
successfully demonstrated Quantum Key Distribution link between Prayagraj and
Vindhyachal in Uttar Pradesh, a distance of more than 100 kilometres.

15. Indian Army has launched the ‘Sainya Ranakshetram’ - annual cyber security hackathon of
Indian Army.

16. Exercise Dharma Guardian 2022 will be conducted at foreign training node, Belagavi
(Belgaum, Karnataka) between India and Japan.

17. Ministry of Defence has signed a Rs 1,075 crores contract with Bharat Electronics Limited
for the retro-modification of Commander Sight of Battle Tanks-T90 for the Indian Army.
• The retro-modification will be carried out in 957 tanks.
• The total value of the contract is Rs 1,075 crores (including all taxes and duties).

18. Boeing (US based aircraft manufacturer) has delivered the 12th P-8I long-range maritime
patrol aircraft to the Indian Navy.

pg. 66
 • This completes the order of four additional P-8I aircraft contracted in 2016. Initial order was
given for 8 P-8I aircrafts in 2009.
• P-8I was inducted in the Indian Navy in 2013.
• In May 2021, the U.S. State Department approved the possible sale of six additional P-8I
aircraft and related equipment, a deal estimated to cost $2.42 billion.

MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING
1. Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency Ltd. (IREDA) has signed an MoU with Goa
Shipyard Limited to provide its techno-financial expertise to set-up a rooftop solar power
project.
• The two companies are PSUs under the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy and the
Ministry of Defence, respectively.
• Under the MoU, IREDA will assist GSL to set-up a rooftop solar power project at the
headquarter of the company situated in Vasco da Gama, Goa.

2. India and Nepal have signed an MoU for construction of a motorable bridge with the Indian
grant assistance over the Mahakali River connecting Dharchula in Uttarakhand with Darchula
in Nepal.
• Treaty of Sugauli (1816) demarcates the border between India and Nepal.

3. National Culture Fund (under Ministry of Culture), State Bank of India, and Indira Gandhi
National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) have signed an MoU for developing the Atmanirbhar
Bharat Centre for Design at Red Fort, Delhi.

4. IIM-Sambalpur (Odisha) has signed an MoU with Flipkart to promote works of weavers and
artisans through the digital platform.

5. NITI Aayog’s Development Monitoring and Evaluation Office (DMEO) has signed a
Statement of Intent (SoI) on Institutional Partnership with IIM-Kozhikode.

pg. 67
 • Purpose - to focus on strategic and technical collaboration to strengthen the overall
monitoring and evaluation environment in India, with special focus on building a data
monitoring and evaluation stack.

6. Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency Ltd (IREDA) has entered into a pact with
THDC India Ltd to provide techno-financial expertise in developing renewable energy
projects.

7. India has signed an MoU with the UN World Food Programme for distribution of 50,000 MT
of wheat that it will send to Afghanistan via the land border with Pakistan.

8. Saint-Gobain India and the IIT-Madras, Research Park have signed an MoU for renewable
energy.

9. India and Australia have signed an MoU on Tourism cooperation.

• The MoU will enhance cooperation and encourage Expansion of bilateral relations in
tourism.
• Prior to this, India and Australia had signed a similar MoU in 2014 with a validity period till
2019.
• Presently, Ministry of Tourism has MoU with 45 countries.

10. National Skill Development Corporation has signed an MoU with the Common Services
Centres to collaborate for the delivery of services related to various skill development
programmes to the youth in rural and remote areas of the country.
• Under the partnership, the CSCs at the village level will act as a skill desk for creating
awareness about the various available skill development programmes.

11. India signs MoU with UN World Food Program to provide humanitarian aid (wheat) to
Afghanistan.

pg. 68
12. National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd. (NAFED) has signed
an MOU with Indian Oil Corporation for setting up Bio-fuel projects, Plants for post-
processing of products viz Cattle feed & Marketing of end products of Compressed Bio Gas.

13. Ministry of Tourism has signed an MOU with Alliance Air Aviation Limited for the
promotion and marketing of domestic tourism throughout the country.
• Alliance Air is playing a vital role in promoting the Regional Connectivity Scheme - UDAN
(Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik).

14. India and UAE have signed two MoU.

• 1st MoU - Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority
(APEDA) and DP World & Al Dahra for a food security corridor initiative.
• 2nd MoU - India’s Gift City and Abu Dhabi Global Market for cooperation in financial projects
and services.
• UAE has established a dedicated provision for “India Mart” in Jebel Ali Free Zone in
Dubai.
• Indian Institute of Technology will be established in the UAE.

15. Tata Power has signed an MOU with Germany-based RWE Renewable GmbH to explore
potential for a joint development of offshore wind projects in India.

16. Adani Group has signed an MoU with Nasdaq-listed Ballard Power Systems to evaluate
making joint investment for commercialisation of hydrogen fuel cells in India.
• Under the MoU, both parties will examine various options to cooperate, including potential
collaboration for fuel cell manufacturing in India.
• Adani New Industries Limited, the newly formed subsidiary of Adani Enterprises, focused
on generation of green hydrogen, will implement the MoU.
• Adani Group has a current market capitalisation of $151 billion.

pg. 69
17. Defence Accounts Department (DAD) under the Ministry of Defence, has partnered with
CSC e-Governance Services India Limited to onboard pension services under the System
for Pension Administration (Raksha) - SPARSH - initiative.
• The MoU will provide last mile connectivity to pensioners, especially those who reside in
remote areas of the country and those who do not have the means or technical wherewithal
to log on to SPARSH.
• An MoU was also signed with Kotak Mahindra Bank, under which they would be setting up
service centres across 14 branches located in areas with high ex-servicemen density.

18. World Economic Forum and the National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) have signed an
MoU to collaborate on ‘Sustainable Cities India’ program.
• The ‘Sustainable Cities India' aims to enable cities to decarbonise in a systematic and
sustainable way that will reduce emissions and deliver resilient and equitable urban
ecosystems.
• The program aims to create an enabling environment for cities to generate decarbonization
solutions across the energy, transport, and the built environment sectors.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS
1. A coral reef has been detected in Tahiti – an island in French Polynesia.
• The discovery was supported by UNESCO. The reef is also called as ‘Tahiti Pristine’ Coral
Reef.
• Marine explorers have discovered a "pristine" 3km (2-mile) coral reef at depths of 30m
(100ft) off the coast of Tahiti, French Polynesia.
• French Polynesia is an overseas territory of France, comprising of more than 100 islands in
the South Pacific.

2. NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has discovered the presence of water on Mars.
• As per MRO’s observation – determined from the salt deposits on the surface of the planet
– the water existed on Mars some 2 billion years ago.
• Now, all the water has evaporated.
pg. 70
 • The MRO was launched in 2005.

3. Elizabeth II (aged 95) has become the longest reigning monarch of United Kingdom, with a
tenure of 70 years on throne and still continuing.
• Longest reigning monarchs in the world –
o France’s King Louis XIV – tenure of 72 years
o Thailand’s Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX) – 70 years, 126 days
o UK’s Elizabeth II – 70 years (as on Feb 6)

4. Dubai has announced to manufacture world's first hydrogen-powered flying boat named as
‘The Jet’.
• Swiss startup THE JET ZeroEmission has signed an agreement with UAE-based Zenith
Marine Services and US-based DWYN to manufacture and operate 'The Jet'.
• Dubai Clean Energy Strategy 2050 aims to produce 75% of its energy requirements from
clean sources by 2050.
• The strategy also aims to make Dubai a global centre of clean energy and green
economy.

5. 'World's-largest' canal lock – named as Zeesluis Ijmuiden - has been inaugurated at

Ijmuiden, a small port city in Netherlands.
• The 500-meter (1,640-feet) long and 70-meter wide sluice is a replacement of a smaller,
nearly 100-year-old sluice.
o Sluice – a sliding gate or other device for controlling the flow of water, especially one
in a lock gate.

pg. 71
6. Cosmo-SkyMed Second Generation FM2 (CSG-2) – is the Earth-observation satellite of
Italy.
• Launch - SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

7. France’s Total Energies and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) have
announced a deal to build a regional oil pipeline, worth $10 billion, in Uganda.
• The project aims to exploit the huge crude oil reserves at Lake Albert, a 160-kilometre
(100-mile) natural border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

8. International Space Station will cease operations by 2031. Afterwards, it will be discarded
into an uninhabited area in the Pacific Ocean known as Point Nemo.
• ISS was launched in 1998.

9. Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS), an asteroid detection system,

has become the first system capable of searching entire dark sky for near-Earth objects
(NEOs), every 24 hours.
• It is funded by NASA and operated by University of Hawaii, Institute for Astronomy (IfA)
for the agency’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO).

10. A new HIV variant named as ‘VB variant’ (for virulent subtype B) has been discovered in
Netherlands.
• It has more damaging health impacts. It has been discovered in a study led by the
University of Oxford.

11. NROL-87 mission of sending spy satellites of US military has been launched by SpaceX on its
Falcon-9 rocket.
• This is the second of the three planned launches under the mission.
• The mission are administered by U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).

12. The under-construction Giant Magnellan Telescope is being developed at Las Campanas
Observatory, in the Atacama Desert in Chile.

pg. 72
 • The telescope structure is an alt-azimuth design.

13. The iconic tapestry of Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica” has been put back at UN’s headquarters
in New York.
• Tapestry means a piece of thick textile fabric with pictures or designs formed by weaving
coloured weft threads or by embroidering on canvas, used as a wall hanging or soft
furnishing.

14. Endurance22 Expedition has departed from Cape Town, South Africa for Weddell Sea in
Antarctica.
• Endurance22 Expedition was departed by Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust.
• The expedition aims to be the first to locate and survey Sir Ernest Shackleton’s lost ship
which sank in the Weddell Sea in Antarctica in 1915.
• The mission will be conducted from the South African polar research and logistics vessel,
S.A. Agulhas II.
• The Expedition22 is led by Dr John Shears.

15. 35th edition of African Union Summit was held at Addis Ababa in Ethiopia.
• Theme - Year of Nutrition: “Strengthening resilience in nutrition and food security on the
African continent: Strengthening agro food systems, health and social protection systems
for the acceleration of human, social and economic capital development”.

16. USA has approved a $100 million sale of equipment and services to Taiwan to improve the
Patriot missile defence system.
• The main contractors would be Raytheon Technologies and Lockheed Martin.
pg. 73
17. North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has conducted the joint exercise named ‘Winter
Camp’ in Estonia.

18. Sri Lanka aims to implement the ‘Unitary Digital Identity framework’ (UDIF).
• The UDIF is modelled on India’s Aadhar Card.
• India will provide grant to Sri Lanka for implementing the UDIF.

19. Zara Rutherford (aged 19) has become the youngest pilot to complete a solo flight round the
world.
• She has Belgian and British nationality.

20. Joint European Torus (JET) facility located near Oxford in Central England has made a
record by generating 59 megajoules of sustained energy in December.
• As per the UK Atomic Energy Authority, the energy production is more than double of a
1997 record.
• A kg of fusion fuel contains about 10 million times as much energy as a kg of coal, oil or
gas.
• The energy was produced in a machine called a tokamak.

ITER –
• ITER (means "The Way" in Latin) is an international nuclear fusion research and
engineering megaproject aimed at replicating the fusion processes of the Sun to create
energy on the Earth.
• ITER is the larger and more advanced version of the JET.
• Partners for ITER - China, the European Union, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the
USA
• Location - south of France

21. Chips Act, 2022 has been passed by European Parliament for mobilising more than €43
billion ($49.1 billion) of public and private investments in Chips production segment.

pg. 74
 • Target – to enable the EU to reach its ambition to double its current market share to 20% in
2030.

22. Astronomers have confirmed the existence of a second Earth Trojan, an asteroid that shares
the same orbit as Earth, going around the Sun.
• The trojan was detected by Pan-STARRS S1 telescope survey in December 2020 and is
named 2020 XL5.
• It is a near-earth asteroid (NEO) that is expected to stay in orbit for the next 4,000 years
before deviating away.
• The first known Earth Trojan asteroid was 2010 TK7, and discovered in 2010.

About Pan-STARRS –
• The Pan-STARRS (Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System) is a
ground-based telescope used for astronomical imaging, located at Haleakala Observatory
in Hawaii.
• It is operated by the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii, and is funded by
the US Air Force.

23. Australia designated the Koala as an endangered species because numerous eucalypt-rich
habitats of koalas were destroyed in bushfires of 2021.
• Major food of Koalas is eucalypt leaves.

24. NASA has launched two new missions - Multi-slit Solar Explorer (MUSE) and HelioSwarm
– to study Sun, the Sun-Earth connection, and the constantly changing space environment.
• MUSE – To expand upon the understanding of the forces driving the heating of the Sun’s
corona and the eruptions in that outermost region that are at the foundation of space
weather.
o Led by Bart DePontieu of the Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center
(LMATC) in California.
• HelioSwarm – it will be a constellation of nine spacecraft that will study the solar wind
turbulence.

pg. 75
 o Heliosphere - the region of space, encompassing the solar system, in which the
solar wind has a significant influence.
o Led by Harlan Spence from the University of New Hampshire.
• Launch dates are not revealed yet.

25. Cosmo-SkyMed Second Generation FM2 (CSG-2) satellite of Italy was launched by SpaceX
on its Falcon 9 rocket from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
• CSG-2 is an Earth observation satellite.

26. 4th Quad Ministerial Meeting was held in Melbourne, Australia.

• Matter of discussion - destabilising role of China in the Indo-Pacific region and Russian
aggression in Ukraine.

27. Israel has become the first-ever country to allow drones in civilian airspace.

28. A Task Force of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will review the safety of the
planned release of treated water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station in
Japan.
• The power station will carry out its first mission next week.
• The Task Force was set up last year to implement the IAEA’s programme to review Japan’s
plans and actions related to the water discharge will be in the country from 14-18 February.

29. Polaris Dawn mission will be launched by SpaceX to send four astronauts into space on a
five-day trip to conduct scientific studies onboard Crew Dragon spacecraft.
• The team will be led by billionaire Jared Issacman, who had funded and commanded the
first private mission named as Inspiration4.
• The mission will be launched on Falcon-9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in
Florida.
• As part of the first human spaceflight, the Dragon and the Polaris Dawn crew will spend up
to 5 days in orbit, flying higher than any Dragon mission to date as they attempt to reach
the highest Earth orbit ever flown.

pg. 76
 • SpaceX engineer Anna Menon will also be a crew mission.

30. World Health Organization has launched the ‘Quit Tobacco App’ to help people quit
cigarette and give up use of tobacco in all forms - including smokeless and other newer
products.
• As per the WHO Global Report on Trends in Prevalence of Tobacco Use 2000-2025
(4th edition, 2021), WHO South-East Asia Region recorded the fastest decline in tobacco
use but continued to have the highest 432 million tobacco users, or 29% of its population.

31. Nepal will be the first country to adopt India's UPI system for transforming into a digital
economy.
• For this, NPCI International Payments Ltd (NIPL), the international arm of NPCI, has
joined hands with Gateway Payments Service (GPS) and Manam Infotech to provide the
services in Nepal.

32. Indonesia conducted the G20 second Finance and Central Bank Deputies (FCBD) meeting.
• Theme of 2022 G20 Summit - "Recover Together, Recover Stronger"

33. UN Development Program has launched the ‘Digital Strategy 2020-2025’ report to support
countries in bridging their gaps using digital technologies.
• Objectives of the strategy – helping 100 million people to escape multidimensional
poverty to supporting 800 million people to participate in elections.
• 2.9 billion people are still offline, mostly women. The strategy aims to bring them under
digital ecosystem.

34. Munich Security Conference 2022 was held from February 18 to 20, 2022 in Munich,
Germany.
• It is being held since 1963.

35. "Cope South 22" defence exercise between air forces of US, Japan, and Bangladesh will be
held at Dhaka and Sylhet in Bangladesh.

pg. 77
36. Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) is a 4-day global event, which allows participants to
count birds for as little as 15 minutes (or as long as they wish) from a particular location on
one or more days during the event.
• Then, participants need to upload their sightings online on eBird (www.ebird.org/india),
the world’s largest biodiversity-related citizen science platform.
• The first GBBC was launched in the US in 1998 by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and
National Audubon Society to create real-time data on wild birds. In 2013, this event became
global.

37. 6th edition of the European Union-African Union Summit was held in Brussels, Belgium.

38. Japan has launched its first hydrogen-powered train named as Hybari.

39. Ex-US President Donald Trump has launched his Twitter-like app 'Truth Social' on iOS.

40. Israel has tested a new naval air defense system named “C-Dome”.
• The “C-Dome” system is a naval version of the Iron Dome, which has been used to shoot
down rockets fired from the Gaza Strip for the past decade.

41. For the first time, Saudi Arabia has celebrated its foundation day on February 22.
• The nation was established in 1727.

42. European Union Ministerial Forum on Indo-Pacific was held in Paris, France.

43. Iran has unveiled a new missile named “Khaibar Buster Missile”.

44. NASA is planning the “Watts on the Moon Challenge- Phase 2”.
• NASA’s Watts on the Moon Challenge seeks solutions for energy distribution,
management, and/or storage that address NASA technology gaps and can be further
developed for space flight and future operation on the lunar surface.

pg. 78
 • The Watts on the Moon Challenge is managed by NASA's Glenn Research Centre.
• Centennial Challenges is a part of the Prizes and Challenges program within NASA’s
Space Technology Mission Directorate.

45. One Ocean Summit was held at Brest, France, in cooperation with the United Nations and
the World Bank.
• Participants - India, Germany, United Kingdom, South Korea, Japan and Canada
• “A High Ambition Coalition on Biodiversity beyond National Jurisdiction: Protecting the
Ocean: Time for Action” was adopted.
o The Coalition will help in achieving the SDG 14 – ‘Life Below Water’.
o United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), adopted in 1982,
sets out the legal framework within which all activities in the Ocean and seas must
be carried out.
• UNESCO pledged to map approx. 80% of the world’s ocean floors by 2030. UNESCO
will collaborate with 150 member states of its Intergovernmental Oceanographic
Commission (IOC) and the private sector to carry out this exercise.
• UNESCO has also announced to include ocean education in the school curricula of its 193
member nations by 2025.

REPORTS AND INDICES

1. WHO has released the “Global analysis of health care waste in the context of COVID-19”
report.
• 1 in 3 healthcare facilities globally do not safely manage healthcare waste in 2019.
• Waste syringes, used test kits, and old vaccine bottles have all piled up to create thousands
of tonnes of medical waste.
• India generated approximately 101 tonnes of COVID-19-related healthcare waste per
day during the first wave of the pandemic, in addition to the 609 tonnes of waste generated
daily from routine health services (a total of 710 tonnes).
• Accordingly, the generated medical waste increased by 17% in that time.

pg. 79
 • India’s total available capacity for incineration (burning of waste) of COVID-19 waste is
840 tonnes.
• New Delhi accounts for 11% of India’s daily COVID-19 waste generation but has only
two incinerators.

2. Deloitte has released the ‘Women in the Boardroom’ 2022 report.

• India – 17.1% board seats are held by women. 3.6% of the chairpersons are women.
• World – 19.7% board seats are held by women.
• At this pace, the world could expect to reach near-parity only in 2045.
• About the report – 7th edition; 72 countries covered

3. India Press Freedom Report, 2021 has been released by the Delhi-based think-tank Rights
and Risks Analysis Group (RRAG).
• States with most cases - The highest number of journalists/media organisations were
targeted in Jammu and Kashmir (25), followed by Uttar Pradesh (23); Madhya Pradesh (16)
o Tripura (15); Delhi (8); Bihar (6); Assam (5); Haryana and Maharashtra (4 each);
Goa and Manipur (3 each); Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal (2 each)
• States with least cases - Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Kerala (1 each)
• At least six journalists were killed and 121 journalists/media houses including 108
journalists and 13 media houses/newspapers were targeted in India.
• While J&K recorded the maximum attacks by State actors, Tripura had the most cases of
attacks by non-State actors.
pg. 80
4. NITI Aayog has released a report titled “Reimagining Healthcare India through Blended
Finance”.
• The report assesses India’s healthcare structure and how affordable and quality healthcare
can be ensured for the citizens.

Hospital Beds -
• 65% of the hospital beds cater to 50% of the Indian population concentrated in UP,
Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, West Bengal and Kerala.
• Number of beds must be increased by 30% to ensure equitable access to hospital beds.
• Hospital sector in India accounts for 80% of total healthcare market.

Healthcare Expenditure -
• India's healthcare spending is 3.6% of GDP, including out-of-pocket and public
expenditure. The combined total government expenditure of both central and state is
1.29% of GDP.
• India spends the least among BRICS countries: Brazil spends the most (9.2%), followed
by South Africa (8.1%), Russia (5.3%), China (5%).
• The National Health Policy has mandated states to increase health spending on primary
care by at least 10% every year to reach the target of spending 2.5% GDP nationwide.

FDI in Healthcare –
• India has allowed FDI up to 100% in almost all sectors (hospital construction, medical
devices, insurance, and in greenfield projects related to healthcare, biotechnology,
pharmaceutical).
• However, for brownfield projects in healthcare, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical sector,
FDI is allowed up to 74%.
• In the past two decades, 66% of the FDI inflows were in drugs and medicines, followed by
hospitals & diagnostic centres and medical & surgical appliances.

India’s Pharmaceutical Sector –

pg. 81
 • Globally, India’s pharmaceutical sector is 3rd largest by volume.

5. US Green Building Council has released the 9th edition of Leadership in Energy and
Environment Design (LEED) ranking of countries (excluding US).
• Total – 10 countries
• Top – China, followed by Canada
• India – 3rd
• Purpose – to rank countries which have ‘Green Buildings’ (sustainable building design,
construction and operations). Green buildings are a foundational part of supporting
economic, environmental and human health.
• Assessment period - The analysis used to develop the list ranks countries in terms of total
number of LEED projects between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2021.

6. NITI Aayog has released the ‘Delta Rankings for December 2021’ under its Aspirational
District Program.

pg. 82
 • Parameters of the ranking – Education; Health & Nutrition; Basic Infrastructure; Financial
Inclusion & Skill Development; Agriculture & Water Resources.

7. As per the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) 2021/2022 report – unveiled at Dubai
Expo 2020 – India is among the top five easiest places to start a new business.
• Global Entrepreneurship Monitor is a global consortium of over 500 researchers.
• The report gathered data via a survey of at least 2,000 respondents across each of 47 high,
medium and low-income economies.

8. Economist Intelligence Unit has released the Democracy Index 2021.

• Total – 167
• Top – Norway, New Zealand, Finland
• India’s rank – 46 (score of 6.91)
• Bottom – Afghanistan
• The report categorises countries into 4 categories – Authoritarian, Flawed, Hybrid, Full
Democracy.

pg. 83
 Parameters India’s score
Electoral process and pluralism 8.67
Functioning of the govt 7.5
Political participation 7.22
Political culture 6.18
Civil liberties 5

9. 11th edition of the TomTom Traffic Index has been released by TomTom (an MNC).
• As per the index, Delhi has emerged as the 11th most congested global city in 2021,
despite lockdown.
• The global top 25 list has Mumbai at the 5th position, Bengaluru at 10th position, and
Pune at 21st position.
• Total 404 cities across 58 countries were assessed.
• Rank 1 – Istanbul (Turkey)

10. UNCTAD has released the ‘Global Trade Update – February 2022’ report.
• Overall, the value of global trade reached a record level of about $28.5 trillion in 2021, an
increase of about 25% in comparison to 2020 and an increase of about 13% in comparison
to the pre-pandemic level of 2019.
• On a year-over-year basis, trade in goods strongly outperformed trade in services, with
increase of about 27% and 17% respectively.

pg. 84
11. Hurun India has released its Wealth Report 2021.
• The number of rich families in India has increased by 11% in 2021.
• As many as 4,58,000 dollar-millionaire households have recorded a net worth of at least Rs
7 crore in 2021.
• According to the report, the number of dollar-millionaire households may rise by 30% to
6,00,000 in the next five years.

pg. 85
 • Currently, Mumbai has the highest number of dollar-millionaire households, followed
by Delhi and Kolkata at 2nd and 3rd positions.
• As per Hurun Luxury Consumer Survey 2021, the percentage of Indian millionaires using
e-wallets or UPI as their preferred payment method doubled to 36% in 2021.

12. “Sea Level Rise Technical Report” has been released by US-based National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
• USA is expected to experience as much sea level rise by the year 2050.
• The report projects sea levels along the coastline will rise an additional 10-12 inches by
2050 with specific amounts varying regionally, mainly due to land height changes.
• The report has used Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) as one of its sources.

13. UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has released the “Frontiers 2022: Noise, Blazes and
Mismatches” report.
• This report focuses on the impact of environmental changes on human beings’ health.

14. US Chamber of Commerce has released the International Intellectual Property Index 2022
for evaluating the intellectual property rights across global economies.
• Total countries - 55

pg. 86
 • Indicators – 50
• Top 3 countries – USA, UK, and Germany
• India’s rank - 43
o India’s score – 38.64%
o Rank in Asian region – 12th

15. Deloitte has released the “Deloitte's Global 2022 CXO Sustainability Survey” report.
• Indian businesses have ranked 5th based on their concern for climate change.
• Indian companies are more likely to be implementing tougher climate actions compared
with their global counterpart.
• 21 countries were assessed during September-October 2021.

BANKING AND ECONOMY

1. Ministry of Commerce and Industry has released the data on the growth of core sectors in
2021.
• From April-December 2021 – 12.6% growth in core sectors
• In December 2021 – 3.8%
• Core sectors – coal, crude, natural gas, refinery products, fertilisers, cement, steel and
electricity
o These are the eight core infrastructural sectors.

2. Bharat Electronics Ltd and Hyperion Global Group have signed a contract to develop,
manufacture and supply Internet of Things (IoT) devices for the US market.
• Hyperion Global Group is an infrastructure telecommunication distribution company based
in the USA.
• BEL will manufacture and supply IoT devices to Hyperion.
• BEL - aerospace and defense company with about nine factories - comprises of 51.14%
stake of Govt.

pg. 87
3. Banks have finalised plans to transfer 15 Non-Performing Asset (NPA) accounts worth
₹50,000 crore to the National Asset Reconstruction Company Ltd. (NARCL), or the ‘bad
bank’.
• A total of 38 accounts aggregating to ₹82,845 crore have been identified for transfer to
NARCL. The transfer will take place in a phased manner.
• Under Phase I, about 15 accounts, aggregating to ₹50,335 crore, are expected to be
transferred in the current financial year, i.e. on or before 31st March 2022.

4. State Bank of India (SBI) has launched a dedicated centralized processing cell - ‘Surya
Shakti Cell’ in Ballard Estate in Mumbai.
• Surya Shakti Cell will process all the loan applications for Solar Projects (capacity up to 1
MW) sourced from across India, for installation by business entities as well as households.
• The Bank has also signed an Agreement with Tata Power Solar Systems Ltd. (a Tata
Power Company) for financing solar projects.

5. Vedanta has partnered with Union Bank of India to take over a majority of the syndicated
facility worth Rs 8,000 crore.
• Syndicated facility – facilities or loans given by multiple lenders as a group with common
interest.
• In 2020, Vedanta Ltd had tied up a syndicated facility of Rs 10,000 crore with SBI as the
lead bank at a running cost of 10.5%.

6. Dukaan, a platform that enables small and medium-sized businesses to set up online stores
and sell products digitally, has partnered with Simpl, a buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) platform, to
provide BNPL services to Dukaan's merchants.

7. Sri Lanka has decided to purchase petrol and diesel to the tune of 40,000 metric tonnes
each, from the Indian Oil Corporation to tackle its energy crisis.

8. IRDAI has allowed small merchants to use Surety Bonds.

pg. 88
 • To reduce indirect cost for suppliers and work-contractors, the use of surety bonds as a
substitute for bank guarantee will be made acceptable in government procurements
• Surety Bonds are the guarantees provided by insurance companies to the contracting party
for fulfilment of contractual obligations by the second / other party.
• Surety Bonds will be issued to the small merchants without collateral security.

IRDAI Guidelines on Surety Bonds -

• As per the latest guidelines of IRDAI, insurance companies can offer six types of sureties
namely, advance payment bond, bid bond, contract bond, customs and court bond,
performance bond and retention money.
• Premium – The premium charged for all surety insurance policies underwritten in a
financial year, including all instalments due in subsequent year/ s for those policies, shall
not exceed 10% of the total gross written premium of that year, subject to a maximum of
Rs. 500 crores.

9. Export-Import Bank of India (Exim Bank) has extended a line of credit of USD 500 million
to Sri Lanka for financing the purchase of petroleum products.
• With the signing of this LoC, Exim Bank has extended 10 lines of credit to the Sri Lankan
government worth USD 2.18 billion, till date.
• In total, Exim Bank has now in place 276 LOCs, worth USD 27.84 billion approx., covering
61 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Commonwealth of Independent States
(CIS).

10. SEBI has restructured its four member high-power advisory committee on settlement
orders and compounding of offences.
• Chairperson - Jai Narayan Patel
• New inductees - M S Sahoo, Poornima Advani, and P K Malhotra
• Under the settlement mechanism, an alleged wrongdoer can settle a pending case with the
regulator without admission or denial of guilt by paying a settlement fee.

pg. 89
11. Edelweiss General Insurance (EGI) has launched an AI voice bot to increase the pace of
registration of motor claims.
• This end-to-end AI Voice Bot is the first in the general insurance industry in India.
• It is powered by Yellow.ai, the world’s leading next-gen Total Experience (TX) Automation
Platform.
• Yellow.ai is recognised in the 2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Conversational
AI Platforms.

12. RBI has cancelled the licence of Nashik-based Independence Co-operative Bank Ltd and
began the process for winding it up.
• Depositors will receive up to Rs 5 lakh from Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee
Corporation (DICGC).

13. Samsung Electronics has taken over the top spot in the global semiconductor market by
revenue in the third quarter due to strong memory chip sales.

14. Kotak Mahindra General Insurance Company has entered into a Corporate Agency
agreement with Cars24 Financial Services Private Limited.
• Through this association, Cars24, as a Corporate Agent of Kotak General Insurance, will
extend Motor insurance services to its consumers.

15. Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) has partnered with PolicyBazaar to offer insurance
products on the latter’s platform.
• This will ensure a wide reach for LIC’s policies via the digital platform of PolicyBazaar.

16. Punjab National Bank and Patanjali Ayurved Limited have launched co-branded
contactless credit cards in partnership with the National Payments Corporation of India
(NPCI).
• The co-branded credit cards are offered on NCPI's RuPay Platform.
• The cards are available in two variants - PNB RuPay Platinum and PNB RuPay Select.

pg. 90
 • The cards will facilitate purchase of day-to-day Patanjali products, along with cash backs,
loyalty points, insurance cover, and more.
• MD of Patanjali Ayurved Limited - Acharya Balkrishna
• MD and CEO of PNB - Atul Kumar Goel

17. As per the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), India’s unemployment rate
witnessed a sharp decline to 6.57% in January 2022.
• Urban unemployment rate declines to 8.16%.
• Rural unemployment rate declines to 5.84%

18. Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution has imposed a stock limit on
edible oils and oilseeds up to June 30, 2022 to “cool down” the prices of edible oil in the
country.
• For edible oils, the stock limit would be 30 quintals for retailers, 500 quintals for
wholesalers, 30 quintals for retail outlets of bulk consumers i.e. big chain retailers and
shops and 1,000 quintals for its depots.
o Processors of edible oils would be able to stock 90 days of their storage capacities.
• For edible oilseeds, the stock limit would be 100 quintals for retailers, 2,000 quintals for
wholesalers.
o Processors of edible oilseeds would be able to stock 90 days of production of edible
oils as per daily input production capacity.

19. Google has launched Chromebook devices for teachers and students.

20. ICICI Bank has bought additional stake in India International Clearing Corporation (IICC) at
IFSC in GIFT City for Rs 4.43 crore.
• Now, ICICI bank holds 9.9% stake in IICC.
• IICC was incorporated at GIFT City, IFSC in Gandhinagar in Gujarat in September 2016.
• IICC is the first international clearing corporation set up at GIFT IFSC (International
Financial Services Centre).

pg. 91
21. Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd. has unveiled its branded store “Happy Shop” in
Mumbai to enter into non-fuel retailing.
• “Club HP” retail outlet has also been established at HPCL.
• HPCL also launched poWer 100, ultra-premium grade petrol with an Octane rating of 100
to cater to the growing number of high-end cars and bikes.

22. SIDBI has signed an MoU with the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-
DAC), a premier R&D organization under the Ministry of Electronics and IT.
• Purpose - to explore innovation and use of emerging technologies in the areas of Cyber
Security, AI/ML, block chain, etc. and related training and capacity building aspects in the
Banking Sector.

23. According to RBI’s data, the External Commercial Borrowings (ECB) of Indian companies
stood at $23.20 billion in the first three quarters of FY22.
• It indicates an increment of 19%.

24. According to the Salesforce Global Digital Skills Index 2022, India has the highest digital
readiness score at 63 out of 100.
• The index assessed the situation in 19 countries.

25. Airtel Payments Bank has partnered ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company to offer a
cyber insurance.
• The insurance can be bought from the Airtel Thanks app.
• The policy will provide a 90-day discovery period, followed by a seven-day reporting period.
• Last year, Airtel Payments Bank launched Airtel Safe Pay.

26. Asian Development Bank (ADB) has provided a record USD 4.6 billion loans to India in
2021.
• This amount includes the USD 1.8 billion towards coronavirus response.
• Out of $4.6 bn, $2.2 bn support was given for 12 state projects.

pg. 92
 • The ADB's India portfolio comprised 69 projects worth USD 15.5 billion as of December 31,
2021.
• Apart from the loans given to countries, ADB committed USD 274 million to private sector
projects in 2021.
• ADB Country Director for India – Takeo Konishi

27. According to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), India's unemployment
rate has fallen to 6.57% in January 2022, which is the lowest since March 2021.
• Telangana reported the lowest unemployment rate at 0.7% in January.
• Haryana had the highest unemployment rate at 23.4%.
• CMIE MD and CEO – Mahesh Vyas

28. Larsen & Toubro (L&T) and Microsoft India have signed an MoU to develop a regulated
sector focused cloud offering to empower customers with the cloud computing and
infrastructure services.
• Larsen & Toubro CEO & MD – S.N. Subrahmanyan

29. RBI has extended the restrictions on Millath Co-Operative Bank, Devangere (Karnataka), by
another three months till May 7, 2022.
• Withdrawals are capped at Rs 1,000 from any account.

30. According to a report by Brand Finance (a London-based consultancy), Life Insurance

Corporation (LIC) ranks as the 3rd strongest brand in the world, preceded by Poste Italiane
of Italy and Mapfre of Spain at 1st and 2nd positions.
• In the category of insurance brands, LIC is ranked at the 10th position.
• In India, LIC is the strongest and the largest brand in the country with a valuation of
$8.656 billion, which has increased from $8.11 billion in 2020 (an increment of 6.8%).
• As per the report, the market value of LIC will become Rs 43.40 lakh crore or $59.21 billion
by 2022, and Rs 58.9 lakh crore or $78.63 billion by 2027.

pg. 93
31. RBI has announced the redemption price for the premature redemption of Sovereign Gold
Bonds (SGBs) that is due on February 8.
• The price will be ₹4,813 per unit, which is about 85% premium from its issue price of ₹2,600
fixed in January 2016.

32. PM-CARES Fund has collected Rs 10,990 crores till March 2021 and spent Rs 3,976 or
36.17% of the corpus.

33. Tata Group has chosen State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda and HDFC Bank as preferred
bankers for Air India.
• Tata Sons availed of a Rs 10,000-crore loan from SBI and a Rs 5,000-crore loan from BoB
to refinance Air India's debt availed at over 10%.
• However, Tata Group has sought Rs 23,000-crore loan for Air India.

34. DBS Bank India has partnered with Stellapps, a leading dairy-tech startup, as its banking
partner to promote digitisation amongst small dairies across India.
• The partnership is expected to indirectly benefit 20,000 farmers at present and around
100,000+ dairy farmers in the near future.
• India is the largest milk producer globally, with ~188 million MT production in 2019-20,
and approximately 70 million farmers are directly involved in dairying.

35. HDFC ERGO General Insurance Company has launched Cyber Sachet Insurance Policy, a
unique cyber insurance policy, to mitigate cyber-related / digital risks for individual customers
and keeping them internet insured.

36. RBL Bank has partnered with Creditas Solutions for its ‘Neo Collections’ platform.
• This partnership will enable RBL Bank to utilise the SaaS-based platform to accelerate
efficiency in collections across the loan cycle.
• The Neo Collections Platform, a Do It Yourself (DIY) debt management platform, will help
our customers seamlessly monitor, manage and pay their dues.

pg. 94
37. According to the Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, Som Parkash, India
has received Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows worth USD 339.55 billion in the last 5
years.
Years FDI Inflows
2014-15 USD 45.15 billion
2016-17 USD 60.22 billion
2017-18 USD 60.97 billion
2018-19 USD 62 billion
2019-20 USD 74.39 billion
2020-21 USD 81.97 billion

38. Monetary Policy of RBI (Feb 2022) –

• Policy Rates – unchanged
• Stance – Accommodative
• CPI inflation – 4% within a band of +/- 2%
Note – Understand the nitty-gritty of the MPC at - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrhV6-F_jFc

39. Reliance New Energy Limited has acquired an additional 10.37% stake in Sterling and
Wilson Renewable Energy for Rs 737.54 crore.
• Reliance now owns 40% stake in Sterling and Wilson.

40. State Bank of India has partnered with National Stock Exchange (NSE) for offering financial
literacy courses to banking professionals, students, and other learners.
• Under the partnership, SBI has launched five inaugural Massive Open Online Courses
(MOOCs) on NSE Knowledge Hub platform.
• Courses - ‘Banking Fundamentals’, ‘MSME Lending in a Nutshell’, ‘Electronic Payment
System in India’, ‘Priority Sector Lending Norms’ and ‘NRI Business & Compliance’

41. SEBI has restructured its advisory committee on Investor Protection and Education Fund
(IPEF).
• Chairman – G Mahalingam (former Whole Time Member of SEBI)
pg. 95
 • Total members – 8
• Purpose – to find out ways and means to best utilise the investor protection and education
fund
• Year of establishment – 2013

42. SEBI has given in-principle approval to BSE for introducing Electronic Gold Receipt (EGR)
on the stock exchange's platform.
• Under the rules, the entire transaction has been divided into three tranches -- creation of
EGR, trading of EGR on stock exchange and conversion of EGR into physical gold.

43. Aditya Birla Health Insurance Co. Limited. (ABHICL) has signed a bancassurance
agreement with Utkarsh Small Finance Bank for distribution of health insurance products.

44. NABARD has launched the ‘JIVA’ agroecology-based program to promote natural farming in
11 states.
• Under this scheme, NABARD will invest Rs 50,000 per hectare.
• The JIVA initiative will be implemented in 25 projects across 11 states, covering five
agroecological zones.

45. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has announced that the Centre’s gross domestic
product (GDP) deflator projection for 2022-23 is 3% to 3.5%.
• Government projected real GDP growth rate for FY23 in the range of 7.6-8.1%, whereas
the Union Budget assumes a nominal GDP growth rate of 11.1% for FY23.
• The Economic Survey 2021-22, drafted by Principal Economic Advisor Sanjeev
Sanyal, projected a real GDP growth rate of 8-8.5% for FY23.
• RBI projected real GDP growth of 7.8% in FY23. Retail inflation of FY23 will be 4.5%.

46. Paisabazaar.com, a digital platform for consumer credit, has partnered with RBL Bank to offer
‘Paisa on Demand’ (PoD), a credit card.

pg. 96
47. HDFC ERGO General Insurance has announced first-of-its-kind partnership with Visa to
offer insurance covers for Visa’s Platinum cardholders for select Public Sector banks.

48. As per a report by Comscore, Paytm has the highest digital penetration in Indian Fintech
sector with 45% share in the digital payments market.
• Paytm is followed by Google Pay.

49. Gujarat-based ABG Shipyard Ltd has defrauded a consortium of banks for a loan amount of
over Rs 22,000 crore.

50. Bank of Baroda has acquired 21% stake in IndiaFirst Life Insurance Company from Union
Bank of India.
• IndiaFirst is a joint venture between Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India and Carmel Point
Investments.
• New Shareholding - Bank of Baroda (65%), Carmel Point Investments India (26%) and
Union Bank of India (9%).

51. Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) has reduced the effective duty on
crude palm oil import to 5.5% from 8.25% earlier to control its prices and support domestic
processing companies.
• Basic customs duty is already nil on crude palm oil (CPO).

pg. 97
 • Now, the CBIC has reduced the agri-infra development cess to 5% from 7.5%, effective
from February 13.
• The effective duty on CPO, sunflower oil and soybean oil is 5.5% till September 30, 2022.
• Effective import duty on refined palm oil is 13.75%.

52. Govt has announced its plan to sell 5% of LIC’s share via Initial Public Offer (IPO) for around
Rs 63,000 crores.
• The govt plans to divest 10% of its stake in LIC in the long run.
• LIC has filed Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP) with SEBI.

53. RBI has increased the limit of e-Rupi vouchers issued by the government to ₹1 lakh per
voucher from ₹10,000 earlier.
• RBI has also allowed one voucher to be used multiple times until fully redeemed.
• Salient features – e-Rupi does not require beneficiaries to have a bank account, card,
digital payments app or internet banking access at select merchants. Thus, it is easy to use.

54. Insights into India’s Public Debt-to-GDP Ratio –

• Public Debt-to-GDP Ratio – It is the ratio reflecting the borrowings of a country vis-à-vis its
GDP. Public Debt includes external and internal borrowings by the sovereign.
• NK Singh’s Committee in 2016 recommended the Centre to fix its Public Debt-to-GDP
Ratio at 38.7% and States to fix it at 20% by the financial year of 2022-23.
• Present situation –
o Centre’s Debt-to-GDP Ratio - 59.9% for FY22; 60.2% for FY23 (as per Union Budget
of 2022-23)
o States’ Debt to GDP Ratio - 31% in FY22
pg. 98
 o Total Debt to GDP Ratio of India for FY22 - 90.9% approx.
• International Monetary Fund’s data –
o India’s debt-to-GDP ratio for FY21 - 89.60%
o India’s debt-to-GDP ratio for FY22 - 90.6%
• India’s burden of interest payments as a percentage of revenue – increased to 42%
and 39% in FY21 and FY22 from 36% in FY20

55. Chennai-based CredAvenue has acquired around 75% stake in Mumbai-based Spocto
Solutions Pvt. Ltd, a collections solution provider in the debt management space.
• CredAvenue is a debt marketplace for financial services firms and enterprises.

56. Jio Platforms has formed a joint-venture with Luxembourg-based satellite-linked content
connectivity solutions provider SES to deliver satellite broadband services across India.

57. Dabur has become the first Indian plastic waste neutral’ FMCG company.
• FMCG – Fast Moving Consumer Goods

58. YES BANK has launched YES BANK Agri Infinity - an annual startup enabler program - to
co-develop digital financial solutions for the food and agriculture ecosystem by mentoring
entrepreneurial ventures in the field.
• YES BANK’s MD & CEO - Prashant Kumar
pg. 99
59. Vedanta has partnered with Foxconn (electronics manufacturing services giant) to form a
joint venture (JV) for manufacturing semiconductors in India.
• Now, Vedanta has become the first company to announce investment in semiconductor
manufacturing in India.
• Vedanta will have a majority stake in the JV. Vedanta Founder & Chairman Anil Agarwal
will be the chairman of the joint venture.

60. State-owned Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) has bagged an order from Hindustan
Aeronautics Ltd to supply compact heat exchanger sets for 83 LCA Tejas MK1A aircrafts.
• The BHEL's Heavy Plates and Vessels Plant (HPVP), Visakhapatnam is the sole supplier of
heat exchangers for LCA Tejas to HAL since 1996.

61. PayU has announced its integration with BigCommerce (an Open SaaS e-commerce
platform).
• Purpose - PayU can now provide payment infrastructure & solutions to BigCommerce's
small-to-medium-sized merchants in India.

62. LKP Securities Ltd has entered into an arrangement with HDFC Bank Ltd to offer a special
3-in-1 online account.
• 3-in-1 account – saving bank account + broking + demat services

63. DMI Finance Private Limited has launched a personal loan product on Google Pay to
make credit accessible for pre-qualified users of Google Pay.
• These users will have their application processed in near real-time with access to the
money in their bank accounts.

64. Karur Vysya Bank has partnered with Unanu Technologies (UNANU), a major End to End
Logistics Software Platform provider, for provide freight finance digitally to transport
contractors for their working capital requirements.

pg. 100
65. Automaker Renault India has partnered with CSC e-Governance Services to support the
Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyaan (PMGDISHA), the country’s flagship
programme that aims to provide digital literacy to masses.
• The Renault cars will act as ‘Knowledge Repository on Wheels’ supporting in
empowering people in rural areas by providing them access to information, knowledge and
requisite skills.

66. RBI has extended the timeline by six months for NBFCs to adhere the new NPA recognition
norms till September 2022. Previous timeline was about to end on March 31, 2022.
• The RBI also clarified that
• Conditions for upgradation to Standard Category –
o Borrowers with multiple loan accounts will have to pay their dues in full for all of their
loan accounts.
o RBI rules require NBFCs to treat such accounts as NPA until the borrower updates
the account by paying all the EMIs due.
• The banking sector follows an automated system for tagging accounts as NPAs, under
which the accounts are tagged as NPAs on the day the account becomes overdue for more
than 90 days. However, in many NBFCs, this classification is made after the end of 90 or
180 days.

67. Navars Edutech (Hyderabad-based space startup) has planned to launch a constellation of
100 student-developed satellites with Skyroot Aerospace as a launch partner in the next
five years.
• This partnership enables Navars Edutech to become India's first Space Education
startup for K12 students to design and launch satellites to space.
• Skyroot is developing Vikram series of rockets.

68. Aditya Birla Group has invested an undisclosed amount in Zand, an upcoming digital bank
in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

pg. 101
69. Brio Hydroponics, an Ahmedabad based agritech startup, has entered into a joint venture
with an Israeli firm Pic-Plast Limited for a rain protection technique that will help grow
plants hydroponically throughout the year.
• Hydroponics is a way to skip the soil and grow crops directly in nutrient-rich water.

70. Bank of Baroda has signed an MoU with Assam Rifles (the oldest paramilitary force) to
provide Baroda Central Force Salary Package.
• Under the agreement, the package will be provided to all serving and retired personnel of
Assam Rifles.
• Apart from this, the bank will also offer special benefits including personal accident
insurance and a co-branded credit card.

71. Edelweiss Asset Management has launched eInvest- a mutual fund mobile app for
investors for a smooth investing experience.
• eInvest is an easy-to-use app that will help investors perform all financial transactions on
the go.

72. Standard Chartered Bank, India, has launched an interest-only home loan facility aimed at
new as well as its existing customers.
• This is applicable on loans ranging between ₹35 lakh and ₹3.5 crore, and the maximum
tenure set for the loan is 30 years for salaried individuals and 25 years for self-employed
individuals.

73. According to the Goldhub, the official website of World Gold Council, Reserve Bank of India
(RBI) has emerged as the second largest buyer of gold among the world's Central Banks in
2021. Central Bank of Thailand has topped.
• Central Bank of Thailand bought 90 metric tonnes of gold while RBI bought 77.5 metric
tonnes.
• RBI’s total gold reserve was 754.1 tonnes at the end of December 2021, which amounts to
6.22% of India’s forex reserves.

pg. 102
 • India’s total reserves at the end of December 31, 2021 stood at $633.61 billion, including
gold reserves worth $39.405 billion.
• India’s official gold reserves is ninth largest in the world.

74. Bombay Stock Exchange has collaborated with four regional associations from
Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu to promote Electronic Gold Receipts (EGR) segment.
• Associations - Thirunelveli Gold Silver Diamond Jewellery Traders Association, Nanded
Sarafa Association, Saraf Suvarnkar Sangthna Pusad, and Ghadchiroli Zila Sarafa
Association

pg. 103
 • The EGR segment will benefit as it will lead to greater assurance in the quality of gold
supplied, efficient price discovery and transparency in transacting.

75. Fisdom, a wealth-tech company, has partnered with Bank of Maharashtra (BoM) to offer
wealth management products and services to over 29 million customers of the bank.

76. IndusInd Bank has been empanelled by the Small Farmers Agri–Business Consortium
(SFAC) to facilitate digital collection and settlement services on National Agriculture Market
(e-NAM) portal for the transactions between farmers and traders across the country.
• e-NAM was launched in 2016 to facilitate online transaction of agricultural commodities for
farmers, traders, FPOs and other stakeholders, arriving at the e-NAM mandis.
• SFAC’s MD - Neelkamal Darbari

77. Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce Life Insurance has launched its new insurance
plan -- Flexi Edge -- a non-linked participating individual savings life insurance plan long-term
savings.
• It is available in three plans – flexi savings, flexi income, and flexi care.

78. SIDBI has partnered with the Government of Bihar to promote the micro, small and medium
enterprises (MSME) sector in the state.
• To this effect, two memoranda of understanding (MoU) have been signed between SIDBI
and the industries department, Government of Bihar, and the Bihar Industrial Area
Development Authority (BIADA) to develop the MSME ecosystem in the state.
• Under the first MoU with Bihar's industry department, project management units (PMUs)
will be deployed by SIDBI with the state government.
• Bihar is the 14th state with which SIDBI has tied up for strengthening MSMEs.

79. Ministry of Finance has released the ‘Monthly Economic Review’ January 2022 update.
• As per the review, India is still the only major country whose growth projections have been
revised upwards in FY23 by IMF.

pg. 104
 • The Budget 2022-23 has increased the capital expenditure by 35.4% from the FY22
budget. It now amounts to 4.1% of GDP, after inclusion of grants-in-aid to states for capital
works.
• The budget has targeted a nominal GDP growth of 11.1% in 2022-23 with a GDP deflator
of 3.0-3.5%.
• The real growth rate estimate is just about 8% for 2022-23, akin to Economic Survey 2021-
22 projection.

80. SIDBI has launched the 'Waste to Wealth Creation' programme in West Bengal to support
women engaged in making ornaments and showpieces from fish scale in the Sundarbans in
West Bengal's South 24 Parganas district.
• The program will help 50 women who are generating revenues from alternative livelihood
sources.
• The program has been launched under the ‘Mission Swavalamban’, which aims to
support artisans to become sustainable.
• CMD of SIDBI – S Ramann

81. Juspay Technologies (fintech firm) has launched ‘Openppi' software to help Prepaid
Payment Instruments (PPI) like digital wallets comply with RBI's PPI interoperability regulation.
• In May 2021, RBI has mandated prepaid cards and wallets that are full-KYC-compliant to
be fully interoperable by March 2022.

82. RBI has cancelled the licence of Mantha Urban Cooperative Bank, Maharashtra.

83. Kotak Mahindra Bank has partnered with Ezetap to provide integrated point of sale (PoS)
solutions across 4,000 locations in India.
• The solutions will benefit scores of bank’s merchants in retail business spread across the
country.
• The solutions will give retail customers a way to pay through cards and digital modes
across all PoS points.

pg. 105
84. BSE Ebix Insurance Broking has signed an agreement with Life Insurance Corporation
(LIC) for distribution of LIC’s products on its platform.
• BSE Ebix Insurance Broking is a joint venture of BSE and Ebix Fincorp Exchange Pte
Ltd.

85. Indian Oil has installed more than 1,000 EV charging stations across the country.
• Now, Indian Oil is aiming to provide EV charging facilities at 10,000 fuel stations in the
next three years.
• Indian Oil had installed its first EV charger for public use at Nagpur in 2017.
• Under the 'National Mission for Transformative Mobility and Battery Storage' (of NITI
Aayog), Indian Oil is setting up EV charging infrastructure in the following cities –
o Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Surat, and
Pune, followed by state capitals, smart cities, major highways, and expressways.

86. India has made a historic import contract with USA for the import of Soyoil for 100,000
tonnes.
• Shortage of edible oil in international market –
o Sunflower oil – facing shortage due to instability in the Black Sea Region (Russia vs
Ukraine tensions)
o Palm Oil – Indonesia has put curbs on its palm oil exports.
o Soyoil – drought in South America
• India and Oilseed –
o Types of oilseeds grown in India - Groundnut, mustard, rapseed, sesame,
safflower, linseed, nigerseed, castor are the major traditionally cultivated oilseeds.
o Significant efforts are being put to increase the production of Coconut oil, oil palm,
Soyabean, sunflower, and non-conventional oils (rice bran oil and cottonseed oil).
o About 56% of domestic demand of edible oils is met through imports out of which
palm oil/ palmolein constitutes about 54%.
Types of Edible Oil that Countries from where India World’s largest exporters of
India Imports imports the most these oils

pg. 106
 Palm Oil Indonesia Indonesia
Malaysia Malaysia
Sunflower Oil Ukraine Ukraine
Russia
Soyoil Argentina (2/3rd) Argentina
Brazil (1/3rd)

87. 2021 Notorious Markets List has been released by the US Trade Representative.
• The list identifies 42 online and 35 physical markets around the world that are reported to
engage in or facilitate substantial trademark counterfeiting or copyright piracy.
• From India, IndiaMart.com (India's popular e-commerce website), Heera Panna in
Mumbai, Kidderpore in Kolkata and Tank Road in Delhi featured in the list.

88. India and UAE have signed a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) / Comprehensive Economic
Partnership Agreement (CEPA).
• UAE is India’s 3rd largest trading partner, after US and China.
• Effective from - May 1, 2022- Labour Day (tentative)
• Bilateral trade - to increase to $100 billion in 5 years of its adoption from $60 billion at
present.
• Covered areas - goods, services, rules of origin, Customs procedures, government
procurement, intellectual property rights, and e-commerce.
• Expected Employment Generation – 10 lakh
• 80% - traded goods between India and UAE will face less tariffs
• 90% - India’s exported goods to UAE will get tariff-free
• $26 billion - worth of India’s present exports to UAE
• Gold - India imported about 70 tonnes of gold from the UAE in FY21; India had agreed to
concessional import duties on gold imports up to 200 tonnes per year.
• Zero-Duty Access for Indian Exports - Nine sectors will get 0-duty access in UAE within
a further 5 to 10 years. These sectors account for about 90% of the value of current
exports to the UAE.

pg. 107
 o These sectors are textiles, engineering products, gems and jewellery,
pharmaceuticals and medical devices, plastics, automobiles, leather and footwear,
agricultural products and other labour-intensive products such as furniture, wood
products and sports goods.

89. NHPC Limited has set up a new wholly-owned subsidiary company namely “NHPC
Renewable Energy Limited” (NREL), for the development of Renewable Energy, Small
Hydro and Green Hydrogen based business of NHPC Ltd.
• Department of Investment and Public Asset Management and NITI Aayog approved the
creation of NREL in December 2021.

90. Sonata Software, Bengaluru-based global IT Services and Technology Solutions Company,
has launched ‘Microsoft Cloud for Retail’, its partnership with Microsoft, for further
strengthening its offerings to the retail industry.

pg. 108
 • Features of the Microsoft Cloud for Retail - leveraging data, elevating the shopping
experience, building real-time, sustainable supply chains, and empowering store associates

91. Shareholders of India Debt Resolution Company Ltd (IDRCL) –

• 49% - to be held by Public Sector Banks
• 51% - to be held by private sector banks
PSB Current Expected Shareholding
Shareholding by 31st March 2022
SBI 12.3% 5%
Bank of Baroda 12.3% 9.9%
PNB 11.18% 5%
UBI 12.3% 10%
Canara Bank 14.9% 5%
BoM 6.21% 4%

92. According to Sanjay Leekha, Chairman of the Council for Leather Exports (CLE), India’s
leather and footwear exports are expected cross USD 6 billion (about Rs 44,800 crore) in
2022-23.
• Reason - increasing demand in the US and new markets such as Middle East, Africa and
Latin America.
• During April-January this fiscal, leather and leather products exports have increased by
33% to USD 3.6 billion.
• Potential of India’s leather and footwear sector - USD 30 billion in next 5 years ($20 bn
in domestic market and $10 bn in exports)

93. SEBI has reconstituted its Alternative Investment Policy Advisory Committee, chaired by
the Infosys co-founder N R Narayana Murthy.
• Total members – 20
• The committee aims to advise SEBI on a range of issues that impact further development of
the AIF space.
• The panel, constituted by SEBI in 2015, earlier had 22 members.
pg. 109
94. According to the Minister for Commerce & Industry, Textiles, Consumer Affairs and Food
& Public Distribution, Shri Piyush Goyal, the Gems & Jewellery sector is expected to
achieve export target of $40 Billion in 2022.
• The sector is expected to register growth of 6.5% over the pre-Covid levels.
• The information was provided at the inaugural ceremony of India International Jewellery
Show Signature 2022, organised by the Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council.
• The Gold and Diamond trade contributes about 7% to India’s GDP and employs over 50
Lakh people. The exports already stand at $32 bn until January 2022.

Steps taken to boost Gems & Jewellery Exports –

• Reduction in import duty on cut & polished diamonds from 7% to 5%.
• Extension of Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) for MSMEs up to
March 2023. (Over 90% of units in G&J sector are MSMEs.)
• Allowed surety bonds to be used instead of bank guarantee for import of gold.
• New Special Economic Zone regime and smooth regulations for G&J exports.

95. Ministry of Commerce and Industry has announced to transform the Department of
Commerce with new age technologies to achieve $2 trillion exports target by 2027.

96. Bank of Baroda Financial Solutions Limited (BFSL) and Indian Railway Catering and
Tourism Corporation Ltd (IRCTC) have launched the ‘IRCTC BoB RuPay Contactless
Credit Card’ for railway travellers.

97. Nomura (a Japanese financial holding company) releases its Business Resumption Index on
a weekly and monthly basis to assess the situation and mood of businesses.

98. Indian Government and pharmaceutical firm Panacea Biotec in partnership with Coalition
for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) have partnered to develop vaccine
candidates against SARS-COV-2 variants and other beta coronaviruses.

pg. 110
99. ICICI Bank has signed an agreement with Verve Financial Services (VFSPL) for acquiring
9.49% stake in the latter for Rs 19.9 crores.
• Verve Financial Services operates 'Indiafilings' platform, which provides a suite of
services like incorporation, trademark, tax filings, compliance, payroll management and
other business services to MSMEs, corporates and entrepreneurs.

100. According to the oil ministry's Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC), India's fuel
demand is estimated to see a rise of 5.5% on year to 214.5 million tonnes in FY23.
• Demand for petroleum products grew by 4.9% in the first nine months of the current fiscal
year that began in April 2021.
• Fuel consumption was 148.3 million tonnes in April-December 2021.

101. Mastercard has partnered with SBI Payments for organizing three on-ground digital
payment awareness campaigns in Guwahati, Lucknow and Varanasi.
• The campaigns will be organized under the 'Team Cashless India' of Mastercard.
• Mastercard Team Cashless India volunteers partnered with the Auto Rickshaw Association
in Lucknow, All Assam's Restaurant Association (AARA) in Guwahati, local shopkeepers,
and Boat Union in Varanasi to bolster the digital payments infrastructure in their respective
cities.

About Team Cashless India campaign -

• Launched in 2019, in partnership with cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the Team
Cashless India campaign aims to bring 1 billion people and 50 million micro-businesses
into the digital economy by 2025.

102. JPMorgan (largest bank of the US) has launched its lounge named ‘Onyx’ on Metaverse.
It has become the first bank to enter Metaverse.
• The Onyx is the suite of permissioned Ethereum-based services that the bank provides.
• JPMorgan’s CEO - Jamie Dimon

pg. 111
103. Paytm Payments Bank has become an official acquiring partner for the government's e-
RUPI vouchers initiative.
• The Paytm Payments Bank is a joint venture between One97 Communications Ltd
holding 49% stake and Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma the remaining 51%.

104. IIFL Housing Finance Ltd has signed a $68 million loan with Asian Development Bank
to improve financial access to affordable green housing for lower-income groups in India.
• The funding comprises a direct ADB loan of up to $58 million and a $10 million
concessional loan by the Canadian Climate Fund for the Private Sector in Asia (CFPS).
• From ADB’s loan, 80% will be earmarked for lending to women borrowers or co-
borrowers and 20% will be allocated to financing mortgages for green-certified homes.
• Purpose – to incentivise developers to adopt green certification standards in building
affordable housing.

105. Bharti Airtel has joined the 'SEA-ME-WE-6' undersea cable consortium to enhance its
high-speed global network capacity.
• Airtel is participating as a "major investor" in the SEA-ME-WE-6 and is holding 20% of the
overall investment in the cable system, which will go live in 2025.
• The 12 other consortium members of SEA-ME-WE-6 include Bangladesh Submarine
Cable Company, Dhiraagu (Maldives), Djibouti Telecom, Mobily (Saudi Arabia), Orange
(France), Singtel (Singapore), Sri Lanka Telecom, Telecom Egypt, Telekom Malaysia, and
Telin (Indonesia).
• The 19,200 Rkm (route kilometres) SEA-ME-WE-6 will connect Singapore and France,
and will be among the largest undersea cable system globally.
• SEA-ME-WE-6 will be integrated with Nxtra by Airtel's large data centres in Mumbai and
Chennai to strengthen India's position as an emerging data centre hub in the region.
Nxtra is a data centre unit of Airtel.

106. Reliance Jio will land the next generation multi-terabit India-Asia-Xpress (IAX) undersea
cable system in Hulhumale, Maldives.

pg. 112
 • The high-capacity and high-speed IAX system will connect Hulhumale’ directly with
World’s major internet hubs in India and Singapore.
• The IAX system starts from Mumbai in the west and connects directly to Singapore with
additional branches including India, Thailand and Malaysia. The IAX system is expected to
be ready for service by the end of 2023.
• On the other hand, the India-Europe-Xpress (IEX) system connects Mumbai to Milan,
landing in Savona, Italy, and includes additional landings in the Middle East, North Africa,
and the Mediterranean. The IEX will be ready for service in mid-2024.
• The service provider claims that these high capacity and high-speed systems will provide
more than 200Tb/s of capacity at speeds of 100Gb/s, over 16,000 km.

107. 25th meeting of the Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC) was held in
Mumbai, under the Chairmanship of Union Finance Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman.
• FSDC Sub-Committee is chaired by the RBI Governor.
• The meeting discussed the status quo of the economy.

108. SBI Life Insurance Company has announced to reclassify its promoter BNP Paribas
Cardif (holding 0.2% share capital) as a public shareholder.

109. RBI has announced to conduct a US dollar-Indian rupee sell/buy swap auction worth $5
billion in March 2022.
• In a sell/buy swap auction, a bank buys US dollars from the RBI in exchange for Indian
rupees and simultaneously agrees to sell the same amount of USDs to the RBI at the end
of the swap period.
• RBI will conduct a spot sale to sell $5 billion worth of US dollars in exchange for rupees
to banks on March 10, 2022.
• It will make a forward purchase from the banks in two years on March 11, 2024.

110. Life Insurance Corporation of India has increased its stake in Capri Global Capital Ltd
(CGCL) from 4.959% to 5.044%.

pg. 113
111. South Indian Bank has introduced two new services for allowing its customers to receive
and send remittances to foreign countries.
• The bank has enabled online outward remittances through Net Banking and inward
remittances through NPCI’s UPI.
• For outward remittances in more than 100 currencies, “SIBerNet” platform will be used.
• For inward remittances, ‘SIB Express’ platform will be used.

112. TripMoney (the fintech branch of MakeMyTrip) and SBM Bank India have partnered to
launch a rupee-denominated secure credit card, TripMoney Global Card.

113. Edelweiss General Insurance (EGI) has partnered with Ashv Finance (a tech-led NBFC)
present in over 100 locations in India, to offer financial protection to all their business loan
borrowers.

114. RBI has issued a warning against a car polling mobile application called sRide (Co-founder
& CEO - Lakshna Chadha Jha).

115. International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) has launched a cybersecurity hub in
Bengaluru to attend its clients across the Asia Pacific (APAC) region.
• The security hub will be one of the only two centres globally. The other one is in the USA.

116. LinkedIn (online professional network) has launched the global Creator Accelerator
Program in India.
• The network aims to support creators in growing their communities on the platform.
• India is the second market to roll out the program, after its successful launch in the USA in
September 2021.
• The 10-week incubator-style initiative will support 200 creators in growing their
communities.
• The Creator Accelerator Program is part of LinkedIn's USD 25 million commitment to
creators globally.

pg. 114
117. RBI has asked two categories of NBFCs to mandatorily implement
'Core Financial Services Solution’ (CFSS) by September 30, 2025.
• Purpose - to provide seamless customer interface as well as have a centralised data base.
• As per the circular, two categories of NBFCs have to implement CFSS on or before
September 30, 2025.
• Two categories of NBFCs – NBFC-Middle Layer and NBFC-Upper Layer (as per RBI’s
division) with 10 and more 'fixed point service delivery units' as on October 1, 2022 shall be
mandatorily required to implement CFSS.
• CFSS is similar to the Core Banking Solution (CBS) adopted by banks.

118. Standard Chartered has partnered with the International Air Transport Association
(IATA) to launch a payment platform named “IATA Pay” for airline industry in India.
• IATA Pay will enable participating airlines to offer instant payment options such as UPI
Scan and Pay and UPI Collect (Request to Pay).
• The service, which is already available in several European markets, will enable consumers
to instantly pay for airline tickets from their bank accounts.
• IATA Pay in India is powered by Straight2Bank Pay, a payment platform of Standard
Chartered.

119. EaseMyTrip has partnered with Toffee Insurance, one of the fastest-growing InsurTech
companies, to provide innovative and tailored travel insurance solutions to its customers.

pg. 115
 • As a part of this partnership, Toffee Insurance will manage all travel insurance products for
added value and extra protection for EaseMyTrip's customers' flight bookings caused due
to medical emergencies.

120. Union Bank of India has launched the ‘Union MSME RuPay Credit Card’, in association
with the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).
• The card aims to provide digital delivery of finance to micro, small and medium enterprises
(MSMEs).
• The MSME borrowers will be able to avail an interest-free credit period of up to 50 days on
their business spending.

121. RBI has cancelled the certificate of registration issued to PC Financial, which carries out
lending operations through an app called Cashbean.

122. Ideal Finance (a subsidiary of Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services) has rebranded
itself as Mahindra Ideal Finance (MIFL).
• The Mahindra Ideal Finance is one of the leading licensed finance companies (LFC) in Sri
Lanka.

123. Star Health & Allied Insurance Company Ltd and South India Bank have signed a
bancassurance agreement.
• South India Bank MD & CEO - Murali Ramakrishnan
• Star Health & Allied Insurance Company Ltd’s CEO – V. Jagannathan

124. NHPC has signed an agreement with HDFC bank to securitise return on equity of its
540-MW Chamera-I Power Plant in Himachal Pradesh for 10 years.

125. SEBI has extended the deadline for implementation of client level segregation of funds
and monitoring of collateral at stock brokers to May 2. The previous deadline was February
28.

pg. 116
 • According to the new SEBI norms, brokers will have to segregate client funds in different
segments like cash, futures and options, currency, and commodities and upload the details
to clearing corporations.

GDP FORECASTS
1. CRISIL has forecasted a GDP growth of 7.8% for FY23.
• FY22 – 9.2%

2. National Statistical Office (NSO) has forecasted a GDP growth rate of 8.9% for 2021-22.
• 2020-21: (-) 6.6%
• 2021-22: Quarterly growth rates
o Q1 – 20.3%
o Q2 – 8.5%
o Q3 – 5.4%

3. State Bank of India has forecasted a GDP growth rate of 8.8% for 2021-22.
• Q3 of 2021-22: 5.8%

4. India Ratings has forecasted a GDP growth rate of 8.6% for 2021-22.

5. Moody's Investors Service has increased its GDP growth forecast for India to 9.5% for the
calendar year of 2022.
• The GDP growth forecast for 2023 is kept at 5.5%.
• GDP Growth rates for fiscal years 2022-23 and 2023-24 have been kept at 8.4% and 6.5%
respectively.

6. India Ratings has projected a GDP growth rate of 8.6% for 2021-22.
• NSO has project 9.2% GDP growth rate. The real GDP is estimated at Rs 147.2 lakh
crore.

pg. 117
 APPOINTMENTS
1. António Costa is the Prime Minister of Portugal.

2. Mumbai-based online gaming company Games24x7 has appointed Hrithik Roshan as brand
ambassador for its online skill gaming platform, RummyCircle.

3. Qi Fabao has been appointed as the torchbearer of the Winter Olympics 2022 by China.
• Qi Fabao is the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) regiment’s commander who was involved
in Galwan Valley clash with India.

4. Ravi Mittal has been appointed as new Chairman of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of
India.

5. Sonali Singh has been appointed as the in-charge of the Controller General of Accounts
(CGA), Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance.
• Singh shall function as head of the organization of Controller General of Accounts (CGA) in
the same capacity as Additional Controller General of Accounts with effect from
01.02.2022.

6. Jens Stoltenberg (NATO’s chief) will take over as Norway’s central bank Governor at the
end of the year.
• NATO – North Atlantic Treaty Organization

7. Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar (Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) Vice-Chancellor) was

appointed as the chairperson of the University Grants Commission (UGC).

8. IndiGo has appointed Rahul Bhatia as its MD.

9. Binesh Kumar Tyagi has been appointed as the CMD of Shipping Corporation of India Ltd.
• It is a PSU under the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways.

pg. 118
10. Akshay Kumar has been appointed as the brand ambassador of Uttarakhand.

11. Bata India has appointed Disha Patani (Bollywood actress) as its Brand Ambassador.

12. Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit has been appointed as the first female Vice-Chancellor of
Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).
• Chancellor of JNU - Vijay Kumar Saraswat (also a member of NITI Aayog)

13. Lieutenant General GAV Reddy has been appointed as the new head of the Defence
Intelligence Agency.
• Reddy succeeded Lieutenant General KJS Dhillon.
• Lt Gen KJS Dhillon was awarded Param Vishisht Seva Medal on the 73rd Republic Day.

14. Manoj Ahuja (currently Chairman of the CBSE) will take over as Agriculture Secretary by the
end of March.

15. Justice Minister Anibal Torres has taken over as the PM of Peru.

16. Dinesh Prasad Saklani (professor of history) has been appointed as the new director of
National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT).

17. Ruchir Sharma has been appointed as the MD and Chairman of Rockefeller International.
• Rockefeller Foundation’s HQ – New York, USA

18. Natarajan Chandrasekaran has been re-appointed as the Chairman of Tata Sons for 5
years.

19. Krishi Network has appointed film actor Pankaj Tripathi as its brand ambassador.

pg. 119
20. Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has appointed Debashis Mitra as its
President for the 2022-23 term.

21. S. R. Narasimhan has been given the additional charge of the Chairman and Managing
Director of Power System Operation Corporation.

22. S. Kishore has been appointed as the Chairman of Staff Selection Commission (SSC).

23. Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba has been inaugurated as the President of Burkina Faso.

24. Frank-Walter Steinmeier has been re-elected as the President of Germany for a second
term of five years.

25. Tata Group has appointed Ilker Ayci as the Managing Director and CEO of Air India.
• He was the former Chairman of Turkish Airlines.

26. Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has appointed IAS Vineet Joshi as its new
chairman.

27. A23 app has roped in Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan as its brand ambassador for its
‘Chalo Saath Khele’ campaign.
• A23 app is owned by online skill gaming company Head Digital Works.
• Founder & CEO of Head Digital Works - Deepak Gullapalli

28. Vice Admiral G Ashok Kumar (Retd) has been appointed as the first ever national maritime
security coordinator (NMSC) of India to strengthen the country’s maritime security.
• He was the former vice chief of the naval staff.
• He will function under the National Security Advisor (NSA).
• The proposal for the creation of the NMSC post was cleared by the Cabinet Committee on
Security (CCS) in 2021.

pg. 120
29. Central Government has nominated Sanjay Malhotra (Secretary, Department of Financial
Services, Ministry of Finance) as a Director on the Central Board of Reserve Bank of India.

30. Envoys of four Nations present Credentials to President of India -

• High Commissioner of Tanzania - Anisa K. Mbega
• Ambassador of Djibouti - Isse Abdillahi Assoweh
• Ambassador of Serbia - Sinisa Pavic
• Ambassador of North Macedonia - Slobodan Uzunov

31. Adidas has appointed table tennis player Manika Batra as their brand ambassador.

32. Institute of Economic Growth has appointed Chetan Ghate as its new director.

33. International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) Athletes' Commission has re-elected Emma
Terho (Finland, ice hockey) as its Chairperson.

pg. 121
 • The Commission has also elected Seung Min Ryu (Republic of Korea, table tennis) as first
Vice-Chair, and Sarah Walker (New Zealand, cycling) as second Vice-Chair of the
Commission.

34. Tanishka Kotia and her sister Riddhika Kotia (International chess player woman FIDE
master) have been announced as brand ambassadors for 'Beti Bachao Beti Padhao'
scheme from Gurugram, Haryana.

35. K.N. Raghavan (Executive Director of Indian Rubber Board-HQ in Kottayam, Kerala), has
been elected as the new Chairman of the International Rubber Study Group (IRSG) for two
years.
• Headquartered in Singapore, IRSG is an intergovernmental organisation of natural and
synthetic rubber producing and consuming countries.

36. Sanjeev Sanyal (present Finance Ministry's principal economic adviser) has been inducted as
a full-time member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM).
• Chairman of EAC-PM - Bibek Debroy

37. Ikea India has appointed Susanne Pulverer as its first woman CEO.

38. Anoop Kumar Mendiratta (Union Law Secretary) has been judge of Delhi High Court.
• It is the first time that a union law secretary has been appointed as a judge of a high court.
• Besides Mendiratta, three other judicial officers -- Neena Bansal Krishna, Dinesh Kumar
Sharma and Sudhir Kumar Jain -- have also been elevated as judges of the Delhi High
Court.
• Delhi High Court’s working strength will increase to 34 — barely more than half of its
sanctioned strength of 62 judges.

39. IDBI Bank has appointed Rakesh Sharma as its MD and CEO of the bank for a period of 3
years, effective March 19, 2022.

pg. 122
40. KS Mani has been elected to the Board of Directors of National Cooperative Dairy
Federation of India Ltd (NCDFI).
• Mani is the chairman of Kerala Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation, which is known by
its brand name ‘Milma’.

IMPORTANT DAYS
1. Anti-Untouchability Day is observed on January 30 by Govt of Tamil Nadu.
• January 30 (the death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi) is celebrated as the Martyrs Day /
Shaheedi Diwas in India.

2. Indian Coast Guard Day is celebrated on February 1 every year.

3. World Wetlands Day is celebrated annually on February 2.

• Theme - Wetland's action for people and nature

4. World Cancer Day is observed on February 4 every year.

• Theme - ‘Close the Care Gap’

5. World Interfaith Harmony Week is observed on February 1 to 7 by UN.

• To celebrate the week, an event with the title of ‘Faith and spiritual leadership to combat
stigma and conflict during pandemic recovery’ will be organized.

6. International Day of Human Fraternity is observed on February 4 by UN.

• Focus of the day is ‘Human fraternity for peace and cooperation’.
• This is the 2nd edition of the day.

7. International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation is observed on

February 6 by UN.
• Theme - "Accelerating Investment to End Female Genital Mutilation."

pg. 123
8. Safer Internet Day is observed annually on the second day of the second week of February
(February 8, 2022).
• Theme – Together for a Better Internet
• It was the 19th edition of the day.

9. World Pulses Day is observed on February 10 by UN.

• Theme - “Pulses to empower youth in achieving sustainable agri-food systems”

10. National Deworming Day is observed on February 10 and August 10 every year since 2015.
• On this day, albendazole vaccine is administered to children from 1-19 years of age group
in schools and Anganwadi centres.

11. World Unani Day is observed on February 11 to commemorate the birth anniversary of noted
physician Hakim Ajmal Khan, the pioneer of Unani medicine in India.
• The Delhi-based Central Council for Research in Unani Medicine, under Ministry of
AYUSH, will organise an International Conference on Unani Medicine.
• Theme of the Conference - “Diet and Nutrition in Unani Medicine for good health and well-
being”
• Unani is the Islamic system of medicine.
• The First Unani day was celebrated in 2017, at Hyderabad’s Central Research Institute of
Unani Medicine (CRIUM).

12. International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed on February 11 by UN.
• Theme - Equity, Diversity and Inclusion: Water Unites Us
• On this day, Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog, in collaboration with UNDP, India
launched the Community Innovator Fellowship (CIF).
• Purpose – It is a pre-incubation model which will provide youth with an opportunity to
establish their social enterprise focusing on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) based
solutions for solving community issues.

pg. 124
 • During the course of this fellowship, each fellow will be hosted at one of the AIM’s Atal
Community Innovation Centres (ACICs) and shall acquire SDG awareness,
entrepreneurial skills and life skills while they are working on their idea.
• The ACICs would nurture youth-led innovations by providing suitable resources in terms of
operating facilities, co-working space, maker labs and a dynamic business network to the
innovator.
• ACICs have been established with a focus to develop the start-up and innovation
ecosystem in the underserved regions of the country.
• Currently, there are 12 ACICs across 9 states in the country and the target is to establish
50 such centres in the country.

13. The birth anniversary of Charles Darwin (on February 12) is celebrated as Darwin Day in
the world.
• Charles Darwin, a 19th century British naturalist, who released the ‘Theory of Natural
Selection’.

14. National Productivity Day is observed on February 12 to commemorate the formation of

National Productivity Council of India in 1958.
• Productivity Week is observed from 12th to 18th February.
• Theme – Self Reliance through Productivity
• National Productivity Council of India’s President is the Minister of Commerce and Industry,
Piyush Goyal and Chairman is the Secretary of DPIIT.

15. World Radio Day is observed on February 13 by UNESCO.

• Theme - "Radio and Trust"

pg. 125
16. FICCI Committee Against Smuggling and Counterfeiting Activities Destroying Economy
(CASCADE) has launched Anti-Smuggling Day on February 11.
• FICCI CASCADE’s Chair - Anil Rajput

17. National Women’s Day is celebrated on February 13 – the birthday of Sarojini Naidu, the
‘Nightingale of India’.
• 2022 is the 142nd birth anniversary of Naidu.

18. Financial Literacy Week (FLW) is observed from February 14-18, 2022 by RBI.
• Theme of FLW 2022 - “Go Digital, Go Secure”
o Focus will be on creating awareness about (a) Convenience of digital transactions;
(b) Security of digital transactions; and (c) Protection of customers.
• RBI has been conducting Financial Literacy Week (FLW) every year since 2016.
• This theme is one of the strategic objectives of the National Strategy for Financial
Education 2020-2025.

19. International Childhood Cancer Day is observed on February 15.

• Theme - 'Better Survival' is achievable #throughyourhands.

20. 645th Guru Ravidas Jayanti was celebrated on February 16, 2022 all across the nation.
• Guru Ravidas was born on Magha Purnima (full moon day in the month of Magh) which is
why his birth anniversary is celebrated as per the Hindu calendar on Magha Purnima.

21. World Day of Social Justice is observed on February 20 by UN.

• Theme - Achieving Social Justice through Formal Employment

22. International Mother Language Day is observed on February 21 by UN.

• Theme - Using technology for multilingual learning: Challenges and opportunities

23. World Thinking Day is observed on February 22 by the Girl Guides and Girl Scouts in 150
countries every year.

pg. 126
 • Theme - Our World: Our Equal Future: The Environment and Gender Equality

24. World Pangolin Day is annually observed on the 3rd Saturday of February (February 19,
2022).

25. Central Excise Day is observed on February 24 in India.

26. Swami Dayananda Saraswati Jayanti 2022 is celebrated on February 26 in India.

• Dayanand Saraswati was the founder of Arya Samaj (Hindu reform organisation).
• He was born on February 12, 1824 in Gujarat.

AWARDS
1. Brand Finance has released the annual report ‘Global 500’ 2022.
• Top – Apple (US $355 billion), followed by Amazon and Google
• Tech remains most valuable industry, while second-ranked retail crosses US$1 trillion mark
following 46% brand value growth during COVID-19 pandemic.

2. Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari has won the 18th late
Madhavrao Limaye Award in the category of Karyakram Khaasdar (Efficient Member of
Parliament) for the year 2020-21.
• This is the first time, a member of Lok Sabha has been given this award.
• This award is annually given by Sarvajanik Vachanalay (Nashik Public Library) to the
members of State Legislative Council and Upper House of Parliament (Rajya Sabha).
• MLA Karyaksham Aamdaar has won the award from Maharashtra.

3. India’s ‘Writing with Fire’ (directed by Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh) has been
nominated for the 94th Academy Awards (aka ‘Oscar’ Award) in ‘Best Documentary
Feature Category’.
• Till now, it is the only Indian movie to be nominated for Oscars 2022.

pg. 127
4. World Book of Records, London has recognized the 9.02 km Atal Tunnel at Rohtang Pass
as the world's longest single tube highway tunnel located at an altitude of more than 10000
ft.
• The Atal Tunnel connects Manali with Lahaul & Spiti District in Himachal Pradesh.

5. RailTel has won the ICAI award for excellence in financial reporting for the year 2020-21 in
Public Sector Entities Category.
• The award was given by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI).

6. Rishabh Pant has won the ‘Test Batting Performance of the Year 2021’ award from
ESPNcricinfo (a cricket website).

7. ‘The Voice of the Customer’ awards were given by the Airports Council International (HQ -
Montreal, Canada).
• A total of 18 Indian Airports have won this award.

8. Sandeep Bakhshi (MD and CEO of ICICI Bank) is named as the Business Standard Banker
of the Year 2020-21.

9. 17th Annual Banking Technology Awards 2021 have been announced by Indian Banks’
Association.

pg. 128
Note – the complete list of winners is provided here -
https://www.iba.org.in/publications/awardees-of-iba-17th-annual-banking-technology-awards-
2021-february-14-2022_1292.html

10. Bill Gates (Microsoft founder and philanthropist) has been conferred with Hilal-e-Pakistan, the
second highest civilian honour in Pakistan, for his efforts to help eradicate polio in Pakistan.
• Nishan-e-Pakistan is the highest civilian honour of Pakistan.

11. Coal India Ltd has won the “Most Dependable Public Sector in India” award from
ASSOCHAM (Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry) at Energy Meet and
Excellence Awards function.

12. Dadasaheb Phalke International Film Festival Awards 2022 were announced in Mumbai.
Category Winners
Best Actor Ranveer Singh for 83
Best Actress Kriti Sanon for Mimi
Best Film Shershaah
Outstanding Contribution To Film Industry Asha Parekh
Best International Feature Film Another Round
Best Director Ken Ghosh for State of Siege: Temple Attack
Best Debut Ahan Shetty for Tadap
Film Of The Year Pushpa: The Rise

Note – Important awards are provided here. The complete list of awards is here -
https://www.dpiff.in/

13. Chief of the Army Staff General M. M. Naravane has presented the prestigious 'President's
Colours', or 'Nishan' as popularly known in the Army, to four Parachute battalions in
Bengaluru.
• The battalions are 11 PARA (SPECIAL FORCE), 21 PARA (SPECIAL FORCE), 23 PARA
and 29 PARA.
pg. 129
14. Karnataka Bank has been awarded the ‘DX 2021 Awards’ (digital transformation award) by
the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) for Best Practice in Digital Transformation.
• The award is given in recognition of the “innovative” best practice ‘KBL VIKAAS’.
• Managing Director and CEO – M.S. Mahabaleshwar

SPORTS
1. Netherlands' Ben Cooper has announced retirement from international cricket.

2. Magnus Carlsen (Norway) has won the Tata Steel Chess Tournament in Wijk aan Zee,
Netherlands.

3. $75,000 Odisha Open badminton tournament has been won by Unnati Hooda and Kiran
George in women’s and men’s singles respectively.

4. International Olympic Committee has approved a proposal to include surfing,

skateboarding and sport climbing for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
• 2024 Summer Olympic will be organized in Paris, France. Paris is the second city to host
summer Olympics games for three times.
• London is the only other city to host the Summer Olympics three times.

5. Veteran Sri Lankan fast bowler Suranga Lakmal will retire from international cricket.

6. India has won the ICC U-19 Men's Cricket World Cup 2022 by defeating England at Sir
Vivian Richards Cricket Ground in Antigua and Barbuda.
• Captain – Yash Dhull
• Yash Dhull has also been named as the captain of the ICC U-19 Men’s team of the
tournament.

7. India is all set to become the first country to play 1000 one-day internationals.

pg. 130
 • India will reach this milestone in its ODI match against West Indies at the Narendra Modi
Stadium in Ahmedabad.
• Rohit Sharma is the captain of India’s ODI team.

8. Senegal has won its first African Cup of Nations (football) at the Olembe Stadium in
Yaoundé, capital of Cameroon.

9. China has won the AFC Women’s Asian Cup 2022 (football) at the D.Y. Patil Stadium in
Navi Mumbai.
• It was the 20th edition of the AFC Cup.
• Now, China has qualified for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup to be held in Australia and
New Zealand.

10. Tata Open ATP Tennis Tournament 2022 was held at Pune, Maharashtra.
• Men’s Singles – Portugal’s Joao Sousa
• Men’s Doubles – Rohan Bopanna and Ramkumar Ramanathan
• Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) - headquartered at London, United Kingdom -
organizes men’s tennis tournaments at different locations throughout the year.

11. South Africa's Test sensation Keegan Petersen and England captain Heather Knight were
voted ICC Players of the Month for January 2022.

12. Tseng Chun-hsin (Taiwan) has won the men’s singles at the 2022 Bengaluru Open (tennis
tournament).
• Men’s Doubles - Ramkumar Ramanathan and Saketh Myneni

13. FIDE Grand Prix will be organized in three phases –

• First leg: February 3 — 17, Berlin, Germany
• Second leg: February 28 — March 14, 2022, Belgrade, Serbia
• Third leg: March 21 — April 4, 2022, Berlin, Germany

pg. 131
14. Dronacharya awardee and head national coach of Indian para-badminton team, Gaurav
Khanna, in association with Ageas Federal Life Insurance, has established India’s first
para-badminton academy at Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh.

15. For the Indian Premier League season of 2022, Ahmedabad IPL franchise has been
launched.
• It is named as ‘Gujarat Titans’.
• Captain of Gujarat Titans – Hardik Pandya

16. Lucknow Super Giants has appointed KL Rahul as its captain.

• Chennai Super Kings has won the IPL 2021 season.

17. Chelsea (London based football club) has won the FIFA Club World Cup for the first time,
held at Stamford Bridge, London.

18. 70th Senior National Volleyball Championship was held in Bhuvneshwar.

• Winners – Haryana Men’s Team & Kerala Women’s Team

19. India will host the 2023 International Olympic Committee's (IOC) session in Mumbai.
• It would be the 139th session of IOC.
• India will host the session for the first time since 1983.

20. 2022 Beijing Olympics -

• Edition – 24th
• Mascot - Bing Dwen Dwen

pg. 132
 • Medal tally – Norway (total 37 medals; incl. 16 golds); Germany (total 27 medals; incl. 12
golds); China (total 15 medals; incl. 9 golds)

21. India has won over West Indies in the 3 One-Day International (ODI) and 3 T20I series.

22. Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa (16 year old Indian Grandmaster) has become the youngest
chess player ever to defeat Magnus Carlsen (Norwegian chess Grandmaster).
• He achieved this feat at the Airthings Masters Chess Tournament (Meltwater Champions
Chess Tour) 2022 online tournament.
• This win came in the eighth round of Airthings Masters chess tournament’s preliminary
stage being held online.
• However, Praggnanandhaa was not able to qualify for the quarterfinals of the tournament
in the 15th round of the preliminary stage.

23. 34th Federation Cup volleyball championship has concluded at the KIIT indoor stadium,
Bhubaneswar.
• Women’s final winner – Kerala

24. Sakibul Gani (from Bihar) has made a record by becoming the first cricketer to score triple
centuries in his debut match in Ranji Trophy 2021-22.

25. Grandmaster Arjun Erigaisi (of Telangana) has won the 58th edition of Senior National
Chess Championship in Kanpur, UP.

26. Hannah Green (Australian) has won the $200,000 TPS Murray River (golf tournament).
• Green has become the first woman to win a 72-hole mixed gender tournament on any of
the world’s leading golf tours.
• Thus, Hannah Green becomes the first woman to win pro mixed-gender event.

pg. 133
27. Carlos Alcaraz (Spain) has won the men’s singles at the Rio Open 2022 (tennis
tournament).
• The tournament was organized by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP).

28. The North West Frontier of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) organised an ice wall
climbing competition in Leh, Ladakh for the first time in the country.
• More than 100 climbers from 13 teams across the country took part in the ice climbing
event.
• Ladakh Mountaineering Guides Association collaborated with ITBP officials for the
competition.
• L-G of Ladakh - Radha Krishna Mathur
• ITBP was founded in 1962.

MISCELLANEOUS
1. ‘Fearless Governance’ book has been authored by Kiran Bedi.

2. L-G of J&K, Manoj Sinha, has released a book titled "Prakrtik, Vaidik avem Jaivik Kheti-
Graameen Udyamita Ka Naya Swaroop".
• The book was published by Chudamani Sanskrit Sansthan, Kathua.

3. “India that is Bharat: Coloniality, Civilisation, Constitution” book has been authored by J
Sai Deepak.

4. World’s highest glacier - South Col glacier – located on Mount Everest (world’s highest
peak) is melting at a faster rate.
• The glacier has lost 54 metres of thickness in the last 25 years.
• It is located at a height of 7,906 metres.

5. Ibrahim Sutar (also known as the “Kabir of Kannada”) has passed away.
• He was Padma Shri awardee and social worker.

pg. 134
6. Cyclone Barsirai has hit the coast of Madagascar.

7. ‘Golden Boy Neeraj Chopra’ book has been written by Navdeep Singh Gill.

8. Tamil Nadu’s Governor - R.N. Ravi; CM – MK Stalin

• He turned down the Anti-NEET bill of the state govt.

9. Central Government has banned the import of drones to promote indigenous production of
drones.

10. “India–Africa Relations: Changing Horizons” book has been written by Rajiv Bhatia.

11. Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune and Tezpur University have
conducted a study for investigating carbon emission and absorption of Assam's Kaziranga
National Park, which is a deciduous forest.

12. A team of Indian astronomers from Indian Institute of Astrophysics have identified a few
planets that exhibit similar characteristics as Earth using an Artificial Intelligence-based
algorithm.
• The AI-based method is named as Multi-Stage Memetic Binary Tree Anomaly Identifier.
• Indian Institute of Astrophysics is an autonomous institute of the Department of Science &
Technology.
• The study is published in the journal, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
(MNRAS).

13. NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has taken its first visible light images of surface of Venus from
space.

14. “Atal Bihari Vajpayee” book has been authored by Sagarika Ghose.

pg. 135
15. “Dignity in a Digital Age: Making Tech Work for All of Us” book has been written by Ro
Khanna.

16. “Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War” has been
authored by Samuel Moyn.

17. Elektra (aka 130 Elektra) is an asteroid which was first discovered in 1873 in the asteroid belt
between Jupiter and Mars. It was thought to have two moons but a third moon has been
discovered recently.
• Thus, it becomes the first ever quadruple asteroid system. The moons are named as S1,
S2, and S3.
• The discovery was published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
• Anthony Berdeu of the National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand had led
the research.

18. Kannada litterateur Dr Chennaveera Kanavi has passed away.

19. ‘How to Prevent the Next Pandemic’ book has been authored by Bill Gates (co-founder of
Microsoft).
pg. 136
20. ‘A History of Sriniketan: Rabindranath Tagore's Pioneering Work in Rural Construction’
book has been written by Uma Das Gupta (historian and Tagore biographer).

21. National Institute of Animal Biotechnology, Hyderabad has developed the “Fluorine Doped
Tin Oxide (FTO) electrode fabricated with reduced Graphene Oxide (rGO)” method to detect
the Japanese Encephalitis Virus.

22. ‘The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley’
book has been authored by Jimmy Soni.

23. Fast Radio Bursts – FRBs are bright bursts of radio waves created by celestial objects. FRB
is hard to detect in the sky because of their everchanging magnetic fields and millisecond
durations. FRB was first detected in 2007.

24. Alcyoneus Galaxy - located around 3 billion light-years away from Earth in the Lynx
constellation - is a radio galaxy, which was discovered by Wide-field Infrared Survey
Explorer (WISE) telescope and the Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR) network.
• It is the largest galaxy discovered in the universe.
• WISE was launched in 2009 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in central California.

25. The signature tune for "Vande Bharatam" composed by Grammy Award winner Ricky Kej
and Bickram Ghosh (tabla maestro) was released by Minister of State for Culture & External
Affairs Smt. Meenakashi Lekhi.
• The ‘Vande Bharatam’ song was produced for Vande Bharatam, Nritya Utsav of Ministry
of Culture.

26. Legendary Malayalam actor KPAC Lalitha has passed away.

27. Apparel Exports Promotion Council (chairman - Narendra Goenka) was established in 1978.
It celebrated its foundation day on February 22, 2022.

pg. 137
 • According to AEPC, apparel exports are likely to cross $20 bn mark by FY23 or FY24.
• Textile exports are likely to cross $100 bn from current $40 bn in 5 years.

28. “A Nation To Protect” book has been authored by Priyam Gandhi Mody.

29. Ms. Syed Shahezadi is the Chairperson of National Commission for Minorities (NCM).
She attended the meeting of the full commission.

30. Chinese rover Yutu 2 has discovered a pair of translucent glass globules on the far side of
the moon.
• The research was published in the Science Bulletin journal.

31. Cyclone Emnati wreaked havoc in Madagascar. It made landfall in the district of Manakara.

32. Karewas are highly fertile alluvial soil deposits found in the Kashmir valley.
• Their destruction has increased rapidly in the recent times, mainly for clay mining.

pg. 138
 QUESTIONS

Q.1) When was India declared as Leprosy the coast of Tahiti Island. This Island is a
free? part of which of the following country?
[a] 2007 [a] Australia
[b] 2005 [b] Japan
[c] 2010 [c] Philippines
[d] 2009 [d] USA
[e] 2001 [e] France

Q.2) How much is the forest area cover vis- Q.6) Which of the following missions has
à-vis total geographical area in India? detected the presence of water on Mars?
[a] 24% [a] MRO
[b] 10% [b] Mangalyaan
[c] 5% [c] Kosmos
[d] 12% [d] Mariner
[e] 17% [e] Viking 1

Q.3) ‘Shera’ is the election mascot of which Q.7) What is the growth rate of core sectors
state? during April-December 2021?
[a] Punjab [a] 6.4%
[b] Uttar Pradesh [b] 7.2%
[c] Himachal Pradesh [c] 8.9%
[d] Gujarat [d] 12.6%
[e] Uttarakhand [e] 5.6%

Q.4) Which of the following defence PSU Q.8) When is the Anti-Untouchability Day
has signed an MoU with IREDA to set up a celebrated in India?
rooftop solar power project at its [a] January 30
headquarter? [b] January 12
[a] Garden Reach Shipbulders And [c] January 5
Engineers Limited [d] January 10
[b] Hindustan Aeronautics Limited [e] January 11
[c] Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited
[d] Bharat Dynamics Limited Q.9) Who is the author of ‘Fearless
[e] Goa Shipyard Limited Governance’ book?
[a] Kiran Bedi
Q.5) Recently, marine experts have [b] R. N. Ravi
detected the ‘Tahiti Pristine’ Coral Reef off [c] Tamilisai Soundararajan
pg. 139
[d] Satyadev Narayan Arya [c] 20-25%
[e] Anandiben Patel [d] 15-20%
[e] 22-25%
Q.10) Which state’s governor has released
the "Prakrtik, Vaidik avem Jaivik Kheti- Q.14) What is the percentage of fiscal deficit
Graameen Udyamita Ka Naya Swaroop" allowed to the states in the Union Budget
book? 2022-23?
[a] J&K [a] 4%
[b] Uttarakhand [b] 2%
[c] Telangana [c] 3%
[d] Maharashtra [d] 1.7%
[e] Uttar Pradesh [e] 2.3%

Q.11) When was the National Commission Q.15) What is the outlay of RAMP Program?
for Women set up? [a] Rs.2000 Crore
[a] 1992 [b] Rs.1000 Crore
[b] 1990 [c] Rs.6000 Crore
[c] 1980 [d] Rs.8000 Crore
[d] 1967 [e] Rs.12000 Crore
[e] 1993
Q.16) How much is the authorized share
Q.12) What is the total outlay of the Scheme capital of National Land Monetisation
on Enhancement of Competitiveness in Corporation?
Capital Goods Sector – Phase 2? [a] Rs 15,000 crore
[a] Rs.1100 Crores [b] Rs 12,000 crore
[b] Rs.100 Crores [c] Rs 5,000 crore
[c] Rs.800 Crores [d] Rs 8,000 crore
[d] Rs.2010 Crores [e] Rs 3,000 crore
[e] Rs.1207 Crores
Q.17) Where is the Global Centre of
Q.13) Recently, Union Budget 2022-23 Excellence in Affordable and Clean Energy
announced the setting up of an Animation, being established?
Visual Effects, Gaming and Comics [a] IIT-Kanpur
(AVGC) promotion task force for boosting [b] IIT-Dharwad
talent in the animation and gaming sector. [c] IIT-Bombay
Presently, India has around 10% share in [d] IIT-Delhi
the global AVGC market. What is India’s [e] IIT-Madras
potential target of growth in this segment
by 2027 in the international context? Q.18) Which of the following operation is
[a] 30-35% operationalized by the India Army in J&K to
[b] 35-40%
pg. 1
 address aspirations of people affected by
terrorism? Q.23) Which state has signed an MoU with
[a] Operation Rakshak the Social Alpha’s Energy Lab named
[b] Operation Megh Rahat “Clean Energy International Incubation
[c] Operation Good Samaritan Centre” to support innovative and clean
[d] Operation Sadbhavana energy technology programmes in the
[e] Operation Devi Shakti state?
[a] Kerala
Q.19) Where will the world's first hydrogen- [b] Odisha
powered flying boat named as ‘The Jet’ be [c] Andhra Pradesh
manufactured and operated? [d] Maharashtra
[a] Dubai [e] Karnataka
[b] Tokyo
[c] Riyadh Q.24) Where will “Olympics Boulevard” be
[d] Muscat developed?
[e] Warsaw [a] Delhi
[b] Madhya Pradesh
Q.20) Which bank has created the ‘Surya [c] Uttarakhand
Shakti Cell’? [d] Uttar Pradesh
[a] Union Bank of India [e] Himachal Pradesh
[b] State Bank of India
[c] Bank of Maharashtra Q.25) On which Indian Naval Ship was
[d] Bank of Baroda Naval version of Rafale helicopter tested?
[e] Punjab National Bank [a] INS Hansa
[b] INS Kalvari
Q.21) Which company has launched India’s [c] INS Khanderi
first-of-its-kind project of mixing hydrogen [d] INS Karanj
into the natural gas system? [e] INS Vela
[a] ONGC
[b] Oil India Ltd Q.26) Where is the Lake Albert located?
[c] IOC [a] Uganda
[d] GAIL [b] Nigeria
[e] HPCL [c] Mali
[d] Algeria
Q.22) Where is the Khijadia Wildlife [e] South Africa
Sanctuary located?
[a] Gujarat Q.27) Which state witnessed the least
[b] Maharashtra number of attacks on journalists, as per the
[c] Uttar Pradesh India Press Freedom Report, 2021?
[d] Haryana [a] Andhra Pradesh
[e] Madhya Pradesh [b] Chhattisgarh
pg. 2
[c] Kerala [b] IIM- Lucknow
[d] Only A and C [c] IIM- Bangalore
[e] Only A, B, and C [d] IIT-Madras
[e] IIM-Ahmedabad
Q.28) How many types of surety bonds can
be issued by insurance companies in Q.33) Which of the following are the hosting
India? countries of Square Kilometre Array
[a] Ten Observatory?
[b] Six [a] Australia and South Africa
[c] Seven [b] Poland and South Africa
[d] Twelve [c] Australia and UK
[e] Eight [d] Both A and B
[e] Both A and C
Q.29) Who has been appointed as the brand
ambassador of RummyCircle? Q.34) What is the outlay of Scheme of
[a] Ayushmann Khurrana Assistance to National Sports Federations
[b] Ranveer Singh for 2021-22 to 2025-26?
[c] Ajay Devgan [a] Rs. 2300 crore
[d] Hrithik Roshan [b] Rs. 1575 crore
[e] Anil Kapoor [c] Rs. 1750 crore
[d] Rs. 2000 crore
Q.30) Who is the author of “India that is [e] Rs. 1890 crore
Bharat: Coloniality, Civilisation,
Constitution” book? Q.35) Recently, Central govt has approved
[a] J Sai Deepak renaming of three places in Madhya
[b] Santosh Kumar Pradesh namely Hoshangabad Nagar as
[c] Chetan Prakash Jain "Narmadapuram", Shivpuri as
[d] Rupinder Brar "Kundeshwar Dham" and Babai as
[e] Vinod Chawla "Makhan Nagar". Babai has been renamed
after Makhanlal Chaturvedi. Which field did
Q.31) Which institute has installed the Makhanlal Chaturvedi belong to?
Param Pravega supercomputer? [a] Journalism
[a] IIT-Bombay [b] Theatre
[b] IISc-Bengaluru [c] Painting
[c] IIM-Ahmedabad [d] Singing
[d] IIT-Delhi [e] Writing
[e] IIT-Madras
Q.36) Which state has passed the Anti-
Q.32) At which university will India’s first NEET Bill, 2022?
research chair in ESG be established? [a] Tamil Nadu
[a] IIM- Calcutta [b] Telangana
pg. 3
[c] Uttarakhand [c] Madhya Pradesh
[d] Kerala [d] Gujarat
[e] Karnataka [e] Odisha

Q.37) Which company in India manufactures Q.42) Which of the following is India’s first
and exports the Konkurs-M anti-tank OECM site?
guided missiles? [a] Nagarahole (Rajiv Gandhi) NP
[a] MDL [b] Adichunchunagiri Peacock WLS
[b] BEL [c] Aravalli Biodiversity Park
[c] GSL [d] Bhimgad WLS
[d] BDL [e] Cauvery WLS
[e] AVNL
Q.43) Where is International Crops
Q.38) Where will Atmanirbhar Bharat Centre Research Institute for the Semi-Arid
for Design be developed? Tropics (ICRISAT) headquartered?
[a] Bengaluru [a] Jaipur
[b] Hyderabad [b] Hyderabad
[c] Pune [c] Chennai
[d] Delhi [d] Ahmedabad
[e] Lucknow [e] Pune

Q.39) Who chairs SEBI’s high-power Q.44) Recently, National Medical

advisory committee on settlement orders Commission (NMC) has issued guidelines
and compounding of offences? that the fee of 50% seats in private medical
[a] M S Sahoo colleges and deemed universities should
[b] Jai Narayan Patel be at par with the fee in government
[c] Poornima Advani medical colleges in the country. Who is the
[d] P K Malhotra chairperson of National Medical
[e] Varun Menon Commission (NMC)?
[a] R. K. Dhawan
Q.40) Who is the new Chairman of [b] Chetan Prakash Jain
Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India? [c] Suresh Chandra Sharma
[a] Rachna Chhabra [d] P. Haridasan Pilllai
[b] Sarojini Shekhar [e] Shoeb Samad
[c] Santosh Kumar
[d] Rupinder Brar Q.45) Which IIT has announced to set up
[e] Ravi Mittal the Suzuki Innovation Centre on its
campus?
Q.41) Where is the Punaura Dham located? [a] IIT Dhanbad
[a] Bihar [b] IIT Goa
[b] Maharashtra [c] IIT Hyderabad
pg. 4
[d] IIT Tirupati [b] Paramarsh
[e] IIT Palakkad [c] Ishan Vikas
[d] AGNIi
Q.46) India will install an intelligent [e] STRIDE
transportation system (ITS) at its 701-km
Mumbai-Nagpur Super Communication Q.50) What is the outlay of Scheme of
Expressway. It will be the first time an ITS “Rashtriya Yuva Sashaktikaran
will be established in India, that too, on the Karyakram”?
longest expressway of the country. Which [a] Rs 3,400 crore
country is providing the financial [b] Rs 2,710 Crore
assistance for the ITS system at the [c] Rs 1,200 crore
expressway? [d] Rs 10,400 crore
[a] Republic of Korea [e] Rs 5,100 crore
[b] Japan
[c] Austria Q.51) How many sub-schemes are
[d] Sweden operational under the “Rashtriya Yuva
[e] Croatia Sashaktikaran Karyakram”?
[a] Seven
Q.47) How much is the remuneration for [b] Ten
Category B winners of 'Swachhta Saarthi [c] Five
Fellowship 2022'? [d] Fifteen
[a] Rs 1,000 [e] Four
[b] Rs 500
[c] Rs 1,200 Q.52) Which state has launched the 'Rajiv
[d] Rs 1,500 Yuva Mitan Club Yojana'?
[e] Rs 3,700 [a] Jharkhand
[b] Sikkim
Q.48) Which of the following is not the lead [c] Maharashtra
agency for Quantum Frontier mission of [d] Rajasthan
the PM-STIAC? [e] Chhattisgarh
[a] Department of Biotechnology
[b] Department of Space Q.53) Which state has signed an MoU with
[c] Department of Atomic Energy Ather Energy to set up 1,000 fast charging
[d] Both A and B stations across the state?
[e] Both A and C [a] Himachal Pradesh
[b] Uttarakhand
Q.49) Which of the following missions of the [c] Punjab
govt aims to boost the innovation [d] Uttar Pradesh
ecosystem by commercialising innovative [e] Karnataka
solutions?
[a] Project Sunrise Q.54) Where is the Pandu port located?
pg. 5
[a] Kandla
[b] Vishakhapatnam Q.59) When is the World Interfaith Harmony
[c] Guwahati Week observed?
[d] Kochi [a] February 8 to 15
[e] Mangalore [b] March 11 to 18
[c] April 7 to 14
Q.55) Longpi black earthenware belongs to [d] February 1 to 7
which state? [e] March 16 to 25
[a] Manipur
[b] Odisha Q.60) Which of the following sport has been
[c] Assam added in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics?
[d] West Bengal [a] Surfing
[e] Mizoram [b] Skateboarding
[c] Sport climbing
Q.56) How much area of seagrass out of [d] Only A
India’s total seagrass area is housed in [e] Only A, B, and C
Chilika lake?
[a] 40% Q.61) Where is the Sariska Tiger Reserve
[b] 33% located?
[c] 10% [a] Rajasthan
[d] 27% [b] Madhya Pradesh
[e] 15% [c] Gujarat
[d] Tamil Nadu
Q.57) Which state has launched ‘Paray [e] Telangana
Shikshalaya’ (meaning ‘an open-air
classroom in the neighbourhood’) Q.62) Which state gives the Rajyotsava
programme for students of class 1 to 7? Awards?
[a] Assam [a] Karnataka
[b] Arunachal Pradesh [b] Telangana
[c] Nagaland [c] Odisha
[d] Mizoram [d] Maharashtra
[e] West Bengal [e] Rajasthan

Q.58) Who has been appointed as the Q.63) Where is the Giant Magnellan
chairperson of the University Grants Telescope being developed?
Commission? [a] Australia
[a] M. Jagadesh Kumar [b] Chile
[b] Arun Srivastava [c] Peru
[c] Shreevats Sanjay [d] Bolivia
[d] R. K. Suman [e] New Zealand
[e] Sanjay Singh
pg. 6
Q.64) Which of the following is the incorrect Q.68) Which oil PSU has unveiled its
statement regarding the Endurance22 branded store “Happy Shop”?
Expedition? [a] Oil India Ltd
[a] It has departed from Cape Town, South [b] ONGC
Africa [c] GAIL
[b] It aims to locate Sir Ernest Shackleton’s [d] Engineers India Limited
lost ship [e] HPCL
[c] It was departed by Falklands Maritime
Heritage Trust Q.69) Who has been appointed as the CMD
[d] It is led by Dr John Shears of Shipping Corporation of India Ltd.?
[e] None of the Above [a] D. Sampath Kumar
[b] Binesh Kumar Tyagi
Q.65) Where is the Pablo Picasso’s [c] R. K. Dhawan
“Guernica” placed? [d] Rachna Chabra
[a] Los Angeles [e] Sarojini Shekhar
[b] New York
[c] San Francisco Q.70) Who is the captain of India’s U-19
[d] Venice Men's Cricket team?
[e] Rome [a] Shaik Rasheed
[b] Harnoor Singh Pannu
Q.66) How much stake is owned by ICICI [c] Yash Dhull
Bank in the India International Clearing [d] Angkrish Raghuvanshi
Corporation (IICC)? [e] Nishant Sindhu
[a] 9.9%
[b] 10.3% Q.71) Which of the following agency of
[c] 5.5% ISRO has demonstrated hack-proof
[d] 6.7% quantum communications technology?
[e] 7.3% [a] Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC)
[b] Space Applications Centre (SAC)
Q.67) Which bank has been awarded the [c] National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC)
‘DX 2021 Awards’ (digital transformation [d] U R Rao Satellite Centre (URSC)
award) by the Confederation of Indian [e] ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and
Industry (CII) for Best Practice in Digital Command Network (ISTRAC)
Transformation?
[a] ICICI Bank Q.72) Which of the following Indian force
[b] Axis Bank has launched ‘Operation AAHT’, a
[c] Karnataka Bank nationwide operation, to curb human
[d] HDFC Bank trafficking?
[e] Bank of Baroda [a] Central Industrial Security Force
[b] Central Reserve Police Force
[c] Border Security Force
pg. 7
[d] Railway Protection Force [d] Maharashtra
[e] Sashastra Seema Bal [e] Madhya Pradesh

Q.73) How many themes have been Q.78) Which has become the first Union
identified for the Powerthon-2022? Territory to be onboarded on the National
[a] Nine Single Window System?
[b] Five [a] Puducherry
[c] Ten [b] Delhi
[d] Fifteen [c] Chandigarh
[e] Twelve [d] DNH& DD
[e] Jammu and Kashmir
Q.74) What is the tenure of Revamped
Distribution Sector Scheme? Q.79) Where has North Atlantic Treaty
[a] FY22 to FY26 Organization (NATO) conducted the joint
[b] FY21 to FY24 exercise named ‘Winter Camp’?
[c] FY19 to FY22 [a] Romania
[d] FY18 to FY21 [b] Estonia
[e] FY20 to FY25 [c] Poland
[d] Bulgaria
Q.75) What is the total outlay of Indian [e] Latvia
Footwear and Leather Development
Programme (IFLDP) for FY22 to FY26? Q.80) Who has been appointed as the first
[a] ₹1,200 crore female Vice-Chancellor of Jawaharlal
[b] ₹1,700 crore Nehru University (JNU)?
[c] ₹2,200 crore [a] S.B. Naithani
[d] ₹1,300 crore [b] Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit
[e] ₹500 crore [c] Radha Sridharan
[d] Nivedita Shukla Verma
Q.76) How many districts are covered in [e] Dipti Mohil Chawla
Intensified Mission Indradhanush 4.0?
[a] 416 Q.81) What is the total outlay of 'Pradhan
[b] 500 Mantri Kisan Sampada Yojana’ for FY22 to
[c] 347 FY26?
[d] 520 [a] Rs 4,600 crore
[e] 130 [b] Rs 1,300 crore
[c] Rs 1,820 crore
Q.77) Which state/UT celebrate Kanchoth [d] Rs 1,900 crore
festival? [e] Rs 1,750 crore
[a] J&K
[b] Tamil Nadu
[c] Telangana
pg. 8
Q.82) Which IIT has established a new inter- [e] Hyderabad
disciplinary water management and policy
centre named as ‘AquaMAP’? Q.87) On which e-commerce platform has
[a] IIT Madras Ministry of AYUSH launched its ayurvedic
[b] IIT Delhi store?
[c] IIT Roorkee [a] Flipkart
[d] IIT Kharagpur [b] 1mg
[e] IIT Bhopal [c] Grofers
[d] Amazon
Q.83) Which of the following agency is the [e] IndiaMART
technical partner of NITI Aayog for the
SAMRIDH initiative? Q.88) White-Cheeked Macaque are native
[a] USAID to which Indian state?
[b] NATHEALTH [a] Andhra Pradesh
[c] IIT Delhi [b] Telangana
[d] Both A and C [c] Mizoram
[e] Both B and C [d] Arunachal Pradesh
[e] Meghalaya
Q.84) Who heads the Parliament’s Standing
Committee on Rural Development and Q.89) Which country has launched the
Panchayati Raj? ‘Unitary Digital Identity framework’ (UDIF),
[a] Prabhat Kumar Tripathi based on the model of Aadhar card?
[b] Prataprao Jadhav [a] Maldives
[c] S.B. Naithani [b] Sri Lanka
[d] Radha Sridharan [c] Myanmar
[e] Mahesh Kumar Sharma [d] Malaysia
[e] Philippines
Q.85) Where is the ‘False Point’ lighthouse
located? Q.90) Which organization has released the
[a] Odisha ‘Women in the Boardroom’ 2022 report?
[b] Andhra Pradesh [a] Ernst & Young
[c] Kerala [b] Deloitte
[d] Karnataka [c] PwC
[e] Tamil Nadu [d] Germanwatch
[e] Transparency International
Q.86) What is the venue of Global Summit
on ‘Reimagining Museums in India’ 2022? Q.91) Which of the following satellites has
[a] Patiala been launched by PSLV-C52, along with
[b] New Delhi EOS-04?
[c] Bengaluru [a] Cartosat-2
[d] Kochi [b] Inspiresat-1
pg. 9
[c] INS-2TD [a] Frans Timmermans
[d] Only A [b] Stella Kyriakides
[e] Only B and C [c] Zara Rutherford
[d] Elisa Ferreira
Q.92) Where will India’s first commercial- [e] Kadri Simson
scale biomass-based hydrogen plant be
set up? Q.97) Where is the approximate location of
[a] Khandwa Joint European Torus (JET) facility?
[b] Kaimur [a] Dubai, UAE
[c] Baghelkhand [b] Lyon, France
[d] Sehore [c] Oxford, England
[e] Vidisha [d] Dublin, Ireland
[e] Muscat, Oman
Q.93) Which Indian company has
announced to set up Asia’s largest ethanol Q.98) How much is India’s total expenditure
plant that would produce 1,100 kilo litres of on healthcare, as a percentage of GDP, as
ethanol a day? per NITI Aayog’s “Reimagining Healthcare
[a] Adani Group India through Blended Finance” report?
[b] JSW Energy [a] 1.29%
[c] Tata Power [b] 1.2%
[d] Manikaran Power [c] 1.56%
[e] Swaraj Green [d] 1.14%
[e] 2.1%
Q.94) What is the route of 100th Textile
train? Q.99) Which company has launched the
[a] Ahmedabad to Dharwad Cyber Sachet Insurance Policy?
[b] Nagpur to Shirdi [a] Bharti Axa General Insurance Co. Ltd.
[c] Pune to Nasik [b] Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Co. Ltd.
[d] Surat to Kharagpur [c] HDFC ERGO General Insurance
[e] Ahmednagar to Danapur Company
[d] ICICI Lombard General Insurance Co.
Q.95) When did India celebrate National Ltd.
Year of Millets? [e] IFFCO Tokio General Insurance Co. Ltd.
[a] 2020
[b] 2018 Q.100) How much FDI has India received in
[c] 2016 the last 5 years, as per Ministry of
[d] 2014 Commerce and Industry’s data?
[e] 2012 [a] USD 409.20 billion
[b] USD 203.12 billion
Q.96) Who has become the youngest pilot [c] USD 339.55 billion
to complete a solo flight round the world? [d] USD 100.05 billion
pg. 10
[e] USD 500.10 billion Q.105) Which of the following missions has
recently been announced by NASA for
Q.101) Which of the following portals has studying the solar wind turbulence?
been launched by Principal Scientific [a] Genesis
Adviser to the Government of India to [b] SOHO
provide job opportunities to persons with [c] SolarMax
disability? [d] MUSE
[a] Swavalamban [e] Heliosphere
[b] Saksham
[c] Saarthi Q.106) What is the venue for One Ocean
[d] Swarajability Summit 2022?
[e] Svanirbhar [a] Paris
[b] Lyon
Q.102) How many refineries are operational [c] Brest
in India as of February 2022? [d] Marseille
[a] 23 [e] Strasbourg
[b] 40
[c] 58 Q.107) What is the rank of UAE – an
[d] 37 emerging buddy of India in the Middle-East
[e] 54 – in the 9th edition of Leadership in Energy
and Environment Design (LEED) ranking
Q.103) Which state/UT has signed an MoU of countries?
with the New Zealand G2G, a public sector [a] Sixth
company, for transforming the sheep [b] Ninth
farming sector? [c] Third
[a] Lakshadweep [d] Fifth
[b] J&K [e] Second
[c] Ladakh
[d] Himachal Pradesh Q.108) Which of the following districts has
[e] Puducherry topped in the Champions of Change-Delta
Ranking of December 2021?
Q.104) Where is Pan-STARRS S1 [a] Malkangiri
telescope located? [b] Chhatarpur
[a] Kitt Peak National Observatory [c] Baramulla
[b] Yerkes Observatory [d] Ramgarh
[c] Arecibo Observatory [e] Begusarai
[d] Haleakala Observatory
[e] Palomar Observatory Q.109) Which bank has partnered with
National Stock Exchange (NSE) for
offering financial literacy courses on NSE
Knowledge Hub platform?
pg. 11
[a] Karnataka Bank
[b] Bank of Baroda Q.114) Which country has launched the
[c] City Union Bank 'Maitri' Scholars Program to provide over
[d] State Bank of India USD 11 million for 4 years to support
[e] ICICI Bank Indian students?
[a] France
Q.110) Who is the chairperson of SEBI’s [b] UK
advisory committee on Investor Protection [c] UAE
and Education Fund? [d] Japan
[a] Vinod Chawla [e] Australia
[b] Anita Baghel
[c] Jaspal Singh Q.115) Which state/UT has launched a QR
[d] G Mahalingam code-based mechanism for certification
[e] Divya Arora and labelling of handmade carpets?
[a] J&K
Q.111) What is the outlay of the Support for [b] Ladakh
Marginalized Individuals for Livelihood and [c] Lakshadweep
Enterprise (SMILE) scheme? [d] Puducherry
[a] Rs 235 Crore [e] Delhi
[b] Rs 1000 Crore
[c] Rs 500 Crore Q.116) Which state has initiated ‘Operation
[d] Rs 365 Crore Parivartan’, a special operation undertaken
[e] Rs 150 Crore to eliminate the cultivation of cannabis?
[a] Telangana
Q.112) By which year agriculture sector will [b] Tamil Nadu
be made carbon-free by replacing diesel [c] Andhra Pradesh
with renewable energy? [d] Maharashtra
[a] 2024 [e] Uttar Pradesh
[b] 2023
[c] 2026 Q.117) Cosmo-SkyMed Second Generation
[d] 2027 FM2 (CSG-2) is the satellite of which
[e] 2028 country?
[a] Italy
Q.113) With which country has India [b] Netherlands
initiated negotiation to finalise the early [c] Bulgaria
harvest agreement (EHA)? [d] Romania
[a] New Zealand [e] Slovenia
[b] Canada
[c] USA Q.118) When was the United Nations
[d] Australia Convention on the Law of the Sea
[e] Philippines (UNCLOS) adopted?
pg. 12
[a] 1999 Q.123) What is the allocated share of
[b] 1971 centre’s funds in the scheme for
[c] 1967 Modernisation of State Police Forces for
[d] 1982 FY22 to FY26?
[e] 1994 [a] Rs 30,100 crore
[b] Rs 52,750 crore
Q.119) What is India’s score in the [c] Rs 75,500 crore
Democracy Index 2021? [d] Rs 26,275 crore
[a] 7.13 [e] Rs 40,125 crore
[b] 6.91
[c] 6.34 Q.124) Which Article of the Constitution
[d] 8.67 empowers the Governors to summon,
[e] 7.12 prorogue (discontinue), and dissolve the
state legislative assembly?
Q.120) When is the World Unani Day [a] Article 174
observed? [b] Article 120
[a] February 23 [c] Article 180
[b] February 9 [d] Article 192
[c] February 5 [e] Article 230
[d] February 18
[e] February 11 Q.125) With which company has Ministry of
Defence signed a pact for developing High
Q.121) Tarawa is the capital of which Altitude Pseudo Satellite (HAPS)?
country? [a] NewSpace Research and Technology
[a] Moldova [b] Tata Advanced Systems Limited
[b] Malta [c] Reliance Naval and Engineering Limited
[c] Kiribati [d] Mahindra Aerospace
[d] Tonga [e] Kalyani Strategic Systems Ltd
[e] Antigua and Barbuda
Q.126) Which has become the first-ever
Q.122) Which of the following JITs country to allow drones in civilian
(developed under the Japanese Industrial airspace?
Townships program) hold most of the [a] Israel
Japanese companies? [b] USA
[a] Neemrana [c] Germany
[b] Sri City [d] Finland
[c] Mangalore [e] Canada
[d] Both A and B
[e] Both B and C Q.127) By which year has UNESCO
planned to introduce ocean education in

pg. 13
 the school curricula of its 193 member [d] Kochi
nations? [e] Chennai
[a] 2030
[b] 2027 Q.132) Where is the Fukushima Daiichi
[c] 2022 nuclear power station located?
[d] 2023 [a] South Korea
[e] 2025 [b] Japan
[c] Philippines
Q.128) How much stake does Bank of [d] USA
Baroda hold in the IndiaFirst Life Insurance [e] France
Company?
[a] 21% Q.133) Where is SES (satellite-linked
[b] 39% content connectivity solutions provider)
[c] 65% located?
[d] 41% [a] Belgium
[e] 52% [b] Spain
[c] Moldova
Q.129) Recently, LIC has filed its DRHP – [d] Luxembourg
the legal preliminary prospectus – with [e] Belarus
SEBI to raise Rs 63,000 crores by selling
its 5% shares via IPO. What does ‘R’ stand Q.134) Which bank has launched Agri
for in the full form of DRHP? Infinity - an annual startup enabler program
[a] Regulatory - to co-develop digital financial solutions for
[b] Remittance the food and agriculture ecosystem by
[c] Required mentoring entrepreneurial ventures in the
[d] Red field?
[e] Remark [a] Bank of Baroda
[b] Axis Bank
Q.130) Who is the ex-officio Chairman of the [c] ICICI Bank
National Productivity Council of India? [d] Yes Bank
[a] Secretary, DEA [e] State Bank of India
[b] Secretary, DST
[c] Secretary, DPIIT Q.135) Which has become the first Indian
[d] Secretary, FICCI plastic waste neutral FMCG company?
[e] Secretary, CII [a] Dabur
[b] ITC
Q.131) Where is the “Nikarshan Sadan [c] Hindustan Unilever Ltd
Dredging Museum” located? [d] Nestle India
[a] Vishakhapatnam [e] Britannia Industries
[b] Kurnool
[c] Coimbatore
pg. 14
Q.136) Who has been appointed as the Q.141) How many additional CEOs will the
Managing Director and CEO of Air India? Ken-Betwa Link Project (KBLP) Authority
[a] Dianne Feinstein have?
[b] Ilker Ayci [a] Five
[c] Alex Padilla [b] Two
[d] Michael Bennet [c] Four
[e] John Hickenlooper [d] Three
[e] One
Q.137) When is the National Women’s Day
observed? Q.142) Which of the following tribes
[a] February 13 celebrate the Medaram Jathara festival?
[b] March 23 [a] Birjia
[c] January 16 [b] Baiga
[d] May 17 [c] Parhaiya
[e] August 20 [d] Chero
[e] Koya
Q.138) Who is named as the Business
Standard Banker of the Year 2020-21? Q.143) What is the estimated expenditure of
[a] Uday Kotak Scheme for Economic Empowerment of
[b] V. Vaidyanathan DNTs (SEED) for 5 years?
[c] Shyam Srinivasan [a] Rs 150 crore
[d] Sandeep Bakhshi [b] Rs 200 crore
[e] Amitabh Chaudhry [c] Rs 100 crore
[d] Rs 320 crore
Q.139) Who is the author of “Atal Bihari [e] Rs 500 crore
Vajpayee” book?
[a] Sagarika Ghose Q.144) How much is the prize money in the
[b] Anshu Jain Darkathon -2022?
[c] Aditya Puri [a] Rs 2.5 Lakh
[d] Madhavi Puri [b] Rs 2 lakh
[e] Jasika Kher [c] Rs 1.5 lakh
[d] Rs 1 lakh
Q.140) What is the currency of Oman? [e] All of the Above
[a] Rial
[b] Dinar Q.145) During the 4th India-Australia Energy
[c] Dirham Dialogue, a Letter of Intent was signed
[d] Franc between India and Australia for
[e] Pound cooperation on New and Renewable
Energy Technology by scaling up
manufacture and deployment of ultra-low-
cost __ and __ energy?
pg. 15
[a] Solar [c] PayU
[b] Wind [d] PhonePe
[c] Hydrogen [e] Amazon Pay
[d] Both A and B
[e] Both A and C Q.150) What is the theme of the Financial
Literacy Week 2022?
Q.146) Where did Dr S. Jaishankar pay his [a] Go Digital, Go Secure
first visit as the External Affairs Minister? [b] Cooperatives
[a] Philippines [c] Financial Literacy
[b] Japan [d] Rural Women
[c] Saudi Arabia [e] Payment Security
[d] Qatar
[e] Jordan Q.151) What is India’s rank in the
standardization aspect in Global Quality
Q.147) Which state has signed an MoU with Infrastructure Index (GQII)?
QX Global Group Limited (a global [a] 10th
business process management company) [b] 8th
for the holistic development of the IT and [c] 7th
ITeS (Information Technology Enabled [d] 15th
Services) sector in the State? [e] 12th
[a] Karnataka
[b] Gujarat Q.152) How much is the centre’s share in
[c] Madhya Pradesh the ‘New India Literacy Programme’?
[d] Andhra Pradesh [a] Rs 500 crore
[e] Tamil Nadu [b] Rs 1000 crore
[c] Rs 700 crore
Q.148) Which company has partnered with [d] Rs 400 crore
Foxconn (electronics manufacturing [e] Rs 200 crore
services giant) to form a joint venture (JV)
for manufacturing semiconductors in India? Q.153) Which state has launched the first of
[a] Vedanta its kind ‘Smart Card Arms License’ (SCAL)
[b] Reliance Industries that will replace the existing arms license
[c] Tata Consultancy Services booklet?
[d] Infosys Ltd. [a] Andhra Pradesh
[e] Hindustan Unilever Ltd. [b] Delhi
[c] Telangana
Q.149) Which company has announced its [d] Odisha
integration with BigCommerce (an Open [e] Tamil Nadu
SaaS e-commerce platform)?
[a] BharatPe Q.154) What is the total food grain
[b] Google Pay production in 2021-22 as per the 2nd
pg. 16
 Advance Estimates of Production of Major [e] Gujarat
Crops?
[a] 298.90 million tonnes Q.159) Who is the ambassador of Serbia to
[b] 320.10 million tonnes India?
[c] 316.06 million tonnes [a] Sinisa Pavic
[d] 400.13 million tonnes [b] Anisa K. Mbega
[e] 210.89 million tonnes [c] Slobodan Uzunov
[d] Isse Abdillahi Assoweh
Q.155) Which countries participated in the [e] Patricia Holland
"Cope South 22" exercise?
[a] Bangladesh and US Q.160) Which state has won the men’s
[b] India and France tournament at the 70th Senior National
[c] Japan and Australia Volleyball Championship?
[d] Russia and China [a] Kerala
[e] Philippines and Japan [b] Andhra Pradesh
[c] Gujarat
Q.156) With which state’s regional [d] Madhya Pradesh
associations has Bombay Stock Exchange [e] Haryana
partnered to promote Electronic Gold
Receipts (EGR) segment? Q.161) What is the outlay of the continuation
[a] Maharashtra of the capacity development (CD)
[b] Tamil Nadu scheme?
[c] Telangana [a] ₹3,179 crore
[d] Both A and B [b] ₹2,109 crore
[e] Both B and C [c] ₹3,555 crore
[d] ₹2,110 crore
Q.157) How much is India’s total gold [e] ₹1,179 crore
reserve as of December 2021?
[a] 754.1 tonnes Q.162) Under which scheme does the govt
[b] 800.01 tonnes conduct “Labharthiyon (beneficiary) se
[c] 500 tonnes Rubaroo” initiative?
[d] 433.55 tonnes [a] PMAY-U
[e] 863.44 tonnes [b] PMJDY
[c] Saubhagya
Q.158) Which has become the 14th state to [d] PM-Kusum
partner with SIDBI for promoting the [e] PMJAY
MSME sector?
[a] Uttar Pradesh Q.163) Which state has launched the 'Sant
[b] Madhya Pradesh Ravidas Swarozgar Yojana'?
[c] Maharashtra [a] Madhya Pradesh
[d] Bihar [b] Chhattisgarh
pg. 17
[c] Bihar [e] GAIL
[d] Jharkhand
[e] Uttar Pradesh Q.168) What is the value of global trade in
2021, as per the UNCTAD’s ‘Global Trade
Q.164) Which state has the maximum Update – February 2022’ report?
households electrified through the solar- [a] $32 trillion
based standalone system, under the [b] $15.4 trillion
Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar [c] $10.9 trillion
Yojana – ‘Saubhagya’? [d] $28.5 trillion
[a] Rajasthan [e] $12.8 trillion
[b] Telangana
[c] Tamil Nadu Q.169) Where has SIDBI launched the
[d] Andhra Pradesh 'Waste to Wealth Creation' programme?
[e] Maharashtra [a] West Bengal
[b] Maharashtra
Q.165) For which state has Ministry of [c] Gujarat
Housing and Urban Affairs approved Rs [d] Odisha
235 crore for making the cities 'Garbage [e] Tamil Nadu
Free’?
[a] Maharashtra Q.170) Which country is the world’s largest
[b] Andhra Pradesh producer of Soyoil?
[c] Odisha [a] Argentine
[d] Arunachal Pradesh [b] Canada
[e] Uttarakhand [c] Peru
[d] Bolivia
Q.166) Which state has established [e] Columbia
Karamchari Chayan Aayog?
[a] Uttarakhand Q.171) Which is the theme of the World
[b] Bihar Sustainable Development Summit
[c] Jharkhand (WSDS), which was organized by TERI
[d] Madhya Pradesh from February 16 to 18, 2022?
[e] Uttar Pradesh [a] Ecosystem Restoration
[b] Time for Nature
Q.167) With which company has National [c] Towards a Resilient Planet
Agricultural Cooperative Marketing [d] Leaving No One Behind
Federation of India Ltd. (NAFED) signed [e] Our Biodiversity, Our Food, Our Health
an MOU for setting up Bio-fuel projects?
[a] IOC Q.172) Which of the following campaign has
[b] BHEL been launched under the Pradhan Mantri
[c] BPCL Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) to deliver
[d] HPCL
pg. 18
 policy related services at the doorstep of [e] 150th
farmers?
[a] Karein Prayas, Payein Vikash Q.177) How much stake does Union Bank of
[b] KSHAMTA India hold in the India Debt Resolution
[c] Operation Rahat Company Ltd?
[d] Meri Policy Mere Haath [a] 12.3%
[e] Shramev Jayate [b] 8.8%
[c] 10.2%
Q.173) How much is the Centre’s share in [d] 14.9%
the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan [e] 9.4%
(RUSA) scheme for FY22-26?
[a] Rs 7,900 crores Q.178) How much is the present bilateral
[b] Rs 8,120 crores trade between India and UAE?
[c] Rs 2,870 crores [a] $100 Bn
[d] Rs 3,120 crores [b] $60 Bn
[e] Rs 5,890 crores [c] $50 Bn
[d] $22 Bn
Q.174) Where is Asia's biggest Bio-CNG [e] $78 Bn
plant - the Gobar-Dhan plant - located?
[a] Gorakhpur Q.179) Which of the following organizations
[b] Indore releases the “Frontiers 2022: Noise,
[c] Kanpur Blazes and Mismatches” report?
[d] Ahmedabad [a] UNEP
[e] Meerut [b] IMD
[c] WEF
Q.175) How many drones were flagged off [d] WMO
under the Kisan Drone Yatra by PM [e] ITU
Narendra Modi?
[a] 100 Q.180) In which of the following Middle East
[b] 80 country will India establish an Indian
[c] 75 Institute of Technology?
[d] 120 [a] Qatar
[e] 50 [b] Saudi Arabia
[c] Kuwait
Q.176) Which edition of the International [d] Israel
Olympic Committee's (IOC) session will be [e] UAE
hosted by India?
[a] 108th Q.181) Which IIT has developed an app
[b] 112th 'KISAN' for providing easy access to the
[c] 105th Agromet Advisory Services to farmers on
[d] 139th their mobile phones?
pg. 19
[a] IIT-Delhi [c] Rs 8 lakh per annum
[b] IIT-Ropar [d] Rs 4.5 lakh per annum
[c] IIT-Madras [e] Rs 2 lakh per annum
[d] IIT-Kharagpur
[e] IIT- Roorkee Q.186) Which of the following organizations
has partnered with NITI Aayog for
Q.182) What is the outlay of the “Border conducting a virtual consultation workshop
Infrastructure and Management” (BIM) on ‘Financing for Decarbonization of
scheme for 2021-22 to 2025-26 tenure? Transport’?
[a] Rs 12,900 crore [a] World Resources Institute, India
[b] Rs 10,550 crore [b] GIZ India
[c] Rs 13,020 crore [c] Observer Research Foundation
[d] Rs 9,780 crore [d] Both A and C
[e] Rs 20,400 crore [e] Both A and B

Q.183) Which of the following paper has Q.187) Which company has discovered oil
been released by Ministry of External block named Durga in a block of Barmer
Affairs to improve India’s repute in district of Rajasthan?
international domain in the wake of India’s [a] Indian Oil Corporation
declining democracy rankings? [b] Cairn Oil & Gas
[a] The Indian Way [c] Bharat Petroleum
[b] India: A Democracy Hub [d] Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd
[c] The rise of secularism [e] Oil India Ltd
[d] Rise of India
[e] India to rule Q.188) Who is the head of the Delimitation
Commission of J&K?
Q.184) How many clusters have been [a] Justice Dhirubhai Naranbhai Patel
approved under the Shyama Prasad [b] Justice Vipin Sanghi
Mukherji Rurban Mission? [c] Justice Siddharth Mridul
[a] 115 clusters [d] Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai
[b] 190 clusters [e] Justice Manmohan
[c] 296 clusters
[d] 205 clusters Q.189) What is the venue of the ‘Eastern
[e] 300 clusters Bridge-VI’ exercise?
[a] Air Force Station Jodhpur
Q.185) What is the family income ceiling for [b] Air Force Station Tezpur
students to become eligible under the [c] Air Force Station Agra
National Means-cum-Merit Scholarship [d] Air Force Station Hindon
Scheme? [e] Air Force Station Saraswa
[a] Rs 3.5 lakh per annum
[b] Rs 5.5 lakh per annum
pg. 20
Q.190) Which company has signed an MoU Payments, under its 'Team Cashless India'
with Nasdaq-listed Ballard Power Systems campaign?
to evaluate making joint investment for [a] Guwahati
commercialisation of hydrogen fuel cells in [b] Varanasi
India? [c] Lucknow
[a] Reliance [d] Only I and II
[b] Adani [e] Only I, II, and III
[c] IREDA
[d] Tata Power Q.195) Which bank has launched its lounge
[e] NTPC named ‘Onyx’ on Metaverse?
[a] JPMorgan
Q.191) “C-Dome” is the naval air defense [b] Bank of America
system of which country? [c] Barclays Bank
[a] Israel [d] Deutsche Bank
[b] Saudi Arabia [e] Standard Chartered Bank
[c] China
[d] Russia Q.196) Which has become the first payment
[e] UAE bank to become an official acquiring
partner for the government's e-RUPI
Q.192) How much stake does ICICI Bank vouchers initiative?
hold in the Verve Financial Services? [a] Airtel Payments Bank
[a] 9.49% [b] India Post Payments Bank
[b] 8.19% [c] Jio Payments Bank
[c] 6.71% [d] NSDL Payments Bank
[d] 5.44% [e] Paytm Payments Bank
[e] 12.3%
Q.197) Which of the following NBFC has
Q.193) According to the oil ministry's signed a $68 million loan with Asian
Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell Development Bank to improve financial
(PPAC), India's fuel demand is estimated access to affordable green housing for
to see a rise of ___ percent on year to lower-income groups in India?
214.5 million tonnes in FY23? [a] Indiabulls Housing Finance Limited
[a] 5.5% [b] India Home Loan Limited
[b] 7.1% [c] Mahindra Rural Housing Finance Limited
[c] 6.1% [d] Reliance Home Finance Limited
[d] 4.3% [e] IIFL Housing Finance Ltd
[e] 6.2%
Q.198) How much stake does Bharati Airtel
Q.194) In which cities has Mastercard own in the 'SEA-ME-WE-6' undersea cable
launched its digital payment awareness consortium?
campaigns, in partnership with SBI [a] 20%
pg. 21
[b] 15% [d] Arvind Singh
[c] 10% [e] Varun Menon
[d] 16%
[e] 12% Q.203) Who has been recently inducted as
a full-time member of the Economic
Q.199) Which ports will be connected via Advisory Council to the Prime Minister?
India-Europe-Xpress, anchored by [a] Rachna Chabra
Reliance Jio? [b] Sanjeev Sanyal
[a] Mumbai to Milan [c] Sarojini Shekhar
[b] Vishakhapatnam to Tokyo [d] Rupinder Brar
[c] Chennai to Hamburg [e] Vinod Chawla
[d] Kandla to Rotterdam
[e] Cochin to Bordeaux Q.204) When is the World Thinking Day
observed?
Q.200) Which edition of the Financial [a] February 22
Stability and Development Council (FSDC) [b] August 14
meeting was held in Mumbai, under the [c] May 23
Chairmanship of Union Finance Minister [d] June 17
Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman? [e] July 11
[a] 25th
[b] 30th Q.205) What is the venue of 34th Federation
[c] 42nd Cup volleyball championship?
[d] 12th [a] Bhubaneswar
[e] 101st [b] Indore
[c] Ahmedabad
Q.201) What is the total amount of RBI’s [d] Surat
planned US dollar-Indian rupee sell/buy [e] Kochi
swap auction which will be held in March
2022? Q.206) Who has composed the "Vande
[a] $5 billion Bharatam" song?
[b] $3 billion [a] Ricky Kej
[c] $10 billion [b] Bickram Ghosh
[d] $2.7 billion [c] Anita Baghel
[e] $1.5 billion [d] Only I and II
[e] Only I, II, and III
Q.202) Who has been elected as the new
Chairman of the International Rubber Q.207) Which of the following promoters of
Study Group? SBI Life Insurance Company has been
[a] K.N. Raghavan reclassified as a public shareholder?
[b] Pranav Mahajan [a] BNP Paribas Cardif
[c] D. Sampath Kumar [b] Cairn India
pg. 22
[c] Reliance [a] Tamil Nadu
[d] Tata Group [b] Karnataka
[e] Adani Group [c] Kerala
[d] Maharashtra
Q.208) When did Saudi Arabia celebrate its [e] Uttar Pradesh
foundation day for the first time?
[a] March 16, 2017 Q.213) Which state has announced to
[b] July 18, 2019 launch the Indira Gandhi Urban
[c] August 11, 2009 Employment Guarantee Scheme?
[d] February 22, 2022 [a] Rajasthan
[e] June 18, 2011 [b] Chhattisgarh
[c] Jharkhand
Q.209) Under which scheme is the ''Aam [d] Maharashtra
Janta Ka Portal" launched? [e] Punjab
[a] PMAY-Gramin
[b] AMRUT Scheme Q.214) How much FDI is allowed by J&K
[c] Smart Cities Mission administration in the industrial sector?
[d] PM Gram Sadak Yojana [a] 51%
[e] Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana [b] 37%
[c] 40%
Q.210) Who has become the youngest [d] 33%
chess player ever to defeat Magnus [e] 25%
Carlsen?
[a] Javokhir Sindarov Q.215) What is the venue of the multilateral
[b] Francesco Sonis air exercise ‘Cobra Warrior’?
[c] Daniel Dardha [a] Waddington
[d] Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa [b] Warsaw
[e] Semyon Lomasov [c] Stockholm
[d] Helsinki
Q.211) For which Indian city’s river cleaning [e] Bucharest
program has Japan International
Cooperation Agency approved the Rs Q.216) Which bank has introduced two new
1,000 crore project? services for allowing its customers to
[a] Pune receive and send remittances to foreign
[b] Ahmedabad countries?
[c] Varanasi [a] City Union Bank
[d] Patna [b] South Indian Bank
[e] Bhubaneswar [c] Punjab National Bank
[d] State Bank of India
Q.212) In which state is the Upper Bhadra [e] Canara Bank
Project located?
pg. 23
Q.217) With which bank has TripMoney [c] UK
partnered for launching a rupee- [d] Netherlands
denominated secure credit card, [e] Denmark
TripMoney Global Card?
[a] Bank of Baroda Q.222) Where will Indian Railways establish
[b] Union Bank of India India’s biggest world-class wrestling
[c] Bank of Maharashtra academy?
[d] SBM Bank India [a] Chandigarh
[e] HDFC Bank [b] Kolkata
[c] Ahmedabad
Q.218) Where has IBM established its [d] Hyderabad
cybersecurity hub for Asia Pacific (APAC) [e] Delhi
region?
[a] Bengaluru Q.223) Where is Indian Railways’ first solar
[b] Hyderabad power plant located?
[c] Mysore [a] Bina
[d] Mangalore [b] Bhopal
[e] Kochi [c] Gwalior
[d] Jabalpur
Q.219) Creator Accelerator Program is the [e] Ujjain
global program of which company?
[a] LinkedIn Q.224) Recently, National Strategy on
[b] Meta Additive Manufacturing has been released
[c] Google by the Ministry of Electronics and IT. The
[d] Amazon strategy aims to increase the share of India
[e] Flipkart to ___% in global additive manufacturing
within 3 years?
Q.220) Which sport is played by Sakibul [a] 10%
Gani? [b] 5%
[a] Tennis [c] 7%
[b] Cricket [d] 6%
[c] Squash [e] 4%
[d] Billiards
[e] Badminton Q.225) Where was the Devayatanam
conference?
Q.221) With which country has India [a] Tirumala
launched the GOAT (Goa ATlantic [b] Amritsar
cooperation in Marine Science and [c] Varanasi
Technology) programme? [d] Hampi
[a] France [e] Rameshwaram
[b] USA
pg. 24
Q.226) Where is the MSME-Technology [d] Standard Chartered
Centre established? [e] DBS Bank
[a] Bhusawal
[b] Sindhudurg Q.231) Where was the 4th Quad Foreign
[c] Achalpur Ministers’ Conference 2022 held?
[d] Vasai-Virar [a] Melbourne
[e] Akola [b] Tokyo
[c] California
Q.227) In which state does the Meitei [d] Osaka
community belong to? [e] New York
[a] Sikkim
[b] Manipur Q.232) Where is the ‘Anji Khad Bridge’
[c] Mizoram being developed?
[d] Tripura [a] Tripura
[e] Arunachal Pradesh [b] Manipur
[c] Jammu and Kashmir
Q.228) Which state/UT has established [d] Sikkim
India’s first electronic waste eco-park? [e] Himachal Pradesh
[a] Tamil Nadu
[b] Puducherry Q.233) Which of the following missions will
[c] Delhi be launched by SpaceX to send four
[d] West Bengal astronauts into space on a five-day trip to
[e] Odisha conduct scientific studies onboard Crew
Dragon spacecraft?
Q.229) What is India’s rank in the US [a] Neo Apollo
Chamber of Commerce’s International [b] Dragon spacecraft
Intellectual Property Index 2022? [c] Polaris Dawn
[a] 43 [d] Shuttle-Mir
[b] 50 [e] AIM
[c] 82
[d] 95 Q.234) Which company has launched e-
[e] 101 Invest- a mutual fund mobile app for
investors for a smooth investing
Q.230) Which bank has partnered with the experience?
International Air Transport Association [a] ICICI Prudential Asset Management
(IATA) to launch a payment platform Company
named “IATA Pay” for airline industry in [b] Nippon India Mutual Fund
India? [c] UTI Mutual Fund
[a] HSBC Bank [d] Kotak Mahindra Mutual Fund
[b] Oriental Bank of Commerce [e] Edelweiss Asset Management
[c] City Union Bank
pg. 25
Q.235) Who has been appointed as the first [e] Lavender
ever national maritime security coordinator
(NMSC) of India? Q.240) What is the strength of SEBI’s re-
[a] Rajat Datta constituted Alternative Investment Policy
[b] G Ashok Kumar Advisory Committee?
[c] Naveen Chawla [a] 10
[d] Adhir Arora [b] 14
[e] Rajesh Pendharkar [c] 20
[d] 22
Q.236) Where was ‘Coalescence: Craft- [e] 21
Culture-Community-Climate’ exhibition
held? Q.241) Where is India’s largest reclining
[a] Jaipur statue of Lord Buddha being built?
[b] Kolkata [a] Bihar
[c] New Delhi [b] Uttar Pradesh
[d] Ahmedabad [c] Ladakh
[e] Hyderabad [d] Himachal Pradesh
[e] Uttarakhand
Q.237) Which state has organized the
Huddle Global 2022 Festival? Q. 242) Which of the following country has
[a] Uttar Pradesh not ratified the BBIN MVA?
[b] Tamil Nadu [a] Bhutan
[c] Karnataka [b] Bangladesh
[d] Maharashtra [c] Bahrain
[e] Kerala [d] Belarus
[e] Belgium
Q.238) Which state has launched India’s
first night navigation mobile application for Q. 243) Which IIT has established the
ferries? ‘PARAM Ganga’ supercomputer?
[a] Assam [a] IIT Bombay
[b] Andhra Pradesh [b] IIT Delhi
[c] West Bengal [c] IIT Kanpur
[d] Odisha [d] IIT Roorkee
[e] Tamil Nadu [e] IIT Kharagpur

Q.239) ‘Purple revolution’ is associated with Q. 244) Which organization has released
which of the following flower’s cultivation? the “Sea Level Rise Technical Report”?
[a] Pansy [a] Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
[b] Butterfly Pea Change
[c] Bush Clockvine [b] United Nations Environment Program
[d] Asiatic Dayflower [c] World Meteorological Organization
pg. 26
[d] National Oceanic and Atmospheric of its 540-MW Chamera-I Power Plant in
Administration Himachal Pradesh for 10 years?
[e] International Maritime Organization [a] State Bank of India
[b] Punjab National Bank
Q. 245) With which bank has NHPC signed [c] Oriental Bank of Commerce
an agreement to securitise return on equity [d] HDFC Bank
[e] Canara Bank

1 B 51 A 101 D 151 C 201 A

2 A 52 E 102 A 152 C 202 A
3 A 53 E 103 B 153 B 203 B
4 E 54 C 104 D 154 C 204 A
5 E 55 A 105 E 155 A 205 A
6 A 56 B 106 C 156 D 206 D
7 D 57 E 107 A 157 A 207 A
8 A 58 A 108 A 158 D 208 D
9 A 59 D 109 D 159 A 209 A
10 A 60 E 110 D 160 E 210 D
11 A 61 A 111 D 161 A 211 A
12 E 62 A 112 A 162 A 212 B
13 C 63 B 113 D 163 A 213 A
14 A 64 E 114 E 164 A 214 A
15 C 65 B 115 A 165 B 215 A
16 C 66 A 116 C 166 D 216 B
17 B 67 C 117 A 167 A 217 D
18 D 68 E 118 D 168 D 218 A
19 A 69 B 119 B 169 A 219 A
20 B 70 C 120 E 170 A 220 B
21 D 71 B 121 C 171 C 221 A
22 A 72 D 122 D 172 D 222 E
23 A 73 A 123 D 173 B 223 A
24 A 74 A 124 A 174 B 224 B
25 A 75 B 125 A 175 A 225 D
26 A 76 A 126 A 176 D 226 B
27 E 77 A 127 E 177 A 227 B
28 B 78 E 128 C 178 B 228 C
pg. 27
29 D 79 B 129 D 179 A 229 A
30 A 80 B 130 C 180 E 230 D
31 B 81 A 131 A 181 E 231 A
32 E 82 A 132 B 182 C 232 C
33 E 83 E 133 D 183 A 233 C
34 B 84 B 134 D 184 C 234 E
35 A 85 A 135 A 185 A 235 B
36 A 86 E 136 B 186 E 236 C
37 D 87 D 137 A 187 B 237 E
38 D 88 D 138 D 188 D 238 A
39 B 89 B 139 A 189 A 239 E
40 E 90 B 140 A 190 B 240 C
41 A 91 E 141 A 191 A 241 A
42 C 92 A 142 E 192 A 242 A
43 B 93 E 143 B 193 A 243 D
44 C 94 D 144 A 194 E 244 D
45 C 95 B 145 E 195 A 245 D
46 A 96 C 146 A 196 E
47 A 97 C 147 B 197 E
48 A 98 A 148 A 198 A
49 D 99 C 149 C 199 A
50 B 10 C 150 A 200 A
0

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