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AFFAIRSCLOUD TODAY
Current Affairs 12 February 2022 : Headlines
INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
India Agreed to Grant Sri Lanka to Implement ‘Unitary Digital Identity framework’
The Indian Government has agreed to provide a grant to Sri Lanka for implementing its ‘Unitary Digital Identity
framework’ which is modelled on Aadhaar card. However, no information is provided on the value of the grant.
• This framework will be implemented by the Sri Lankan government as a national level programme on a
priority basis.
• Under this, a personal identity verification device will be introduced, based on biometric data, a digital tool
to represent identities of individuals in cyberspace. The identification of individual identities that can be
accurately verified in digital and physical environments by combining the two devices.
Key Points:
i.The framework will be launched on the lines of the bilateral talks between Prime Minister of India, Narendra
Modi and President of Sri Lanka, Gotabaya Rajapaksa in December 2019.
ii.In January 2022, Sri Lanka received economic assistance from India, worth USD 1.4 billion for its dollar crunch,
and import food, medicines and fuel due to shortages.
Note – This is not the first time that Sri Lanka is attempting to digitise its citizens’ identities. Just a few years ago,
the predecessor Maithripala Sirisena-Ranil Wickremesinghe administration, in power from 2015 to 2019, mooted
a similar Electronic-National Identity Card — or E-NIC —that privacy advocates opposed on grounds that the
state would have full access to citizens’ personal data in a central database. The former Mahinda Rajapaksa
government tried initiating the project as early as 2011. Neither project was implemented.
GEM 2021/2022 Report :India Ranked 4th in Ease of Starting Business; Saudi Arabia Topped
In accordance with the “Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) 2021/2022 Global Report: Opportunity Amid
Disruption”, unveiled at the Dubai Expo, India is among the top five easiest places to start a new business. The
report has gathered data via a survey of at least 2,000 respondents across each of 47 high, medium and low-
income economies.
iii.As per the Q3FY22 earnings report, Paytm’s monthly transacting users (MTU) grew consistently to 64.4
million, up by 37% Y-o-Y and 12% quarter-on-quarter (Q-o-Q).
HDFC Ergo General Insurance & Visa Partnered For Insurance cover on Select Bank Cards
HDFC Ergo General Insurance (HDFC ERGO) entered into a first-of-its-kind partnership with Visa to offer
curated insurance covers for Visa’s Platinum card holders for select public sector banks.
• The policy will offer fraud insurance cover for an amount up to Rs 1 lakh to all Visa Platinum Credit & Debit
Cards of participating issuers.
• Due to COVID-19, the payment using card usage was increased and it was accepted as a preferred mode of
payment.
Key Points:
i.Through the partnership with Visa, HFDC Ergo intends to insure the risk of fraudulent transactions and enable
the issuing banks to offer zero liability to their cardholders.
ii.Under the tie-up, Visa will offer a complimentary fraud insurance cover for its Platinum Debit & Credit
cardholders across participating issuers to ensure the protection of cardholders from the event of card fraud.
iii.The insurance policy under the partnership is applicable for Visa’s Platinum cardholders and it will provide
security to Visa’s partner banks.
iv.Under the program, Visa is the master policyholder and the insurance coverage is provided by HDFC ERGO
General Insurance Co. Ltd., complimentary to Visa Platinum cardholders of participating banks.
v.RBI (Reserve Bank of India) has mandated banks to offer zero liability to cardholders for frauds reported.
vi.As per the data of RBI, fraudsters have gradually stolen Rs. 615.39 crore in more than 1.17 lakh cases of credit
and debit card frauds over 10 years.
About HDFC ERGO General Insurance Co. Ltd:
HDFC ERGO General Insurance Company Ltd. is a joint venture between HDFC Ltd., India’s premier Housing
Finance Institution and ERGO International AG, the primary insurance entity of Munich Re Group.
Headquarters – Mumbai, Maharashtra
MD & CEO – Ritesh Kumar
Highlights:
i.The credit card from RBL Bank will be lifetime free with a digital onboarding process.
• It provides options of availing personal loans from RBL Bank, using the same credit limit at normal personal
loan rates to customers.
ii.This is the 3rd product under Paisabazaar’s neo-lending strategy through which a credit line for prime and
super prime segments, through a paperless and presence-less process is created.
• In September 2021, Paisabazaar had launched a credit card, designed for new-to-credit or subprime
consumers named ‘Step UP’, that provides benefits of a credit card and also facilitates building credit score.
About Paisabazaar.com:
Headquarters – Gurugram, Haryana
CEO & Co-founder – Naveen Kukreja
About RBL Bank Limited:
Establishment – 1943
Headquarters – Mumbai, Maharashtra
MD & CEO – Rajeev Ahuja (Interim)
Tagline – apno ka bank
The 18 recognized Indian Airports includes some of India’s famous International Airports, including:
Key points:
i.The Krishi Network is a startup co-founded by Ashish Mishra and Siddhant Bhomia, alumni of Indian Institute of
Technology (IIT) Kharagpur. The start-up provides grassroot level information support to farmers’ doubts.
ii.Currently, the platform is connected to 3 million farmers and is planning to grow its network further.
It offers ‘15-minute answers’ for questions around any agricultural service.
About Krishi Network:
Founded -2018
CEO & Founder – Ashish Mishra
Headquarters – New Delhi, Delhi
Tata Sons reappointed N Chandrasekaran as its Chairman for the Second 5-year Term
Tata Sons reappointed Natarajan Chandrasekaran (N Chandrasekaran) as its Executive Chairman for the period
of another five year term (2022-2027), starting from February 2022.
• Ratan Tata, who was also present in the meeting of the Board of Tata Trusts that recommended a renewed
term for the Executive Chairman.
About N Chandrasekaran:
i.He joined the Tata Sons Board in October 2016 and started his first term as the Chairman in January 2017.
iiHe also served as Chief operating officer (COO) and executive director of Tata Consultancy Services. He is also
the Chairman of Tata Steel, Tata Motors, Tata Power and Tata Consultancy Services.
About Tata Sons:
Founded- 1868
Headquarters- Mumbai,Maharashtra
Chairman- Natarajan Chandrasekaran
• They provide deeper understanding about the universe and provide information to help protect astronauts,
satellites, and communications signals such as GPS.
• These missions also provide a unique perspective in understanding the mysteries of our star.
• Funding and management oversight for these missions is provided by the Heliophysics Explorers Program,
managed by the Explorers Program Office at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
About the MUSE mission:
i.The MUSE mission helps scientists in understanding the forces driving the heating of the Sun’s corona and the
eruptions in that outermost region.
ii.This also offers deep insights into physics of the solar atmosphere using a ‘multi-slit spectrometer’ by
capturing the highest resolution images of the solar transition region and the corona.
iii.The mission will also provide complementary observations from heliophysics research such as the Extreme
UltraViolet Spectroscopic Telescope and ground-based observatories.
iv.The primary goal of the MUSE mission is to investigate the causes of coronal heating and instability, such as
flares and coronal mass ejections, and gain insight into the basic plasma properties of the corona. MUSE will
obtain high-resolution images of the evolution of solar flare ribbons in a field of view focused on a large, active
region on the Sun.
v.The principal investigator for the MUSE mission is Bart DePontieu of the Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology
Center (LMATC) of Palo Alto, California. This mission has a budget of $192 million. LMATC will provide project
management.
About HelioSwarm mission:
i.The HelioSwarm mission is a constellation or ‘swarm’ of 9 spacecraft that will capture the 1st multiscale in-space
measurements of fluctuations in the magnetic field and motions of the solar wind known as solar wind
turbulence.
ii.The turbulence is due to the Solar winds spread through the Sun’s outermost atmospheric layer, heliosphere,
and disruptions such as coronal mass ejections.
iii.The HelioSwarm mission’s principal investigator is Harlan Spence from the University of New Hampshire. The
mission’s budget is $250 million. NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California, will provide project
management.
About National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA):
Commenced Operation – 1958
Headquarters – Washington, D.C., United States
Administrator – Bill Nelson
About CSG:
i.CSG is an Italian government system consisting of two satellites that observe Earth using synthetic aperture
radar and to monitor the Earth for any emergency prevention, strategy, scientific and commercial purposes.
ii.The CSG-1 was launched in December 2019 aboard a Soyuz rocket from French Guiana and is currently
operating in a sun-synchronous polar orbit at an altitude of 620kilometers (385 miles). CSG-2 will also operate in
the sun-synchronous polar orbit.
Other Launches:
Earlier in February 2022, SpaceX had launched a batch of its Starlink internet satellites from Florida and
the NROL-87 mission for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
Note – SpaceX had managed 31 launches in 2021 and has planned to achieve a massive target of 52 launches in
2022.
About SpaceX:
CEO – Elon Musk
Headquarters – California, United States (US)
SPORTS
Indian Cricketer Rishabh Pant Wins ESPNcricinfo ‘Test Batting’ Awards for 2021
In the 15th Edition of ESPNcricinfo Awards, India’s wicket keeper batsman, Rishabh Pant wins ‘Test Batting’
award for his extraordinary batting in the Gabba Test against Australia in which he scored 89 runs without losing
his wicket, which helped India to win the Border Gavaskar Trophy 2021 by (2-1) and shattered Australia’s
unbeaten record at Gabba after 32 years.
i.Rishabh Pant was the top scorer of the series for Indian team, scoring (274runs).
• He became the fastest Indian wicketkeeper batsman to reach the 1000-run mark in just 27 innings,
surpassing MS Dhoni’s 32 innings record.
ESPNcricinfo Winners:
i.New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson was adjudged ‘Captain of the Year’.
ii.The Test bowling award went to Kyle Jamieson (New Zealand) for his 5 wickets leaving just 31 runs, which
helped New Zealand in becoming the first World Test champions (2019-2021).
WINNERS
Men’s Test batting Rishabh Pant (India)
Men’s Test bowling Kyle Jamieson (New Zealand)
Men’s ODI batting Fakhar Zaman (Pakistan)
Men’s ODI bowling Saqib Mahmood (England)
Men’s T20I batting Jos Buttler (England)
Men’s T20I bowling Shaheen Afridi (Pakistan)
Women’s batting Beth Mooney (Australia)
Women’s bowling Kate Cross (England)
Associate batting Gerhard Erasmus (Namibia)
Associate bowling Ruben Trumpelmann (Namibia)
Debutant of the year Ollie Robinson (England)
Captain of the year Kane Williamson (New Zealand)
ICC Team Ranking (as of February 2022):
Test Ranking – Australia (Rank 1), India (Ranks 3)
ODI Ranking – New Zealand (Rank 1), India (Ranks 4)
T20I Ranking – England (Rank 1), India (Ranks 2)
OBITUARY
French Virologist Luc Montagnier who Co-Discovered HIV Virus Passed Away
French virologist Luc Montagnier, who led the team in 1983 that identified the human immunodeficiency
virus (HIV) which causes Acquired ImmunoDeficiency Syndrome (AIDS), has died.
• He shared the 2008 Nobel Prize for Medicine particularly in identifying the virus that causes AIDS with his
fellow French scientist Francoise Barre-Sinoussi.
About Luc Montagnier:
i.Montagnier was born in 1932 in France and gained a PhD in virology at the University of Paris and later became
Director of the World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention in Paris.
• He joined the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), France in 1960 and became head of the
Pasteur Institute’s virology department in 1972.
ii.He for the first time identified an infectious double-stranded RNA from cells infected with the murine
encephalomyocarditis virus, a small single-stranded RNA virus in Kingsley Sanders’ laboratory at Carshalton
near London.
• The first description of infectious viral RNA from the tobacco mosaic virus by Fraenkel-Conrat and Gierer
and Schramm inspired him to become a virologist in 1957.
iii.His investigation of interferon, one of the body’s defences against viruses, also opened avenues for medical
cures for viral diseases.
IMPORTANT DAYS
International Day of Women and Girls in Science 2022 – February 11
The United Nations(UN)’s International Day of Women and Girls in Science is annually observed across the
globe on 11th February to recognize the critical role women and girls play in science and technology.
The 11th February 2022 marks the observance of the 7th International Day of Women and Girls in Science.
The theme of the 2022 International Day of Women and Girls in Science Assembly is “Equity, Diversity, and
Inclusion: Water Unites Us”.
• The day is implemented by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
and UN-Women (United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women), in
collaboration with institutions and civil society partners that aim to promote women and girls in science.
Background:
i.The United Nations General Assembly(UNGA) adopted the resolution A/RES/70/212 on 22nd December 2015
and proclaimed the 11th February of every year as the International Day of
Women and Girls in Science.
ii.The first ever International Day of Women and Girls in Science was observed on 11th February 2016.
Significance:
i.The day provides an opportunity to address the significant gender gap at all levels of science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines across the globe.
ii.The day also highlights that women are under-represented in these fields, even though they have made
progress towards increasing their participation in higher education.
Events:
i.The 7th International Day of Women and Girls in Science Assembly was organised in virtual format on 11th
February 2022 from the UN headquarters in New York, United States of America (USA).
Aim:
To recognize the role of women and girls in science, as beneficiaries, and agents of change, in view of accelerating
progress towards the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6: clean water and sanitation for all.
• The 7th Assembly is co-organized by the Royal Academy of Science International Trust (RASIT) and the
Permanent Missions of Cyprus, Kenya, Lebanon, Malta, Morocco, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar,
Rwanda, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Tajikistan to the United Nations.
ii.As a part of the observation, UNESCO has also organised the Exhibition Creative Resilience – Art by Women in
Science, showcasing the artwork of 54 women scientists from across the world at Expo 2020 Dubai from 7th to
24th February 2022.
Key Points:
i.Women represent 33.3% of all researchers, only 12% of members of national science academies are women.
ii.In several cutting edge fields like Artificial Intelligence(AI), only 1 in 5professionals, i.e., 22%, is a woman.
iii.By 2026, the Action Coalition aims to double the proportion of women working in technology and innovation,
and ensure that women and girls participate fully in finding solutions to the largest and most complex problems
of our lives.
About UN Women:
Executive Director– Sima Bahous
Headquarters- New York, United States of America (USA)
• The day also aims to spread awareness about healthcare delivery through the Unani system of medicine.
• The Unani Medicinal system originated in Greece. Later the Arabs saved much of the Greek Unani Literature
and rendered it into Arabic.
Background:
i.The Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga, Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, Sowa-Rigpa and Homoeopathy (AYUSH),
Government of India has declared the birth anniversary of Hakim Ajmal Khan, 11th February of every year as the
World Unani Day to recognise his contribution towards the development of Unani medicine in India and across
the world.
ii.The first ever World Unani Day was observed in 2017 at Central Research Institute of Unani Medicine
(CRIUM), an autonomous organization under the Ministry of AYUSH, in Hyderabad, Telangana.
International Conference on Unani Medicine:
The Central Council for Research in Unani Medicine (CCRUM), Ministry of Ayush, has organised an International
Conference on Unani Medicine on 10th & 11th February 2022 in hybrid virtual mode.
• The theme of this international conference is “Diet and Nutrition in Unani Medicine for Good Health and
Well-Being”.
About Hakim Ajmal Khan:
i.Hakim Ajmal Khan, born on 11th February 1868 in Delhi, British India, is an Indian Unani physician, an
educationist, and the founder of scientific research in the Unani System of Medicine.
ii.He was one of the founders of the Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi. He was appointed as the first
chancellor of the university in 1920 and remained in office until his death in 1927.
iii.He took great interest in the expansion and development of Unani sytem of medicine and built three important
institutions, the Central College in Delhi, the Hindustani Dawakhana and the Ayurvedic and Unani Tibbiya
College better known as Tibbia College, Karol Bagh, Delhi, which expanded research and practice in the field and
saved the Unani System of Medicine from extinction in India.
iii.He was the founding member and President All-India Muslim League and he has also served as the President of
the Indian Congress.
STATE NEWS
Manoj Sinha launches 1st of its Kind QR code-based Mechanism To Certify Handmade Carpets of
J&K
On February 10, 2022, the Lieutenant Governor of the Union Territory (UT) of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), Manoj
Sinha launched the Quick Response (QR) Code-based mechanism for labelling the handmade carpets in J&K, a
first-of-its-kind in the country.
• Objective- With the QR-based application, customers can check and verify authenticity and other requisite
details of carpets produced in Jammu and Kashmir.
• He also felicitated UT’s awardees of Handicrafts & Handloom.
Key Points:
i.J&K Handicrafts are repositories of India’s creative traditions that are serving as a cultural expression.
ii.Government is also providing training & financial support to strengthen the artistic and cultural heritage of J&K,
iii.It should be noted that currently carpets are being exported from J&K to at least 25 countries. In 2020-21,
carpets worth Rs 115 crore were exported to Germany, Rs 34 crore worth to USA, Rs 36 Crore to UAE and Rs 22
crore to Netherlands.
iv.The Jammu and Kashmir government has introduced Export Incentive Scheme. Under this scheme, incentive of
10 per cent of the total volume of GI certified Handicrafts and Handloom products exported to any country, with
maximum reimbursement up to ₹5 crore, shall be provided to eligible exporters registered with Department of
Handicrafts and Handloom.
About Jammu & Kashmir (J&K):
Capital– Jammu (winter), Srinagar(summer)
International Airport– Sheikh ul-Alam International Airport
Wildlife Sanctuaries– Rajparian Wildlife Sanctuary, Overa Aru Wildlife Sanctuary, and Thajwas – Baltal Wildlife
Sanctuary
Munishwar Nath Bhandari Appointed as the Chief Justice of Madras High Court
Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari (MN Bhandari), Acting Chief Justice (ACJ) of the Madras High Court (HC), has
been appointed as the Chief Justice (CJ) of the Madras HC.
• The appointment has been approved by the President of India, Ram Nath Kovind.
Following the transfer of Justice Sanjib Banerjee, CJ of the Madras High Court, to Meghalaya HC in November
2021, Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari was appointed as the ACJ of the Madras HC.
About Munishwar Nath Bhandari;
i.Munishwar Nath Bhandari, who hails from Rajasthan, was initially appointed as a judge in the Rajasthan High
Court in 2007.
ii.Later he was transferred to the Allahabad HC in 2019.
iii.In 2021, he was transferred to the Madras High Court, where he assumed office as the ACJ on 22nd November
2021.
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