Daily Current Affairs Quiz: February 10, 2024

ANSWER: A

ANSWER: C

ANSWER: A

ANSWER: B

• The Asian Development Bank (ADB) which started operations in India in 1986 has appointed Japanese national Mio Oka as its new Country Director for India.

ABOUT ASIAN DEVELOPMENT BANK

• ADB assists its members, and partners, by providing loans, technical assistance, grants, and equity investments to promote social and economic development.
• ADB maximizes the development impact of its assistance by facilitating policy dialogues, providing advisory services, and mobilizing financial resources through co-financing operations that tap official, commercial, and export credit sources.
• Established on 19 December 1966, with 31 members
• Takeshi Watanabe was ADB’s first President.
• From 31 members at its establishment in 1966, ADB has grown to encompass 68 members—of which 49 are from within Asia and the Pacific and 19 outside.
• Headquarters- Manila, Philippines.
• ADB’s five largest shareholders are Japan and the United States (each with 15.6% of total shares), the People’s Republic of China (6.4%), India (6.3%), and Australia (5.8%).

ANSWER: C

• The Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT Kanpur), has successfully developed and tested India’s first hypervelocity expansion tunnel test facility.
  • An expansion tunnel is an aerodynamic (relating to the properties of moving air, and the interaction between the air and solid bodies moving through it) facility capable of generating high-energy test conditions with negligible or no ionisation.
  • In these aerodynamic testing facilities, achieving high speeds for an aircraft is the goal.
• Hypervelocity means very high velocity, say, over 3,000 metres per second.
• India now joins the small group of nations that have this advanced hypersonic (speed more than five times than that of sound) testing capability.
• The facility, called S2, will help the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) perform missions.
• There are four major sections in the facility: a free piston driver, a compression tube, a shock or acceleration tube, and a test section with a vacuum system to generate hypersonic speeds.

ANSWER: D

• In an attempt to hit a target in Kyiv, Russian forces launched a 3M22 Zircon missile, according to a report published in Ukrainian media.
• The report noted that one of the images specifically depicts a piece of debris bearing the “3M22” designation, which, along with the Kh-47 Kinzhal, is associated with the so-called “Putin’s wunderwaffe,” or the Russian military’s most popular “hypersonic” long-range strike weapons.
• If the use of Zircon is confirmed, it will be the first combat use of Russia’s newest hypersonic missile.

 ABOUT ZIRCON MISSILE

• The missile is reportedly capable of flying with speeds up to Mach 9 and a range of 1000 km.
• It’s a two-stage missile that uses solid fuel in the first stage and a scramjet motor in the second stage.
• Zircon cruise missiles use cooled supersonic combustion ramjet engines, which power combustion by compressing air flowing at supersonic speeds due to the missile’s forward motion.

ANSWER: C

• World Pulses Day is celebrated on 10 February every year.
• The UN General Assembly recognised the value of pulses in 2013 and initiated the process of adopting the year 2016 as the International Year of Pulses (IYP).
• In 2018, the United Nations General Assembly declared February 10 as World Pulses Day.
• This year, the theme for World Pulses Day is ‘#Pulses: nourishing soils and people’.
• The theme emphasises the importance of pulses in improving soil health and nutrient cycling, which can lead to increased crop productivity and food security.

ANSWER: D

• Pyarelal Sharma, the one-half of the iconic music composer duo Laxmikant-Pyarelal, has been honoured with the Lakshminarayana International Award for his contribution to art.
• Pyarelal, 83, was also announced as a recipient of the Padma Bhushan, India’s third highest civilian honour, on the eve of Republic Day.
• The Lakshminarayana International Award was presented to the industry veteran by musicians L
• Subramaniam and Kavita Krishnamurti Subramaniam as part of the Lakshminarayana Global Music Festival, which they have been conducting for 33 years.

ANSWER: A

• Sikkim Chief Minister Prem Singh Tamang has announced the restoration of the Old Pension System (OPS) for state government employees appointed on or after April 1, 2006.
• Sikkim now stands as the first state in the Northeast to implement
• As per Sikkim services pension rules, 1990, employees appointed on or before March 31, 1990 will get benefit of this revival.

ANSWER: D

• Yemen’s internationally recognised government has named Foreign Minister Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak as the new prime minister.
• Bin Mubarak replaces Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed at a time of rising tensions in the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country after a spate of Red Sea attacks by Houthi rebels on ships that have prompted retaliatory strikes by the United States and the UK.