Daily Current Affairs Quiz: January 16, 2024

ANSWER: B

ANSWER: D

ANSWER: C

ANSWER: A

• PM Modi was seen feeding several Punganur cows at his residence in New Delhi.
• The rare breed, native to a village by the same name in Andhra Pradesh, is diminutive – that it can even be bred in an apartment.
• It is among the world’s dwarfest cattle breeds but yields highly nutritional milk.
• It has high resilience to drought and can adapt to low-quality feed.
• Many temples of Andhra Pradesh, including the famous Tirupati Thirumala Temple, use the milk of a Punganur cow for Ksheeraabhishekam (milk offering to the deity).
• It is known for its high-fat content A2 milk, rich in nutrients such as Omega fatty acids, calcium, potassium, and magnesium, which are essential for maintaining good health.
• A Punganur cow can give around 1 to 3 litres a day, and the milk fat content is 8 per cent as compared to 3 to 4 per cent in other native breeds.
• The higher the value of the feed, good genetics, and maintenance, the better the quality of milk produced.

ANSWER: D

• A consortium of scientists from IIT Kharagpur, Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), and Deccan College has found evidence of cultural continuity in Vadnagar even after the Harappan collapse.
  • Vadnagar is the Prime Minister’s native village.
• The team has found evidence of a human settlement that is as old as 800 BCE contemporary to late-Vedic/pre-Buddhist Mahajanapadas or oligarchic republics.
• Vadnagar was a multicultural and multireligious (Buddhist, Hindu, Jain and Islamic) settlement.
• Excavation in several deep trenches revealed the presence of seven cultural stages (periods) namely, Mauryan, Indo-Greek, Indo-Scythian or Shaka-Kshatrapas (AKA ‘Satraps’, descendants of provincial governors of ancient Achaemenid Empires, Hindu-Solankis, Sultanate-Mughal (Islamic) to Gaekwad-British colonial rule.
• Characteristic archaeological artefacts, potteries, copper, gold, silver and iron objects and intricately designed bangles have been found.
• Coin moulds of the Greek king Appollodatus during the Indo-Greek rule have also been found at Vadnagar.

ANSWER: A

• The World Health Organization (WHO) has certified Cabo Verde (also known as Cape Verde) as a malaria-free country, becoming the third country to acquire the status in the global health organisation’s African region.
• The country has now joined Mauritius and Algeria, who were certified in 1973 and 2019, respectively.
• Africa has the highest malaria burden and accounted for roughly 95 per cent of global malaria cases and 96 per cent of related deaths in 2021.

ABOUT CABO VERDE

• Cape Verde or Cabo Verde, officially the Republic of Cabo Verde, is an archipelago and island country of West Africa in the central Atlantic Ocean.
• It consists of ten volcanic islands with a combined land area of about 4,033 square kilometres.

ANSWER: B

• The indigenously developed and manufactured Astra Missiles were recently supplied to the Indian Air Force.

ABOUT ASTRA

• Astra is a beyond visual range (BVR) air-to-air missile.
• It has been indigenously developed by DRDO and manufactured by BDL for the IAF.
• Astra Weapon System is said to be the best in its class weapon systems in the world in the category of Air-to-Air missiles.
• The missile has a range of 100 plus km.
• It is designed to engage and destroy highly manoeuvrable supersonic aerial targets.

ANSWER: C

• In 2022, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi officially declared 16^th January as National Startup Day.
• The Startup India initiative was inaugurated on 16 January 2016 to create a powerful and dynamic environment for startups that foster innovation by supporting them financially.
• Under the Startup India programme, startups in the country expanded from around 400 to 1.18 lakh.
• The National Startup Week or Startup India Innovation Week 2024 that commenced from January 10 to 16, revolves around the theme “Startups Unlocking Infinite Potential.”

ANSWER: B

• India’s First National Highway Steel Slag Road section on NH- 66 Mumbai-Goa National Highway was inaugurated recently.
• Steel Slag Road Technology, developed by CSIR-Central Road Research Institute (CSIR-CRRI) is transforming the waste of steel industries into wealth and is helping the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to build stronger and ecofriendly national highways in the country.
• The bituminous steel slag road is constructed with 28% less thickness compared to conventional bituminous roads on NH-66.
• The construction process involved converting approximately 80,000 tons of CONARC Steel slag into processed steel slag aggregates.
  • These exhibit superior mechanical properties compared to natural aggregates and have been used in all layers of the road, replacing traditional natural aggregates.

ANSWER: D

• The Kerala Drug Control Department has launched Operation Amrith (AMRITH – Antimicrobial Resistance Intervention For Total Health) to prevent the overuse of antibiotics in the state.
• Operation Amrith is aimed at conducting surprise raids in retail medical shops for detecting over-the-counter (OTC) sale of antibiotics.

FACT

• The Kerala government was the first state in India that came up with the state action plan on AMR, Kerala Anti-Microbial Resistance Strategic Action Plan (KARSAP), in 2018.
• Aligned with India’s National Action Plan on AMR, Kerala’s plan reflected a multi-sectoral approach.

ANSWER: A

• The Indian Navy and Royal Thai Navy (RTN) conducted a maiden bilateral exercise, named ‘Ex-Ayutthaya’.
• The Indo-Thai Bilateral Exercise ‘Ex-Ayutthaya’ translates to ‘The Invincible One’ or ‘Undefeatable’, and “symbolises the significance of two of the oldest cities, Ayodhya in India and Ayutthaya in Thailand, the historic legacies, rich cultural ties and shared historical narratives dating back to several centuries.
• The Indian Naval ships Kulish and IN LCU 56 participated in the inaugural edition of the exercise.
• The Royal Thai Navy side was represented by His Thai Majesty’s Ship (HTMS) Prachuap Khiri Khan.