ANSWER: C

• The Meghalaya government key initiative of e-proposal system, part of Meghalaya Enterprise Architect has won a coveted UN Award- World Summit on the Information Society Forum (WSIS) prize at Geneva in Switzerland.
• Secretary General of International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Houlin Zhao presented the winner award to Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma in the WSIS Forum Prizes 2022, held at Geneva, Switzerland.
• Meghalaya contested with projects from Australia, China, Argentina and Tanzania.
• MeghEA is the only project from India to win the Winner Award this year.

About the MeghEA project:

• MeghEA project is being implemented by Planning Department, Government of Meghalaya. The project has several components such as Government to Citizen or Business services, Government to Employee services and Government to Government services. E-Proposal system, part of the Government-to-Government component, enables faster processing and tracking of schemes.

ANSWER: C

• A heritage centre to showcase the role of the Indian Air Force in various wars and its overall functioning will come up at
• The ‘IAF Heritage Centre’ will be set up jointly by the force and the Chandigarh administration. An MoU between the Union Territory of Chandigarh and the IAF for setting up of the centre was inked.

About the Heritage Centre:

• This heritage centre will have artefact, simulators and interactive boards to highlight various facets of IAF.
• It will also showcase the vital role played by the service in various wars and assistance rendered for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.
• This joint project of Administration of UT Chandigarh and IAF is planned to be completed by October.

ANSWER: A

• World Environment Day is observed globally on 5th June every year. This day is observed to raise awareness about protecting the environment and to remind people not to take nature granted. It is the biggest international day for the environment.
• The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)is the nodal agency that organises and supports events across the world.
• Theme of World Environment Day 2022.
• Sweden is the host this year and the theme is ‘Only One Earth,’ focusing on the need to live sustainably in harmony with nature.

ANSWER: D

• Turkiye Capital: Ankara;
• President of Turkiye: Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
• Turkiye Currency: Turkish lira.
• The United Nations has changed the Republic of Turkey’s country name at the organisation from “Turkey” to “Türkiye”, following a request from Ankara for the change.
• Turkey began the move to change its internationally recognised official name in English to Türkiye in December after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan released a memorandum and asked the public to use Türkiye to describe the country in every language.
• Türkiye is the best representation and expression of the Turkish people’s culture, civilization and values.

ANSWER: B

About the SHRESHTA Scheme:

• Scheme for Residential Education for Students in High Schools in Targeted Areas (SHRESHTA)provides for high quality education for meritorious but poor SC students in CBSE-affiliated reputed residential schools across the country.
• Approximately 3,000 seats are provided each year for admission in class 9th and 11th and the entire cost of the school fee and residential charges are borne by the Department.
• The students, belonging to Scheduled Castes, studying in class 8th and 10th in the current academic year are eligible for availing the benefits of scheme are selected through a transparent mechanism through a National Entrance Test for SHRESHTA (NETS),which is conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) for admission in class 9th and 11th.
• Students belonging to marginalized income group within the SC community, whose parental annual income is upto 2.5 Lakh are eligible. Successful candidates, after following the e-counselling process, are given admission in the school of their choice anywhere in the Country for their academic persuasion.
• The Department shall bear the total cost of the school fee and hostel charges till completion of their academic up to class 12th. There after the students of the scheme may avail benefits of other schemes of the Department for their higher education.

ANSWER: C

• The Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) has approved Hyderabad­ based Biological E. Limited (BE)’s COVID­19 vaccine Corbevax as a COVID­19 booster dose.
• The vaccine be administered to adults six months after the administration of second dose of Covaxin or Covishield for restricted use in emergency situations.
• According to the company, Corbevax is India’s first approved heterologous COVID booster (when the third dose is different from earlier doses). Be hasn’t received who’s emergency use listing for the jab.
• WHO’s EUL procedure assesses the quality, safety and efficacy of COVID­19 vaccines and is a prerequisite for COVAX vaccine supply.

ANSWER: C

• According to a census done by the Chilika Development Authority (CDA) in collaboration with the Fishing Cat Project (TFCP),the Chilika Lake (Asia’s largest brackish water lagoon) has 176 fishing cats,
• This is the world’s first population estimation of the fishing cat done outside the protected area network.
• According to the CDA, phase 1 of the estimation was conducted in 2021 in the 115 sq.km marshland in the north and north­eastern section of Chilika and its surrounding areas.
• Phase 2 was conducted in 2022 in the Parikud side along the coastal islands of Chilika.  A total of 150 camera traps were deployed in two phases with each fixed in the field for 30 days.
• According the CDA, spatially explicit capture recapture method was used to analyse the data.

ANSWER: C

• Men: Rafael Nadal won a 14th French Open.
• He defeated Casper Ruud to become the oldest male champion at Roland­ Garros   history, going past Andres Gimeno who won the 1972 edition.
• Women: Iga Swiatek beats Coco Gauff to win second career Grand Slam title.

ANSWER: D

• Palampur Agriculture University has started an initiative to save and register traditional crops or land race plant varieties being grown in remote areas of the state.
• The university has moved to get geographical indicators (GI) tag for Ginger variety grown in Badhana Kalatha panchayat of Sirmaur and Basmati rice grown in Biyala village in Sundernagar area of Mandi district.
• The university is in the process of registering the basmati rice and the ginger under the Plant Variety and Farmers Right Act.

ANSWER: C

• Mandi District Magistrate Arindam Chaudhary said single-use plastic items would be completely banned in Mandi district from July 1.
• No shopkeeper, wholesaler, retailer, hawker and street vendor would be allowed to sell or use any type of single-use plastic goods in the district.
• Mandi District Magistrate issued these directions, in exercise of the powers conferred under sub-section (1) of Section 3-A of the Non-Bio-degradable Waste (Control) Act, 1995, and it shall be fully applicable from July 1.
• The state government provides a minimum support price of Rs 25 per kg to a person for collection and deposit of plastic waste in collection centres of urban local bodies from rag pickers and households.
• The violation of orders, appropriate action would be taken against the violators under the Environment Protection Act, 1986, which includes confiscation of goods, recovery of environmental compensation and closure of operations of industries/commercial establishments.