ANSWER: A

About Institute for Management Development (IMD):

• IMD business school in Switzerland and Singapore released the 2022 World Competitiveness Ranking. Its think-tank, Institute for Management Development (IMD) World Competitiveness Center, ranks 63 economies and assesses the extent to which a country promotes the prosperity of its people by measuring economic well-being via hard data and survey responses from executives.

Key points:

• India has witnessed the sharpest rise among the Asian economies, with a six-position jump from 43rd to 37th rank on the annual World Competitiveness Index compiled by the Institute for Management Development, largely due to gains in economic performance.
• Denmark has moved to the top of the 63-nation list from the third position last year, while Switzerland slipped from the top ranking to the second position and Singapore regained the third spot from fifth.
• After a stable but stagnant five years, 2022 witnessed significant improvement in the competitiveness of the Indian economy and this is largely due to gains in economic performance (from 37th to 28th).
• Some of the factors that helped India in improving its Rank: The labour market, a key sub-factor in the business efficiency parameter, moved up from 15th to 6th, while management practices and business attitudes and values also made major leaps. major improvements in the context of retrospective taxes in 2021, Its re-regulation of several sectors, including drones, space, and geo-spatial mapping, global movement to fight climate change and pledge of net-zero by 2070 at the COP26 summit etc.
• The top five attractive factors of India’s economy for business are – a skilled workforce, cost competitiveness, dynamism of the economy, high educational level, and open and positive attitudes.

ANSWER: D

• Russia has overtaken Saudi Arabia to become India’s second-biggest supplier of oil behind Iraq as refiners snap up Russian crude available at a deep discount following the war in Ukraine.
• Indian refiners bought about25 million barrels of Russian oil in May, or more than 16 per cent of all their oil imports.
• Russian-origin crude hit 5 per cent of India’s total seaborne imports in April for the first time, rising from under 1% throughout 2021 and Q1 2022.

Key points:

• After the S. and China, India is the world’s third-largest consumer of oil, over 85 per cent of which is imported.
• The Oil Ministry had last month stated that “energy purchases from Russia remain minuscule in comparison to India’s total consumption.”
• Iraq remained the top supplier to India in May and Saudi Arabia is now the third biggest supplier.
• India has taken advantage of discounted prices to ramp up oil imports from Russia at a time when global energy prices have been rising.

ANSWER: C

• To encourage openness and public partnership, the Union Government has developed the Rashtriya Puruskar Portal, which invites nominations for numerous awards given by various Ministries, Departments, and Agencies.
• The Portal intends to make it easier for public to propose people and organisations for various prizes given out by the Indian government.

KEY POINTS:

• This common Rashtriya Puruskar Portal has been developed by the government to invite nominations for various awards.
• These awards include various awards like like Padma Awards, Sardar Patel National Unity Award, Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Award, Jeevan Raksha Padak series of Awards, Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya Telecom Skill Excellence Award, etc.
• This will bring together all of the awards of the various Ministries/Departments/Agencies of the Government of India under one digital platform, ensuring transparency and public partnership.
• This portal attempts to make it easier for public to nominate people and organisations for various awards given by the Indian government.

ANSWER: C

• Life, is a Fintech startup, which claims to be India’s first blockchain-enabled transaction framework, has launched its UPI services aimed at rural India.
• Life claimed it is collaborating closely with regional rural banks and district co-operative banks to assist them bank more efficiently and provide full financial inclusion for the rural population with minimal disturbance.

KEY POINTS:

• Life‘s goal is to make financial services available to people in rural areas who need them the most. There are 4 million Life customers spread throughout 15 states and 1 lakh villages.
• The fintech business stated it works on three models. Those three models are: (1) Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) which comprises their mobile app, (2) Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) which comprises their website, and (3) Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) which corresponds to their mobile vans.
• The company currently has about 100 active mobile vans for digital banking, with plans to expand to 200 in the near future.
• Life seeks to digitise various financial offers and boost the Indian financial sector, particularly in rural India.

ANSWER: A

• The new snail has been described in latest issue of Molluscan Research, an international journal, by Amrut Bhosale, Tejas Thackeray of the Mumbai-based Thackeray Wildlife Foundation and Omkar Yadav of the Medha-based Amdar Shashikant Shinde Mahavidyalay.
• This species is endemic to Vishalgad Conservation Reserve in Shahuwadi tehsil of Maharashtra’s Kolhapur.
• It is named after the type locality of the species in the northern part of the Western Ghats, which is Sahyadri in Sanskrit.
• According to the study, the ‘Sahyadri snail’ is distinguished from other Indian and Southeast Asia’s Haploptychius in having a sub-oblique helical shell, low spire and presence of a strong parietal lamella.
• The species was placed in the genus Haploptychius based on the shell morphology and genital characters.

ANSWER: C

• The Government of India’s Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik (UDAN)initiative is a regional airport development programme that is part of the Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS) for upgrading under-served air routes.
• Its purpose is to make air travel more inexpensive and ubiquitous, as well as to promote inclusive national economic development, employment creation, and the development of air transportation infrastructure in all of India’s regions and states.
• At the start of the project, 406 out of 486 airports were participating under-served airports, 27 out of 97 non-RCS airports were well-served airports, and 12 out of 18 participating under-served regional operational airports with regular fixed-wing scheduled flights were operational airports.
• According to analysts, UDAN is a gamechanger in the aviation business since it allows the average person to commute between smaller cities in minutes rather than hours and at a reasonable cost.
• Over 415UDAN routes connect 66 underserved/unserved airports, including heliports and water aerodromes, benefiting over 92 lakh people.

ANSWER: C

Global Wind Day: History

• The First Wind Day was commemorated in 2007 by the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA). In 2009 the EWEA collaborated with the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) and made it a global event.
• Wind Europe and GWEC from then celebrate this day together.

THEME 2022

• Celebrate to enjoy the benefits of Wind energy and providing education to the individuals about the power and potential of wind energy to change the world.
• This day is dedicated to learn about wind energy and its potential to reshape energy systems, decarbonizing economies and boosting employment as well as growth. The purpose of this day is to increase public knowledge of wind energy and its uses.

ANSWER: B

• India’s javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra set a new national record as he threw 30 metres at the Paavo Nurmi Games in Finland. Neeraj Chopra won the silver medal with his throw at the event.
• Chopra’s earlier national record was07m.
• He had won the Tokyo Olympics gold with a throw of 87.58M in 2021.
• Neeraj Chopra is India’s first ever Olympic gold medallist in athletics and only the second individual gold medallist at Olympics.
• Finland’s Oliver Helander won the gold medal at the event with a throw of 83 metres.

ANSWER: A

• CM presided over the closing ceremony of Saranahuli Mela organised at Prashar in District Mandi.
• While addressing a gathering in the premises of Prashar Rishi temple, the CM said that Saranahuli Mela has immense importance from spiritual, tourism, entertainment and trade point of view.
• He announced to include Prashar area under Nai Rahein Nai Manzilein scheme.

ANSWER: D

• The Department of Industries, Himachal Pradesh organized an interaction of Secretary, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Government of India, Anurag Jain with the startup incubators in the state at Dharamsala.
• He also inaugurated an exhibition of Startups in the state, wherein 24 startups showcased their ideas, products, services from different sectors (IT, Health, Food Technology, biotechnology, tourism, environmental science and technology, etc.).
• The Secretary, DPIIT, along with the Director of Industries, Himachal Pradesh, interacted with a group of 8 nodal officers from state incubation centres.