Current Affairs Quiz - April 2022

Notes:
International Transgender Day of Visibility is observed on March 31. The USAID launched an initiative called ‘Unbox Me campaign’, which advocates for the rights of transgender children.
It aims to raise awareness among parents, teachers and the society about gender identity during childhood. The campaign originated in India, where more than 90 per cent of transgender people leave their homes, or sent out, by the age of 15.

Notes:
Gujarat’s Surat has become the first city in the country to get a processed steel slag (industrial waste) road.
It has been built as part of a joint-venture project by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Central Road Research Institute (CRRI), Union Ministry of Steel, NITI Aayog, and Arcelor-Mitttal-Nippon Steel. The slag is generated from a steel furnace in the form of molten flux material as an impurity.

Notes:
Directorate General of Foreign Trade, under the aegis of the Ministry of Commerce and Industries is responsible for the Foreign Trade Policy (DGFT) of India.
Recently, the DGFT announced that the existing Foreign Trade Policy 2015-20, which is valid upto March 31, 2022 is extended up to September 30, 2022. After the outbreak of Covid-19, the policy was first extended by a year to the end of March 2020.

Notes:
The National Dope Testing Laboratory (NDTL) has indigenously developed six new and rare Reference Materials (RMs).
It is the purest form of chemical required for anti-doping analysis in all WADA-accredited Laboratories across the world. They have been developed by NDTL in association with the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER)-Guwahati and the CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine (IIIM), Jammu.

Notes:
The US-based National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, has launched a Phase 1 clinical trial to evaluate three experimental HIV vaccines based on a messenger RNA (mRNA) platform.
It is the technology used in several approved COVID-19 vaccines. This study named HVTN 302 is sponsored by NIAID while the NIAID-funded HIV Vaccine Trials Network is conducting the trial.

Notes:
Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal announced that India’s merchandise exports rose to a record high of USD 418 billion in the 2021-22 fiscal.
The rise is due to the higher shipments of petroleum products, engineering goods, gems and jewellery and chemicals. India’s goods trade (exports and imports) crossed USD 1 trillion during 2021-22. India’s imports also touched an all-time high of USD 610 billion.

Notes:
Sweden has launched a pilot project to reduce the carbon emissions involved in steel production by switching some of that process from burning coking coal to burning hydrogen.
HYBRIT or Hydrogen Breakthrough Iron-making Technology – is a joint venture between steel giant SSAB, mining company LKAB and Swedish state-owned power firm Vattenfall. As per World Steel Association, every metric ton of steel produced emitted twice that much carbon dioxide.

Notes:
Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha, said that India tops the world in terms of number of persons killed in road accidents.
Based on the latest issue of the World Road Statistics (WRS) 2018, of the International Road Federation, Geneva, India ranks third as per number of accidents and third in number of persons injured in road accidents.

Notes:
Global Wind Energy Council released its flagship Global Wind Report 2022. The report says that 93.6 gigawatts of capacity was installed last year, a little less than the 95.3 GW installed in 2020.
According to the report, the decline in onshore installations was driven by the world’s two largest wind power markets: China and the U.S. The report also called for a significant rise in global wind energy capacity.

Notes:
‘Project Kuiper’ is a flagship project of the ace multi-national technology company Amazon. It is Amazon’s proposed internet-from-space initiative.
Amazon announced that it has booked new launches on three different rockets to get its satellites into orbit. The satellites will fly on rockets currently being developed by European launch provider Arianespace, US-based United Launch Alliance, and Blue Origin.