Current Affairs Quiz - January, 2023

Notes:
India’s agricultural and processed food products exports rose by 16 per cent in the first eight months (April-November) of the current financial year 2022-23 on an annual basis.
For the year 2022-23, an export target of $23.56 billion has been fixed for the agricultural and processed food products basket. At present, the agricultural exports attained 74 per cent of its annual export target.

Notes:
A military court in Myanmar sentenced the country’s ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi to a further seven years in prison on charges of corruption.
This has increased her total jail term to 33 years. The court ruling found Suu Kyi guilty of corruption in relation to purchase, repair and rental of a helicopter for use during natural disasters and state affairs

Notes:
The President of India, Droupadi Murmu, in exercise of the powers conferred by clause (3) of article 77 of the Constitution amended the rules governing E-sports.
Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and the Sports Ministry are asked to include ‘e-Sports as part of multi-sports events’.

Notes:
Keralotsavam is the state-level Youth Festival of Kerala. It is coordinated by Kerala State Youth Welfare Board.
Palakkad emerged the overall champions of the state-level sports competitions held as a part of Keralotsavam. Kozhikode and Kannur stood in the second and third positions. The government provides support for setting up training grounds in all village panchayats.

Notes:
India assumed the chairmanship of the plenary of the Wassenaar Arrangement for one year on January 2023.
The 42-member Wassenaar Arrangement is a voluntary export control regime that monitors transfers of conventional weapons and dual-use goods. Ireland’s ambassador handed over the chairmanship to India’s ambassador last year. India joined the Wassenaar Arrangement in December 2017 as its 42nd participating state.

Notes:
In December, 782 crore transactions in volume terms were done on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) platform, as per the Department of Financial Services.
UPI payments have touched record high of ₹12.82 lakh crore in December. The platform was launched in 2016. In November, as many as 730 crore transactions worth ₹11.90 lakh crore took place via UPI.

Notes:
US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that XBB.1.5 has more than doubled its share of the Covid-19 figures each week.
In the Northeast region of the country, XBB.1.5 is causing 75% of new cases. The XBB.1.5 strain is a relative of the Omicron XBB variant, which is a recombinant of the Omicron BA.2.10.1 and BA.2.75 subvariants.

Notes:
Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachand inaugurated the country’s third international airport in Pokhara built with Chinese assistance.
The Pokhara Regional International Airport (PRIA), a flagship project of Nepal-China Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) cooperation, was constructed with Chinese loan assistance. Besides the Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu, Gautam Buddha International Airport was upgraded as international airport in May 2022.

Notes:
The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) has floated draft control orders (QCOs) for 16 products including air coolers, bicycles and bottled water dispensers.
The items under these orders cannot be produced, sold, imported and stocked unless they have the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) mark. These orders are issued in consonance with the WTO (World Trade Organisation) Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT).

Notes:
The 108th session of Indian Science Congress (ISC) has been launched in Nagpur, Maharashtra. Prime Minister Narendra Modi virtually addressed the Indian Science Congress 2023.
The five-day event is being hosted by the Nagpur University with the focal theme of ‘Science and Technology for Sustainable Development with Women Empowerment’.