Daily GK and Current Affairs Quiz – 3rd February 2022

Correct Answer – B. February 02

Explanation: World Wetlands Day is observed every year on February 2 all over the world. 2022 marks 51 years of the Convention on Wetlands. The international theme for World Wetlands Day 2022 is ‘Wetlands Action for People and Nature’. The day aims to raise awareness about the crucial role played by wetlands for people and our planet.

Why it is celebrated annually on the 2nd of February?

The day is celebrated to mark the date of the adoption of the Convention on Wetlands on February 2, 1971, in the Iranian city of Ramsar on the shores of the Caspian Sea. World Wetlands Day was first celebrated in 1997.

Defining Wetlands:

Wetlands are a habitat for a dense variety of plant and animal species and also rich with the biodiversity which is declining according to the researcher’s estimates. These are the land areas that are saturated or flooded with water either perennially or seasonally.

Types of wetlands:

• Coastal wetlands: mangroves, estuaries, saltwater marshes, lagoons etc.
• Inland wetlands: marshes, fens, lakes, swamps, rivers, floodplains and ponds.
• Human-made wetlands: Fish ponds, saltpans, and rice paddies.

Correct Answer – E. Urjit Patel

Explanation: Former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor, Urjit Patel has resigned from the post of non-executive and independent director of Britannia Industries Limited, citing a full-time work assignment starting next month. He was a part of the Board of the Company. The former governor also confirmed that there was no other reason other than his new project for the resignation.

Patel was recently appointed vice president for investment operations in South Asia at the Beijing-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). His appointment is effective from 1 February. As the 24th governor of RBI, Patel had succeeded Raghuram Rajan and served as the governor of RBI from 2016-2018. Prior to that, he was RBI’s deputy governor in charge of monetary policy.

Correct Answer – C. Punjab National Bank

Explanation: Punjab National Bank (PNB) and Patanjali Ayurved Limited (PAL) have launched co-branded contactless credit cards in partnership with the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). The co-branded credit cards are offered on NPCI’s RuPay Platform and are available in two variants – PNB RuPay Platinum and PNB RuPay Select.

Both the co-branded cards offer a hassle-free credit service to purchase day-to-day Patanjali products, along with cash backs, loyalty points. PNB RuPay Platinum and PNB RuPay Select cardholders will receive a welcome bonus of 300 reward points on activation.

Benefits of the cards:

Platinum and Select cards come with attractive insurance cover of ₹2 lakh and ₹10 lakh, respectively for Accidental Death and Personal Total Disability.

Platinum Card offers a credit limit of ₹25,000 to ₹5 lakh and Select Card ₹50,000 to ₹10 lakh. The Platinum version comes with a zero joining fee and an annual fee of ₹500, while the Select version offers a low joining fee of ₹500 and an annual fee of ₹750.

The annual fees will be waived off in case of the card is used at least once in each quarter in the preceding year.

Important Points: 

• Punjab National Bank Founded: 1894;
• Punjab National Bank Headquarters: New Delhi;
• Punjab National Bank MD & CEO: Atul Kumar Goel;
• Punjab National Bank Tagline: The Name You Can Bank Upon.
• Patanjali Ayurved Limited Founded: January 2006;
• Patanjali Ayurved Limited Headquarters: Haridwar;
• Patanjali Ayurved Limited Founders: Ramdev, Balkrishna.

Correct Answer – D. Portugal

Explanation: The Prime Minister of Portugal, Antonio Costo has been re-elected after his centre-left Socialist Party secured a landslide victory in the 2022 Portuguese legislative election. Socialist Party bagged 117 seats in the 230 seats Parliament. Despite predictions of a tight race, the main opposition centre-right PSD party landed 27.8 per cent for 71 seats. Antonio Costo is serving as the 119th Prime Minister of Portugal since 26 November 2015.

Important Points:

• Portugal President: Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa;
• Portugal Capital: Lisbon;
• Portugal Currency: Euro.

Correct Answer – C. Shera

Explanation: Chief Electoral Officer’s office of Punjab unveiled its election mascot, “Shera” (Lion). It aims to increase voter awareness, participation and promote ethical voting in the Punjab Assembly polls that is scheduled on 20 February 2022.The mascot “Shera”, depicting a lion. It represents the rich cultural heritage of Punjab.It is promoted under the Systematic Voters Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) project of the Election Commission of India (ECI). SVEEP project was started in 2009, as the flagship program of the ECI for voter education.

Important Points: 

• Punjab Capital: Chandigarh;
• Punjab Chief minister: Charanjit Singh Channi;
• Punjab Governor: Banwarilal Purohit.

Correct Answer – A. HPCL

Explanation:  Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd. (HPCL) has marked its foray into the non-fuel retailing sector by inaugurating its Retail Store under the brand name HaPpyShop, to make available the products of daily need to its customers at their convenience. The first retail store was launched by HPCL in September 2021 in Mumbai at Company’s Retail Outlet located at Nepean Sea Road.

Giving it a further push, the company has announced the opening of two more Convenience Stores of ‘HaPpyShop’ on January 31, 2022.  The two new stores are located at:

Company’s Auto Care Centre, Bandra West in Mumbai,

Millennium Retail Outlet in Visakhapatnam

In addition to this, HPCL has launched the platform in a purely online format by opening the Online Store at Madurai. HPCL is also marketing branded packaged drinking water at its Retail Outlets across the country under the name ‘Paani@Club HP’.

Important Points:

• HPCL Headquarters: Mumbai;
• HPCL CEO and Chairperson: Mukesh Kumar Surana.

Correct Answer – B. GAV Reddy

Explanation: Lieutenant General GAV Reddy, SC, has been appointed as the new head of the Defence Intelligence Agency.General Reddy would be succeeding Lt Gen KJS Dhillon. The Director-General of the Defence Intelligence Agency is the head of the organisation and is among the principal advisors on intelligence to the Minister of Defence and the Chief of Defence Staff.The Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) is an intelligence agency responsible for providing and coordinating defence and military intelligence to the Indian Armed Forces.It was formed in March 2002 and is administered within and directly under the due guidance of the Ministry of Defence.

Correct Answer – C. Rs. 1575 crore

Explanation: The government has approved the continuation of the Scheme of Assistance to National Sports Federations with an outlay of Rs.1575 crore for the 15th Finance Commission Cycle 2021-22 to 2025-26.It is the main source of funding for the preparation of national teams for all major national, international competitions.Funding will be used by National Sports Federations to conduct national coaching camps and provide training of international standards to athletes.

Correct Answer – C. Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL)

Explanation: Bharat Dynamics Limited signed a contract worth ₹3131.82 crores for the manufacture and supply of Konkurs anti-tank missiles for the Indian Army.Bharat Dynamics will manufacture and supply Konkurs anti-tank missiles to the Indian Army.Konkurs – M is a second generation, mechanized infantry anti-tank guided missile, to destroy armored vehicle equipped with explosive reactive armour.BDL is also offering Man Portable Anti-Tank Guided Missiles, Nag, Milan-2T and Amogha, in addition to Konkurs – M, for exports.

Correct Answer – A. Dukaan

Explanation: Dukaan, a platform that enables small and medium-sized businesses to set up online stores and sell products digitally, has partnered with Simpl to provide BNPL services to Dukaan’s merchants.Simpl is a marquee buy-now-pay-later platform.Dukaan is a Bangalore-based startup that enables D2C and SMB merchants to set up online stores and sell products digitally.It has customers across multiple industries in the D2C space, including food & beverage, fashion, home décor, electronics and digital products, to name a few.

Correct Answer – C. Gujarat

Explanation: Khijadia Wildlife Sanctuary in Gujarat declared Ramsar sites on the occasion of World Wetland Day 2022.Khijadia Wildlife Sanctuary (Ramsar site No. 2464), a freshwater wetland near the coast of the Gulf of Kutch, was formed following the creation of a bund (dike) in 1920 by the then ruler of the erstwhile princely state of Nawanagar to protect farmlands from saltwater ingress.The sanctuary is now part of Marine National Park, Jamnagar, the first marine national park in the country.Khijadiya, which is part of the Central Asian Flyway, has become the fourth wetland of Gujarat to get the Ramsar tag.

Correct Answer – C. Rs. 1575 crore

Explanation: The government has approved the continuation of the Scheme of Assistance to National Sports Federations with an outlay of Rs.1575 crore for the 15th Finance Commission Cycle 2021-22 to 2025-26.It is the main source of funding for the preparation of national teams for all major national, international competitions.Funding will be used by National Sports Federations to conduct national coaching camps and provide training of international standards to athletes.

Correct Answer – C. IISc Bangalore

Explanation: The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore has installed and commissioned Param Pravega, one of the most powerful supercomputers in the country. It is also the largest in an Indian academic institution. It has been installed under the National Supercomputing Mission (NSM). It is designed by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC).

Important Points

The system has a total supercomputing capacity of 3.3 petaflops (1 petaflop equals a quadrillion or 1015 operations per second).   A majority of the components used to build the system have been manufactured and assembled within the country. The Param Pravega system at IISc is a mix of heterogeneous nodes, with Intel Xeon Cascade Lake processors for the CPU nodes and NVIDIA Tesla V100 cards on the GPU nodes. The hardware consists of an ATOS BullSequana XH2000 series system, with a comprehensive peak compute power of 3.3 petaflops.

Additional Information

National Supercomputing Mission (NSM) has supported the deployment of 10 supercomputer systems so far at IISc, IITs, IISER Pune, JNCASR, NABI-Mohali, and C-DAC, with a cumulative computing power of 17 petaflops.

Correct Answer: D. 1974

Explanation: Monica Vitti, a 20th-century Italian actress, passed away in February 2022. She shot to international fame in 1960 when she did a leading role in L’Avventura (The Adventure). L’Avventura won the jury prize at the Cannes festival in 1960 and Vitti won the Golden Globe for Best Breakthrough Actress the following year.  She also won the David di Donatello award for best actress in 1974.