Current Affairs - Current News

A recent three-month-long excavation (in 2022) at Rakhigarhi – a 5,000-year-old Harappan site has revealed new insights of this settlement.

So far, seven mounds have been excavated in Rakhigarhi, each of which has revealed a range of artefacts. This time, the digging was done in three of the seven mounds, out of which mounds number 6 and 7 have been notified by ASI as sites of national importance.

On 12th May 2022, Union Minister of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying Shri Parshottam Rupala released the Breed-Wise Report of Livestock and Poultry based on 20th Livestock Census.

• The breed-wise data collection was done along with 20th Livestock Census during the year 2019.

On 11th May 2022, the Supreme Court of India freezed a colonial era sedition law until its re-examination.

• The Supreme said, “We hope and expect that the State and Central Governments will restrain from registering any FIR, continuing any investigation or taking any coercive measures by invoking Section 124A of IPC while the aforesaid provision of law is under consideration.”

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will build an identical pair of satellites for studying the earth’s upper atmosphere.

The twin satellites named DISHA (Disturbed and quiet time Ionosphere-thermosphere System at High Altitudes) will be launched in the low earth orbit – about 500 km above earth – to study the physics and chemistry of the upper atmosphere.

A new measurement of a fundamental particle called the W boson appears to defy the Standard Model of particle physics, our current understanding of how the basic building blocks of the universe interact.

The scientists at the Fermilab Collider Detector (CDF) in Illinois, USA have found that elusive W boson has a slightly (1%) higher mass (80,433,000 electron volts) than predicted in the Standard Model (80,357,000 electron volts). The difference is tiny but in the world of particle physics, it is huge anomaly. This means that the Standard Model may be in for a massive overhaul.

Scientists, in a recent research paper ‘Science Advances’ came out with the fact that the world's oceans are losing their ‘memories’.

The researchers discovered this phenomenon by examining the similarity in ocean surface temperature from one year to the next as a simple metric for ‘Ocean Memory’ and it was found almost as if the ocean is developing amnesia.

The State of the World’s Forests (SOFO) 2022 report was released by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

Major Findings of the Report

Loss of Forest

The world has lost 420 million hectares (mha), approximately 10.34 per cent of its total forest area in the last 30 years.

On 5th May 2022, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya released the National Report of the fifth round of National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) at Gujarat's Vadodara.

The NFHS-5 National Report lists progress from NFHS-4 (2015-16) to NFHS-5 (2019-21).

The Government has reviewed the existing draft National Youth Policy, 2014 and prepared a new draft National Youth Policy (NYP).

• The draft NYP envisages a ten-year vision for youth development that India seeks to achieve by 2030.

On 22nd April 2022, the Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment and Chairman of Dr. Ambedkar Foundation (DAF) launched the Dr. Ambedkar Centres of Excellence (DACE) Scheme from Banaras Hindu University.

The scheme will be implemented in 31 Central Universities across the country.