Latest Awards General Knowledge(GK) Questions and answers

1 .

Who has won the 2022 UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award?

A)

Ursula von der Leyen

B)

Gerhard SchrÃ¶der

C)

Annalena Baerbock

D)

Angela Merkel

Correct Answer : Angela Merkel

NHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, announced 4th Oct 2022 that Dr. Angela Merkel, the former Federal Chancellor of Germany, will receive the 2022 UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award.

Each year, the award – named after the Norwegian explorer, scientist, diplomat and humanitarian Fridtjof Nansen – is given to an individual, group or organization who has gone above and beyond the call of duty to protect refugees, internally displaced or stateless people.

Under then Federal Chancellor Merkel’s leadership, Germany welcomed more than 1.2 million refugees and asylum seekers in 2015 and 2016 – at the height of the conflict in Syria and amid deadly violence in other places.

At that time, the then Chancellor said : “It was a situation which put our European values to the test as seldom before. It was no more and no less than a humanitarian imperative.” She called on her fellow Germans to reject divisive nationalism and urged them instead to be “self-assured and free, compassionate and open-minded”.

Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, praised former Federal Chancellor Merkel’s determination to protect asylum-seekers and to stand up for human rights, humanitarian principles and international law. “By helping more than a million refugees to survive and rebuild, Angela Merkel displayed great moral and political courage,” Grandi said.

“It was true leadership, appealing to our common humanity, standing firm against those who preached fear and discrimination. She showed what can be achieved when politicians take the right course of action and work to find solutions to the world’s challenges rather than simply shift responsibility to others.”

The selection committee said it was recognizing former Federal Chancellor Merkel’s “leadership, courage and compassion in ensuring the protection of hundreds of thousands of desperate people” as well as her efforts to find “viable long-term solutions” for those seeking safety..

Source : UNHCR

2 .

Who has won Nobel Prize 2022 in Literature?

A)

Yasmina Reza

B)

Leila Slimani

C)

Annie Ernaux

D)

Michel Houellebecq

Correct Answer : Annie Ernaux

Annie Ernaux

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2022

Born: 1 September 1940, Lillebonne, France

Residence at the time of the award: France

Prize motivation : “for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory”

Language : French.

Source : Nobelprize

3 .

Carolyn Bertozzi, Morten Meldel, and K.Barry Sharpless have jointly won Nobel Prize 2022 in which category?

A)

Chemistry

B)

Physics

C)

Medicine

D)

Literature

Correct Answer : Chemistry

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2022 to

* Carolyn R. Bertozzi :Stanford University, CA, USA

* Morten Meldal : University of Copenhagen, Denmark

* K. Barry Sharpless : Scripps Research, La Jolla, CA, USA

Chemists have long been driven by the desire to build increasingly complicated molecules. In pharmaceutical research, this has often involved artificially recreating natural molecules with medicinal properties. This has led to many admirable molecular constructions, but these are generally time consuming and very expensive to produce.

“This year’s Prize in Chemistry deals with not overcomplicating matters, instead working with what is easy and simple. Functional molecules can be built even by taking a straightforward route,” says Johan Åqvist, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry.

Barry Sharpless – who is now being awarded his second Nobel Prize in Chemistry – started the ball rolling. Around the year 2000, he coined the concept of click chemistry, which is a form of simple and reliable chemistry, where reactions occur quickly and unwanted by-products are avoided.

Shortly afterwards, Morten Meldal and Barry Sharpless – independently of each other – presented what is now the crown jewel of click chemistry: the copper catalysed azide-alkyne cycloaddition. This is an elegant and efficient chemical reaction that is now in widespread use. Among many other uses, it is utilised in the development of pharmaceuticals, for mapping DNA and creating materials that are more fit for purpose.

Carolyn Bertozzi took click chemistry to a new level. To map important but elusive biomolecules on the surface of cells – glycans – she developed click reactions that work inside living organisms. Her bioorthogonal reactions take place without disrupting the normal chemistry of the cell..

Source : Nobelprize

4 .

Who won the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) prestigious Nansen award 2022?

A)

Angela Merkel

B)

Annalena Baerbock

C)

Irene Kasner

D)

Ursula von der Leyen

Correct Answer : Angela Merkel

Former German chancellor Angela Merkel won the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) prestigious Nansen award for her “leadership, courage and compassion” in ensuring the protection of hundreds of thousands of desperate people at the height of the Syria crisis.

Dr. Angela Merkel is the 2022 Nansen Award global laureate for her political courage, compassion and decisive action as Federal Chancellor of Germany to protect people forced to flee.

The year 2022 marked a century (100 years) since Fridtjof Nansen was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922. It is also 100 years since the creation of the Nansen passport, an identity document for refugees that enabled its holders to move across borders in search of work.

* The Nansen Award 2022 regional winner for Africa was given to The Mbera Fire Brigade, an all-volunteer firefighting group in Mauritania led by Ahmedou Ag Albohary.

* The award for the Americas went to Vicenta González, a women’s rights advocate and activist whose cacao cooperative in Costa Rica empowers local and asylum-seeking women.

* Meikswe Myanmar, a humanitarian organization that assists communities in need, including internally displaced people was announced as the regional winner for Asia and the Pacific and the regional winner for the Middle East and North Africa was given to Dr.

* Nagham Hasan, a gynaecologist from Iraq who helps fellow Yazidi women who were forced into slavery by ISIS to recover from their trauma.

About UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award :

* It is the annual award established in 1954, named after the Norwegian explorer, scientist, diplomat and humanitarian Fridtjof Nansen.

* Fridtjof Nansen was the first High Commissioner for Refugees. He was awarded the 1922 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to repatriate prisoners of war and to protect millions of refugees of the Romanov, Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires.

* The award is given to an individual, group or organization who has gone above and beyond the call of duty to protect refugees, internally displaced or stateless people..

Source : Unhcr

5 .

How many people have been awarded the Nobel Prize 2022 in Physics for their work in quantum physics?

A)

2 Scientists

B)

3 Scientists

C)

4 Scientists

D)

5 Scientists

Correct Answer : 3 Scientists

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Tuesday(4th Oct 2022) announced the winners of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics.

The top science award was given to Alain Aspect (France), John F. Clauser (USA) and Anton Zeilinger (Austria) for their work in quantum physics.

Reason : For Experimented with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneered quantum information science.

While John Clauser developed John Bell’s ideas and took measurements that supported quantum mechanics by clearly violating a Bell inequality, Alain Aspect of the Université Paris-Saclay and École Polytechnique, Palaiseau, France developed the setup, using it in a way that closed an important loophole in Clauser's experiments.

Meanwhile, Anton Zeilinger, using refined tools and a long series of experiments, started to use entangled quantum states. The research group demonstrated a phenomenon called quantum teleportation, which makes it possible to move a quantum state from one particle to one at a distance..

Source : India Today

6 .

Which state has come first in Swachh Survekshan Grameen 2022 award under the large states category?

A)

Haryana

B)

Gujarat

C)

Tamil Nadu

D)

Telangana

Correct Answer : Telangana

Telangana won the first prize under the large states category under the Swachh Survekshan Grameen (SSG) 2022 which looks into the sanitation status of rural areas. Haryana was in the second position while Tamil Nadu was third. The awards were presented by President Droupadi Murmu.

The Swachh Survekshan Gramin-2022 award ranks states and districts on the basis of their performance attained on key quantitative and qualitative Swachh Bharat Mission - Gramin (SBM-G) parameters and engagement of the rural community in the improvement of their sanitation status.

Among smaller states and Union territories, Andaman and Nicobar secured the first position followed by Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu and Sikkim..

Source : Economic Times

7 .

Which Indian-American has been honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the United States on October 2022?

A)

Parag Agarwal

B)

Kash Patel

C)

Vivek Lall

D)

Laxman Narasimhan

Correct Answer : Vivek Lall

Vivek Lall, an Indian-origin General Atomics CEO, is honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award by US President Joe Biden with citation of 'With Grateful Recognition'.

The citation was given to Lall, who has done PhD in Aerospace Engineering from Wichita State University in Kansas, by the AmeriCorps and the Office of the President. It was also personally signed by the President of the United States, as per the official statement.

AmeriCorps is a part of the US Government. The organisation aims to foster activities that bring Americans closer together to "serve communities." Dr Lall, an industry leader and scientific community titan works as Chief Executive at General Atomics.

The company is a global leader in the specialised fields of nuclear technology and has developed state-of-the-art Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) like the Predator, Reaper and Guardian drones.

Lall, a son of an Indian diplomat, was one of the handfuls of individuals with Indian origins to have been invited to meet Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the past year during his Washington visit.

Notably, before his leadership position in General Atomics, Dr Lall worked at other leading organisations like NASA, Raytheon, Boeing and Lockheed Martin; his experience and accolades have been considered unparalleled by many in the scientific community and by long-term industry watchers alike.

He is serving as a US Technical Team Member to the Noth Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Science and Technology (STO) with the Pentagon.

He was appointed in a critical advisory role to the US Cabinet Secretary heading the Department of Transportation, encompassing entities like the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), in 2018..

Source : Tribune India

8 .

Which scientist has won the Nobel Prizes 2022 for Medicine or Physiology?

A)

Linda Vigilant

B)

Svante Paabo

C)

Herbert Kroemer

D)

Sune BergstrÃ¶m

Correct Answer : Svante Paabo

Swedish paleogeneticist "Svante Paabo" was awarded the Nobel Prize 2022 in physiology or medicine on Monday(3rd Oct 2022) “for his discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution," kicking off a week of winner announcements held under the shadow of the bloody war in Ukraine.

Paabo, founder of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, and who also serves as an adjunct professor at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, accomplished "something seemingly impossible" through his pioneering research, the Nobel committee said: sequencing the genome of the Neanderthal, an extinct relative of present-day humans.

Nobel Prizes 2022: About his research : Through his pioneering research, Svante Pääbo accomplished something seemingly impossible: sequencing the genome of the Neanderthal, an extinct relative of present-day humans. He also made the sensational discovery of a previously unknown hominin, Denisova. Importantly, Pääbo also found that gene transfer had occurred from these now extinct hominins to Homo sapiens following the migration out of Africa around 70,000 years ago. This ancient flow of genes to present-day humans has physiological relevance today, for example affecting how our immune system reacts to infections.

In 1990, Pääbo was recruited to the University of Munich, where, as a newly appointed Professor, he continued his work on archaic DNA. He decided to analyze DNA from Neanderthal mitochondria – organelles in cells that contain their own DNA. The mitochondrial genome is small and contains only a fraction of the genetic information in the cell, but it is present in thousands of copies, increasing the chance of success.

About the Svante Paabo : Svante Pääbo (born 20 April 1955) is a Swedish geneticist specialising in the field of evolutionary genetics and a Nobel prize laureate. As one of the founders of paleogenetics, he has worked extensively on the Neanderthal genome. He was appointed director of the Department of Genetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany in 1997. He is also a professor at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Japan.

The Nobel Prize : The prestigious award comes with a gold medal and 10 million Swedish kronor (over $1.14 million). The prize money comes from a bequest left by the prize’s creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, who died in 1895. The other prizes are for outstanding work in the fields of physics, chemistry, literature, peace and economics..

Source : Japan Times

9 .

Who presented the Swachh Survekshan Awards 2022?

A)

Narendra Modi

B)

Venkaiah Naidu

C)

Droupadi Murmu

D)

Ram Nath Kovind

Correct Answer : Droupadi Murmu

The President of India, Droupadi Murmu, presented the Swachh Survekshan Awards 2022.

Indore has been adjudged as India's cleanest city, followed by Surat and Navi Mumbai.

Madhya Pradesh has secured the first position, followed by Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra in the category of best performing states in 'Swachh Survekshan Awards 2022'.

Tripura topped among the states having fewer than 100 urban local bodies.

Maharashtra's Deolali was adjudged cleanest Cantonment Board.

Source : PIB

10 .

Who was honoured with the 'Changemaker' award at UN SDG Action Awards 2022?

A)

Srishti Bakshi

B)

Payal Jangid

C)

Arunachalam Muruganantham

D)

Fairooz Faizah Beether

Correct Answer : Srishti Bakshi

Indian women’s rights activist, Srishti Bakshi was honoured with the ‘Changemaker’ award at UN SDG Action Awards.

Reason : For confronting gender-based violence and advocating for safe access to public spaces.

This is a flagship of the UN SDG Action Campaign that 'Mobilise, Inspire and Connect' people to drive action towards a more sustainable future on a healthy planet.

Other categories awards :

* Mobilise : SUPvivors say NO MORE

* Inspire : Masungi Story

* Connect : CyprusInno

Source : The Print