current affairs 24 March 2022

India Placed 51st in Global House Price Index Q4 2021, Turkey Tops: Knight Frank.

India has improved its rank by five spots to be placed at 51st position in the Global House Price Index Q4 2021 released by property consultant Knight Frank.
India was placed at 56th position in Q4 of 2020.
India witnessed 2.1 percent annual appreciation in housing price rates during the October-December quarter of the 2021 against Q4 of 2020.
Turkey saw the highest annual price growth rate by 59.6 percent in Q4 2021.
New Zealand (22.6 per cent), Czech Republic (22.1 per cent), Slovakia (22.1 per cent) and Australia (21.8 per cent) are among top 5 countries respectively in the latest research report.
Knight Frank’s Global House Price Index tracks the movement in mainstream residential prices across 56 countries and territories using official statistics.

New Delhi has been ranked the world’s most polluted capital city for second consecutive year as per IQAir’s 2021 World Air Quality Report.
New Delhi is followed by Dhaka (Bangladesh), N’Djamena (Chad), Dushanbe (Tajikistan) and Muscat (Oman) as top five most polluted capital cities respectively.
Bhiwadi was the most polluted city in India, followed by Ghaziabad, Delhi and Jaunpur.
Bangladesh was the most polluted country, followed by Chad, Pakistan and Tajikistan.
India was the fifth most polluted country.

The Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP) of the NITI Aayog organised the 5th edition of the Women Transforming India Awards (WTI) on 21 March 2022.
As part of the Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav, to celebrate 75 years of India’s independence, the WTI Awards have been conferred 75 women achievers for their contribution towards a Sashakt Aur Samarth Bharat.
The Women Transforming India Awards has been presented since 2018 by NITI Aayog, under the aegis of Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP), to highlight the commendable and ground-breaking endeavours of India’s women leaders and change-makers, with a special focus on entrepreneurship.

Ministry of Heavy Industries had notified Phase-II of FAME India Scheme for three years from April 2019 to March 2022.
However, the government has extended the FAME II scheme for 2 years. So now this scheme will be applicable till March 2024.
Total budgetary support to Phase-II of FAME India Scheme for a period of five years is Rs. 10,000 crore, from financial year 2019-20 to 2023-24.
Focus area of Phase II will be mainly on supporting electrification of public & shared transportation through demand incentive and creation of a network of charging infrastructure.
Objective of FAME India Scheme is to promote adoption of electric/ hybrid vehicles (xEVs) in India.

The 3rd edition of the joint training exercise named EX-DUSTLIK between the Indian army and Uzbekistan army is being conducted at Yangiarik, Uzbekistan from 22 to 31 March 2022.
The last edition of DUSTLIK was conducted in Ranikhet (Uttarakhand) in March 2021.
The Indian contingent will be represented by the Grenadiers Regiment and will join the Uzbekistan Army contingent represented by troops of the North-Western Military District.