Current Affairs

Maya Angelou has become the first Black woman ever to appear on a US quarter, after a coin featuring the late poet and activist’s image went into circulation on 13 January 2022. The quarter features an image of Angelou with her arms uplifted, a bird in flight, and a rising sun behind her, with a portrait of George Washington on the “heads” side. The US Mint said the image of Angelou was “inspired by her poetry and symbolic of the way she lived”. The poet and writer, who died in 2014, was the author of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, in which she wrote about the racial discrimination she experienced growing up.

When the world was celebrating the New Year during the weekend, Israel documented its first florona case in an unvaccinated pregnant woman who went into labour at Rabin Medical Center in Petah Tikva on January 2. Israeli health officials say other patients may have also contracted the double infection. Florona is a simultaneous double infection caused by the coronavirus and the influenza virus. Florona is not a new coronavirus variant. While people don’t need to panic, the double infection can be dangerous for unvaccinated people with poor immunity as compared to a vaccinated individual who has taken both his/her Covid and flu shots. The combination of flu with the Delta virus or Omicron virus could be dangerous.

The Khurnak Fort is a ruined fort on the northern shore of the Pangong Lake that spans eastern Ladakh in India and Rutog County in Tibet. The area of the Khurnak Fort is disputed by India and China and has been under Chinese administration since 1958. Near to the Fort, China is building a new bridge. The bridge is being constructed on Pangong Tso, near the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh. After the military standoff in May 2020, India and China have built several new roads, bridges, and landing strips.