Daily Top-10 Current Affairs MCQs / News (June 22, 2022) for CSS, PMS

Table of Contents

6. French court blocks city`s bid to allow `burkini` in pools

• A top French court on June 21, 2022 blocked a bid to allow the `burkini` at municipal pools in the city of Grenoble, upholding a government challenge against a move that revived France`s intense debate on Islam.
• The all-in-one swimsuit, used by some Muslim women to cover their bodies and hair while swimming, is a controversial issue in France where critics see it as a symbol of creeping Islamisation.
• Backing the national government`s objection against the move, the Council of State said that `very selective exception to the rules to satisfy religious demands risks affecting the proper functioning of public services and equal treatment of their users`

7. Signatories to UN treaty seek to banish `evil` of nuclear war

• Suechi Kido was five years old when he lived through the bombing of Nagasaki. This week he has been in Vienna to meet the architects of a new treaty that seeks to abolish nuclear weapons.
• For the first time since the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) came into effect in early 2021, diplomats, activists and experts are meeting this week to discuss how the agreement will work in practice and how more countries can be persuaded to join.
• In a press conference opening the meeting on Tuesday, Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg alluded to the ways Russia`s invasion of Ukraine had raised the spectre of nuclear conflict. `The nuclear sword of Damocles is more present and hanging lower over our heads than ever before,` he said, adding that `so many red lines have been crossed` in recent weeks. `We cannot allow nuclear destruction to be one of them,` he said

8. Modi to attend BRICS summit hosted by Xi

• Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the five-nation summit of BRICS on June 23 and 24 following an invitation by Chinese President Xi Jinping, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) announced on June 21, 2022.
• China is hosting the summit in its capacity as its chair of the grouping for the current year.
• The BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa) brings together five of the largest developing countries in the world, representing 41 per cent of the global population, 24 percent of the global GDP and 16 percent of the global trade

9. UN bans two Taliban officials from travelling abroad

• The United Nations on June 21, 2022 banned two Taliban officials from travelling abroad in response to the harsh restrictions the hardline regime has imposed on Afghan women, diplomats said.
• Travel exemptions permitting 15 Taliban officials to go abroad for talks and negotiations were set to expire on Monday.
• For 13 officials the travel exemptions were extended for at least two months, but they were scrapped for two education officials in response to the Taliban`s decision to ban secondary girls` education

10. Sale of Muratov`s Nobel medal smashes all records

• The auction of Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov`s Nobel gold medal for a whopping $103.5 million to benefit children displaced by the war in Ukraine smashed the record for Nobel medals.
• The Nobel Peace Prize medal was sold to an as yet unidentified phone bidder at a sale in New York on Monday organised by Heritage Auctions.
• Muratov won the medal, made of 150 grammes of 18-carat gold, in 2021 when he was awarded the Peace Prize together with Maria Ressa of the Philippines `for their ef forts to safeguard freedom of expression`