Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - August, 2018

Notes:
The first cow sanctuary in Rajasthan will be situated in Napasar, Bikaner to dedicate the entire area for cows, much on the lines of a wildlife sanctuary. It will provide shelter for 10,000 bovines spread over an area of more than 220 hectares in Bikaner district. The facilities in the sanctuary will include hospitals and Sewan grass as fodder for the animals. The state government has recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a private trust in this regard. The cow sanctuary will be the latest in a string of initiatives announced by the BJP government in the state for the protection of bovines since it came to power in 2013. The state already has a ministry dedicated to the welfare of cows and last year it had announced a 10% surcharge on stamp duty towards cow protection.

Notes:
Akshay Venkatesh, a renowned Indian-Australian mathematician, has won the 2018 Fields Medal for his profound contributions to an exceptionally broad range of subjects in mathematics. Venkatesh is one of four winners of mathematics’ top honour known as the Nobel prize for math. The Fields medals are awarded every four years to the most promising mathematicians under the age of 40. Each winner receives a 15,000 Canadian-dollar cash prize. The other three winners are: Caucher Birkar, a Cambridge University professor of Iranian Kurdish origin; Germany’s Peter Scholze, who teaches at the University of Bonn and Alessio Figalli, an Italian mathematician at ETH Zurich.

Notes:
The Andhra Pradesh Cabinet has recently approved an unemployment allowance scheme “Mukhyamantri Yuva Nestam” through which an allowance of Rs 1000 per month will be provided to unemployed youth in the state. Unemployed youths with a degree or diploma between the ages of 22 and 35 years are eligible to avail the benefit. The state government will set up a website for the scheme by the end of August, where a 15-day registration window will be open for potential beneficiaries of the scheme. The amount will be directly transferred into their bank account. The state government decided to implement this scheme to benefit as many as 12 lakh youths of the state. It has also been decided that 20,000 job vacancies, 9,000 teacher posts and other department vacancies will be filled.

Notes:
The President of India, Ram Nath Kovind presented the Outstanding Parliamentarian Award (OPA) for the years 2013-2017 in New Delhi on August 1, 2018. Dr Najma Heptullah, the Manipur’s governor and 5-times Rajya Sabha member, won the award for 2013. Meanwhile, BJP’s Lok Sabha member Hukum Dev Narayan was the recipient of OPA for 2014, Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad for 2015, Trinamool Congress’ Dinesh Trivedi for 2016 and Bhartruhari Mahtab of the Lok Biju Janata Dal (BJD) for 2017. The OPA is an award given by the Indian Parliamentary Group (IPG) to an outstanding sitting Member of Parliament (MP) for overall contribution in the Parliament. It was instituted in 1992 by Shivraj Patil, who was the Speaker of Lok Sabha from 1991 to 1996.

Notes:
Sashi Cheliah, an Indian origin prison guard from Adelaide, has clinched the title of MasterChef Australia 2018 after scoring 93 out of 100 points. He defeated fellow contestant Ben Borsht, who scored 77 out of 100. For the first round, Cheliah made a sambal prawns starter, which got him a perfect 30 while his second recipe for the grand finale was a fish curry and cumin rice dish that he made to honour his aunt. The winner took home the MasterChef Australia trophy and a winning amount of 2,50,000 (almost Rs 1.7 crore) while the first runner-up was awarded 40,000 (around Rs 27 lakh).

Notes:
Ranjit Srivastava, the Ranchi-based software developer, has claimed to develop the world’s first Hindi speaking realistic humanoid robot and India’s first lip-synching robot. The robot “Rashmi” has developed in 2 years at a minimum cost of Rs 50,000. In simple words, Srivastava developed an Indian version of a social humanoid robot ‘Sophia’ that was developed by a Hong Kong based company. The robot can speak Hindi, Bhojpuri and Marathi along with English. It uses Linguistic Interpretation (LI), Artificial Intelligence (AI), visual data and facial recognition systems. It functions under a specially designed software and linguistic interpretation system. The LI programme analyses the feeling of the conversation while AI program analyses the conversation to extract the response from the device.

Notes:
India has been elected as the President of the Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development (AIBD) for a period of 2 years. India got elected against Iran during voting which took place at the 44th annual gathering of AIBD in Colombo, Sri Lanka on August 4, 2018. Director General of All India Radio (AIR) F. Sheheryar was re-elected as chair of the executive board while Sri Lanka was elected as vice-chair. The broadcasters from 26 countries in the region including India are full members of the organization. AIBD, established in 1977 under the auspices of UNESCO, is a unique regional inter-governmental organisation and is mandated to achieve a vibrant and cohesive electronic media environment in the Asia-Pacific region through policy and resource development.

Notes:
Rajinder Kumar Dhawan (81), the veteran Congress leader and a former Union minister, has passed away in New Delhi on August 6, 2018. As personal secretary and confidante to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Dhawan was a witness to Indira Gandhi assassination in 1984. During his years as Indira Gandhi’s personal secretary, from 1962 to 1984, Dhawan reportedly wielded immense clout, with some claiming that he controlled information and access to the then prime minister. During the Emergency years (1975-77), Dhawan was among Indira Gandhi’s inner circle of leaders. However, Indira’s son, Rajiv, after initially removing Dhawan from his post, cleared him of all charges. He continued to retain enormous clout in the Congress even after Rajiv Gandhi’s death and was subsequently elected twice to Rajya Sabha and was a member of the Congress Working Committee. He was Minister for Urban Development when P V Narasimha Rao was Prime Minister.

Notes:
The Central Government has approved 122 new research projects of Rs 112 crore under its Impacting Research Innovation and Technology ‘IMPRINT-2’ scheme. The aim of the initiative is to advance research in energy, security, and healthcare domains in the high education institutions. IMPRINT is the first of its kind government supported initiative to address the major science and engineering challenges that India must address and champion to enable, empower and embolden the nation for inclusive growth and self-reliance. The proposals were approved at the IMPRINT 2 Apex Committee meeting held in New Delhi on August 4, 2018..

Notes:
The Union government has constituted a 4-member Group of Ministers (GoM), headed by the Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Suresh Prabhu, to look into issues related to the proposed mega free trade agreement Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). The GoM will deliberate upon the issues being raised by the industry as well as government departments. There is concern across ministries that joining the accord could severely dent local manufacturing and jobs and that China’s $60-billion trade surplus with India will swell even further as it floods the market with cheap goods at zero tariff. Apart from Prabhu, the panel comprises interim finance minister Piyush Goyal, defence minister (former commerce minister) Nirmala Sitharaman and housing and urban affairs minister Hardeep Singh Puri. The RCEP bloc consists of 10 ASEAN group members (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Laos and Vietnam) and their six FTA partners — India, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. The first meeting of this group is expected to be held on 10 August.