Art & Culture Current Affairs MCQs

Notes:
Lohri is a festival celebrated in North India, especially in Punjab ahead of the Makar Sankranti Festival. The festival marks the completion of Winter and the arrival of sunny weather in the region. It is also regarded that the festival commemorates the passing winter solstice.
According to the traditional calendar, this year the festival Lohri falls on January 13. People of North India celebrate the festival by lighting bonfires, with their friends and relatives. It is mainly celebrated in Punjab, Haryana and Delhi.
This festival is celebrated as Makara Sankranti (Pedda Pandaga) in Maharashtra, Goa, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal (also called Poush sôngkrānti), Karnataka and Telangana, Sukarat in central India, Magh Bihu by Assamese, and Thai Pongal by Tamils. Vishu concides with Vaishakhi.

Notes:
The recently built monument of Gujarat, ‘Statue of Unity’ was recently included in the ‘8 Wonders of SCO’ list released by the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. It is the tallest statue of the world, which was built as a tribute to the Indian leader Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.
The 182-metre statue was inaugurated by the Prime Minister of India in October 2018 in Gujarat’s Kevadiya colony. The statue was built on the river Narmada, facing the Sardar Sarovar Dam. SCO comprises of eight member states, which are India, Pakistan, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

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The Vice President of India Venkaiah Naidu is to inaugurate the Centre of Excellence for studies in Classical Telugu in Nellore.
Venkaiah Naidu had earlier suggested the Union Government to shift the Centre of Excellence for Studies in Classical Telugu, situated in the Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysuru, to one of the Telugu States. It has now been shifted to Nellore in Andhra Pradesh. The centre performs several activities research on the evolution of the Telugu script, digitisation, and publishing of classical Telugu literature.

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The Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi recently participated in the 50th Anniversary function of Tamil Magazine Thuglak, through Video Conferencing. The event was held at Chennai, the capital city of Tamil Nadu.
The magazine was founded by the famous journalist Cho Ramaswamy, who passed away in 2016. The Tamil weekly magazine was famous for its intelligent arguments and political satire. Swaminathan Gurumurthy is the present editor of the magazine after the demise of its founder and editor.

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The 9th edition of the International Children’s Film Festival’ is scheduled to be held in Kolkata from January 19 to 26, 2020. The event is being organised by the Shishu Kishore Akademi, which is an institution under the aegis of Information and Cultural Affairs Department, Government of West Bengal.
As an initiative of the state government, the Shishu Kishore Akademi has been organizing the Kolkata International Children’s Film Festival (KICFF), annually since 2011. This year, spread across nine venues across Kolkata, the festival includes screening of about 250 films from 35 countries.

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The ‘National Girl Child Day’ is celebrated every year in India, on January 24. It was started by the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development from 2008 and the day is celebrated on January 24 every year, to create awareness among people about inequalities and exploitation faced by the girls in the society.
Several awareness programmes and campaigns are being organised across the country to spread awareness about the rights of the girl child. Programmes which promote the importance of education, health and nutrition for girls are also held.

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The 44th International Kolkata Book Fair is set to be inaugurated in Kolkata by the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Russian Ambassador to India Nikolay Rishatovich Kudashev.
Russia has been selected as the focal theme country of the international fair, whose theme gate will be a replica of the iconic Bolshoi Theatre of Moscow. The annual fair is to be held from January 29 to February 9, which is set to host about 600 books stalls. Several eco-friendly measures have been taken in the event, in which nearly 20 countries will be participating. Kolkata Literature Festival will also be held alongside the book fair.

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The national Tourism day is being celebrated in India on January 25 every year. The day is celebrated to raise awareness the global community about the importance of tourism for the country’s economy and its social, political, financial and cultural worth.
According to a FICCI-YES Bank report of 2019, the tourism industry generated $247.3 billion in 2018, and contributed to 9.2 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product of India. The United Nations World Tourism Day is celebrated annually on September 27. India has moved up six places to 34th rank in World travel and tourism competitiveness index of WEF.

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The annual event ‘Bharat Parv, 2020’ is being celebrated from 26th to 31st January, 2020 in New Delhi. The aim of the festival is to encourage Indians to visit different tourism destinations of India and to encourage them with the spirit of ‘Dekho Apna Desh’.
The theme of this year’s festival is set as ‘Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat’ and ‘Celebrating 150 Years of Mahatma Gandhi’. The six-day-event which is to held in front of Red Fort at Gyan Path and Red Fort grounds in New Delhi has several attractions including performance by armed forces bands cultural Performances from different regions of the country.

Notes:
The debut web series of the noted film-maker Kabir Khan, The Forgotten Army has created a Guinness World Record for being the biggest ever team of musicians to perform live, in the category of ‘the largest Indian Cinematic Music Band’.
As many as 1046 singers and musicians from across the country performed together three songs from the album of the Amazon Prime web series. The music album was composed by the famous Bollywood musician Pritam Chakraborty. The web series is based on the sacrifices and valour of the soldiers of Azad Hind Fauj (Indian National Army).