Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - August, 2018

Notes:
Viraj Madappa (20) from Kolkata has become the youngest Indian golfer to claim the Asian Tour title after lifting the 2018 TAKE Solutions Masters trophy in Bengaluru on August 12. Beside this, Madappa has also become the first rookie and youngest player to win on Tour this season. He takes home a winner’s prize purse of US$63,000 and earned a one-year winner exemption on the region’s premier Tour. The earlier record was held by Gaganjeet Bhullar, who won the Indonesia Invitational, when he was 21 years and three months, while Shubhankar Sharma won Joburg Open when he was 21 years and five months old.

Notes:
Hakam Singh Bhattal (64), the Asian Games gold medallist athlete & Dhyan Chand awardee, has passed away in Sangrur, Punjab on August 14, 2018. He won gold at the 1978 Bangkok Asiad in 20km race walk. In it, India ranked 6th with 11 gold medals. He also won gold in the Asian Track and Field Meeting held at Tokyo in 1979. He had also served as Havaldar in the 6 Sikh regiment.

Notes:
The Ease of Living Index 2018 has been launched by Hardeep Singh Puri, the Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Housing & Urban Affairs, in New Delhi on August 13. In it, Pune has been ranked first, followed by Navi Mumbai, Greater Mumbai, Triputi, Chandigarh, Thane, Raipur, Indore, Vijaywada and Bhopal. The survey was conducted on 111 cities in the country. The Index is based on four parameters — governance, social institutions, economic and physical infrastructure. Chennai has been ranked 14 and New Delhi 65. The Ease of Living Index is a government initiative to assess cities’ ‘liveability’ with regards to global and national benchmarks and encourage them towards urban planning and management.

Notes:
Balramji Das Tandon (91), the present Governor of Chhattisgarh, has passed away in Raipur on August 14, 2018. Born on 1st November 1927, he started his political career as corporator of Amritsar Municipal corporation in 1953. Tandon was one of the founder members of the Jansangh which later became the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). During his long political career, he has served on various posts, including as deputy chief minister of Punjab. A six-time MLA, Mr. Tandon was also the Punjab State BJP president for two years. He was also jailed in 1975 during the Emergency for 19 months.

Notes:
NITI Aayog has launched a mobility pitch competition “Pitch to MOVE” for budding startups in the mobility field. The competition aims to identify and reward the start-ups offering innovative solutions for shared, connected and environment friendly mobility. It will provide budding entrepreneurs of India a unique opportunity to pitch their business ideas to a distinguished jury. The winners of the event will be felicitated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the Global Mobility Summit 2018, which is scheduled to be held on September in New Delhi. ‘Pitch to MOVE’ is organised by NITI Aayog in collaboration with Invest India and Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) as a part of a series of engaging featured events in the run up to the main event.

Notes:
Teen cyclist Esow Alben (17) has scripted history by winning the India’s first junior cycling World Cup medal — a silver at the men’s keirin event in the UCI Junior Track Cycling World 2018. He put enormous pressure on Czech Republic’s Jakub Stastny in the final sprint before settling for the silver medal. Esow finished just 0.017 seconds behind gold medallist Stastny in the thrilling photo-finish of a race. Alben, who hails from Andaman & Nicobar Islands, trains in Delhi at the Sports Authority of India (SAI)’s National Cycling Academy (NCA). Esow is now the top-ranked junior cyclist for the sprint event and is No. 3 for keirin, where the cyclists sprint for victory on a track following a controlled start.

Notes:
For the first time, the International team of scientists including 18 from India cracked the genetic code of wheat, the world’s most widely cultivated crop. The information generated will help to identify genes controlling complex agronomic traits such as yield, grain quality, resistance to diseases and pests, as well as tolerance to drought, heat, water logging and salinity. The research, which is published in Journal ‘Science’, stated that the DNA sequence of bread wheat has been ordered and it represents the highest quality genome sequence generated to date. The reference genome covers 94% (14.5 Gb) of the entire wheat genome. The bread wheat has a complex hexaploid genome which is 40 times larger than that of the rice genome and 5 times larger than the human genome. The availability of high quality reference genome would accelerate the breeding of climate-resilient wheat varieties to feed the ever-increasing world population and help address global food security in the decades to come.

Notes:
The deadly agricultural insect-pest “Fall Armyworm (FAW)” has been recently spotted at a few places in the districts of Karimnagar, Kamareddy, Sangareddy, Medak and Gadwal in Telangana. It is known to attack and destroy several varieties of crops, but it prefers maize and sorghum because of the sweetness in their leaves. The Fall Armyworm (or Spodoptera frugiperda) is a species in the order of Lepidoptera and is the larval life stage of a fall armyworm moth. In its larva stage, it can cause significant damage to crops, if not well managed. The lifespan of the pest is 30 to 60 days and each generation can migrate to a distance of more than 400 km. It is considered deadly as it has caused massive agricultural losses in several countries in Africa. The worm was first found in Karnataka in the country and later spread to Tamil Nadu.

Notes:
Former Indian Army chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag has been awarded the United States (US) ‘Legion of Merit (Degree of commander)’ on August 17, 2018, at Pentagon, Washington DC. The award was given to Singh for exceptionally meritorious service as Chief of Army Staff (CoAS) from August 2014 to December 2016. With this, he became the 2nd Indian military officer to get this award after General Rajendrasinghji Jadeja in 1946. The Legion of Merit is awarded in four degrees – Degree of Chief Commander, Degree of commander, Degree of the officer, Degree of Legionnarie.

Notes:
On August 19, India has successfully test-fired the indigenously developed helicopter launched Anti-Tank Guided Missile (ATGM) ‘HELINA’ from an Army helicopter ‘Rudra’ in Pokhran test range in Rajasthan. The HELINA weapon system tested for its full range was released smoothly from the launch platform. The missile hit the target with high precision. The missile is guided by an Infrared Imaging Seeker (IIR) operating in the Lock-on-Before-Launch mode. It is one of the most advanced anti-tank weapons in the world. It is the helicopter-launched version of NAG and has a hit range of 7-8 km. The production and induction of the missile are likely to happen in 2019. Beside this, the indigenously designed and developed guided bombs Smart Anti Airfield Weapon (SAAW) also successfully flight tested from IAF aircraft at Chandan range in Jaisalmer. The SAAW is the combined effort of the DRDO, IAF and HAL. This weapon is capable of destroying a variety of ground targets using precision navigation.