Current Affairs Quiz - December, 2018

Notes:
The International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People is observed by the United Nations every year on November 29 as an opportunity for the international community to refocus its attention on the fact that the question of Palestine remains unresolved and that the Palestinian people have yet to attain their inalienable rights as defined by the General Assembly. The date of 29 November was chosen because of its meaning and significance to the Palestinian people. On that day in 1947, the General Assembly adopted resolution 181 (II), which came to be known as the Partition Resolution. That resolution provided for the establishment in Palestine of a “Jewish State” and an “Arab State”, with Jerusalem as a corpus separatum under a special international regime. Of the two States to be created under this resolution, only one, Israel, has so far come into being.

Notes:
Anil Manibhai Naik has been appointed as the new chairman of the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC). Currently Naik is the Group Chairman of India’s biggest engineering and construction conglomerate – Larsen & Toubro Limited (L&T). NSDC is a unique public-private-partnership, working under the aegis of the Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship. NSDC aims to promote skill development by catalyzing creation of large, quality and for-profit vocational institutions. The organisation provides funding to build scalable and profitable vocational training initiatives. It also develops appropriate models to enhance, support and coordinate private sector initiatives. NSDC supports short-term skill training through a wide network of training providers and district nodal skill centres called Pradhan MantriKaushal Kendra (PMKK).

Notes:
India’s first owl festival was held at Pingori village in Purandar taluka of Pune from November 29. The two-day festival, organised by Ela Foundation (an NGO working towards nature education and conservation), will give information on owl conservation and feature art forms like pictures, paintings, lanterns, lamp shades, posters, origami, stitched articles, poems and stories on owls. It is a first-of-its-kind festival, which was organised with the intention of creating awareness about owl as a bird and debunking numerous superstitions associated with it. According to a report published by Traffic India and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in 2010, owls were found to be consumed and traded for a wide variety of purposes, including black magic, street performances, taxidermy, private aviaries/zoos, food and in folk medicines. Despite being protected under the Wildlife (Protection) Act of India, the report has found owls to be highly prized and in demand for black magic purposes.

Notes:
Australia has become the first country in the world to recognise so-called orphanage trafficking as a form of modern-day slavery. Hence, it has criminalized the act of falsely inducing children into orphanages as a form of slavery, in what is believed to be the first move of its kind in the world. Under the new law, orphanage trafficking will be treated as a slavery and trafficking offense. The legislation forms part of a wider drive to stop Australians taking part in “voluntourism” schemes which harm rather than help the children. It is estimated 80% of children in orphanages around the world have at least one living parent but are in orphanages in a bid to attract international volunteers. This is what’s called “Orphanage trafficking” where children are actively recruited into orphanages for the purpose of exploitation and profit made from orphanage tourism, where people pay or donate to volunteer and visit orphanages.

Notes:
The United States has signed trade pact with Canada and Mexico to replace the 24-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. They signed an authorization for the deal on the sidelines of the Group of 20 (G20) summit 2018. The new US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) has 34 chapters & is meant to govern more than $1tn worth of trade between the three countries. The pact has been tweaked to include changes for automakers, labor and environmental standards, intellectual property protections, and some digital trade provisions. It will give the US greater access to Canada’s dairy market and allows extra imports of Canadian cars. Now, the deal requires ratification by all three countries’ legislatures before taking effect.

Notes:
India will host the G20 summit in 2022, when the country celebrates its 75th year of Independence. The announcement was made at the closing ceremony of the 2018 G-20 held in Argentina’s captial Buenos Aires.The G-20 is a grouping of the world’s 20 major economies. Its comprise Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the UK and the U.S. Collectively, the G-20 economies account for nearly 90% of the gross world product, 80% of world trade, two-thirds of the world population, and approximately half of the world land area. Spain is a permanent guest invitee. Earlier, Italy was to host the international forum in 2022.

Notes:
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will be Chief Guest at the Republic Day of India 2019, which also marks the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. The celebrations are held every year at Rajpath before the President of India. The Republic Day honours the date on which the Constitution of India came into effect on 26th January 1950 with a democratic government system. & replaced the Government of India Act (1935) as the governing document of India. The day was chosen as the Republic day because it was on this day in 1930 when Declaration of Indian Independence (Purna Swaraj) was proclaimed by the Indian National Congress (INC) as opposed to the Dominion status offered by British Regime.

Notes:
In February 2019, India’s first international indigenous film festival will take place in Bhubaneswar, Odisha. The fest is an initiative of activist film collective Video Republic that has been campaigning for indigenous communities in the State. The three-stop event will kick off on February 19 and 20, moving on to Puri from February 21 to 23 to eventually culminate in an interaction with the adivasi communities at Niyamgiri. It will showcase films made by indigenous people or made by non-indigenous filmmakers in collaboration with the indigenous communities. The aim of the fest is to build a platform for indigenous communities from the world over to share, have a dialogue, collaborate and to use cinema as a mode of united assertion, resistance and activism against exploitative forces.

Notes:
Qatar has decided to withdraw its membership from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) with effect from 1st January 2019. The decision to withdraw from OPEC came after Qatar reviewed ways to enhance its role internationally and plan its long-term strategy. It has plans to increase its annual exports of Liquified Natural Gas (LPG) from 77 million tons of gas per year to 110 million tons. Qatar is the world’s largest exporter of LPG. It also wants to raise its oil production from 4.8 million barrels of oil equivalent a day to 6.5 million barrels. Currently, the Vienna-based OPEC comprises 15 oil-producing and exporting countries. These are as follows: Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, the Republic of the Congo, Saudi Arabia (the de facto leader), United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela.

Notes:
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) will provide a $85 million loan to improve skill development eco-system in Odisha and establish an advanced skill training centre at Bhubaneswar. The project will help over 1.5 lakh people learn skills in priority sectors, including manufacturing, construction and services for formal employment. The World Skill Centre (WSC) at Bhubaneswar will deliver 8 training courses for 13,000 full-time students, provide training for 5,000 teachers, and train 1,000 assessors. It will improve the overall eco-system of skill development in Odisha by providing integrated services through an entrepreneurship incubation centre, a career counselling and placement centre, a curriculum design and development centre, and education technology deployment centre.