Current Affairs Quiz - December, 2018

Notes:
The bilateral naval exercise ‘Konkan 18’ has started between the navies of India and the UK at the Goa coast from November 28. The exercise will provide a platform for the two navies to periodically exercise at sea and in harbour, so as to build interoperability and share best practices. The harbour phase is scheduled from November 28 to 30, followed by the sea phase from December 2 to 6. The thrust of the 2018 exercise would be on anti-air warfare, anti-surface warfare, anti-submarine warfare, visit board search and seizure (VBSS) and seamanship evolutions. The aim of the exercise is to derive mutual benefit from each others’ experiences and is indicative of the continuing cooperation between the two countries. The United Kingdom’s Royal Navy will be represented by HMS Dragon, a Type 45 Class Destroyer equipped with an integral wildcat helicopter, while the Indian Navy will field INS Kolkata, the first ship of latest Kolkata class destroyers, and a submarine.

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Slovenia has become the first NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) nation to appoint a female Chief of Armed Forces after Major General Alenka Ermenc took the post of Head of its Army. The country has approximately 7.500 soldiers, including active and reserve forces. Slovenia, which originally was part of Yugoslavia, joined NATO and the European Union in 2004. NATO is an international alliance that consists of 29 member states and 28 EU nations.

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India will chair the Kimberley Process (KP), a global initiative to remove conflict diamonds from the global supply chain, from 1st January 2019. KP is a joint initiative of different countries, industry and civil societies to control flow of conflict diamonds, which are used by rebel movements to finance wars against legitimate governments in the world. India is the founding member of Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) and is actively involved in KP activities to ensure that almost 99% of the diamond trade in the world is conflict free.

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The 24th Conference of the Parties (COP 24) to the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) has started in Katowice, Poland from 3-14 December 2018. The conference is expected to finalize the rules for implementation of the Paris Agreement on climate change under the Paris Agreement work programme (PAWP). It will also include a number of high-level events, mandated events, action events and roundtables. About 20 thousand people from 190 countries will take part in the event, including politicians, representatives of non-governmental organizations, scientific community and business sector.

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The UK’s Cambridge Dictionary has recently declared “Nomophobia”, the word that describes the stress and anxiety caused by being separated from your mobile, as People’s Word of the year 2018. The word is defined as the fear or worry at the idea of being without your mobile phone or unable to use it. Based on the results of a popular vote, Nomophobia was chose over the other shortlisted words – ‘gender gap’, ‘ecocide’ and ‘no-platforming’.

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The International Day of Persons with Disabilities is observed every year on December 3 to promote the rights and well-being of persons with disabilities in all spheres of society and development and to increase awareness of the situation of persons with disabilities in every aspect of political, social, economic and cultural life. The annual observance of the Day was proclaimed in 1992, by a United Nations General Assembly resolution. The 2018 theme ‘Empowering persons with disabilities and ensuring inclusiveness and equality’ focuses on empowering persons with disabilities for an inclusive, equitable and sustainable development as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This year, the United Nations has launched the first-ever flagship report on disability and development “UN Flagship Report on Disability and Development 2018 – Realizing the SDGs by, for and with persons with disabilities”. The Report provides an evidence base for disability-inclusive policy-making, implementation and monitoring and evaluation of an inclusive, accessible and sustainable global development agenda.

Notes:
The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has launched a new mass media campaign “Heart Attack Rewind” to eliminate industrially produced trans fat in the food supply by 2022 before WHO deadline. The campaign is the 30 second Public Service Announcement (PSA), which will warn citizens about the health hazards of consuming trans fats and offer strategies to avoid them through healthier alternatives. Edible oil industries took a pledge to reduce the levels of salt, sugar, saturated fat and trans fat content by 2% by 2022. As per records, trans fat intake leads to more than five lakh deaths from cardiovascular diseases every year, globally. Trans fat is made by adding hydrogen to liquid vegetable oils to solidify them and increase the shelf life of food. Trans fat is largely present in vanaspati, margarine, and bakery shortenings, and can be found in baked and fried foods.

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Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio has recently inaugurated a new Project namely- “Development of Tribal Circuit : Peren-Kohima-Wokha Project” at Kisama Heritage Village in Nagaland. under the Swadesh Darshan Scheme. This is the first project to be implemented in the state under Swadesh Darshan Scheme of Union Ministry of Tourism. The project was sanctioned by the Ministry of Tourism in November 2015 for Rs. 97.36 Crores. Under the project the Ministry has developed facilities like Tribal Tourist Village, Eco Log Huts, Open Air Theatre, Tribal Rejuvenation Centre, Cafeteria, Helipad, Tourist Interpretation Centre, Wayside Amenities, Last Mile Connectivity, Public Conveniences, Multipurpose Hall, Nature Trails, Trekking Routes etc. In addition to the above project, the Ministry has sanctioned another project in Nagaland “Development of Tribal circuit: Mokokchung–Tuensang-Mon” for Rs.99.67 crore. The implementation of the project is in progress.

Notes:
Ministry of Railways’ National Rail Museum (NRM) has signed pact with Madame Tussauds Wax Museum (MTWM) to foster tourism in Delhi NCR. It is first time ever public-private museum collaboration that shall attract more tourists to both NRM and MTWM. As a part of the collaboration, a special discount of 35% on ticket prices will be offered to NRM visitors when they visit Madame Tussauds Museum. Similarly, MTWM visitors will be getting an attractive discount of 30% on combo packages of NRM. In addition, there will be a special provision for school groups. School children will be able to enjoy both museums at a 45% discount. This will help in promoting railway heritage and also enable children to learn about national heroes, thereby making the student excursion more inclusive, holistic and interesting. MTWM is the 23rd Wax museum of Madame Tussauds in Connaught Place (CP), New Delhi. This is the first wax museum in India of this renowned brand.

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On December 4, ISRO’s heaviest and most advanced high throughput communication satellite ‘GSAT-11’ was successfully launched by an European Ariane-5 vehicle (Flight VA246) rocket from Guiana Space Centre at Kourou in French Guiana. Initially, the satellite is placed in the Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) and will be raised to the Geostationary Orbit (36,000 km above the equator) through phase-wise orbit-raising manoeuvres in the days ahead, using its on-board propulsion systems. GSAT-11 will be positioned at 74-degree east longitude in the geostationary orbit.The mission of the 5,854-kg giant ‘bird’ is to provide high data rate connectivity to users of Indian mainland and islands through 32 user beams in Ku-band and 8 hub beams in Ka-band. It will boost the broadband connectivity to rural and inaccessible Gram Panchayats under BharatNet Project which is part of the Digital India initiative. The satellite is capable of providing high bandwidth connectivity with speeds of up to 16 gigabytes per second. GSAT-11’ s co-passenger is South Korea’s GEO-KOMPSAT-2A, a meteorology satellite.