Current Affairs Quiz - December, 2018

Notes:
The air force units of India and the United States are scheduled to participate in a 12-day joint exercise ‘Cope India 2019’ at two air force stations in West Bengal. The bilateral flying training programme will be held from December 3 to 14 of this year at two important airbases in West Bengal – Air Force Station Kalaikunda and Air Force Station Arjan Singh at Panagarh. Exercise CI19 is a long-standing bilateral US Pacific Air Forces (PACAF)-sponsored Field Training Exercise (FTX), conducted with the IAF, focused on enhancing US-Indian mutual cooperation and building on existing capabilities, aircrew tactics and force employment. The exercise will showcase US and India’s efforts and commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific region. COPE INDIA began in 2004 as a fighter training exercise held at Air Force Station Gwalior. The exercise was last held in 2010.

Notes:
Salome Zurabishvili, a French-born Georgian politician, has elected the first woman president in the history of Georgia. She will be inaugurated as President of Georgia on 16 December 2018. The President of Georgia is head of state and a guarantor of national independence and unity of the country. He/she is elected on the basis of universal, equal and direct suffrage by secret ballot, for a period of five years. The President ensures the functioning of state bodies in accordance with the Constitution.

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 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.

Notes:
Vashkar Bhattacharjee, a Bangladeshi disabilities rights advocate, has been chosen for the UNESCO / Emir Jaber al-Ahmad al Jaber al Sabah Prize for Digital Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities. Bhattacharjee has successfully developed a pioneering dictionaries in Bangladesh for people with visual, print and learning disabilities, and a special programme to help the disabled set up their own businesses through e-micro credit support. Beside him, Chinese ICT company Tencent also won the award for its outstanding contribution to the empowering and improving the quality of life of people with disabilities by using inclusive digital technologies to provide greatly enhanced access to information. The award will be handed out in a ceremony at the Unesco headquarters in Paris on December 3.

Notes:
The Nagaland government has recently signed pact with Estonian academy to enlighten the state people on the e-governance models prevailing in the world. The main objective of the 5-year agreement with the e-Governance Academy of Estonia is to work together to develop and expand scientific collaboration on setting up e-Governance Academy in Nagaland. The agreement was signed during the current edition of the e-Naga Summit, held with a vision to embark on a process to instill the spirit of innovation and use of technology for impacting positive change in the society.

Notes:
Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel peace laureate & Myanmar leader, will be stripped of Freedom of Paris award over her failure to speak out against a crackdown on Myanmar’s Rohingya minority. The move, which follows similar decisions by Glasgow, Edinburgh and Oxford, would make Myanmar’s de facto leader the first person to lose the freedom of the French capital, a purely symbolic award. The move will be finalised by the city council at a meeting in mid-December 2018. Apart from this, Suu Kyi has already been stripped of her honorary Canadian citizenship and her Amnesty International’s “Ambassador of Conscience Award”. In 2017, nearly 5,00,000 people belonging to Myanmar’s Rohingya minority have been displaced after violence allegedly instigated by the country’s military, causing a major humanitarian crisis.

Notes:
In Argentina, the 2nd Russia-India-China (RIC) Trilateral Summit was held in Buenos Aires after a gap of 12 years, on the sidelines of the G-20 summit to discuss cooperation in various areas. The three leaders – Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin – agreed to have regular consultations to jointly promote international and regional peace and stability, to strengthen cooperation through BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) and the East Asia Summit (EAS) mechanisms, to address global challenges such as terrorism and climate change, and to encourage peaceful resolution of all differences.

Notes:
The Indian Navy will conduct its flagship Theatre Level Operational Readiness Exercise (TROPEX), from January end till early March 2019. This will provide an opportunity to test the combat capability of the Indian Coast Guards (ICG), Indian Army and the Indian Air Force (IAF), Indian Navy, and strengthened inter-operability and joint operations in complex conflict situation. As part of TROPEX, the Indian Navy would also conduct a large-scale coastal defence exercise ‘Exercise Sea Vigil’ which will involve all stakeholders across mainland and island territories. The aim of such an exercise is to test the robustness of our entire coastal security apparatus through his massive exercise. The yearly exercise takes place on the Western Seaboard which will have participation of over 45 ships from both the Western and Eastern Naval Commands of the Indian Navy, including the aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya, submarines including the nuclear powered Chakra, naval aircraft MiG-29K, helicopters as well as ships from the ICG.

Notes:
Ajay Narayan Jha, a 1982-batch IAS officer of Manipur Tripura cadre, has been appointed the new Finance Secretary of India. He succeeded Hasmukh Adhia. The Finance Secretary is the Permanent Secretary-level civil servant, who plays a leadership role in the bureaucracy of the Finance Ministry.