Current Affairs Quiz - December, 2018

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:
On November 30, the 2nd International Ambedkar Conclave (IAC-2018) has inaugurated by President Ram Nath Kovind in New Delhi as part of the commemoration of Constitution Day. The Conclave is being organised by the Forum of SC and ST Legislators and Parliamentarians and the Dr Ambedkar Chamber of Commerce. Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, widely known as the ‘Father of Indian Constitution’ was an Indian jurist, economist, politician and social reformer who inspired the Dalit Buddhist movement and campaigned against social discrimination towards the untouchables, while also supporting the rights of women and labour.

Notes:
On December 1, President Ram Nath kovind inaugurated the 13th edition of International CII Agro Tech 2018 with theme ‘Technology in Agriculture: Increasing Farmer’s Income’. The 4-day International Agro Technology and Business Fair is being organised by Confederation of Indian Industries (CII). In the fair, the partner country is Great Britain while focus countries are Canada and China. Here, Punjab and Haryana are the the host states for international agricultural expo. A total of 195 exhibitors, including 37 foreign exhibitors from eight countries, will participate in the expo. The event will not only provides deep insight into the India’s food & agriculture market but also acknowledges a meaningful business interaction with & to the overseas participants.

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:
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:
On December 2, India’s first locomotive-less train, known as Train 18, has breached the 180 kmph speed limit during a test run at Kota-Sawai Madhopur section in Rajasthan. When this indigenously designed train is made operational, it will become the country’s fastest train. Train 18 is capable of touching 200 kmph provided the rest of Indian Railways’ system, such as tracks and signals, permit. With 16 coaches, the train will have the same passenger carrying capacity as that of the Shatabdi Express. It has aerodynamically designed driver cabins at both ends for quicker turn-around at destinations. The train also sports an advanced regenerative braking system which saves power. The fully air-conditioned train offers better passenger comfort and safety, as all equipment are fixed under the carriage so that more space is available on board.

Notes:
Luka Modric, Croatia and Real Madrid midfielder, has been honoured with the perstigiuos 2018 Men’s Ballon d’Or award. With this, he ended Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi’s decade-long dominance in the men’s awards. Modric won his third successive Champions League title in May 2018 and also captained Croatia to its first FIFA World Cup final in Russia. He was named player of the tournament despite his side losing 4-2 to France. For the first time in the history of the Ballon d’Or prize, the female player category was awarded in 2018. Hence, Norwegian striker Ada Hegerberg has become the first-ever recipient of the women’s Ballon d’Or. The Ballon d’Or is an annual football award presented by French magazine France Football.

Notes:
Pawan Singh has become the first Indian to be elected one of seven member’s of the Judges Committee of the International Shooting Sports Federation (ISSF). He also holds the post of the Joint Secretary General of the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) and was a former coach of the Indian shooting team.Recently, Raninder Singh, President of NRAI had become the first Indian to be elected Vice President of ISSF. While, India’s Olympic and world champion shooter Abhinav Bindra has been bestowed with the prestigious ISSF’s highest shooting honour ‘Blue Cross’at the General Assembly in Munich for his outstanding services as the chairman of the International Shooting Sport Federation’s Athletes Committee. The Blue Cross is the highest laurel for shooters given by the ISSF.

Notes:
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.

Notes:
According to the study by the Global Carbon Project, India is the fourth highest emitter of CO2 (carbon dioxide) in the world, accounting for 7% of global emissions in 2017. India’s emissions look set to continue their strong growth by an average of 6.3% in 2018, with growth across all fuels — coal (7.1%), oil (2.9%) and gas (6%). The world’s top 10 Co2 emitters were China, the US, the EU, India, Russia, Japan, Germany, Iran, Saudi Arabia and South Korea. The study said that while China and India still rely heavily on coal, the US and the EU are slowly decarbonising. It further said that India can continue to deploy solar farms, leveraging its leadership of the International Solar Alliance (ISA) to displace coal and clean up its smog-choked cities. The study was recently released on the occasion of the 2018 UN Climate Summit (COP24) in Katowice, Poland. It warned that global emissions of Co2 from fossil fuels and industry are projected to rise for the second consecutive year in 2018 by more than two percent to a new record mainly due to sustained growth in oil and gas use.