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:
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.

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 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.

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:
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.

Notes:
Atlawim Debebe of Ethiopia has won the 2018 Pune International Marathon with the timing of 2 hours 17 minutes 17 seconds. Teshome Getachew claimed second and Bekele Asefa third position. Both of them are also from Ethiopia.In women’s Full Marathon Pascalia Chepkogei from Kenya stood first with the timing of 2 hour 50 minutes 27 seconds. Among Indian runners this year also Karan Singh of Bombay Engineering Group stood first in Men’s category. In women’s Full marathon Urvi Tambe stood first amongst Indian participants. Along with 100 foreign runners, more than 15 thousand people participated in this oldest International Marathon this year. This is 33rd year of Pune International Marathon.

Notes:
The World Soil Day (WSD) is observed every year on December 5 to focus attention on the importance of healthy soil and advocating for the sustainable management of soil resources. The 2018 theme is ‘Be the Solution to Soil Pollution’. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Soil holds 3 times as much carbon as the atmosphere and can help meet the challenges of a changing climate. It further stated that 815 million people are food insecure and 2 billion people are nutritionally insecure, but it can be mitigated through soil. 95% of food comes from soil and 33% of the global soils are already degraded. In wake of this cause, the Government of India (GoI) has launched nationwide Soil Health Card Scheme (SHCS) to take care of Soil Health for the first time in a uniform manner to evaluate the soil fertility across the country. Soil health card provides information to the farmers on fertility status of their soil and enables them to apply soil health card based recommended dosages of fertilizers including micro-nutrients, bio-fertilizers, manures as well as soil ameliorants. It is helpful in checking the declining fertility of agriculture land and improve the fertility of soils to increase productivity besides enhancing farmers income.

Notes:
Mushtaq Ahmad Tantray, a prominent Kashmiri short-story writer and eminent broadcaster, bagged 2018 Sahitya Academy Award for his collection of short stories “AAKH’’. Mr Tantray is presently posted as Head of the Regional News Unit at Radio Kashmir Srinagar. “AAKH”, a collection of eighteen short stories, published in 2012 had earlier bagged the best book award in Kashmiri at the state level from State Academy of Art, Culture and Languages for the year 2014.