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:
The South Asia Regional Youth Peace Conference has been organised by Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti (GSDS) in partnership with UNESCO- MGIEP and STEP (Standing Together to Enable Peace) from November 28-30, 2018. The 3-day conference is being organized to mark the beginning of celebration of 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. The conference was inaugurated by ShriKrishna G Kulkarni, great grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, at Gandhi Darshan in New Delhi. About 100 youth leaders from South Asian countries and different parts of India have come together to discuss different dimensions of ‘peace’. The conference focused on building a network for young leaders from South Asian countries working on various social issues, to identify avenues for partnership and collaboration, support and show solidarity towards each other’s initiatives, nurture relationships and promote global citizenship to work towards achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Notes:
Iravatham Mahadevan (88), the renowned epigraphist and Padma Shri recipient, has passed away in Chennai, Tamil Nadu on November 26, 2018. A former civil servant, he also helmed the well-known Tamil daily ‘Dinamani’ as its Editor in the late 1980s. He was known for his successful decipherment of Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions and for his expertise on the epigraphy of the Indus Valley Civilization. He was conferred the Campbell Medal by the Asiatic Society of Mumbai, formerly the Royal Asiatic Society, in November 2014.

Notes:
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. In 2008, by winning the gold in the 10 metre Air Rifle event at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, he created history by becoming the first Indian to win an individual gold medal at the Olympic Games. He is the first and only Indian to have held both the World and Olympic titles at the same time, a feat he accomplished by capturing the Gold Medal at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, after having won the gold at the 2006 ISSF World Shooting Championships. Bindra also won the Gold Medal at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

Notes:
The European Union has recently announced a long-term vision on combating climate change that aims to transform the bloc into the first carbon neutral major economy by 2050 – A Clean Planet for All . Under the plan, emissions of greenhouse gases after that date would have to be offset by planting trees or by burying the gases underground. Its plan will include steps such as investing in realistic technological solutions ( such as solar and wind energy ) to help lower carbon emissions. Thus, scientists said that net-zero emissions by 2050 are needed to have a fighting chance of keeping global temperatures under 1.5C this century. The Climate neutrality means your emissions are balanced by methods of removing warming gases from the atmosphere. So the warming emissions that are created by cars and power plants should be counteracted by the greenhouse gases removed from the air by the planting of new forests or through carbon capture technologies which would see the CO2 buried underground.

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:
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 book “Architecture of Justice: A Pictorial Walk-through of the Supreme Courts and High Courts of India” has been authored by father-son duo Vinay Thakur and Amogh Thakur. The 223-page coffee-table tome was recently released by the Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi at the Indian International Centre. The book, a sequel to Vinay’s earlier book ‘The Courts of India Past to Present’ (2016), is not about photographs alone, and is replete with interesting trivia and anecdotes about the monumental buildings. It takes a stroll through corridors of justice.

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:
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.