Current Affairs Quiz - December, 2018

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.

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Kenyan distance runner Eliud Kipchoge, and Colombian long & triple jumper Caterine Ibarguen have been named male and female world athletes of the year at the IAAF Athletics Awards 2018. The pair were honoured by the IAAF at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco.

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In a bid to transform rural Maharashtra, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has launched a unique initiative called “SMART”, which stands for State of Maharashtra’s Agribusiness and Rural Transformation. This World Bank assisted project aims to revamp agricultural value chains, with special focus on marginal farmers across 1,000 villages. The initiative will support post-harvest value chain and bring efficiency to benefit economy at large. Stimulating small and medium enterprises within the value chain, the project seeks to establish partnership between the various stakeholders in the agri-business segments including farmer organisations, start-ups, SMEs and large corporates along with women’s self-help groups. The project will entail an investment of $300 million of which World Bank would contribute $210 million. Almost 50 MoUs, involving top corporate houses like Amazon and Tata were signed on the occasion.

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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.

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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.

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On December 8, the Japanese government enacted a new law to bring more blue-collar foreign workers into the country, in a controversial move to address chronic labour shortages. Under the new law, Japan plans to bring in 345,000 foreign workers in construction, food services, nursing and other sectors for 5 years. The law will take effect in April 2019 and create two new visa categories. The first status allows foreign nationals with skills in sectors facing severe shortages to obtain five-year visas, which will not allow them to bring their families. The second status allows foreign workers in those fields who hold stronger qualifications and pass a more difficult Japanese language test will be able to obtain a visa that can be extended indefinitely, eventually leading to residency, and will be able to bring over family.

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On December 07, the Annual Startup India Venture Capital Summit 2018 has been organised by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) in collaboration with the Government of Goa with theme ‘Mobilizing Global Capital for Innovation in India’ in Goa. The focus of the Summit was on the huge return-generating potential of India’s vast and diverse market monetized through cutting-edge technologies and supported by investor-friendly regulations. The event showcased the Indian startup opportunity for funds from around the world. Over 150 participants attended the event. The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a sister organisation of the World Bank Group, and the Indian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (IVCA) were partners for this initiative.

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On December 7, the 2nd edition of Military Literature Festival (MLF) 2018 was held in Chandigarh with an aim to offer an opportunity for the younger generation to get acquainted with India’s glorious military heritage. It also brought a host of cultural activities, food cuisines and competitions to the public. Besides, marshal dances, weapons display, medallion gallery, artists’ corner, cultural activities and exhibitions, food and cuisine, book fair, children’s Saragarhi Samvadh are amongst other activities to reverberate the minds of participants and visitors with tales of India’s soldiers during the three-day event. The fest was also dedicated to the valour of over 74,000 Indians who had laid down their lives in World War I. This year also marks the centenary of the Great War of 1914-1918. The fest was a joint initiative of military historian and Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh and Punjab Governor VP Singh Badnore.

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On December 8, Shubhankar Sharma has become the fifth and the youngest Indian golfer to clinch the Asian Tour Order of Merit after a groundbreaking year of achievements. With this achievement, He joined the exclusive club of Indians who have achieved the feat in the past – Jyoti Randhawa (2002), Arjun Atwal (2003), Jeev Milkha Singh (2006 and 2008) and Anirban Lahiri (2015).

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India is expected to retain its position as the world’s top recipient of remittances with $80 million in 2018, as per latest World Bank’s report ‘Migration and Development Brief’. India is followed by China ($67 billion), Mexico and the Philippines ($34 billion each) and Egypt ($26 billion). The bank estimates that officially recorded remittances to developing countries will increase by 10.8% to reach US$528 billion in 2018, , against a 7.8% growth in 2017. The Global remittances, which include flows to high-income countries, are projected to grow by 10.3% to $689 billion. For 2019, it is projected that remittances growth for the region will slow to 4.3% due to a moderation of growth in advanced economies, lower migration to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the benefits from the oil price spurt dissipating.