Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - November, 2018

Notes:
Yeshwant Deo (91), the veteran Marathi musician, has passed away recently in Dadar, Maharashtra on October 31, 2018. He had composed music for many films including Shabana Azmi-starrer “Saaz”. Born on 1st November 1926, Deo was a revered figure in the Marathi music circle and industry where he composed music for more than 40 Marathi films and plays. He worked in All India Radio (AIR) as a sitar player. A recipient of the Lata Mangeshkar award, Yeshwant was also known for his composition in Bhav Geet. He won several awards such as Maharashtra state award for music direction for the play Amrapali (1974). He also published books on devotional music.

Notes:
Justice Naresh Harishchandra Patil has been sworn-in as the new Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court. Maharashtra Governor C Vidyasagar Rao administered the oath of office to Justice Patil at a brief ceremony held at Raj Bhavan. The Bombay High Court is one of the oldest High Courts of India and its principle seat is at Mumbai. Its jurisdiction covers the states of Maharashtra and Goa, and the Union Territories of Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli.

Notes:
Recently, the 19th meeting of the Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC) held under the Chairmanship of the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley reviewed the current global and domestic economic situation and financial sector performance. Apart from liquidity in NBFCs (segmental liquidity position and in mutual fund space), the FSDC discussed on various economic issues ranging from oil prices, rupee, inflation to improving cyber security in the financial sector including “progress made towards setting up of a Computer Emergency Response Team in the Financial Sector (CERT-Fin) under a Statutory Framework”. The FSDC is an apex-level body to strengthen and institutionalise the mechanism of maintaining financial stability, financial sector development, inter-regulatory coordination along with monitoring macro-prudential regulation of economy.

Notes:
S S Deswal, a 1984 batch IPS officer of Haryana cadre, has been appointed as the new Director General (DG) of Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) for a period up to his superannuation on August 31, 2021. He succeeded R K Pachnanda. Prior to this post, Deswal was the DG of the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB). The ITBP was raised on 24 October 1962 under the CRPF Act, in the wake of the Sino-Indian War of 1962. It is one of the five Central Armed Police Forces of India. Apart from its primary task of guarding the 3,488-km India-China border, where ITBP troops are deployed at freezing heights of up to 18,700 feet, the paramilitary force is tasked with rendering a variety of duties in the internal security domain, including undertaking anti-Naxal operations in Chhattisgarh.

Notes:
On November 1, former Indian cricket captain Rahul Dravid has officially been inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame for his stupendous achievements in international cricket. In a ceremony held ahead of the fifth and final ODI between India and West Indies in Thiruvananthapuram, Dravid was presented with the HoF cap by Sunil Gavaskar. With this, Dravid became only the fifth player from India to be named in the elite list. The other four Indians are former skippers Bishan Singh Bedi, Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev and Anil Kumble. Dravid, also popularly known as ‘the Wall’ had been a long-standing rock of Indian cricket for over 15 years. In all, he aggregated 13,288 runs in 164 Tests with 36 centuries and 10,889 runs in 344 ODIs with 12 centuries. He was also a brilliant slip fielder and finished his Test career in 2012 with 210 catches, which is a world record. He is currently the head coach of India A and India U-19 sides.

Notes:
India has been ranked 77th in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index 2018 . With this, India has jumped 23 places from 2017 in which it was ranked at 100th. In its annual ‘Doing Business’ 2019 report, World Bank stated that India improved its rank on six out of the 10 parameters relating to starting and doing business in a country.The report also recognises India as one of the top 10 improvers in this year’s assessment, for the 2nd successive time. The Index ranks 190 countries across 10 indicators ranged across the lifecycle of a business from ‘starting a business’ to ‘resolving insolvency’. These parameters include ease of starting a business, construction permits, getting electricity, getting credit, paying taxes, trade across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency. New Zealand tops the list, followed by Singapore, Denmark, and Hong Kong.

Notes:
Satyajit Ray’s epic masterpiece ‘Pather Panchali’ has been included in BBC’s 100 best foreign language films list of the 21st century. Ray’s film, which was released in 1955 and the first in his ‘Apu’ trilogy, is the only Indian film that find its spot in the BBC list and is placed at number 15. The list is topped by Akira Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai”. It was culled out from a poll where over 200 critics from 43 countries picked their best foreign language film. Some of the notable films that featured in the BBC list are — Kurosawa’s ‘Rashomon ‘, Wong Kar-wai’s ‘In the Mood for Love’, Andrei Tarkovsky’s ‘The Mirror’, Asghar Farhadi’s ‘A Separation’, Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’, Ingmar Bergman’s ‘The Seventh Seal’ and Alfonso Cuaron’s ‘Y Tu Mama Tambien’, among others. According to BBC, 27 of the highest-rated films were in French, followed by 12 in Mandarin, and 11 each in Italian and Japanese. The BBC said that only four of the 100 films have been directed by women. However, it said that 45% of the critics who took part in the poll were women.

Notes:
Recently, China has successfully launched its first geostationary BeiDou-3 satellite ‘G1Q’ into high orbit (about 36,000 km above the Earth) to boost its home-grown BeiDou global satellite navigation system. It was launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in the southwestern Sichuan Province. In a geostationary orbit, following the Earth’s rotation, it will view the same point on Earth continuously. The satellite is meant to serve countries in the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Apart from radio navigation system, the satellite is equipped with an improved radio determination satellite service that can provide short message services to 10 million subscribers each hour. With an advanced satellite-based augmentation system, the satellite can also provide low-cost and reliable navigation services to civil aviation clients at home and abroad. The satellite is carrying hydrogen and rubidium atomic clocks, which will play a key role in positioning and timing accuracy. It will be the fourth global satellite navigation system after the United States (US) Global Position System (GPS), Russia’s GLONASS and the European Union’s Galileo. By around 2020, when the BeiDou system goes global, it will have more than 30 satellites.

Notes:
Steel manufacturing giant Tata Steel has been named as an official partner of the 14th edition of the FIH men’s hockey World Cup 2018 to continue their efforts of promoting development through sports across the country. The tournament is scheduled to be held at the Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar, Odisha from November 28 to December 16. India will host the upcoming prestigious 2018 FIH World Cup for the 3rd time after having played hosts in 1982 in Mumbai and in 2010 in New Delhi. A total of 16 nations will take part in the tournament which will see each team play three matches during the league stage over a span of 12 days before four cross-over matches take place on December 10 and 11.

Notes:
First time in Middle east, Qatar will host the 23rd edition of the World Corporate Games (WCG) in Doha in 2019, which will provide an opportunity for corporations around the world to showcase their competitive prowess through sports. It will be the first time that the WCG incorporate eSports and mindsports. The event features both individual and team competitions, open equally to women and men of all ages and abilities with team events for skilled, semi-skilled or novice participants.It is an all-inclusive event with paragames integrated for various categories as well. The World Corportate Games (WCG) aims to bring together, the local, regional and international business sporting community. The sporting event takes place every one to two years and the 2018 edition was held in Houston in the US.