Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - November, 2018

Notes:
Nobel Prize Winner Malala Yousafzai will be honoured by Harvard University for her work promoting girls’ education. The award will be conferred with the 2018 Gleitsman Award at a ceremony on 6th December. Currently, Yousafzai is a student at Oxford University in England. The Gleitsman Award provides $125,000 for activism that has improved quality of life around the world. Yousafzai became the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 when she was recognized for her global work supporting schooling for all children. As a teen in Pakistan, she survived an assassination attempt by the Taliban. She later founded the nonprofit Malala Fund to support her work.

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The Andhra Pradesh government is building a world-class and India’s first ‘Justice City’ within its new capital Amaravati with the vision to provide a state-of-the-art ecosystem built on latest technology for supporting the judicial system in the state. The Justice City will comprise integrated judicial hub spread across 3,309 acres with an estimated population of 2.5 lacs. It is expected to generate employment for more than 1.3 lac people. The Andhra Pradesh Capital Region Development Authority (APCRDA). is the nodal agency which is developing Amaravati.

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The scientists at CSIR have developed Less Polluting ‘Green’ Firecrackers which are not only environment friendly but 15-20 % cheaper than the conventional ones. These crackers have been named as Safe Water Releaser (SWAS), Safe Minimal Aluminium (SAFAL) and Safe Thermite Cracker (STAR). The commonly used pollution-causing chemicals – aluminium, barium, potassium nitrate and carbon – have either been removed or sharply reduced in the green crackers to reduce emissions by 15-30% . These eco-friendly firecrackers have the unique property of releasing water vapour and /or air as dust suppressant and diluent for gaseous emissions and matching performance in sound with conventional crackers. SWAS eliminates usage of (KNO3) Potassium nitrate and Sulphur, while STAR eliminates usage of KNO3 and S. On the other side, SAFAL has minimal usage of aluminium (only in flash powder for initiation) as compared to commercial crackers.The main point to be noted here is that these crackers match the same sound intensity with that of commercial crackers in the range of 105-110 decibel. The new crackers have been developed by scientists of two national labs of CSIR- Central Electrochemical Research Institute (CECRI) based in Karaikudi, Tamil Nadu and National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) in Nagpur.

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The Kingdom of Netherlands will be the Partner Country at the 25th DST – CII Technology Summit 2019. It was recently announced by Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister for Science & Technology, Earth Sciences, Environment,Forest and Climate Change. The Minister highlighted the successful bilateral research cooperation between India and Netherlands in sectors such as affordable medical devices, urban water systems, big data and Internet of Things (IoT). The Summit will be organised by Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in collaboration with the Netherlands government.

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19-times world champion Pankaj Advani has won the second leg of Asian Snooker Tour title by delivering a power-packed performance to outclass China’s Ju Reti 6-1 in the final at Jinan, China.With this, Advani has become the first Indian to win an Asian Snooker Tour event. The IBSF World Billiards and Snooker Championships is less than a fortnight away and the Indian star cueist is the defending champion in both sports. The new 10-red format of the Tour was well-received by all players as some fine performances were on display throughout the second leg. Pankaj Advani will now have to immediately switch to Billiards as Myanmar hosts the prestigious world championships from November 12 to 27.

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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.

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On November 1, the Union Cabinet has approved a proposal to rename the Jharsuguda airport of Odisha after eminent freedom fighter Veer Surendra Sai. Renaming of the Jharsuguda airport in his name will fulfill long-pending demand of the Odisha Government, which reflects the sentiments of the local public of the respective area. It will also be a befitting tribute to the contribution of the revered personality associated with the State. Veer Surendra Sai, who was born on 22nd January 1809 in Sambalpur district of the State, had sacrificed his life fighting against British East India company. He and his associates resisted the British and successfully protected most parts of Western Odisha region for some time from the British rule. Many of them were hanged by the British & a few died in the Cellular Jail in the Andamans. Surendra Sai died in Asirgarh Jail on 23rd May 1884.

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Recently, the first-ever India-US Dialogue On Intellectual Property (IP) was launched in New Delhi to deepen bilateral strategic cooperation on IP policy. The dialogue was launched by US Chamber of Commerce’s Global Innovation Policy Center (GIPC) and FICCI in partnership with the US-India Business Council. It will be convened annually, alternating between New Delhi and Washington DC. The dialogue aims to identify solutions, and also share technical knowledge and expertise. The US-India Business Council, which was formed in 1975, is a business advocacy organisation comprised of 350 top-tier US and Indian companies advancing US-India commercial ties.

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The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has initiated steps to set up a wide-based digital Public Credit Registry (PCR) to capture details of all borrowers, including wilful defaulters and also the pending legal suits in order to check financial delinquencies. The PCR will also include data from entities like market regulator SEBI, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Goods and Service Tax Network (GSTN) and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) to enable the banks and financial institutions to get 360 degree profile of existing and prospective borrowers on a real-time basis. The central bank has invited expression of interest for developing the registry from companies with a turnover of over 100 crore rupees in the last three years. The PCR would be the single point of mandatory reporting for all material events for each loan, notwithstanding any threshold in the loan amount or type of borrower. Currently, there are multiple granular credit information repositories in India, with each having somewhat distinct objectives and coverage.

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V. Rathinam (99), the veteran freedom fighter and member of Indian National Army (INA) led by Nethaji Subash Chandra Bose, has passed away in South Kodikulam, Tamil Nadu on November 4, 2018. Born on 16th August 1919, Rathinam had moved to Burma when he was a bachelor and joined the INA during the Second World War in the early 1940s. After completing the training programme, he was inducted into the INA and fought against the British. Later, he was imprisoned by the British along with others and served jail terms in different prisons before he was set free from a prison in Kolkata.