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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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.

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Noted Malayalam writer M Mukundan has been selected for 2018 Ezhuthachan Puraskaram, the highest literacy prize of the Kerala government. The award, which carries a cash prize of Rs five lakh and citation, is being given for his overall contributions to the language and literature. His popular works inlcude ‘Mayyazhippuzhayude Theerangalil’, ‘Kesavante Vilapangal’, ‘Delhi Gadhakal’, ‘Appam Chudunna Kunkiyamma’ and ‘Lesli Achante Kadangal’.

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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.

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Justice Debasish Kar Gupta has recently been sworn-in as the new chief justice of the Calcutta High Court. It is the oldest High Court in India and has jurisdiction over the state of West Bengal and the Union Territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The seat of the High Court is Kolkata, capital of West Bengal. The High Court building’s design is based on the Cloth Hall, Ypres, in Belgium.

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On October 31, Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled the ‘Statue of Unity’ in Narmada district of Gujarat on the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Sardar Patel – who served as the first Home Minister of independent India – is credited with uniting all 562 princely states in pre-independent India to build the Republic of India. That is why it is called the ‘Statue Of Unity’. It is the world’s tallest statue, with a height of 182m. It located around 3.5 km downstream from the Sardar Sarovar Dam, on islet Sadhu Bet on the bed of the river Narmada. The statue was designed by 93-year-old acclaimed sculptor Ram V. Sutar, who is Padma Bhushan awardee. It is built by Larsen & Toubro Ltd at a cost of Rs. 2,989 crore. The Statue of Unity is made up of 70,000 tonnes of cement, 18,500 tonnes of reinforcement steel, 6,000 tonnes of structural steel and 1,700 metric tonnes of bronze, which was used for the outer cladding of the structure. The viewing gallery at the height of 135 metres can accommodate up to 200 people at a time.

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India and Japan has recently a Loan Agreement worth Rs. 1817 crore for the ‘Project for the Construction of Turga Pumped Storage (I)’ in the State of West Bengal. The purpose of the Project is to strengthen the capability to respond to fluctuation in supply and demand of power and to improve stability of the power supply by constructing the pumped storage facilities, thereby contributing to the Industrial Development and Living Standard Improvement in the State of West Bengal.

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According to India’s first-ever ‘Ease of Moving Index 2018’ – India Report 2018, Kolkata has topped the index in terms of cleanliness and affordability of public transport, followed by New Delhi and Chennai. The index offers insights on mobility preferences & aspirations of Indian commuters across 20 cities with a population of over 92 million. It was released by Ola Mobility Institute (OMI), the research and outreach arm of Ola ride-hailing platform. The 2018 report, which was released by the Union Minister for Surface Transport Nitin Gadkari, seeks to offer a comprehensive action plan for cities to further strengthen their public transportation systems and improve the overall state of mobility. Over 43,000 respondents from 20 cities across the country were surveyed. Cities were selected on five parameters — scale, character, culture, economy and geography. The report also assessed the accessibility, efficiency and safety of current transportation facilities. More than 95% of denizens prefer sustainable mobility and 80% observed transport ecosystem has improved over the last five years with 60% reporting using public modes of commute.

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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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The World Tsunami Awareness Day (WTAD) is observed every year on November 5 to raise awareness about precautionary measures against tsunami and share innovative approaches to risk reduction. Along with risk of large loss of life, the day also highlight the economic losses tsunamis can inflict along vulnerable, densely populated coastlines, shown in red on this map. Tsunamis are rare events, but can be extremely deadly. In the past 100 years, 58 tsunamis have claimed more than 260,000 lives, which is the highest number of deaths than in any other natural hazard. The day was the brainchild of Japan, which due to its repeated, bitter experience has over the years built up major expertise in areas such as tsunami early warning, public action and building back better after a disaster to reduce future impacts.