Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - November, 2018

Notes:
The Government of India (GoI) has set up a tribunal for adjudicating whether or not there is sufficient cause for declaring the two Tripura-based militant outfits – National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) and All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF) – as unlawful associations under the law. The decision has been taken by the Home Ministry exercising the powers conferred under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act . The tribunal will be headed by Delhi High Court Judge Justice Suresh Kait. The rebel outfits, formed in 1990 with the objective of “expulsion of all foreigners who entered the state after 1956”, were first banned in 1997 following riots involving tribals and non-tribals in Tripura’s Khowai subdivision, in which the outfits intervened on behalf of tribals. Tripura shares an 856-km boundary with Bangladesh.

Notes:
The National Education Day (NED) is celebrated every year in India on 11th of November to commemorate the birth anniversary of great freedom fighter, educationist & social reformer Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. He was also the independent India’s first education minister (served from 1947 to 1958). In 1912, he started a weekly journal in Urdu called Al-Hilal to increase the revolutionary recruits. For his contribution – both as an educationist as a freedom fighter – he was awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1992. He is also responsible in establishing most of the major cultural and literary academies including the Sangeet Natak Academy, Lalit Kala Academy, Sahitya Academy as well as the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR). The first IIT, IISc, School of Planning and Architecture and the University Grants Commission were established under his tenure. The day also observes to strengthen India’s educational institutions and to raising the quality of education.

Notes:
Dr. Saroj Suman Gulati, Director of Blue Bells Group of Schools, has been conferred with the coveted Global Education Leaders Award 2018 for her ‘exemplary contribution to K-12 education & promotion of Art & Culture’ during the 2nd India-UAE Partnership Summit-2018 at The Atlantis, Dubai. Dr. Gulati was among the 9 eminent education leaders from India who were awarded for their exemplary contribution in various spheres of education and social development. Other award winners are: Dr. Atul Chauhan, MME Grace Pinto, Dr. M.K. Madan, Prof. (Dr.) C. Raj Kumar, Dilip Thakore, J.C. Chaudhry, Prateek Bhargava and Prof. Samit Ray. The two day summit was attended by over 400 Delegates from India & UAE comprising of prominent Education Leaders, Chancellor’s & Vice Chancellors, Academicians, Schools Principals, Entrepreneurs and Ed Tech Startups.

Notes:
Jalaj Srivastava, a 1984 batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, has been appointed the new chairman of the Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI). Prior to this post, he was working as Additional Secretary in Ministry of Agriculture. He is known for launching the “Shakti Cab” project and “URJA” project for women when he was with the Delhi government as chairman of New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) and Principal Secretary in Department of VAT. He is also considered as the man behind the start of “Rahagiri” event that takes place every Sunday in the national capital to promote culture and sports. Jalaj is also the writer of a crime thriller novel titled ‘The Perfect Suicide’. The IWAI comes under the Union Ministry of Shipping, Road Transport and Highways, currently headed by Nitin Gadkari.

Notes:
Brigadier (retd) Kuldip Singh Chandpuri (78), who was known for his heroic leadership in the famous Battle of Longewala during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, has passed away in Mohali, Punjab on November 17, 2018. He was decorated with the Maha Vir Chakra (MVC) for the heroic stand-off that forced the enemy to retreat. The Battle of Longewala (1971) was one of the first major engagements in the western sector during the Indo-Pak war of 1971, fought between assaulting Pakistani forces and Indian defenders at the Indian border post of Longewala in the Thar desert of Rajasthan. The 1997 Bollywood war film ‘Border’ was based on the real life events that happened at the Battle of Longewala, with his role played by Sunny Deol.

Notes:
Lakshya Sen from India has recently won bronze in men’s singles at the Li Ning World Junior Badminton Championship 2018, after suffering a narrow defeat to top seed Kunlavut Vitidsarn of Thailand in the men’s singles semifinals at Markham in Canada. This was India’s fifth boys singles bronze medal at the BWF World Junior Championships. Previously, RMV Gurusaidutt (2008), B Sai Praneeth (2010), HS Prannoy (2010) and Sameer Verma (2011) have won the bronze. Siril Verma (2015) is India’s only boys singles silver-medallist at the World Junior Championships. Apart from this, Saina Nehwal is the only Indian to have won a gold in the tournament during the 2008 Pune edition.

Notes:
The World Fisheries Day (WFD) is observed every year on 21st of November throughout the world by fishing communities. This day is celebrated through rallies, workshops, public meetings, cultural programs, dramas, exhibition, music show, and demonstrations to highlight the importance of maintaining the world’s fisheries. It helps in highlighting the critical importance to human lives, of water and the lives it sustains, both in and out of water. Water forms a continuum, whether contained in rivers, lakes, and ocean.

Notes:
The Union Ministry of Environment has recently approved a project led by scientists at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur to induce artificial rain via cloud seeding to clear smog in Delhi. The Cloud seeding project will have an aircraft fly into the clouds and inject silver iodide, which will lead to the formation of ice crystals that will make the clouds denser, cause them to condense into rain and settle atmospheric dust enough to clear the sky. The researchers at IIT-Kanpur will use an aircraft of the National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA), an ISRO-affiliated body for the exercise. The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) will provide forecasts on the likelihood of conducive clouds. The cloud seeding is not new to India — Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra have experimented with it in limited trials through the decades to address droughts. Though, this is the first time it will be tried during the winters to battle pollution.

Notes:
In China, the world’s first underground hotel “the InterContinental Shanghai Wonderland”has opened in Shanghai, which is buried almost 90 metres deep in an old quarry. The 18-storey luxury hotel is almost entirely subterranean having two floors above ground and the rest underground, including two floors that are underwater. Built in the Sheshan Mountain Range, it encloses 336 rooms and suites which mimic the landscape of the quarry offering a picturesque view into the abyss. The bottom floors have underwater suites that feature in-room aquariums where guests can enjoy the aquatic ecosystem of the decommissioned quarry. Other highlights of the exotic resort are its cascading glass waterfall, a glitzy amusement park and exposed rocks. The sprawling property is built by British firm Atkins, who is also responsible for architectural marvels such as Burj Al Arab in Dubai and skyscraper Landmark 81 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The hotel can withstand a magnitude 9 earthquake.

Notes:
The researchers at IIT-Hyderabad have developed a smartphone-based system to detect adulteration in milk. The detector system can measure the level of acidity in milk using an indicator paper. The sensor-chip based method measures pH, which is an indicator of the acidity and the colour of the paper indicates different pH levels. The IIT team, led by Prof. Shiv Govind Singh, used a process called “electrospinning” to produce paper-like material made of nanosized nylon fibre, loaded with a combination of three dyes. The paper is “halochromic” which changes colour in response to changes in acidity. They have also developed a prototype smartphone-based algorithm, in which, the colours of the sensor strips after dipping in milk are captured using the camera of the phone and the data is transformed into pH (acidity) ranges. On being tested, the above method is found to be 99.71% accurate to detect adulteration in milk.