Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - November, 2018

Notes:
‘The Third Wife’, directed by Vietnamese director Ash Mayfair, movies has won the Best Film award at the 24th Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF-2018). Mayfair and her compatriot producer Tran Thi Bich Ngoc collected the ‘Royal Bengal Tiger’ trophy and Rs 51 lakh cheque. Similarly, Egyptian director Abu Bakr Shawky won the Best Director award for his film ‘Judgement Day’ (Yomeddine). In Indian Language category, Indian director Praveen Morchhale’s film ‘Widow of Silence’ grabbed the Hiralal Sen Memorial Award for Best Film and Arijit Biswas won the Best Director award for his film Surjo Prithibir Chardike Ghore (Sun goes round the Earth).

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:
Dr. Thanjavur Santhanakrishna Kanaka (86), who was Asia’s first & world’s third female neurosurgeon, has passed away in Chennai, Tamil Nadu on November 14, 2018. She served in the Indian Army as a commissioned officer during the 1962-1963 Sino-Indian War. Beside this, she was the first neurosurgeon in India to perform chronic electrode implants in the brain; having performed deep brain stimulation as early as in 1975. Dr. Kanaka, who retired as professor of Neurosurgery in Madras Medical College (MMC) in 1990, was known to have inspired many women to take to the field of neurosurgery in the country. She used her own funds to establish a hospital, named after her parents as Sri Santhanakrishna Padmavathi Health Care and Research Foundation, which offers free healthcare to the needy.

Notes:
Tripura will host the 7th edition of International Tourism Mart (ITM-2018) in Agartala from 22nd November to popularise tourist destinations in the northeastern states of the country. The event would be organised with an estimated budget of Rs 2.60 crores, which would be provided by the Ministry of Tourism. In the 3-day long tourism fair, at least 60 tour operators from 18 foreign countries including Bangladesh, USA, Canada, Australia, Japan, China, Thailand, South Africa and Russia would attend the fair and engage in dialogue with the state tour operators, attend seminars and visit different tourist spots of the state. Apart from the foreign participants, 70 tour operators would join the tourism mart from the eight NE states. 30 others would participate from other states of the country.

Notes:
The Africa Industrialization Day (AID) is observed every year on November 20 to raise global awareness of the challenges faced by the continent with regard to industrialization. The African continent is the second most-populated continent in the world, home to over 1.2 billion people (or 16% of the world’s population). Despite this, Africa currently only accounts for less than 2% of international trade and global manufacturing. In March 2018, 49 of Africa’s 55 countries signed the African Continental Free Trade Agreement meant to create a tariff-free continent that can grow local businesses, boost intra-African trade, rev up industrialization and create jobs.The 2018 theme is “Promoting Regional Value Chains in Africa: A pathway for accelerating Africa’s structural transformation, industrialization and pharmaceutical production”.

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:
Professor Shyama Prasad Ganguly from India has been awarded the Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle, the highest civilian honour given to a foreigner by Mexico. He was decorated with the striking gold-yellow insignia by Mexican Ambassador Melba Pria at a ceremony in the India International Center (IIC) on November 19. The award was in recognition of his “outstanding work in the study and dissemination of the Spanish language and Mexican culture”. Ganguly is a well-known Hispanist who has headed the Centre for Spanish and Latin American Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University five times. He has authored, edited and translated over 25 books in an academic career spanning 40 years.

Notes:
The Universal Children’s Day (UCD) is observed every year on 20th of November across the world to promote international togetherness, awareness among children worldwide, and improving children’s welfare. The 2018 theme is ‘Children are taking over and turning the world blue’. The day was established in 1954, offers each of us an inspirational entry-point to advocate, promote and celebrate children’s rights, translating into dialogues and actions that will build a better world for Children.

Notes:
Golfer Shubhankar Sharma from Chandigarh has become the first Indian to win European Tour ‘Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year’ award. He achieved the feat soon after finishing tied 41st at the season-ending 2018 World Tour Championship event in Dubai. No Indian has won the Rookie of the Year award in European Tour, though three Indians – Arjun Atwal (1995), Shiv Kapur (2005) and C Muniyappa (2009) emerged as Rookie of the Year on the Asian Tour. Some of the other golfers to have won this prestigious award include Jon Rahm (2017), Wang Jeunghun (2016), Byeong Hun An (2015) and Brooks Koepka (2014).

Notes:
The World COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) Day is observed every year on 21st of November by the Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) to raise awareness of COPD and to improve prevention and treatment of this lung disease for patients around the world. The 2018 theme is ‘Never too early, never too late’. The COPD is not one single disease but an umbrella term used to describe chronic lung diseases that cause limitations in lung airflow. Tobacco smoking is the most common cause of COPD. The most common symptoms of COPD are breathlessness, or a ‘need for air’, excessive sputum production, and a chronic cough. According to the latest WHO estimates (2004), currently 64 million people have COPD and 3 million people died of COPD. WHO predicts that COPD will become the third leading cause of death worldwide by 2030.