Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - November, 2018

Notes:
South African president Cyril Ramaphosa will be chief guest at the 2019 Republic Day parade of India. With this, Ramaphosa would become 2nd leader from his country to attend the event. Former president Nelson Mandela was the chief guest at the 1995 parade. An anti-apatheid activist and a Mahatma Gandhi follower, Ramaphosa became the 5th president of South Africa after the resignation of Jacob Zuma in December 2017. In April 2018, he led around 5,000 people at the annual ‘Gandhi Walk’ event in Lenasia near Johannesburg, to promote community awareness and fitness. Hence, the move to invite Ramaphosa also coincides with Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary. South Africa is also a key BRICS association partner for India. Generally, chief guests of the parade are heads of states of countries that are strategically important to India, or heads of neighbouring countries.

Notes:
India’s first specialized hospital for elephants has opened by NGO Wildlife SOS (WSOS) in Mathura at Farah block’s Churmura village. The first-of-its-kind hospital has unique facilities including wireless digital X-ray, laser treatment, dental X-ray, thermal imaging, ultrasonography, hydrotherapy and quarantine facilities. The hospital is strategically located near elephant conservation and care centre. It is designed to treat injured, sickor geriatric elephants and is equipped with a medical hoist for lifting elephants, as also an elephant restraining device with a dedicated indoor treatment enclosure for long duration medical procedures.

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:
William Goldman (87), the Oscar-winning screenwriter and novelist, has passed away in New York on November 16, 2018. He was best known for his works such as ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’, ‘All the President’s Men’ and ‘The Princess Bride’.

Notes:
On 18th of November 2018, the Ministry of Ayush celebrated its first Naturopathy Day across the country with the aim of promoting the drug-less system of medicine to prevent diseases by altering the diet and lifestyle. The Central Council for Research in Yoga and Naturopathy organised health camps, workshops and exhibitions in association with local naturopathy centres and hospitals. More than 1,000 Naturopathy specialist doctors from all over the country participated in the event, which was organised by International Naturopathy Organisation (INO) in association with Ministry of Ayush.

Notes:
The Government of India (GoI) has appointed UIDAI CEO & GSTN Chairman Ajay Bhushan Pandey as new Secretary of Revenue in place of Hasmukh Adhia, who is set to superannuate on November 30. Pandey, who is 1984 batch Maharashtra-cadre IAS officer will continue to hold additional charge of CEO of UIDAI and also Chairman of GST Network. Interestingly, the government also appointed Sanjay Kumar Mishra, a 1984 batch IRS Officer, as Director of Enforcement Directorate (ED) for two years. Similarly, Gujarat cadre IAS Girish Chandra Murmu will be new Secretary of Expenditure and will take over from AN Jha who will superannuate in January 2019.

Notes:
The World Toilet Day (WTD) is observed every year on 19th of November to inspire action to tackle the global sanitation crisis. The 2018 theme is “When Nature Calls”. Hence, this year’s campaign is based on the narrative: When nature calls, we need a toilet. But, billions of people don’t have one. This means human faeces, on a massive scale, are not being captured or treated – contaminating the water and soil that sustain human life. We are turning our environment into an open sewer. We must build toilets and sanitation systems that work in harmony with ecosystems. Therefore, the Nature-based sanitation solutions (NBS) harness the power of ecosystems to help treat human waste before it returns to the environment. Most NBS essentially involve the protection and management of vegetation, soils and/or wetlands, including rivers and lakes.

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:
Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan has been honoured with the third Sayaji Ratna Award 2018 at Vadodara for his social contribution to pay off the loans of several farmers from Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. He had helped 1,398 farmers from Uttar Pradesh and 350 from Maharashtra through his contribution. The award was established in 2013 to mark the 151st birth anniversary of Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III, the erstwhile ruler of Baroda. This award is given annually to living legends of India.It recognizes the personality of the iconic character and outstanding contribution in the realms of business, sports, arts, humanity, education, governance and medicine.

Notes:
The North Sentinel Island is one of the Andaman Islands, which includes South Sentinel Island, in the Bay of Bengal. It is home to the Sentinelese who, often violently, reject any contact with the outside world, and are among the last uncontacted peoples to remain virtually untouched by modern civilisation. Recently, it is in news because the American national ‘John Allen Chau’ allegedly killed by people belonging to the protected Sentinelese tribe in the North Sentinel Island. It must be noted that North Sentinel Island and its buffer zone is strictly restricted under the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (Protection of Aboriginal Tribes) Regulation, 1956 under Indian Forest Act, 1927. In it, it is declared that the traditional areas occupied by the tribes as reserves, and prohibited entry of all persons except those with authorisation. Photographing or filming the tribe members is also an offence. The rules were amended later to enhance penalties. But restricted area permits were relaxed for some islands recently.