Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - October, 2018

Notes:
Annapurna Devi (91), the renowned Hindustani musician, passed away in Mumbai on October 13, 2018. Born in Maihar (Madhya Pradesh) in 1927, she was the daughter and disciple of Allauddin Khan (who was the founder of Maihar gharana). She was given the name ‘Annapurna’ by former Maharaja Brijnath Singh of the former Maihar Estate (M.P.), and it was by this name that she was popularly known. Annapurna was an Indian Surbahar (bass sitar) player of Hindustani classical music. She was married to sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar, but he divorced her and went to USA in 1962. After her divorce, she never performed again in public. She had had notable disciples viz.: Hariprasad Chaurasia, Nityanand Haldipur, Nikhil Banerjee, Amit Bhattacharya, Pradeep Barot, Sudhir Phadke, Sandhya Apte and Saswatti Saha.

Notes:
India’s first-ever India-Israel Innovation Centre (IIIC), an entrepreneurial technology hub, was launched at the 3rd edition of IoT India Congress in Bengaluru, Karnataka on October 10, 2018. The IIIC is a significant step towards facilitating penetration of Israeli companies in India and aims to forge local partnerships and joint ventures between companies from the two countries. It will provide an ecosystem to support entrepreneurship, partnership with vendors, mentoring and non-formal community development that will assist the growth of the companies in different verticals and covers business, technology, investors and customers. The start-ups that are part of IIIC will be given mentorship and guidance and opportunities to participate at all IIIC’s global events and experience networking avenues with potential customers. The IIIC was launched by Ramanan Ramanathan, the Mission Director of Atal Innovation Mission (AIM).

Notes:
The biography of late Anumolu Ramakrishna titled ‘Building a Legacy’ is authored by city-based Chartered Accountant V Pattabhi Ram. It was recently released by Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu. Ramakrishna, former President and MD at Larsen and Toubro (L&T), was posthumously awarded Padma Bhushan in 2014. He was instrumental in constructing several path breaking buildings including Tirumala queue complex, Hitech city, and Nehru Indoor Stadium. Ramakrishna was born in December 1939 and died on August 20, 2013 at Hyderabad.

Notes:
The World Bank (WB) has recently released its first-ever Human Capital Index (HCI), which ranked 157 economies on parameters like child mortality, health and education. India is ranked at 115th position in the index with its score of 0.44 on a scale of 0 to 1 coming even below the average score for South Asia. Though, Government of India (GoI) has rejected the findings of the index. India’s neighbours Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka were better placed at 106th, 102nd and 74th position, respectively. Singapore topped the poll after it was highly rated for its universal healthcare system, education exams results and life expectancy figures. It is followed by South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and Finland.

Notes:
Maryse Conde, a French (Guadeloupean) author of historical fiction, has won the 2018 New Academy Prize in Literature, which is formed in protest to the Nobel Literature Prize. Conde will win about £87,000 raised from crowdfunding and donations, and will receive the prize at a ceremony on 9 December, one day before the Nobel banquet. In 2018, the Nobel Prize in Literature was postponed for the first time since 1949 because of a sexual misconduct scandal that came to light as part of the #MeToo movement.

Notes:
Novak Djokovic, a Serbian professional tennis player. has recently won the 2018 Shanghai Masters Tennis tournament in Shanghai, China. In the final, he beat Croatia’s Borna Coric by 6-3, 6-4 to claim his fourth Shanghai title and second Masters title of the year. Djokovic now has 18 consecutive wins. With this win, he overtook Roger Federer and returned to the #2 ranking for the first time since the 2017 French Open.

Notes:
Priyank Kanoongo has been appointed the new Chairperson of National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) for a period of 3 years. The post of chairperson fell vacant after Stuti Kacker’s tenure ended on September 16, 2018. The NCPCR is a statutory body, which was set up by an Act of Parliament in 2007 under the Commissions for Protection of Child Rights Act, 2005.

Notes:
Paul Allen (65), who co-founded Microsoft with his childhood friend Bill Gates, has passed away in Seattle on October 15 , 2018. In 1975, they founded the Microsoft at Albuquerque in New Mexico to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800 hobby-kit personal computer. It was Allen who came up with the name Microsoft and had left the company in 1983. After that, he became the billionaire philanthropist who invested in conservation, space travel, arts and culture and professional sports. Allen was on the list of America’s wealthiest people who pledged to give away the bulk of their fortunes to charity. At the time of his death, he ranked 44th on Forbes’ 2018 list of billionaires with an estimated net worth of more than $20 billion.

Notes:
Nimesh Shah, the MD & CEO of ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund, has been elected as new Chairman of Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI). He succeeded A Balasubramanian, CEO of Aditya Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund. Shah has been appointed as Chairman at a time when volatile equity markets and fears of liquidity at IL&FS are keeping investors jittery. As Chairman of AMFI, Shah’s challenge will be to focus on investor-centric initiatives through which industry will be able to attract inflows and grow its Assets under Management (AUM).

Notes:
The World Food Day (WFD) is observed every year across the world on 16th of October to commemorate the founding of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in 1945. The theme for WFD 2018 is “Our Actions Are Our Future ! A #ZeroHunger World by 2030 is possible”. Zero hunger means working together to ensure everyone, everywhere, has access to the safe, healthy and nutritious food they need. To achieve it, we must adopt a more sustainable lifestyle, work with others, share our knowledge and be willing to help change the world – for the better.