Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - October, 2018

Notes:
Mohammed Zahur Khayyam Hashmi (91), the National Award winning music director, has been named for the 2018 Hridaynath Award for Lifetime Achievement. He is famous as ‘Khayyam’. The award, which is instituted by the Hridayesh Arts, carries a cash prize of Rs 100,000 and a memento. The veteran composer, lyricist and writer Khayyam started his music career in Ludhiana in 1943 at the age of 17. His some notable works are as follows: “Umrao Jaan”, “Kabhi Kabhi”, “Trishul”, “Razia Sultan”, “Aakhri Khat”, etc.

Notes:
Piyush Goyal, the Union Minister of Railways & Coal, will be honoured with the 2018 Carnot Prize of Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University Of Pennsylvania School Of Design. The 2018 Carnot Prize is a recognition of India’s efforts towards eliminating energy poverty with sustainable energy solutions. It is the most prestigious award in the energy sector. The Prize is named after French physicist Nicolas Sadi Carnot who recognised that the power of the steam engine would “produce a great revolution” in human development. The Carnot Prize is intended to honour those leading revolutions in energy policy to further progress and prosperity. The Carnot Prize is the Kleinman Center’s annual recognition of distinguished contributions to energy policy through scholarship or practice.

Notes:
By using Hubble Space Telescope, the scientists of NASA have found that violent flares from the Young Red Dwarf Stars may make planets orbiting it uninhabitable by affecting their atmospheres. Hubble is observing such stars through a large programme called HAZMAT — Habitable Zones and M dwarf Activity across Time. The purpose of the HAZMAT program is to help understand the habitability of planets around low-mass stars. The word “HAZMAT” describes substances that pose a risk to the environment, or even to life itself. “M dwarf” is the astronomical term for a red dwarf star. The programme is an ultraviolet survey of red dwarfs at three different ages – young, intermediate, and old. According to NASA, Stellar flares from red dwarf star, are particularly bright in ultraviolet wavelengths, compared with Sun-like stars. The flares are believed to be powered by intense magnetic fields that get tangled by the roiling motions of the stellar atmosphere. When the tangling gets too intense, the field breaks & reconnects, and unleashes tremendous amounts of energy. Red dwarf is the smallest, most abundant and longest-lived type of star in our galaxy.

Notes:
Dutch photographer Marsel van Oosten has won the prestigious Wildlife Photographer Of The Year (WPY) 2018 for his stunning portrait of two endangered golden snub-nosed monkeys in China’s Qinling mountains. The winning image – named as ‘Golden Couple’ – showcases a beautiful golden fur-blue face male monkey rested briefly on a stone seat, joined by female baby monkey. The golden snub-nose monkeys are little known outside of their native range of China’s Qinling Mountains. They represent the poorly known primate diversity found in China, much of which is silently sliding toward extinction. The WPY is one of the most prestigious and also the largest wildlife photography competition in the world. Started in 1964, the winning entries and runners-up are published in a book format each year since 1992.

Notes:
The 27th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference (FEC 2018) has started in Gandhi Nagar, Gujarat on October 22. The 3-day event is organised by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and hosted by the Department of Atomic Energy and Gandhinagar-based Institute of Plasma Research. The purpose of the Conference to serve as a platform for sharing the results of research and development efforts in both national and international fusion experiments that have been shaped by these new priorities, and to thereby help in pinpointing worldwide advances in fusion theory, experiments, technology, engineering, safety and socio-economics. Experts from across the world will discuss the new challenges being faced by the fusion community in the light of a number of next-step fusion devices being implemented currently.

Notes:
On October 22, renowned jurist Fali S. Nariman has been honoured with the 19th Lal Bahadur Shastri National Award for Excellence in Public Administration for year 2018 by the Vice President of India M. Venkaiah Naidu. The award was instituted by the Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management in 1995 in the field of Public Administration, Academics and Management. Each year, the award honours an Indian who is an exceptionally outstanding and distinguished business leader, management practitioner, public administrator, educator or institution builder for his/her sustained individual contributions and achievements.

Notes:
China has officially opened the world’s longest sea-crossing bridge, which connects the Chinese city of Zhuhai to the semi-autonomous regions of Hong Kong and Macau. It includes an undersea tunnel allowing ships to pass through the Pearl River delta, the heart of China’s manufacturing sector. The 34-mile-long bridge forms a physical link between the mainland and Hong Kong, an Asian financial hub that was handed over from British to Chinese control in 1997 with the assurance it would maintain its own legal and economic system for 50 years. The bridge is part of China’s plan to create a Greater Bay Area, including Hong Kong, Macau and nine other cities in southern China. The area is currently home to 68 million people. In the past, travelling between Zhuhai and Hong Kong would take up to four hours – the new bridge cuts this down to 30 minutes. It costs about $20bn and build in almost a decade.

Notes:
Nishtha Dudeja from Haryana has recently won the Miss Deaf Asia 2018 title at an international pageant held in Prague , Czech Republic. She is the first Indian to have won any title at the Miss Deaf World Pageant. Prior to this title, Nishtha had also won the 2018 Miss Deaf India title in Jaipur, Rajasthan on February 26. She is the brand ambassador for Sivantos India Pvt Ltd. (Formerly Siemens hearing Instruments Pvt Ltd.), the world’s leading brand of hearing aids.

Notes:
The International Conference on Status and Protection of Coral Reefs (STAPCOR 2018) was held at Bangaram Island, Lakshadweep with theme “Reef for Life” from October 22-24. It was organised by the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) in co-ordination with the local administration. The Conference highlighted the importance of coral reefs and the need for its protection, emphasising on converting science into adequate policies for conservation. Around 150 delegates from the US, UK, Kuwait, Italy, France, Maldives and Sri lanka participated in this mega event.

Notes:
The joint military training exercise ‘Druzhba (Friendship)-III’ has started between the armies of Russia and Pakistan in the mountains of northwestern Pakistan, which will continue till November 4. The servicemen from the two countries’ armed forces will perform tasks at the altitude of 1,400 meters above the sea level. The purpose of the 15-days exercise is to boost ties between the two militaries and swap experience, especially in field of counterterrorism. This is third exercise as part of the Pakistan-Russia bilateral training cooperation. The exercise will include the destruction of conditional fighters (terrorists).