Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - September, 2018

Notes:
Justice Tahira Safdar has been sworn-in as the first woman Chief Justice of Balochistan High Court at a ceremony held at the Governor House in Balochistan. She will remain in this post until 4 October 2019. With this, she became the first female chief justice of any court in the history of Pakistan. Earlier, Safdar created history in 1982 when she became the first female civil judge in Balochistan. Currently, Justice Tahira is a member of the 3-judge special court conducting the trial of former president Pervez Musharraf for committing treason by proclaiming a state of emergency on 3rd November 2007.

Notes:
Sunil Mehta, the MD &chief executive of Punjab National Bank (PNB), has been elected as the new chairman of the Indian Banks Association (IBA) for 2018-19. Apart from him, Dinabandhu Mohapatra, MD & CEO of Bank of India (BoI), has been elected as IBA’s Deputy Chairman. The IBA is a representative body of management of banking in India and has its headquarters in Mumbai.

Notes:
Binoy Kumar, the 1983 batch IAS officer of the Telengana cadre, has assumed charged as the new Secretary of the Ministry of Steel on September 1, 2018. He had been posted as Officer on Special Duty in the Steel Ministry since May 21, 2018. He succeeded Aruna Sharma, who recently superannuated. Prior to this, Binoy Kumar held the post of Special Secretary, Logistics, in the Department of Commerce, where he continued to hold additional charge till 31st July 2018. He also held the post of Director General (Supplies & Disposals), where he developed the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) as a one-stop online public procurement platform, in line with the digital initiatives of the Government of India (GoI).

Notes:
Rani Rampal, the Indian women hockey captain, was India’s flag-bearer at the closing ceremony of the 18th Asian Games 2018. India ended their Asian Games 2018 campaign with the highest medal tally at the tournament ever, with a total of 69 medals which includes 15 gold, 24 silver and 30 bronze medals. In addition to local artists and a Chinese segment, the South Korean boybands Super Junior and iKon, and Indian singer Sidharth Slathia performed in the closing ceremony. More than 10,000 athletes gave their best at the Asian Games 2018, winning medals for their respective countries. 465 gold medals were won by the athletes of 28 countries. 37 out of 45 participating nations were able to win medals at the Asian Games 2018. China finished on top of the medal tally with 132 gold medals. Javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra was India’s flag-bearer at the opening ceremony. In it, the Games flag for the 2022 Asian Games received by Mayor of Hangzhou Xu Liyi.

Notes:
Former England captain Alastair Cook, who is country’s highest run- scorer in Test cricket, will retire from international cricket after the 5th and final match against India at the Oval, starting September 7. So far, he scored 12,254 runs at an average of 44.88 with 32 hundreds and 56 half centuries in 160 Tests. His highest Test score of 294 came against India at Birmingham during the 2011 series.

Notes:
The Government of India (GoI) will observe September as National Nutrition Month (NNM) across the country to mark the fight against malnutrition. During this month, various programmes have been organized by the Women and Child Development (WCD) Ministry to spread broad awareness on the issues related to malnutrition like stunting, under-nutrition, anaemia and low birth weight in children. The Nutrition Month will also focus on adolescent girls, pregnant women and lactating mothers to eliminate the deficiencies prevailing in the Health sector. The NNM will be celebrated every year with the aim to bring down stunting of children in the age group of 0-6 years from 38% to 25% by 2022. The POSHAN Abhiyaan – the National Nutrition Mission was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan on 2018 International Women’s Day (IWD).

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has recently introduced Internal Ombudsman (IO) scheme 2018 to tighten internal grievance redressal system at Scheduled Commercial Banks (SCBs). In it, RBI has given statutory powers to Internal Ombudsman (IO) under section 35 A of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949. The central bank has tightened the selection and operating procedure for IO in banks and made it mandatory for lenders with more than 10 branches (excluding Regional Rural Banks) to have an independent authority to review complaints that were partially or wholly rejected by the respective banks. An ombudsman is a person officially charged with investigating and addressing public complaints or violation of rights. The tenure of the IO cannot be more than 5 years and it is not open to reappointment. An IO also cannot be removed without consent from the RBI. This new post will not report to the bank’s CEO but to the customer service committee of the bank.

Notes:
In a bid to boost Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s flagship ‘Digital India’ campaign, the Rajasthan government has decided to provide free mobile phones to women of Below Poverty Line (BPL) families under the Bhamashah Yojana. The aim of the scheme is to transfer financial and non-financial benefits of government schemes in a transparent manner. The state government will also provide free Wifi facilities to as many as 5,000 gram panchayats to ensure that the state is well connected with the outside world. This programme commenced on September 1 and will end on September 30.

Notes:
Indian Shooter Om Prakash Mitharwal clinched his first gold in the 50m pistol event at the 2018 International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Championships in Changwon, South Korea on September 4. Mitharwal, who won bronze in the 10m air pistol and the 50m pistol events of the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, shot a score of 564 to finish on top at ISSF Championships.

Notes:
Justice Ranjan Gogoi, the son of former Assam chief minister Keshab Chandra Gogoi, will become the 46th Chief Justice of India (CJI), after the current CJI Dipak Misra retires on October 2. He will have tenure of 13 months – till November 17, 2019. As per convention, the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court has to be appointed as the next CJI. Therefore, once the recommendation by CJI Misra is approved, Justice Gogoi will become the first CJI from North-Eastern states. His appointment is crucial as it comes at a time when Assam is preparing to release a final National Register of Citizens (NRC), possibly by the end of the year 2018. Justice Gogoi was one of the four senior-most judges of the court who had called an unprecedented press conference this January, when they had publicly raised concerns about the administration of the court and the formation of benches for the allocation of important cases. He is also one of 11 judges in the Supreme Court who have disclosed their assets.