Current Affairs Quiz - April, 2019

Notes:
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has recently listed Hump-backed Mahseer as Critically Endangered in the Red List of Threatened Species. The scientific name of hump-backed mahseer is ‘Tor remadevii’, which is named after noted ichthyologist K. Remadevi of the Zoological Survey of India. The giant game fish (also called the tiger of the water) is one of the most iconic and highly-prized freshwater fish found in the Cauvery river basin (including Kerala’s Pambar, Kabini and Bhavani rivers). The fish can grow up to a length of 1.5m and weigh up to 55 kg and qualifies as megafauna. Beside this, five other species have also made it to threatened categories: two wild orchids, the Arabian scad (a marine fish) and two wild coffee species found only in a few localities in the Western Ghats. As per latest IUCN update, the great hornbill (found in India and southeast Asia) was earlier categorised as “Near Threatened”. It is now “Vulnerable” due to high hunting pressure coupled with habitat loss and deforestation, while the wreathed hornbill has moved from “Least Concern” to “Vulnerable”.

Notes:
Vadodra-based artist Raju Baraiya has been chosen as the Glenfiddich’s Emerging Artist of the Year 2019. He will represent India at the Glenfiddich Artists in Residence (AiR) programme where he will spend three months at the Glenfiddich Distillery in Scotland with artists from around the world. Baraiya will also be awarded Rs 10 lakh, which includes an international allowance of Rs 1,20,000 per month and a work allowance of Rs 5,00,000; besides being given a solo show at Art District XIII Gallery in New Delhi. Baraiya’s work takes inspiration from observing and diagnosing the rural in relation to the urban and vice-versa. His practice springs out of this shift from a strong rural background to an urban one. The artist has been deriving imagery from these seemingly ambiguous notions of the urban and the rural, and the complexities between the two spaces create a common meeting ground for him to explore through an impression he holds of them. With his art, he aims to translate the ever evolving image of this convergence.

Notes:
Researchers led by Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe in Japan has put a theory speculated by the late Stephen Hawking to its most rigorous test to date, and their results have ruled out the possibility that primordial black holes smaller than a tenth of a millimeter make up most of dark matter. They used the gravitational lensing effect to look for primordial black holes between Earth and the Andromeda galaxy. However, gravitational lensing effects are very rare events because it requires a star in the Andromeda galaxy, a primordial black hole acting as the gravitational lens, and an observer on Earth to be exactly in line with one another. In order to maximise the chances of capturing an event, the researchers used the Hyper Suprime-Cam digital camera on the Subaru telescope in Hawaii, which can capture the whole image of the Andromeda galaxy in one shot. Taking into account how fast primordial black holes are expected to move in interstellar space, the team took multiple images to be able to catch the flicker of a star as it brightens for a period of a few minutes to hours due to gravitational lensing. The team’s results showed primordial black holes can contribute no more than 0.1% of all dark matter mass. Therefore, it is unlikely the theory is true.

Notes:
The United States has approved the sale of 24 multi-role MH-60 Romeo Seahawk helicopters to India under its Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program at an estimated cost of $2.4 billion. The multi-mission helicopters can detect, track and attack submarines and surface ships at sea. They are designed to operate from frigates, destroyers, cruisers and aircraft carriers. Thus, these are considered the world’s most advanced maritime helicopters. The choppers will provide the Indian defence forces with the capability to perform anti-surface and anti-submarine warfare missions along with the ability to perform secondary missions including vertical replenishment, search and rescue, and communications relay. Hence, the Lockheed Martin-built helicopters would replace India’s aging fleet of British-made Sea King helicopters. The proposed sale will support US foreign policy & national security by helping to strengthen the US-Indian strategic relationship and to improve the security of a major defensive partner.

Notes:
Prof. Vikram Patel, a psychiatrist and professor of global health at Harvard Medical School, has won the prestigious 2019 John Dirks Canada Gairdner Global Health Award. Mr. Patel has led research generating knowledge on the burden and determinants of mental health problems in low and middle-income countries and pioneered approaches which utilise community resources for the prevention and treatment of mental health problems in India with global impact. Laureates receive a $100,000 cash honorarium and will be formally presented with their awards on October 24, 2019 at the annual Canada Gairdner Awards Gala in Toronto.

Notes:
Chicago has created history by electing an African-American woman as its mayor for the first time. Lori Lightfoot is a former federal prosecutor and practicing lawyer who has never before held elected office. She won the city’s mayoral race by a huge margin. She will also be Chicago’s first openly gay mayor. Lightfoot’s primary proposals include increasing access to affordable housing, creating an office of public safety to reduce crime and reform policing, and pushing through a real estate transfer tax to help combat homelessness. She also backs abolishing US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Lightfoot will take over office from Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who previously served as chief of staff under former President Barack Obama.

Notes:
Brunei has recently introduced harsh new Islamic laws that make adultery and homsexuality punishable by stoning to death. The new measures also cover a range of other crimes, including punishment for theft by amputation. The move makes Brunei the first place in Southeast Asia to have a sharia penal code at the national level. The new law mostly applies to Muslims, though some aspects will also apply to non-Muslims. It stipulates the death penalty for a number of offences, including rape, adultery, sodomy, robbery and insulting or defaming the Prophet Muhammad. It also introduces public flogging as punishment for abortion and criminalises exposing Muslim children to the beliefs and practices of any religion other than Islam.

Notes:
On April 5, Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu inaugurated the National Cardiology Conference 2019 at Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of medical sciences in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. The 3-day conference will be organized by Dept of Cardiology in which leading national and international experts from Europe, USA, Japan, Singapore South Korea, Indonesia and Australia will deliberate on the latest topics of Interventional cardiology and cutting edge technology. The conference being held for the first time in Uttar Pradesh offers an opportunity to showcase newer innovations in Cardiology that can help deliver cost-effective cardiology care to patients.

Notes:
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has said that its Hayabusa2 spacecraft has successfully blasted the surface of an asteroid Ryugu to make a crater on its surface. The move will pave the way for the collection of underground samples for possible clues to the origin of the solar system. For this, the Hayabusa2 dropped a “small carry-on impactor” made of copper onto the asteroid and the spacecraft safely evacuated and remained intact. Now, JAXA is analyzing data to examine if or how the impactor made a crater. The copper explosive is the size of a baseball weighing 2 kg. If successful, it would be the first time for a spacecraft to take such materials. The asteroid, named Ryugu after an undersea palace in a Japanese folktale, is about 300 million kilometers (180 million miles) from Earth. Earlier, Hayabusa2 successfully touched down on a tiny flat surface on the boulder-rich asteroid in February 2019, when the spacecraft also collected some surface dust and small debris.

Notes:
On April 5, Telecom giant Samsung Electronics released the Galaxy S10 5G in South Korea. It is the world’s first available smartphone with built-in fifth-generation communications. Earlier, South Korea became the first country to roll out a super-fast 5G mobile network nationwide, which allows users to download entire movies almost instantaneously. Three South Korean carriers – SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus – — held launch events across Seoul for the Galaxy S10, whose base version costs 1.39 million won ($1,200). Thus, commercializing 5G gives South Korea the chance to build around the technology, which is crucial for the future development of devices such as autonomous vehicles and the Internet of Things (IoT).