Current Affairs Quiz - April, 2019

Notes:
The Government of India (GoI) has constituted a tribunal to adjudicate if there exists sufficient cause to ban the Jamaat-e-Islami Jammu and Kashmir (JeL) and the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front-Yasin Malik (JKLF-Y) faction. The tribunal will be headed by Justice Chander Shekhar of the Delhi High Court. The decision has been taken by the Union Home Ministry exercising the powers conferred under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act of 1967. The JeI and the JKLF-Y were declared as unlawful associations on February 28 and March 22 respectively.

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:
The World Autism Awareness Day (WAAD) is observed every year to raise public awareness of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Autism is a brain disorder that typically affects a person’s ability to communicate with others. It generally begins in childhood and last through adulthood. The day highlights the need to help and improve the quality of life of those with autism so that they can lead full and meaningful lives as an integral part of society. The 2019 theme “Assistive Technologies, Active Participation” , underscores the importance of affordable assistive technologies to support people with autism to live independent lives and, indeed, to exercise their basic human rights.

Notes:
Lewis Hamilton, a British racing driver, has won the 2019 Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix tournament after an engine problem hit runaway leader Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari late in the race.

Notes:
South Korea will launch the world’s first fully-fledged 5G mobile networks on 5th April 2019. Hyper-wired South Korea has a reputation for technical prowess, and Seoul has made the 5G rollout a priority as it seeks to stimulate stuttering economic growth. The superfast communications heralded by fifth-generation wireless technology will bring smartphones near-instantaneous connectivity – 20 times faster than the existing 4G. It is crucial for the future development of devices ranging from self-driving vehicles that send data traffic to one another in real time, industrial robots, drones and other elements of the Internet of Things. 5G’s hyper speed can connect one million devices within a one square kilometre zone simultaneously. Until now, no mobile networks have offered nationwide 5G access. Japan is expected to roll out a limited deployment in 2019 before full services start in time for 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Notes:
The book titled “Kundan: Saigal’s Life & Music” has been penned by Sharad Dutt, documentary filmmaker and former DDG of Doordarshan. The genius of legendary singer K L Saigal, his timeless compositions and the golden era of Indian cinema have been brought alive in a book. The book has been trans-created in English by Jyoti Sabharwal of Stellar Publishers and will be released on April 4, the 115th birth anniversary of Saigal. Some of Saigal’s all time hits are ‘Jab dil hi toot gaya’, ‘Ek bangla bane nyara’, ‘Dukhake din aab bitat nahin’, ‘Duniyamen hun duniyaka talabgaar nahin hun’ and ‘So ja rajkumari so ja’.

Notes:
According to a new collaborative study by the Queen’s University Belfast and Aberystwyth University in the UK, the sun’s magnetic field is ten times stronger than previously thought. Using the Swedish one-metre Solar Telescope at Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, in the Canary Islands, David Kuridze studied a particularly strong solar flare which erupted near the surface of the Sun on September 10, 2017. A combination of favourable conditions and an element of luck enabled the team to determine the strength of the flare’s magnetic field with unprecedented accuracy. The researchers believe the findings have the potential to change our understanding of the processes that happen in the Sun’s immediate atmosphere. The study found that the sun’s corona extends millions of kilometres above the surface, measuring 1,400,000 kilometres across — 109 times larger than Earth — and 150,000,000 km from Earth. Solar flares appear as bright flashes and occur when magnetic energy that has built up in the solar atmosphere is suddenly released. These solar flares can lead to storms which, if they hit Earth, form the northern lights — the Aurora Borealis. They can also disrupt communications satellites and GPS systems.

Notes:
On March 28, President Ram Nath Kovind became the first-ever Indian President to visit Bolivia. Here, President Evo Morales Ayma conferred the highest State Honour of Bolivia – Condor de los Andes en el Grado de Gran Collar – on President Kovind. Both the countries have agreed to facilitate Bolivian supplies of lithium Carbonate to India and foster joint ventures for Lithium battery / cell production plants in India. This move will make Bolivia, which is known to have one-fourth of the world’s lithium reserves, one of the major provider of metal for India’s e-mobility and e-storage needs. To mark the 150th Birth Anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, India offered two busts of Gandhiji to Bolivia. The Bolivian side accepted the offer and is likely to place the busts in its capital La Paz and its largest city Santa Cruz. This South American nation has also joined the International Solar Alliance (ISA) by signing the framework agreement on ISA. In a total, India and Bolivia have signed 8 MoUs in various fields of mining, space, traditional medicine during President’s Kovid three day visit to the country.

Notes:
In Kerala, the group of science experts of the Hume Centre for Ecology and Wildlife Biology has decided to launch ‘Café Scientifique’ to promote science among public in an interesting way. It is the first such initiative in the state to popularise the subject. It envisages to bring science back into popular culture by demystifying scientific research for the public and empowering non-scientists to comfortably assess science and technology issues, particularly those that impact social policy making. The project is also aimed at making science relevant, powerful and important to the public, especially the younger generations. Here, various topics such as universe, climate change, evolution, genetics and human-animal relations will be discussed in every monthly gathering. It is a grassroots public science initiative based on the French Café Philosophique model.

Notes:
For the second successive year, Telangana has been ranked first in e-learning training programme of Department of Personal and Training (DoPT) of the Government India. In FY 2018-19, Dr. MCR HRD Institute had enrolled over 20,000 field staff in different districts of the State to impart training on 12 soft skill modules and three domain-specific modules on the RTI, office procedures, and finance and accounts, apart from Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The institute is also mentoring Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, J&K, Odisha, Uttarakhand, and Gujarat to guide trainers for e-learning training programme and develop modules in regional languages to spread the Comprehensive Online Modified Modules on Induction Training (COMMIT) programme as a national mission.