Current Affairs Quiz - April, 2019

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Swiss-based NRI scientist Dr Rajendra Joshi, who belongs to Rajasthan, has been conferred with the 2019 Pravasi Bhartiya Samman Award (PBSA) by the President of India Ram Nath Kovind. Dr Joshi is honoured for his outstanding achievement in the field of Science and in recognition of his valuable contribution in promoting the honour and prestige of India and in fostering the interests of Overseas Indians. He is mainly credited with developing path-breaking medicine Tecfidera (BG12) for multiple sclerosis. The theme of 2019 Pravasi Bharatiya Divas convention was ‘Role of Indian Diaspora in building New India.’

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Zuzana Caputova, a liberal environmental activist and a political newcomer, has been elected as the first female President of Slovakia. She framed the election as a struggle between good and evil. With 58% of the vote, Caputova edged out European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic, a diplomat backed by the county’s governing Smer-Social Democracy party. She is set to take office on June 15, after the tenure of incumbent Slovak President Andrej Kiska finishes.

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Using platinum nanocatalyst, a two-member team at the IIT Madras has successfully converted petroleum waste-product toluene into benzoic acid. Benzoic acid is used as a food preservative (E210) and medicine for fungal/bacterial infection. Toluene is converted into benzoic acid through selective and controlled oxidation in the presence of a catalyst — binaphthyl-stabilised platinum nanoparticles (Pt-BNP). Generally, organic reactions are carried out using organic solvents, which makes it expensive and also generates toxic waste. So, the team led by G. Sekar used water as solvent to make it environment-friendly. Also, a green oxidant (70% aqueous tert-butyl hydroperoxide or TBHP) is used for converting toluene into benzoic acid. When toluene is oxidised, it gives four products. But, the team used catalyst that they developed and then only benzoic acid is produced. No alcohol, aldehyde or ester is produced. The yield of benzoic acid varied from 68-96% depending on whether the toluene used is electron-deficient or electron-rich.

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IIT Kharagpur has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Pullela Gopichand Badminton Academy (PGBA) to develop research and training module for the trainees of the Hyderabad-based sports facility. The thrust area of the collaboration is to promote health and wellbeing of sportspersons and coaches for enhancing the quality of performance and resilience. Players and coaches from PGBA will benefit from these programs. Further, the coaches will also be trained on how to use that knowledge while training players. Under the collaboration, IIT-KGP will also set up a sports academy in collaboration with Gopichand. The academy would promote collaborative research related to happiness in sports in general and badminton in particular, and science and technology in sports training. The scope would also include joint monitoring and use of materials used in general and badminton in particular by IIT Kharagpur and PGBA. A sum of Rs10 crore has been allocated to develop modern sports facilities at IIT-Kgp.

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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’.

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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.

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The State of the Global Air 2019 report has recently released by the Boston-based Health Effects Institute (HEI). The report revealed that 1.2 million Indians lost their lives due to exposure to unsafe air in 2017. Now, in India, air pollution is the third-highest cause of death among all health risks, ranking just above smoking. This is a combined effect of outdoor fine particles PM2.5, ozone and household (indoor) air pollution. In 2017, exposure to PM 2.5 pollution was found to be the third leading risk factor globally for Type 2 diabetes-related deaths and disability after high blood sugar and excessive body weight. Due to this combined exposure South Asians including Indians are dying early — their life expectancy has reduced by over 2.6 years. In India, early deaths are linked to respiratory diseases, heart disease, stroke, lung cancer, and diabetes that are influenced by air pollution.

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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.

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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).

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The National Maritime Day (NMD) of India is celebrated every year on April 5 to spread awareness in supporting intercontinental commerce and the global economy. On this day, in 1919, navigation history was created when SS Loyalty, the first ship of the Scindia Steam Navigation Company, journeyed to the United Kingdom. It was a crucial step for Indian shipping history when sea routes were controlled by the British. The theme of the 56th edition of the NMD 2019 is “Indian Ocean-An Ocean of opportunity”. According to the Directorate General of Shipping, India now has 43 shipping companies owning 1,401 ships with a combined 12.69 million gross tonnage’ as of December 2018.