Current Affairs Quiz - August, 2019

Notes:
Microsoft India has partnered with Apollo Hospitals to set up a National Clinical Coordination Committee (NCCC), which will guide the two entities on all cardiology and cardiovascular related Artificial Intelligence (AI) projects. It will also provide clinical insights on developing clinical algorithms and treatment guidelines based on the inferences of national, multi-centre prospective study. The committee will work for the AI-powered Cardiovascular Disease Risk Score API. It will have members drawn from Apollo Hospitals, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi; and King George’s Medical University, Lucknow. Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the biggest cause of mortality in India with nearly 25% of mortalities – amongst the age group of 25 to 69 years.

Notes:
The World Breastfeeding Week (WBW) is an annual celebration which is being held every year from 1 to 7 August in more than 120 countries. The purpose of WBW is to create awareness among the parents about breastfeeding and to encourage parents to adopt breastfeeding. The week also create awareness about the importance of initiation and exclusive breastfeeding, and adequate and appropriate complementary feeding. It provides advocacy material about the importance of breastfeeding. The 2019 theme is “Empower Parents, Enable Breastfeeding”. The focus this year is on protection, promotion, and support of breastfeeding.

Notes:
ISRO Chief, K Sivan has recently laid the foundation stone for Space Situational Awareness Control Centre (SSACC) at Peenya, Bengaluru. The aim of the control center is to monitor and protect high value space assets from space debris has been laid. The control centre will boost activities forecast for Space Situational Awareness and Management (SSAM), which has now considered a globally essential area because of the ever-growing man created space detritus figure and the multiple collision threat with functional satellites and space vehicles. This step will secure India’s expensive and strategically important satellites and future spacecraft from space detritus such as dead satellite remains, parts of orbiting bodies, near-earth asteroids and extreme weather situations. It would assimilate the tracking data of dead satellites from indigenous observation facilities produce important data from bare observations by inspection. It will also permit research activities to find solutions for space debris, space debris modelling and reduction.

Notes:
The UN International Day of Friendship is celebrated across the globe every year on July 30 to observe the importance of friendship in promoting peace in many cultures. The day is based on the recognition of the relevance and importance of friendship as a noble and valuable sentiment in the lives of human beings around the world. However, India celebrates Friendship Day on the first Sunday of August.

Notes:
Superstar Shah Rukh Khan will be felicitated with ‘Excellence in Cinema’ honour at the awards night of Indian Film Festival of Melbourne (IFFM) on August 8. The festival would pay tribute to the actor’s continuous contribution to cinema and popular culture in India with the award. Shah Rukh is the chief guest at the festival. He will be presented the award by Linda Dessau, who is the first female Governor of the State of Victoria. Helmed by the Victorian government of Australia, the IFFM is back for its 10th edition in the cultural city and will celebrate “courage” as its central theme in 2019. The felicitation will take place at the iconic Palais Theatre in Melbourne, which is one of the city’s heritage landmarks.

Notes:
According to the revised state-wise wild elephant population estimate based on the 2017 census, jumbo population across the country stood at 29,964 against 29,576 recorded as the mean figure in 2012. The South Region accounted for 14,612 followed by North East with 10,139 elephants. Among the South Indian states, Karnataka leads the table with 6,049 elephants followed by Kerala. The tiger population across the country is estimated at 2,967 as per the 2018 census. The census of tigers is undertaken at the national level once every 4 years and that of elephants at every 5 years. As per the India State of Forest Report 2017, there has been an increase of 6,778 kilometers of forest cover at the national level as compared to the assessment of 2015. The increase in forest cover is attributed to plantation and conservation activities both within and outside Recorded forest areas.

Notes:
Former Indian opener and Bengal captain, Arun Lal has been conferred with Karthik Bose Lifetime Achievement award of the Cricket Association of Bengal’s (CAB’s) in Kolkata. He played 16 Test matches and 13 One-Day Internationals (ODIs) for India between 1982 and 1989. He played six seasons for Delhi before becoming a regular feature for Bengal and was a major figure in Bengal’s Ranji Trophy triumph in 1989. He was credited with instilling a positive attitude in the team’s approach.

Notes:
Bollywood actor Aamir Khan has launched a Maharashtra government’s initiative “Mission Shakti” at the function in Ballarpur to train athletes from Chandrapur and Gadchiroli for international events like the Olympics. The aim of Mission Shakti is to groom tribal student for an Olympic medal by 2024. The mission is directed towards six sporting disciplines – archery, shooting, volleyball, swimming, weightlifting and gymnastics. The actor also felicitated a team of tribal mountaineers who had recently scaled Mount Everest as part of ‘Mission Shaurya’.

Notes:
Star India grappler Vinesh Phogat has bagged gold in women’s 53kg category of the Poland Open wrestling tournament in Warsaw on 4th August 2019. She prevailed 3-2 over local wrestler Roksana in the final of the competition. This was her third consecutive gold in the 53 kg category after winning Gold at Grand Prix of Spain and at the Yasar Dogu International at Istanbul, Turkey last month.

Notes:
The NASA scientists have characterized the first potentially habitable world outside our own solar system that may be suitable for life. The super-earth planet — named GJ 357 d — was spotted by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission. It is estimated that planet is about six times the size of our planet and located a mere 31 light-years away. The planet orbits a dwarf star in the Hydra constellation and may have the right conditions to support liquid water as it lies within its star’s habitable zone. It may be noted that a super-Earth is an extrasolar planet with a mass higher than Earth’s, but substantially below those of the Solar System’s ice giants, Uranus and Neptune.