Current Affairs Quiz - August, 2019

Notes:
Australian all-rounder Ellyse Perry has become the first cricketer of either gender to reach the rare milestone of scoring 1000 runs and taking 100 wickets in T20 international cricket. She achieved the feat run in the multi-format 2019 Ashes series where Australia beat England by 7 wickets in Hove. Former Pakistani all-rounder Shahid Afridi (1416 runs and 98 wickets) currently stands closest to achieving the feat, while Bangladesh’s Shakib al Hasan, with 1471 runs and 88 wickets, stands next in line to join Perry.

Notes:
In Kolkata, the West Bengal Government has launched an awareness campaign – Save Green, Stay Clean – for preserving the greenery and keeping the environment clean. The State Government will distribute more than 1 lakhs saplings throughout the state for spreading of greenery.

Notes:
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has recently announced free electricity for people consuming up to 200 units under a domestic connection. The decision, which came into effect from August 1, has been taken barely 6 months before Delhi Assembly elections due in February 2020. The people who consume up to 200 units will not have to pay electricity bills. Those consuming 201-400 units of electricity will get about 50% subsidy.

Notes:
On August 3, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani launched the ‘Vhali Dikri Yojna’ in Rajkot for the welfare of girl child. It is a statewide cash incentive scheme for every girl child born in Gujarat, with a view to raising the female birthrate at par with male to achieve gender equality. According to scheme, the State Government will pay Rs. 4,000 to every girl child at the time of admission to Standard 4th, Rs. 6,000 at the time of taking admission to Standard IX, Rs. 1-lakh at the time of taking admission for higher education at the age of 18 and another Rs. 1-lakh at the time of marriage. Approx, Rs.133-crore has been allocated for this scheme.

Notes:
Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty have become the first Indian pair to win a BWF Super 500 badminton tournament. They beat World champions Li Jun Hui and Liu Yu Chen of China in the summit clash of Thailand Open 21-19, 18-21, 21-18 in Bangkok to win the men’s doubles category.

Notes:
Maharashtra has become the India’s first state to adopt a digital fingerprint and iris scanning system – Automated Multi-modal Biometric Identification System (AMBIS) – to aid police investigations. This system will soon be replicated by other state police forces across the country. An AMBIS unit consists of a computer terminal, a camera, and iris, fingerprint, and palm scanners. It also includes a portable system to dust off and capture fingerprints from crime scenes. With the integration of the system with facial recognition from CCTV cameras, AMBIS enables the police to cross-reference and put faces to criminals whose fingerprints have been captured on paper over the decades, apart from solving fresh crimes. This new system has replaced the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS), which has been used by Indian law enforcement agencies to search finger and palm prints.

Notes:
India off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has been chosen as the Professional Cricketers Association’s(PCA) Player for the month of July 2019 for his consistent performances in the county championships. Ashwin signed with Nottinghamshire for six County Championship matches as practice for India’s World Test Championship fixture against West Indies that gets underway later this month. In three matches, he took 23 wickets at 19.91 and scored 197 runs at 39.40.

Notes:
On 5th August 2019, the 2nd All India Annual Conference of Indian Information Service (IIS) Officers was organized at Pravasi Bhartiya Kendra in New Delhi. The Conference was organized with a view to attain greater integration of all Media Units under the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting in order to further amplify government communication. A Performance Review of Media Units under the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (MoI&B) was also conducted during the day-long meeting. The Conference was attended by Senior IIS Officers from all across the country, along with officials of the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Prasar Bharati and Indian Institute of Mass Communication.

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:
Jay Om Prakash (93), the veteran filmmaker and Hrithik Roshan’s maternal grandfather, has passed away in Mumbai, Maharashtra on August 7, 2019. He is best known for his collaboration with two of Bollywood biggest superstars — the late Rajesh Khanna and Jeetendra. He had a strong penchant for beginning his film titles with the letter ‘A’. With Khanna, he made films such as “Aap Ki Kasam” (1974) and “Aakhir Kyon?” (1985). His collaboration with Jeetendra yielded five big hits — “Apnapan” (1977), “Aasha” (1980), “Apna Bana Lo” (1982), “Arpan” (1983) and “Aadmi Khilona Hai” (1993).