Current Affairs Quiz - August, 2019

Notes:
In a major boost to national food security, the Government of India (GoI) has launched the One Nation-One Ration Card scheme on a pilot basis in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat from 1st August 2019. Families who have food security cards can buy subsidized rice and wheat from any ration shop in these states. Their ration cards should be linked with Aadhar Number to avail this service. The white Ration Card holders in Telangana have been getting the portability facility, enabling them to buy their subsidized rice and other food grains from any Fair Price Shop in the state. The same facility can be utilized anywhere in Andhra Pradesh now through PoS machines under the One Nation One Ration Card scheme which has come into force in the two states. The Centre is intended to extend the programme to all states by August 2020 so that the portability of the food security card implemented.

Notes:
The United States has officially withdrawn from Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia. The INF Treaty is a Cold War-era missile treaty that was signed by then US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987. The treaty banned both countries from deploying land-launched cruise missiles in the 500- to 5,500-km range. It was a key to ending the arms race between the (then) two super powers and helped protect the U.S.’s NATO allies in Europe from Soviet missile attacks. The reasons for withdrawal are as follows: the Trump and Obama administrations have repeatedly alleged that Russia was violating the treaty by fielding a ground-based cruise missile – the Novator 9M729 (“SSC-8” in NATO terminology) that could strike Europe at a short notice, an allegation that Russia has repeatedly denied.

Notes:
Devadas Kanakala (75), the veteran Telugu actor, has passed away in Hyderabad on August 3, 2019. Hailed from Yanam (neighbouring East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh) in Pondicherry, Kanakala began his career about five decades ago. He acted in about 100 films and would be best remembered for ‘O Seetha Katha’, ‘Siri Sirmuvva’, ‘Gorintaku’ and ‘Gang Leader’. He was also well-known to have trained South Indian megastars – Rajinikanth, Chiranjeevi and Rajendra Prasad – through his film institute.

Notes:
In a landmark judgment, the Supreme Court has recently held that a judicial magistrate can order an accused to give his voice samples even against his consent in the course of a criminal investigation. This judgment was rendered by a Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and comprising Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna. The bench dealt with the issues, including that whether in the absence of any provision in the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPc), can a magistrate authorise the investigating agency to record the voice sample of the person accused of an offence. The CJI pointed out that the Supreme Court has issued this order under Article 142 of the Constitution following the interpretation of all the pertinent laws.

Notes:
The University Grants Commission (UGC) has recommended the grant of the Institute of Eminence (IoE) status to 20 institutions such as IITs Madras and Kharagpur, Delhi University, University of Hyderabad, Amritha Vishwa Vidyapeetham and VIT. The recommendations are based on the reports of the Empowered Expert Committee (EEC) under the chairmanship of N Gopalaswami. The aim of Institute of Eminence (IoE) scheme is to develop 20 world-class institutions which would put India on the global education map. Those selected will be given greater autonomy and freedom to decide fees, course durations and governance structures. The public institutions will also receive a government grant of Rs 1,000 crore, while the private institutions will not get any funding under the scheme.

Notes:
Kanti Bhatt (88), the veteran Gujarati journalist, author and columnist, has passed away in Mumbai. He was born on 15th July 1931 in Sachra village in erstwhile Bhavnagar state of Gujarat. He started his journalism career in the late 1960s as a financial journalist in Mumbai. He also worked as journalist, writer, columnist and editor in various Gujarati publications like Chitralekha, Mumbai Samachar, Janshakti, Sandesh, Yuva Darshan, Jansatta, Vyapar and Abhiyan. Bhatt was also the founding editor of one of the leading Gujarati magazines ‘Abhiyan’, which he launched with his wife Sheela, also a veteran journalist and member of the Editors Guild of India.

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 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.

Notes:
According to the University Grants Commission (UGC), all universities in India – public and private – will get final subscription to access the Swedish anti-plagiarism software Urkund from September 1, 2019. The Urkund software was chosen through a global tender process. As part of the exercise to prevent plagiarism in the coming years, the software will be provided free of cost anti-plagiarism software to all 900 universities, including private players. It will be available to teachers, students, researchers & everyone. The Union Government also notified the UGC (Promotion of Academic Integrity and Prevention of Plagiarism in Higher Educational Institutions) Regulations, 2018 to prescribe the graded punishment for plagiarism. Beside this, a UGC committee on improving research culture, headed by former Indian Institute of Science (IIS) director P. Balaram, noted that Indian academics have contributed 35% of all articles published in about 11,000 fake journals between 2010 and 2014. Most of these articles were in fake engineering journals, followed by articles in fake journals of bio-medicine and social sciences.

Notes:
The Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Dr. Harsh Vardhan has recently released a report card on “Breastfeeding & Infant & Child feeding Practices” with data from the State and UTs on 8th August in New Delhi. In it, Manipur has topped the rankings in the Breastfeeding report card in the country. National capital Delhi is also among the worst-performing States. It has been developed by devising a composite score based on three indicators namely early initiation of breastfeeding, exclusive breastfeeding for six months and complimentary feeding at 6-8 months of child’s age. Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar are at the bottom positions in the report card.