Current Affairs Quiz - August, 2019

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:
The 3rd edition of India’s largest education brainstorming event “ScooNews Global Educators Fest (SGEF-2019)” is being held in Udaipur, Rajasthan on August 09-10. It will bring together over 500 educators to discuss the way towards establishing India as the next global education powerhouse. The theme for the fest is ‘Education for Sustainability: Moving on from conformity to creativity’. The fest will provide an excellent platform for individuals and organizations contributing to the cause of education, schools as well as start-ups to debate on innovation with industry leaders on Industry-Academia partnerships, showcase their products among peers and network with like-minded people. Celebrity educator Anand Kumar of Super 30, Sonam Wangchuk of 3 Idiots Fame and various others will speak on key issues concerning Education in the new world.

Notes:
The researchers at IIT Guwahati have developed a low-cost portable device to detect bacteria without cell culture or microbiological assays. The hand-held device with bio-compatible sensor can also diagnose time-critical illnesses such as meningitis. The bacterial infection is a common cause of morbidity and mortality across the world. Despite the development of a range of antibiotics, the challenge continues to lie in diagnosing bacterial infection early on. The present techniques are extremely time – consuming. Presently, cells derived from a patient are cultured or grown in laboratories to detect and micro-analyse bacteria. However, the new portable device can instantly detect the charges on the cell walls of bacteria. The rapid detection kits are like those used for blood sugar monitoring. The research has enabled rapid detection of bacteria, which is not just important in healthcare but also in anti- bioterrorism measures and environmental monitoring. The team work has been recently patented & published in the July 2019 issue of ‘Journal of Materials Chemistry of the Royal Society of Chemistry’.

Notes:
The Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) under the Ministry of Consumer Affairs , Food and Public Distribution has released the draft “e-commerce guidelines for consumer protection 2019” to protect the interest of online shoppers. The draft stated that an e-commerce entity such as Amazon and Flipkart cannot directly or indirectly influence the price of the goods or services. It added that every e-commerce entity needs to publish the name & contact details of the grievance officer on their website along with the mechanism by which users can lodge their complaints. As per the draft, e-commerce platforms cannot falsely represent themselves as consumers or post reviews about goods & services in their name. The platforms are also required to display terms of contract with the seller relating to return, refund, exchange, warranty, delivery and mode of payments. The draft is open for stakeholder comments for 45 days or till September 16, 2019.

Notes:
Indian Grandmaster Surya Shekhar Ganguly from Kolkata has won the 2019 Belt and Road China Hunan International chess tournament. Ganguly left behind a strong field to win the 9-round Open tournament played in a Swiss League format. He registered 5 wins and 4 draws to emerge the sole leader with 7 points. He not only collected 27.5 Elo points but pocketed $50,000 (Rs 35.6 lakh) as well.

Notes:
On 8 August 2019, Pakistan suspended the Lahore-Attari Samjhauta Express train service following the revocation of Article 370 in Jammu And Kashmir (J&K). Though, Indian Railways has clarified that the train has not been suspended & will run normally. The Samjhauta Express (also called the Friendship Express) consists of 6 sleeper coaches and an AC three-tier coach. The train service was started on 22nd July 1976, under the Shimla Agreement that settled the 1971 war between the two nations. On the Indian side, the train runs from Delhi to Attari and from Lahore to Wagah on the Pakistan side. The word Samjhauta means “agreement” in both Hindi and Urdu.

Notes:
The Madhya Pradesh government has recently `Mukhyamantri Madad Yojna’ for providing assistance to tribal families on child birth and death of a family member. Upon the birth of a boy or a girl, the family will get 50 kg of rice or wheat. In the event of death in the family, 100 kg of rice or wheat and utensils for cooking food would be given. Beside this, 40 new Eklavya schools would be set up in tribal areas to provide quality education. For preserving tribal history, a museum with estimated cost of Rs 500 crore will be set up at Jabalpur in the memory of Raja Shankarshah and Raja Raghunath Shah.

Notes:
The headquarters of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) is in Geneva, Switzerland. CITES is a multilateral treaty to protect endangered plants and animals, adopted in March 1973 by 80 countries. It aims to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten the survival of the species in the wild.

Notes:
In Badminton, Sourabh Verma from Madhya Pradesh clinched the Men’s Singles title in the 2019 Hyderabad Open championship at the Gachibowli Indoor Stadium. He defeated Loh Kean Yew of Singapore 21-13, 14-21, 21-16 in the thrilling summit clash that lasted 52 minutes. Earlier, in May 2019, Sourabh had won the Slovenian International title. He had also won two Super 100 titles at the Dutch Open and Russian Open last year.

Notes:
Dr. Chandrima Shaha is set to be the first woman president of the Indian National Science Academy (INSA). She is currently Professor of Eminence at the National Institute of Immunology (NII) of Delhi. As a biologist, Ms. Shaha has focussed on apoptosis (or programmed cell death). Her laboratory uses the uni-cellular leishmania parasite as a model to understand the conditions under which cells respond to their environment and kill themselves, if need be.