Current Affairs Quiz - August, 2019

Notes:
In Delhi, India’s first clinical ecotoxicology facility has launched in AIIMS to investigate increasing cases of diseases resulting from exposure to environmental toxins contaminating water, food and air. This newly launched clinic will be the nodal point for leading research in clinical ecotoxicology in the country. It will provide diagnostic consultation & research services to all the clinical departments dealing with diseases due to ecotoxicity. The patients visiting OPDs will be referred to the clinic for counselling and further diagnostics. According to the Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health, contaminated water, air and soil are responsible for about 9 million early deaths. About 92% of these deaths due to environmental toxicity occur in the low-income and middle-income countries, which include India.

Notes:
In a path-breaking move, Cricket Australia has recently launched new transgender inclusive policy to ensure transgender and gender-diverse people can take part in the game at the highest level in Australia. The move aligns in accordance with the International Cricket Council’s (ICC’s) gender recognition policy and gender diversity guidelines. The policy sets out a testosterone limit for transgender and gender-diverse players who want to play for state and national women’s teams. To be eligible for elite women’s teams, the players must show a testosterone concentration of less than 10 nanomoles per litre over at least 12 months. They must also be able to demonstrate their elected gender is consistent with how they are living their lives on a daily basis. The guidelines cover everything from victimisation to privacy and providing suitable facilities, as well as the collection of personal information.

Notes:
Astronomers at the Max Planck Institute of Germany have recently discovered a new black hole named Holmberg 15A that is clocking in at 40 billion times the mass of the Sun. The black hole is supergiant elliptical galaxy i.e. around 700 million light-years away from Earth and resides right at the centre of the Abell 85 galaxy cluster. It is to be noted that the Holmberg 15A is one of the biggest black holes that’s ever been spotted by keeping track on the movement of stars around it. Black holes are a region of space-time exhibiting gravitational acceleration so strong that nothing—no particles or even electromagnetic radiation such as light—can escape from it.

Notes:
To mark the 77th anniversary of Quit India movement, the Uttar Pradesh has created a world record by planting more than 22-cr saplings in a day at 12.2 lakh locations in the state. For this noble cause, the state government launched a mega afforestation drive ‘Vriksharopan Mahakumbh’ with target to plant 22 cr saplings in a day. The previous record of planting 30,000 saplings was created by Savitribai Phule Pune University of Maharashtra in June 2019.

Notes:
The Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has approved the extension of benefits of Child Care Leave (CCL) to single male service personnel and certain relaxations of CCL provisions in case of women officers of defence forces. The decision is taken in line with a recent Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) order extending similar benefits of CCL to civilian employees. Presently, CCL is granted to women officers in defence forces. Recently, DoPT has made certain amendments for grant of CCL to civilian employees, whereby the CCL granted to woman employees till now has been extended to single male government servants also. Further, single male service personnel and women officers of defence forces will also be able to avail CCL in respect of child with 40% disability without any restriction of age limit of the child. The minimum period of CCL that can be availed at a time has been reduced to 5 days instead of 15.

Notes:
On the occasion of 73rd Independence Day 2019, National carrier Air India will become the first Indian airline to fly over the North Pole. Its Delhi-San Francisco flight will take the route saving 2,000 to 7,000 kg of fuel and reducing the carbon emissions by 6,000 to 21,000 kg, per flight. It will fly over Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia, the Arctic Ocean, Canada, and then enter the United States. Therefore, this new route will bring down the distance travelled from 12,000 km to 8,000 km approximately & will also reduce flight time on an average by 30 minutes. The inaugural passenger flight to San Francisco will be piloted by Captain Rajneesh Sharma and Captain Digvijay Singh on August 15. Because of India’s geographic position, Air India will also become the only airline in the world to take all the three routes — the Atlantic, Pacific and Polar.

Notes:
Legendary Indian athlete and Olympian P.T. Usha has been appointed as a member of the Athletes Commission of the Asian Athletics Association (AAA). Usha will be one of the six members of the AAA Athletes Commission. The commission will be headed by 1992 Olympics gold medallist hammer thrower Andrey Abduvaliyev of Uzbekistan. Usha is known for her stellar performance at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, where she missed the bronze in the 400m hurdles finals by 1/100 second. The ‘Payyoli Express’ was awarded with the prestigious Arjuna Award in 1983. Recently, Usha is nominated for the prestigious International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) Veteran Pin Award.

Notes:
Denmark’s third largest, Jyske Bank has launched the world’s first negative interest rate mortgage and started to offer a10-year mortgage deals at a negative interest rate of 0.5% a year. Under its negative mortgage, borrowers will pay the usual EMI but the outstanding amount will be slashed each month by more than the borrower has paid. The unconventional decision is the latest in a series of moves central and commercial banks in advanced economies have undertaken to revive demand and boost consumption.

Notes:
Dr. K Thangaraj, Chief Scientist at the city based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) has bagged the prestigious J C Bose Fellowship for his outstanding scientific contributions in the field of population and medical genomics. The J C Bose fellowship is awarded to active scientists in recognition of their outstanding performance by the Science and Engineering Research Board, Department of Science & Technology. Dr Thangaraj is a population geneticist. Some of his major works includes finding out the origin of Indian population– how humans migrated from Africa during different episodes and populated different parts of India. These studies led to further work on understanding how these populations interbred. He also showed how in the last 2000 years Indians started practicing endogamy resulting in many population specific genetic disorders.

Notes:
On 23rd August 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will embark on a 3-day official visit to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain. During the visit, PM Modi will receive the the UAE’s highest civil honour ‘Order of Zayed”. The honour was conferred to him in April 2019 in recognition of his distinguished leadership that gave a big boost to bilateral relations between the two countries. The award is named after the UAE’s founding father Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. It acquires special significance as it was awarded to PM Modi in the year of the birth centenary of Sheikh Zayed. So far, six countries — Russia, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Palestine and Afghanistan — have given their highest award to Prime Minister Modi.After that, PM Modi will visit Bahrain that will be the first-ever Prime Ministerial visit from India to Bahrain.