Current Affairs Quiz - August, 2019

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:
Mohammed Zahur Hashmi (92), the veteran music composer, has passed away in Mumbai on August 20, 2019. Popularly known as Khayyam, he was best known for his music in classic films such as ‘Umrao Jaan’ and ‘Kabhi Kabhie’. He was a recipient of Sangeet Natak Akademi Award and Padma Bhushan. In 2016, the veteran composer established Khayyam Jagjeet Kaur KPG Charitable Trust and pledged to donate his entire wealth to the trust to support budding artists and technicians in India.

Notes:
The Karnataka government has recently classified nicotine as Class A poison by amending the Karnataka Poisons (Possession and Sale) Rules 2015. The move is to curb illegal sale, smuggling of nicotine cartridges & e-cigarettes. Highly toxic chemicals (such as cyanogen, hydrocyanic acid, nitrogen peroxide, and phosgene) which even in very small quantities as gas or vapour in the air are dangerous to life.

Notes:
Ajay Kumar, a 1985 batch IAS officer of Kerala cadre, has been appointed as the new Defence Secretary. He succeeded Sanjay Mitra. Apart from him, Brij Kumar Agarwal has been appointed as Secretary to the Lokpal and Subash Chandra as Secretary of Department of Defence Production. The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC), headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved the appointments.

Notes:
In a first-of-its-kind initiative in Asia, 8 armed forces veterans have initiated a high-end adventure sports survival training and self-defence mission at a pan India level titled ‘Op-Blue Freedom’ as a part of their parent project — Special Forces Adventures (SFA). The SFA is led by Major (retd) Vivek Jacob and has veterans from the Indian Army Para Commandos and the Naval Marine Commandos (MARCOS). ‘Op-Blue Freedom’ is a nation-wide adaptive scuba diving programme for people with disabilities as well as able-bodied persons. The purpose of the program is to train adventure enthusiasts in special forces skills like survival techniques, emergency first response skills, unarmed combat, endurance and fitness. Recently, ‘Op-Blue Freedom’ is in news because the Union Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju and football legend Bhaichung Bhutia have flagged off dive for Delhi-NCT leg for the Op-Blue Freedom.

Notes:
Prof. Meeta Narain of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has been conferred the prestigious ‘Pushkin Medal – 2019’ for her contribution to Russian studies abroad. Narain has contributed towards re-writing of Russian studies textbooks for graduate students after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Her work gave a contemporary flavour to the textbooks, which are now being used in departments of Russian language studies at various universities of India, in many former Soviet nation institutes, Europe, the US and other countries. The Pushkin Medal is the highest honour given to an Indian scholar by the Russian government in recognition of outstanding contributions to the promotion of the Russian language and culture. It was instituted in the name of famous Russian author and poet Alexander S. Pushkin.

Notes:
The Asia-Pacific Group (APG) of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is a global watchdog for terror financing and money laundering. It has recently put Pakistan in the Enhanced Expedited Follow Up List (Blacklist) for its failure to meet its standards. The APG has also found that Pakistan was non-compliant on 32 of the 40 compliance parameters of terror financing and money laundering. On 11 effectiveness parameters of terror financing and money laundering, Pakistan was adjudged as low on 10. According to officials, Pakistan could not convince the 41-member plenary to upgrade it on any parameter. Now, Pakistan has to focus on avoiding the blacklist in October 2019, when the 15-month timeline ends on the FATF’s 27-point action plan.

Notes:
The Government of India (GoI) has recently notified the Sabka Vishwas – Legacy Dispute Resolution Scheme 2019 to reduce legacy service tax and central excise cases in the pre-GST era. The scheme will be operationalized from 1st September 2019 & would continue till 31st December 2019. The two main components of the Scheme are dispute resolution and amnesty. The most attractive aspect of the scheme is that it provides substantial relief in tax dues for all categories of cases as well as full waiver of interest, fine and penalty. For all the cases pending in adjudication or appeal – in any forum – this Scheme offers a relief of 70% from the duty demand if it is Rs.50 lakhs or less and 50% if it is more than Rs. 50 lakhs. The same relief is available for cases under investigation and audit where the duty involved is quantified and communicated to the party or admitted by him in a statement on or before June 30, 2019. The scheme is especially tailored to free the large number of small taxpayers of their pending disputes with the tax administration.

Notes:
Kanchan Chaudhary Bhattacharya was the India’s first woman Director General of Police (DGP) who passed away in Mumbai on 26th August 2019. Hailing from Amritsar in Punjab, she made history in 2004 when she was appointed as the DGP of Uttarakhand & become the first woman in the country to hold such position. Bhattacharya was also the 2nd woman IPS officer in the country, the first being Kiran Bedi. After retirement in 2007, she took a plunge into politics by contesting the 2014 Lok Sabha election on an Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)’s ticket from Haridwar constituency. Though, she could not make it to the lower house of Parliament.

Notes:
Despite environmentalists warning of serious risks to the region, Russia has launched the world’s first floating nuclear reactor – Akademik Lomonosov – across the Arctic. It was loaded with nuclear fuel from the Arctic port of Murmansk to begin its 5,000km voyage to voyage to Pevek in northeastern Siberia. The reactor’s trip is expected to last between four and six weeks, depending on the weather conditions and the amount of ice on the way. The vessel weighs 21,000 tons and has two reactors with a capacity of 35 megawatts each, close to that of those used by nuclear icebreakers. It has a crew of 69 and travels at a speed of 3.5 to 4.5 knots. However, environmental groups have warned dangers of unprecedented project & dubbed it a potential “Chernobyl on ice” and a “nuclear Titanic”. Though, Russia claims the project will provide clean energy to the remote region and allow authorities to retire an ageing nuclear plant and a coal-burning power station.