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:
The Odisha Wetland Authority has recently approved implementation of an integrated management plan for Chilika (India’s largest brackish water lagoon), and Ansupa (State’s largest freshwater lake). The plan for Chilika & Ansupa will cost Rs 180 crore. The 5-year management of lakes is intended at strengthening livelihood of thousands of fishermen relying on the two water-bodies. Chilika is spread over 1,100 sq km and lakhs of tourists visit the lake to watch endangered Irrawaddy dolphins and migratory birds during winter. While Ansupa is famous for its sweet water fish, especially for labeo bata locally known as pohala. It is spread over almost 2 sq km & is also the wintering ground for 32 species of migratory birds. Its calmness, scenic beauty and forest coverage behold the visitors.

Notes:
To mark the 75th birth anniversary of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, the Punjab government has rolled out a mega health insurance scheme named ‘Mahatma Gandhi Sarbat Sehat Bima Yojana’. It will cover 76% of the state’s population. The scheme has clubbed with the Centre’s health insurance scheme titled ‘Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) for the poor. As per latest Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC), Ayushman Bharat would have covered only 14.86 lakh families while the Punjab scheme in its new form, will benefit a total of 46 lakh families. Like the original PMJAY, the Punjab government will provide cashless health insurance cover of Rs 5 lakh per year. The Centre and the state government will bear the cost of the annual premium for 14.86 lakh families in the ratio of 60:40. For the remaining beneficiaries, the Punjab government will bear the entire expense.The Punjab scheme with 1,396 treatment packages will be implemented through over 450 empanelled hospitals, including 200 government hospitals.

Notes:
In India, the Sadbhavana Diwas (or Communal Harmony Day) is celebrated every year on August 20 to commemorate birth anniversary of late former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. On the occasion of 75th birth anniversary of Rajiv Gandhi, Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi along with Rahul Gandhi inaugurated an exhibition titled ‘Memories and Archives of Rajiv Gandhi’ on 20th August 2019. Rajiv Gandhi served as the 6th Prime Minister of India from 1984 to 1989. He took office after the 1984 assassination of his mother, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, to become the youngest Indian Prime Minister at the age of 40. In 21st May 1991, Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) suicide bomber during an election rally in Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu. His death anniversary is also observed as National Anti-Terrorism Day.

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:
The Union Tourism Ministry has decided to offer e-Tourist Visa fee based on tourist footfall to attract foreign travellers from over 160 countries to India. The ministry has proposed to introduce e-visa fee for short duration of 30 days during peak tourism season – from July to March — at a charge of $25. However, the e-visa fee during the lean period — from April to June — is to be kept at $10. The Ministry also introduced a new 5 year e-tourist visa the fee of which will be $ 80 and the fees of one year e-visa would be $ 40. Though, there will be no visa fee for tourists from 14 Pacific Island nations belonging to Forum for India-Pacific Islands Cooperation (FIPIC) — Fiji, Cook Islands, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Niue Island, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu — and Myanamar, Argentina, Indonesia, Jamaica, Mauritius, Seychelles, South Africa and Uruguay. Both the Ministry of Home Affairs (HA) and the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) have given approval to the flexible e-tourist visa regime.

Notes:
The World Bank (WB) has recently released a report titled ‘Quality Unknown: The Invisible Water Crisis’ to address human and environmental harm. The study evaluated how a combination of bacteria, sewage, chemicals and plastics suck oxygen from water supplies and transform water into poison for people and ecosystems. Both rich and poor countries are at risk from poor water quality as a result of pollution. The researchers noted that a key contributor to poor water quality is nitrogen, which, applied as fertiliser in agriculture, eventually enters rivers, lakes and oceans where it transforms into nitrates. Early exposure of children to nitrates affects their growth and brain development, impacting their health and adult earning potential. The report also found that when Biological Oxygen Demand (an indicator of overall water quality) crosses a certain threshold, GDP growth in areas affected by the problem drops by as much as a third because of the impact on health, agriculture and ecosystems.

Notes:
The book titled “Big Billion Startup: The Untold Flipkart Story” has been authored by Mihir Dalal. It will recount the story of how the IIT graduates Sachin and Binny Bansal built Flipkart and how internet entrepreneurship was made a desirable occupation. It is also a story of big money, power and hubris, as both business and interpersonal complexities weakened the founders’ control over their creation and forced them to sell out to a retailer whose dominance they had once dreamt of following.

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The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has extended title sponsor rights to Paytm for the Indian cricket team’s international and domestic matches with a winning bid of Rs 3.80 crore per match for the 4-year cycle commencing October, 2019. Over the next 4 years, India is set to host at least 86 international men’s matches in bilateral series & BCCI is thrilled with the 57% hike in sponsorship amount. Besides men’s international cricket, BCCI offers extension of sponsorship rights to domestic cricket and women’s international games at no additional cost.

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.