Current Affairs Quiz - August, 2019

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.

Notes:
On 21st August 2019, Indian Para swimmer Satendra Singh Lohia from Madhya Pradesh has scripted history by becoming the first Asian swimmer to cross the Catalina Channel of America. He holds the Asian record of crossing both the English and Catalina channels. Gwalior-born Satendra led the Indian Para Relay team along with 5 team mates and crossed the Catalina Channel in 11 hours 34 minutes. At that time, the water temperature was around 13 degrees Celsius. In 2014, Satyendra has also honoured with the highest sports award of Madhya Pradesh – Vikram Award.

Notes:
Navneeth Murali, an Indian-American teenager from New Jersey, has won the 2019 South Asian Spelling Bee (SASB) contest. The prize money for this contest is USD 3,000. The SASB is an annual spelling bee platform in the US for children of South Asian descent. The competition is open to any student at or below the age of 14, who has at least one parent or grandparent who is of South Asian descent, or whose lineage can be traced to Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and/or Sri Lanka.

Notes:
Nepal is planning to hold SAARC Foreign Ministers’ informal meet on the sidelines of the 74th UN General Assembly (UNGA) session in September 2019. The 18th SAARC summit was held in Kathmandu in 2014 and Pakistan was to host the next summit in 2016. But, the summit was cancelled after India boycotted the meeting, in the wake of the terror attack at a military base in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), which killed 19 soldiers. Other countries viz. Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan, also walked out following India’s decision to exit the summit to step up diplomatic pressure on Pakistan. India also declared that it will participate only if Pakistan took steps to tackle terrorism.

Notes:
Top Indian sprinters Hima Das and Mohammad Anas have won a gold each in women’s and men’s 300m races respectively at the 2019 Athleticky Mitink Reiter event in Czech Republic. This was Hima’s 6th gold in 2019 in European races since July 2. On the other hand, Mohammad Anas won the gold clocking 32.41 seconds. India’s Nirmal Tom clinched a bronze in the same event by clocking a timing of 33.03 seconds. National record holder Anas has already qualified for 400m event for the World Championships to be held in Doha in September-October while Hima is yet to achieve it.

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:
On 22nd August 2019, Union Minister of State for AYUSH Shripad Yesso Naik inaugurated the two-day National Conference on Varmam Science in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. ‘Varmam’ is a constituent of the Siddha system of medicine, that also doubles up as a martial art. The national conference is being organized by the National Institute of Siddha in Chennai.

Notes:
Wipro has partnered with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) to conduct advanced applied research in autonomous systems – robotics and 5G. Both the organizations have jointly set up a hybrid industry-academia collaboration unit – Wipro IISc Research and Innovation Network (WIRIN) – which will drive idea discovery, research and innovation in technology and product design. Both will focus on the research and development of cutting-edge technologies in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, Visual Computing, Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and Vehicle-to-everything communication (V2X). The insights from the research will be leveraged by Wipro for its customers and the industry ecosystem.

Notes:
The flagship scheme of Rajasthan government has topped the 16-state chart detailing implementation of the free medicine scheme i.e. run under the National Health Mission (NHM). The NHM assessed the performance of the states on the basis of effective implementation of Drugs and Vaccine Distribution Management System (DVDMS), stock of essential drugs, value of drugs about to expire along with other such parameters. According to an NHM letter, the DVDMSA (coverage in Rajasthan is 77.26% and proportion of online drug distribution counters – 96.03%. The expired quantity proportion viz. breakage, wastage and loss are just 7.43%.

Notes:
The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has approved a proposal to declare ocean energy as a renewable source of energy. The decision is expected to boost the use of ocean energy. The MNRE has clarified to all the stakeholders that energy produced using various forms of ocean energy such as tidal, wave, ocean thermal energy conversion among others shall be considered as renewable energy and shall be eligible for meeting the non-solar Renewable Purchase Obligations (RPO). Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) has a theoretical potential of 180,000 MW in India subject to suitable technological evolution. The total identified potential of tidal energy in India is around 12,455 Megawatt whereas the total theoretical potential of wave energy along the country’s coast is estimated at 40,000 MW.