Current Affairs Quiz - February, 2019

Notes:
Flight Lieutenant Hina Jaiswal from Chandigarh has scripted history by becoming the first woman to be inducted as a flight engineer in the Indian Air Force (IAF) in Bengaluru. In a field dominated by men, Flt Lt Hina successfully completed the course at the 112 Helicopter Unit, Air Force Station, Yelahanka. She will now be posted to a helicopter squadron where she will monitor and operate IAF’s complex aircraft in various conditions, right from Siachen Glacier to Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Notes:
The International Labour Organization (ILO) has recently released World Employment and Social Outlook Trends (WESO) 2019 report. As per the report, unemployment rates will fall to 4.9% in 2019 and remains steady in 2020. The new data gathered for the report show that a majority of the 3.3 billion people employed globally in 2018 worked keeping their economic security at risk in informal employment. The quantity of jobless in serious terms is approximated to rise from 172 million to 174 million in that time as the labour market place expands. The report offers worries about the woman workforce participation fee. The considerably lessen labour pressure participation of girls at 48%, as opposed with 75% for adult men signifies that around 3 in 5 of the 3.5 billion persons in the worldwide labour pressure were being guys. The world wide unemployment among younger folks (between 15-24) stood at 11.8%, which is much higher than it is among other age brackets.

Notes:
The 40th edition of International Annual Desert Festival 2019 has started in Jaisalmer, Rajasthan on February 17. Thousands of tourists are participating in the colourful event. The 3-day festival, which exhibits rich cultural heritage of the desert state, commenced with a colourful procession from Gadsisar lake fort. It will have interesting events like Mr Desert and Ms Moomal competitions, moustache competitions, turban tying, tug of war, musical and cultural performances, among others. The Border Security Force presented a camel tattoo show on the opening day of the festival. Before the inaugural ceremony of the festival, organisers kept a two-minute silence in respect of the 40 CRPF personnel who lost their lives in the Pulwama terror attack on 14th Feb.

Notes:
On February 16, the Himachal Pradesh Assembly passed a Bill to make Sanskrit as the second official language of the state. The Himachal Pradesh Official Language Bill, 2019 (Amendment) was introduced by Irrigation and Public Health Minister Mahender Singh Thakur in the ongoing budget session. The bill was passed without any discussion. The first official language of Himachal is Hindi. The state’s name was coined from the Sanskrit—Him means ‘snow’ and achal means ‘land’ or ‘abode’—by Acharya Diwakar Datt Sharma, one of the state’s eminent Sanskrit scholars. According to a survey of CMS – India Corruption Study 2017, Himachal Pradesh is India’s least corrupt state.

Notes:
Yuwa, a Jharkhand-based NGO which works for girl empowerment, has won the prestigious 2019 Laureus Sport for Good Honour at Monaco. The NGO was founded in rural Jharkhand in 2009 by Americans Franz Gastler and Rose Thomson Gastler. They are using football to improve the lives of young girls from disadvantaged communities and from regions where child marriage is prevalent. They are currently covering 450 girls – some amateurs and some who have gone on to become coaches. It was only the third time the honour was coming to India. The first time was in 2004 when the cricket teams of India and Pakistan were jointly declared the winner for resuming the bilateral series despite the political tension between the countries. Then 10 years later, Magic Bus won it for transforming the lives of the underprivileged children in the country.

Notes:
The Gujarat government has formed a special board for the transgender community to provide social security to the community. As a state-run agency, the ‘Transgender Welfare Board (TWB)’ will have powers to introduce special schemes for the community. It will work for uplift and development of the transgender community. The new board will have the state social justice and empowerment minister as its chairman. It will have 16 other members, including two transgender-women representatives, two male transgenders, two from the eunuch community and two representatives of NGOs. The rest of the members will be government officials. The Supreme Court has recognized transgenders as a third gender in 2014 on a petition filed by the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) and had directed all states to form a TWB. The judgment also ruled that ‘third gender’ be included in the Other Backward Classes’ (OBCs) list, hence allowed them to avail education and employment reservation in accordance to this status.

Notes:
India’s first ‘fulldome 3D Digital Theatre’ was inaugurated by Union Culture Minister Mahesh Sharma at the Science City in Kolkata, West Bengal. The new system is capable of screening high resolution, full dome, and digital 2D/3D content by utilising six, high-end projectors in a 23-meter diameter dome using Ulteria Seam technology. The Science City is operated by the National Council of Science Museums under the Ministry of Culture.

Notes:
In tennis, Belgium’s Elise Mertens has claimed the biggest title of her career by beating top seed Simona Halep 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 to win the Qatar Open in Doha. This is her first WTA Premier-level crown and fifth title of her overall career.

Notes:
Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) has recently launched a new micro insurance plan ‘Micro Bachat’. It is a regular premium, non-linked, participating endowment micro insurance plan, which offers a combination of protection and savings. For the first time, a micro insurance plan has been launched providing coverage up to Rs 2 lakh. This plan provides financial support for the family in case of unfortunate death of the policyholder during the policy term and a lumpsum amount at the time of maturity for the surviving policyholders. This plan is available for standard healthy lives only in the age group of 18-55 years without undergoing any medical examination. The policyholder need not undergo any medical examination.

Notes:
The Madhya Pradesh government has decided to host the 79th session of Indian History Congress (IHC) at Barkatullah University in Bhopal from February 26 to 28, 2019. The 79th session was earlier supposed to be held at the Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) from December 28 but was cancelled due to financial reasons. Over 1,000 delegates including prominent historians are expected to participate in the IHC. This will be 2nd time Madhya Pradesh will host IHC after it was held earlier in 2011. IHC is the largest professional and academic body of Indian historians with over 10,000 members. It was established in 1935 and its first session was held at Bharat Itihas Sanshodhak Mandal, Pune. Its primary objective is to promote and encourage scientific study of Indian history.