Current Affairs Quiz - February, 2019

Notes:
Acclaimed actress Kareena Kapoor Khan has become the brand ambassador of the Swasth Immunised India campaign to spread awareness among parents about child vaccination to help prevent the future generation from life-threatening diseases. The nation-wide vaccination and immunisation campaign has been launched by Serum Institute of India (SII) in association with Network18. The primary aim of the campaign is to raise awareness about the importance and benefits of vaccine administration, advocating its acceptance and building a strong immunization outreach in the country. Working alongside the government, the campaign will strive to reach full immunization coverage through continuous education and awareness.

Notes:
Indian Hockey Captain Manpreet Singh has been honoured with the 2018 Player of the Year award by the Asian Hockey Federation while women’s team striker Lalremsiami bagged the Rising Player of The Year prize. Manpreet led the Indian team to an unbeaten streak at the Asian Champions Trophy in Muscat where the team was declared joint winners with Pakistan. He also contributed to the team’s silver medal win at the FIH Champions Trophy in Breda and continues to remain instrumental in the Indian midfield. The 18-year-old Lalremsiami put up an impressive performance as a striker at the 2018 World Cup. She was also a part of the Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires where the under-18 team won a silver medal. The Indian men’s team was awarded the 2018 Best Performance of The Year for being the only Asian side to have reached the top eight at the World Cup in Bhubaneswar.

Notes:
Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh has been elected third time unopposed as the President of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI). The elections of the office bearers and executive committee members of WFI for the next four-year term (2019-2023) were held at the Constitution Club of India (CCI). Along with Brij Bhushan, I.D. Nanavati has been elected as the Senior Vice President, V.N. Prasood as the Secretary General and Satyapal Singh Deshwal as the Treasurer. Singh, who is also a Member of Parliament (MP) from the Kaiserganj constituency of Uttar Pradesh, was the chef-de-mission of the Indian contingent for the Asian Games 2018 held in Jakarta and Palembang.

Notes:
‘Period. End of Sentence’, a documentary that tackles the stigma around menstruation in rural India, has won the Oscar in the Documentary Short Subject category at the 91st Academy Awards in Los Angeles. The film has been co-produced by Indian producer Guneet Monga and directed by Award-winning Iranian filmmaker Rayka Zehtabchi. The film is about women in India fighting against the deeply rooted stigma of menstruation and delving upon the work of real life ‘Pad Man’ Arunachalam Muruganathan. The documentary feature is set in Hapur village outside Delhi, where women lead a quiet revolution as they fight against the deeply rooted stigma of menstruation. For generations, these women did not have access to sanitary pads, which lead to health issues and girls dropping out from schools. When a sanitary pad vending machine is installed in the village, the women learn to manufacture and market their own pads, empowering their community. They name their brand “FLY”.

Notes:
On 24th February 2019, Union Minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey rolled out “National Action Plan – Viral Hepatitis” to eliminate viral hepatitis at Mumbai in presence of Amitabh Bachchan, WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Hepatitis in South-East Asia Region. The aim of the programme is to combat hepatitis and achieve countrywide elimination of Hepatitis C by 2030. The programme is also in line with the country’s global commitment towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3.3. India has affirmed this commitment at the 69th World Health Assembly. Viral hepatitis is a global public health problem that kills nearly 2.72 lakh people annually. It is an inflammatory condition of the liver caused by five known hepatitis viruses — A, B, C , D and E. Of these, B and C are known to cause 96% mortality. India is one of the few countries to roll out management of Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C in a public health approach and offer free diagnostics and drugs lifelong to its beneficiaries.

Notes:
In Chess, Indian Grandmaster Abhijeet Gupta lifted the 2019 Cannes International Open trophy with 7.5 points. He took an easy draw with Pier Luigi Basso of Italy in the ninth and final round. It was a clear point lead over nearest rivals Nikita Maiorov of Belarus, Nasuta Grzegorz of Poland and Yuri Solodovnichecko of Ukraine.

Notes:
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, a member of the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) party, has been re-elected for a second four year term. The 76-year-old Buhari defeated his main rival, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar with a margin of around 4 million votes. Buhari has been lauded for his progress against the insurgent group Boko Haram, which has killed more than 10,000 and displaced millions.

Notes:
Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal has recently launched the PRANAM Commission for protection of parents of state government employees. The Commission will look after the issues concerning a PRANAM (Parents Responsibility and Norms for Accountability and Monitoring) Bill to protect elderly parents of government employees in their times of need. PRANAM Bill, which was approved by the state cabinet in 2018, makes it mandatory for state government employees to look after their parents and unmarried Divyang siblings who do not have their own sources of income. As per the Bill, if the PRANAM Commission gets a complaint that parents of a state government employee is being ignored, and then 10 or 15% of the employee’s salary will be deducted by the government and paid to the parents or differently-abled siblings.

Notes:
The Himachal Pradesh government has again declared Monkeys as vermin for the next one year in 11 districts’ 91 tehsils and sub-tehsils of state. Monkeys were declared as a vermin species because have been adversely affecting crops and causing harm to humans. Hence, this allows state forest authorities and people to carry out extermination (hunting/poaching) of monkeys on a large scale. Vermin are wild mammals and birds that are harmful to crops, farm animals or that carry disease. As per Section 62 of the Wildlife Protection Act (WPA) 1972, States can send a list of wild animals to the Centre requesting it to declare them vermin for selective slaughter. The Central Government may by notification, declare any wild animal other than those specified in Schedule I and part 11 of Schedule H of the law to be vermin for any area for a given period of time. As long as the notification is in force such wild animal shall be included in Schedule V of the law, depriving them of any protection under that law.

Notes:
Bengaluru-based Semiconductor Company “SignalChip” has launched India’s first indigenous semiconductor chips for 4G /LTE and 5G NR modems in New Delhi. The SCBM34XX and SCRF34XX/45XX series of chips, code-named ‘Agumbe’, are the result of over 8 years of relentless and deep R&D by Signalchip engineers. The RF sections cover all LTE/5G-NR bands upto 6GHz. These chips also support positioning using India’s own satellite navigation system, NAVIC. The Agumbe series builds up on SCRF1401: India’s first RF transceiver chip for high performance wireless standards like 3G/4G and WiFi, created by Signalchip in 2015. The combined multi-standard system-on-chip (SoC) can serve as a base station chipset for a wide range of form factors from low-cost indoor small cells to high performance base stations. These are optimally designed to support evolving network architectures like Open RAN/CRAN with flexible interface configurations. Through the IPs created for this device, the company now has the potential to design products for multiple related fields and is currently forging ahead with additional chipsets for advanced 5G NR features.