Current Affairs Quiz - February, 2019

Notes:
The International Mother Language Day (IMLD) is observed every year on 21st of February to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism. Since 2019 is also the International Year of Indigenous Languages (IYIL19), the theme of this year’s IMLD is “Indigenous Languages as a factor in development, peace and reconciliation”. At least 43% of the estimated 6000 languages spoken in the world are endangered. Only a few hundred languages have genuinely been given a place in education systems and the public domain. According to UN data, a language disappears every two weeks taking with it an entire cultural and intellectual heritage. UNESCO has been celebrating IMLD for nearly 20 years with the aim of preserving this linguistic diversity and promoting mother tongue-based multilingual education. Progress is being made in this direction with a growing understanding of its importance, particularly in early schooling.

Notes:
The 3rd edition of “Words in the Garden” festival 2019 is scheduled to be held on February 22 in New Delhi and will pay tribute to Mahatma Gandhi with the theme — ‘Bapu ki Dilli’. The 3-day festival will celebrate the creativity, imagination and ideas that Delhi generates, sustains and embodies. Commemorating 150 years of Gandhi’s birth anniversary, the event will feature plays, recitals, readings, discussions honoring the life and ideology of Bapu. Highlights include M K Raina’s play “Stay Yet A While”, poems, recitals, acts and music by Gandhi Ambedkar Circle of St Stephen’s College, storytelling by Mahmood Farooqui on Gandhi’s final journey and Madhup Mudgal’s “Ashram Bhajanavali”. The fest is free and open to all, and will see participation by stalwarts from the fields of literature, art, and social sciences among others. The fest is the brain child of renowned Hindi writer Ashok Vajpeyi.

Notes:
The 16th meeting of the Russia-India-China (RIC) Foreign Ministers would be held at the Chinese city of Wuzhen in the eastern Zhejiang province on February 27. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will participate in the meeting together with the host Foreign Minister Wang Yi and the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The Ministers are expected to exchange views on the global situation, regional developments of common concern, address global challenges such as terrorism and discuss trilateral exchanges and activities. The meeting assumes significance as it will be the first high-level interaction between India and China after the Pulwama terror attack carried out by Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) in which 40 CRPF soldiers were killed on February 14. China has expressed shock over the incident, but reiterated its stand to block moves to list JeM chief Masood Azhar as a global terrorist by the UN’s 1267 Sanctions Committee. The last RIC Foreign Ministerial Meeting had been held in New Delhi on 11 December in 2017.

Notes:
IIT-Madras has entered into an agreement with Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI) to address public health issues and predict adverse pregnancy outcomes using technology. The aim of the pact is to bring physician-scientists, biologists, engineers and data scientists together to solve public health problems related to maternal and child health. The objective is to apply advanced analytical approach for prediction of adverse pregnancy outcomes, evaluate maternal and childhood consequences of exposure to environmental pollutants, among others. The THSTI is an autonomous institute of Department of Biotechnology (DBT). DBT is a department under Ministry of Science and Technnology.

Notes:
Kodi Ramakrishna (69), the veteran Telugu film director, has passed away in Hyderabad on Feb 22. Born at Palakollu in West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, Ramakrishna made his debut in 1992 with romantic comedy ‘Intlo Ramaiah- Veedhilo Krishnaiah’ starring Chiranjeevi. He was known for championing the use of visual effects (VFX) to enhance cinematic experience in Telugu cinema. His films like ‘Ammoru’ and ‘Arundhati’ were praised for their VFX work. Some of his other popular films include Gudachari No 1, Muddula Krishnaiah, Pelli Pelli Pandiri and Rikshavodu. In 2016, Ramakrishna also commenced work on a biopic on Sathya Sai Baba, and it features Malayalam actor Sreejith Vijay in the titular role. The project still remains incomplete.

Notes:
The New Bilaspur-Manali-Leh railway line will be the world’s highest railway line, which will consists of total 30 stations. It will lie along the Indo-China border & is expected to be completed by the year 2022. This new rail line will not only increase tourism but, will also help the armed forces. And also, the journey from Delhi-Leh will be completed in half time. The estimated cost of the project is pegged at Rs 83,360 crore. Once complete, the 465-km railway line will be the world’s highest railway track. At its highest point, the track would be at a height of 5,360 m above sea level. The 52% of the total 465 km length will pass through tunnels. The longest tunnel will be 27 km long. The total length of the tunnels is expected to be around 244 km. The project will also have almost 400 small bridges, 124 major bridges and about 74 tunnels. Once completed, trains on this line will run at a speed of 75 Kmph, which will reduce the time required to travel between New Delhi and Leh from 40 hours to just 20 hours. Leh is the most important town in Ladakh region of J&K State having approximately 1.5 lakhs population. It has a high footfall of Indian & Foreign tourists each year.

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:
Zimbabwe has recently introduced its new currency, dubbed as Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) dollar, after the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) announced measures to try and resolve a chronic monetary crisis. The new currency replaces electronic bank savings called digital dollars and the bond notes, and was named after the RTGS system that banks use to transfer money between each other. The currency was launched at an initial rate of 2.5 RTGS dollars per US dollar. The RTGS dollar is supposed to bring together bond notes and debit card and mobile money payments to make sure that they are all worth the same.

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.