Current Affairs Quiz - February, 2019

Notes:
The 7th National Photography Awards 2019 were presented by Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Col. Rajyavardhan Rathore at a function held at the National Media Centre on 19th Feb. In it, ace photographer Ashok Dilwali has been bestowed with the Life Time Achievement Award, who is known for his work on the Himalayas. A total of 13 awards carrying cash prizes were presented to the winners in professional and amateur categories. Shanth Kumar won the ‘Professional Photographer of the Year’ award, while Gurdeep Dhiman won award for ‘Amateur Photographer of the Year’. The theme for the Professional category was “Women-led Development” and theme for Amateur category was “Fairs and Festivals of India”.

Notes:
Dr. G C Anupama has become the first woman President of Astronomical Society of India (ASI), prime association of professional astronomers in the country. She succeeded R K Tyagi. Prior to this post, she was the Dean and Senior Professor at the Bengaluru based Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA). Dr. Anupama is also the India group head of an international team of scientists that is building a ‘Thirty Meter Telescope’ (TMT) at a cost of over $1 billion in Hawaii, USA. TMT is an international project being funded by scientific organisations of Canada, China, India, Japan, and USA. She has presented many papers on Astrophysics (supernova) at international conferences and was also Project in Charge for the design and establishment of the Himalayan Telescope at the Hanle Observatory in Leh, Ladakh. The Leh telescope is the only one at the highest elevation in the world and has been providing valuable data for the scientific community.

Notes:
An international team of more than 200 astronomers from 18 countries has published the first phase of a major new radio sky survey at unprecedented sensitivity using the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) telescope in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. The survey discovered 3,00,000 hidden galaxies using radio astronomy in a tiny corner of the northern hemisphere at low radio frequency. It is believed that these findings will help shed new light on some of the Universe’s deepest secrets. This includes the physics of black holes as well as research into how galaxy clusters evolve. The LOFAR telescope is operated by ASTRON in The Netherlands and is considered to be the world’s leading telescope of its type. It is made up of a network of radio antenna across seven countries, forming the equivalent of a 1,300-km diameter satellite dish. It is capable of detecting light source beyond the power of optical instruments. Radio astronomy allows scientists to detect radiation produced when massive celestial objects interact.

Notes:
Mohd Mushtaque Ahmad from India has been elected as the new Vice-President of the Asian Hockey Federation (AHF) for a four-year term at the AHF Congress in Gifu, Japan. Beside him, Ms. Asima Ali has been elected unopposed as one of the executive board members of the AHF. Mushtaque Ahmad is currently serving as the President of Hockey India, while Ali of Hockey Jammu & Kashmir is the Vice-President of the national federation. The AHF Executive Board manages the affairs of the continental federation, implements the decisions of the AHF Congress, supervises over the AHF CEO and professional staff, as well as appoints the AHF Committees.

Notes:
The Odisha government has launched a boat ambulance service to ferry patients to hospitals in remote areas. The service includes six boat ambulances and 60 jetties with walkway. The operational cost of the ambulances is estimated to be around Rs 90 lakh per annum. This new facility is hope for residents who live in far-flung areas and river-locked pockets of the state. The floating ambulances will cater to the needs of people in areas where the ‘108’ ambulance service has failed to make headway, due to lack of proper road route. The first boat ambulance was launched at Batighar in the Kendrapara district. The total project cost Rs 5.40 crore.

Notes:
The first-ever Skill Saathi Youth Conclave has inaugurated by Union Skill Development Minister Dharmendra Pradhan at Rail Auditorium in Bhubaneswar, Odisha. The program aims to create a mass movement around skill development in the state and inspire youth to make the most of various skill development opportunities in the country. The conclave was aired live across 427 locations in Odisha, where more than 2 lakh candidates were mobilized for career counseling under Skill Saathi initiative. The initiative provides information on vocational training programs under Skill India mission, conduct psychometric test and provide face-to-face counselling interventions to guide aspirants to make the right choice of based on their interest and aptitude.

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:
Bihar has become the first state in India which has raised its own dog squad to detect liquor consignment. All these dogs were imparted nine-month training at Hyderabad-based Integrated Intelligence Training Academy before being inducted in the Bihar Police. The total strength of the Bihar Police’s dog squad stands at 68. On each dog, the state police spent around Rs 1.71 lakh and two handlers have been deputed. Notably, Bihar had banned liquor in the state in 2016.

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:
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.