Current Affairs Quiz - February, 2019

Notes:
Justice Uma Nath Singh, the former Chief Justice of Meghalaya High Court, has been sworn-in as the first Lokayukta of Nagaland and will hold the office for a term of 5 years or till he attains the age of 70. Governor PB Acharya administered the oath to Justice Singh him at a function held at Raj Bhavan in Kohima on 22nd Feb 2019. The Lokayukta is an anti-corruption ombudsman organization in the Indian states. Once appointed, Lokayukta cannot be dismissed nor transferred by the government, and can only be removed by passing an impeachment motion by the state assembly. Maharashtra was the first state to introduce the institution of Lokayukta through The Lokayukta and Upa-Lokayuktas Act in 1971. This was followed by similar acts that were enacted by the states of Odisha, Rajasthan, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and the union territory of Delhi.

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:
The horrific forest fire has recently broken out in the Bandipur Tiger Reserve (BTR) in Chamarajanagar district of Karnataka. The fire is estimated to have gutted 2,000 hectares of the forest. Hundreds of forest department officials along with local volunteers have been trying to douse the fire. However, strong winds and dry grass have aided the fire to spread towards the roads on National Highway 67. As a result, NH 67 (which connects Ooty to Mysore) had to be closed for vehicles. There have been reports of loss of wildlife, but nothing has been confirmed so far. The Bandipur reserve is one of the first national parks in India and has the highest tiger density anywhere in the world. It has also been declared as an important area for elephant conservation. The reserve covers an area of 87,400 hectares and along with the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary and the Nagarahole National Park form one of India’s ecologically diverse regions. It is home to vulnerable species like elephants, gaurs, tigers and Indian rock pythons.

Notes:
The book titled “ India in Distress” has been authored by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, which is scheduled to be launch in the National Capital on February 27. Banerjee has so far published 87 books. Among the seven books that Banerjee has penned this time, there are ones for children, of poems in Bengali, Urdu and English and a couple of books on politics – in Hindi and Bengali.

Notes:
The Indo-Bangladesh joint military exercise ‘Sampriti-2019’ is scheduled to be held at Tangail in Bangladesh from 02 March to 15 March 2019. It will be the 8th edition of the exercise which is hosted alternately by both countries. The 14-day exercise is aimed to strengthen and broaden the aspects of inter-operability and co-operation between the Armies of both countries. The exercise will involve tactical-level operations in a counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism environment under the UN mandate.

Notes:
Leg-spinner Rashid Khan claimed a hat-trick and became the first-ever bowler to bag four wickets in four deliveries in Twenty20 Internationals (T20I) on February 17, 2019. Rashid’s impressive bowling performance in the third and final T20I also helped Afghanistan sweep the T20I series by a margin of 3-0 against Ireland in Dehradun. With this feat, Rashid also became the 7th bowler in the T20I history to bag a hat-trick and in the process also completed his second five-wicket haul in the format. Overall, Khan became the 2nd bowler in the history of the sport to do so in international cricket after Sri Lankan veteran Lasith Malinga pick up 4 wickets in 4 balls. Malinga achieved the milestone during the 2007 Cricket World Cup against South Africa.

Notes:
On 27th Feb, Prime Minister Narendra Modi conferred the National Youth Parliament Festival (NYPF-2019) awards to the winners at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi. The winners from the national level competition were Shweta Umre from Maharshtra (Ist Position), Anjanakshi M.S from Karnataka (IInd position) and Mamta Kumari from Bihar (IIIrd position). The 2019 fest was jointly organized by National Service Scheme (NSS) and Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan (NYKS), under the aegis of Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports. Youth in the age bracket of 18-25 years were invited to participate in the District, State and National level Youth Parliaments. The fest was based on the theme of ‘Be the Voice of New India’ and ‘Find solutions and Contribute to Policy’. It provided a chance to the youth to brainstorm about new India and to find ways and chalk out plans to realize our resolves before 2022.

Notes:
The World Day of Social Justice is observed every year on February 20 to recognize the need to promote efforts to tackle issues such as poverty, exclusion and unemployment. The day focuses on the plight of social injustice throughout the world and presses for improvements and solutions. The 2019 theme is “If You Want Peace & Development, Work for Social Justice”.

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.

Notes:
The Afghanistan cricket team has created history by posting the highest-ever T20 international score at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium in Dehradun, Uttarakhand on 23rd Feb 2019. They posted 278 runs from their 20 overs in the second T20I against Ireland.. Here, Afghan batsman Hazratullah Zazai scored the 2nd highest individual score (162 runs off 62 balls) in T20Is, behind Australian cricketer Aaron Finch’s 172. His innings also included a record 16 sixes and his first-wicket partnership with Usman Ghani was also a record for any wicket in a T20I, with 236 runs scored. With this feat, Afghanistan broke Australia’s record score of 263/3 which they achieved back in 2016 against Sri Lanka.