Current Affairs Quiz - February, 2019

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.

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:
The Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Kamal Nath government has rolled out its flagship ‘Mukhyamantri Yuva Swabhiman Yojana’ that guarantees 100 days of employment every year to urban youths from Economically Weaker Sections (EWS). Apart from this, they will also be given skill development training by the government. The purpose of the scheme is to empower the unemployed youth candidates. Only those youths, whose family’s annual income is less than Rs 2 lakh and who are in the age group of 21-30 years, are eligible for the scheme.

Notes:
Union Textiles Minister Smriti Irani has recently launched the Integrated Large Scale Eri Farming under North East Region Textile Promotion Scheme (NERTPS) in Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh. It’s the centrally funded Scheme for Eri silk Farming that will initially cover five districts of the state, which are: Papumpare, East Kameng, Siang, East Siang and West Siang. The skill training will be imparted to eri silk farmers and weavers under the Samarth Scheme. Beside this, Government of India (GoI) will also provide financial assistance to 4000 beneficiaries under NERTPS. The purpose of the Samarth (Scheme For Capacity Building In Textile Sector) scheme is to skill the youth for gainful and sustainable employment in the textile sector.

Notes:
International terror financing watchdog, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has decided to keep Pakistan on its grey list, despite India’s push to blacklist it in the aftermath of Pulwama terror attack. The decision was recently taken at the end of week-long meetings by the FATF in Paris. The Paris-based FATF stated that Pakistan has made only limited progress in curbing money laundering and terrorism financing. It failed to show a proper understanding of the risks posed by terror outfits like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Jamat-ud-Dawa and others. Pakistan has until October 2019 to either comply with the demands made by FATF members or it could be blacklisted. The FATF has asked Pakistan to swiftly complete its action plan that includes showing sanctions were being applied in cases of money laundering and terrorism financing. It also has to demonstrate better cooperation between authorities, identify illegal money flows, and enhance support for prosecutors, among other measures. Terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad had claimed responsibility for the Pulwama attack. Iran and North Korea are currently blacklisted.

Notes:
An Iranian naval force has started a massive three-day drill, codenamed “Velayat 97”, across two million square kilometers of sea between the Straits of Hormuz and the Indian Ocean, including a sensitive global shipping route. The drill will showcase Iran’s submarines, warships, helicopters and drones. It is being held from the Strait of Hormuz to the southeastern coasts of Makran, the Sea of Oman and the northern parts of the Indian Ocean, down to the 10-degrees latitude. The naval exercise comes at a time of tensions with the US, after Washington condemned Iran at the summit in Warsaw. In addition Iran has upped tensions with Saudi Arabia after a terror attack in southeastern Iran, which Tehran blamed partly on Riyadh. Iran has also recently condemned the United Arab Emirates, Israel and the US. Sending its navy to the Strait of Hormuz, a major chokepoint for the world’s oil, is provocative. The Strait of Hormuz is an international transit route where American forces routinely pass and which has seen tense encounters between them and Iranian forces in the past.

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:
Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), J P Nadda has inaugurated the 4th edition of Global Digital Health Partnership Summit in New Delhi on 25th February 2019. The global intergovernmental meeting on digital health is hosted by the MoHFW in collaboration with World Health Organization (WHO) and the Global Digital Health Partnership (GDHP). The GDHP is an international collaboration of governments, government agencies and multinational organisations dedicated to improving the health and well-being of their citizens through the best use of evidence-based digital technologies. The vision of the GDHP is to support governments and health system reformers to improve the health and well-being of their citizens through the best use of evidence-based digital technologies.

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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”.