Current Affairs Quiz - January, 2019

Notes:
India has been ranked 80th at the Global Talent Competitive Index (GTCI) 2019, according to a report released by INSEAD business school in partnership with Tata Communications and Adecco Group. It was released during the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting in Davos on 22nd January 2019. The list is topped by Switzerland, followed by Singapore, the US, Norway and Denmark. According to the report, India’s biggest challenge is to improve its ability to attract and retain talent. Above all, there is a need to address its poor level of Internal Openness (116th) — in particular with respect to weak gender equality and low tolerance towards minorities and immigrants and its disappointing showing in lifestyle (112th) indicators. The survey measures how countries and cities grow, attract and retain talent, ranking 125 countries and 114 cities across all groups of income and levels of development.

Notes:
The Government of India (GoI) has recently instituted an annual award titled Subhash Chandra Bose Aapda Prabandhan Puraskar. The award is to be announced every year on 23rd January on the birth anniversary of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. For the year 2019, 8th Battalion of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) located at Ghaziabad has been selected for the award for its commendable work in Disaster Management. The Award recipient will receive a certificate and a cash prize of Rs. 51 lakh. The 8th Battalion of NDRF was raised in 2006 and is a highly specialised Rescue and Response Force with large area of responsibility covering National Capital Region (NCR), Uttarakhand, Western UP & Haryana. The battalion has participated in 314 major operations and rescued over 50,000 people. In the devastating Kerala floods in 2018, the battalion had rescued 5,338 victims and evacuated 24,000 people to safety. Other major disasters in which this NDRF battalion participated are Leh cloud burst (2011), Kedarnath floods (2013), cyclone Hudhud (2014), Chennai floods (2015) and Tripura floods (2018).

Notes:
As per latest United Nations’ World Economic Situation and Prospects (WESP) report 2019, India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is expected to grow at 7.4% during 2018-19 and improve to 7.6% in FY20. The report also expected that India’s economy to expand by 7.4% in 2020-21. Referring to the global economy, the report said it would continue to grow at a steady pace of around 3% in 2019 and 2020 amid signs that growth has peaked. The report also highlighted that global trade tensions pose a threat to the economic outlook. The 2019 report offers timely warnings about a range of macroeconomic challenges facing policymakers as they aim to deliver on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Notes:
IIT Ropar has launched an android app ‘Roshni’ to help the blind in recognizing the denomination of the currency notes, using image processing and analytics. At present, notes of Rs 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 500 and 2,000 are in circulation, which the blind people find it difficult to recognize due to their size and the tactile marks. The app can recognize both old and new notes and gives audio information as to which note you are holding in your hands. The user has to bring the currency note in front of phone camera and the app would provide audio notification intimating the currency notes denomination to the user. The app uses the patterns and features embedded on the notes to differentiate and determine the currency denomination. The app is developed by assistant professor Dr Puneet Goyal and his students — Mandhatya Singh, Joohi Chauhan, and R Ram.

Notes:
The National Voters Day (NVD) is celebrated every year in India on January 25 since 2011 to enhance participation of citizens in the electoral process. The day also marked the Foundation day of Election Commission of India (ECI), which was established on 25th January 1950. The main purpose of the celebration is to encourage, facilitate and maximize the enrollment, especially for the new voters. In view of the upcoming Lok Sabha Elections, ‘No Voter to be Left Behind’ has been selected as the theme for the 9th National Voters’ Day. During the 9th NVD 2019, the National Awards for the Best Electoral Practices were conferred on Officers for their outstanding performance in the conduct of elections. President Ram Nath Kovind was the Chief Guest at the main function being organized by Election Commission in New Delhi.

Notes:
Russell Baker (93), the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author , has passed away in Virginia, United States on January 21, 2019. He was the genial, but sharp-witted writer for his humorous columns in The New York Times and a moving autobiography of his impoverished Baltimore childhood and later hosted television’s ‘Masterpiece Theatre’. He won Pulitzers in 1979 for the ‘Observer’, the Times column he wrote for 35 years, and in 1983 for his autobiography ‘Growing Up’. It was the first Pulitzer for commentary awarded to a humorist.

Notes:
In New Delhi, the Union Human Resources Development (HRD) Ministry signed an agreement with Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for India’s Participation in Programme for International Student Assessment- PISA 2021. The student assessment by PISA will ensure learning outcome through education. Students will be selected by PISA through random sampling. The format for the student assessment will be offline and the question to Indian students will be related to India’s perspective only. The PISA test will help reveal where they stand globally as far as learning outcomes are concerned. PISA is a triennial international survey in which students are assessed in reading, mathematics, science and collaborative problem-solving. The purpose of the survey is to evaluate the education system worldwide by testing the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students. The CBSE and NCERT will be part of the process and activities leading to the actual test.

Notes:
Dr. Poonam Khetrapal Singh has been appointed the South-East Asia regional director of the World Health Organization (WHO) for a second five-year term. Under her leadership, the Region has made remarkable progress. In her first term, she focused on building an increasingly responsive and accountable WHO in the Region, while prioritizing persisting and emerging epidemiological and demographic challenges; promoting universal health coverage and building robust health systems; strengthening emergency risk management and articulating a strong regional voice in global health agenda. In the last five years, four countries eliminated measles and six controlled rubella. Thailand became the first in Asia-Pacific and the first with a large HIV epidemic—to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis. Maldives and Sri Lanka were certified malaria free. Maldives, Sri Lanka and Thailand eliminated lymphatic filariasis, India was declared yaws-free and Nepal trachoma-free.

Notes:
The 3rd International Stock Taking Conference on Tiger Conservation was held in New Delhi on January 28, 2019. The 2-day conference was hosted by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) in close collaboration with the Global Tiger Forum (GTA) which is an International, Intergovernmental Organization for conserving tigers in the world. In it, the 13 tiger range countries discussed on the status of the Global Tiger Recovery Program (GTRP) besides deliberations on combating wildlife trafficking. This is the second stock taking conference held in India after 2012. The major outcome of the Conference is expected to be course correction in strategies envisaged in Global and National Tiger Recovery Programs (GTRP/NTRP) which shall take tiger conservation forward to the intended goal as outlined in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Notes:
The Maharashtra government has launched a special scheme to curb infant deaths. The scheme is applicable only for the first child and will benefit around four lakh women across the state, Women. Each kit contains a blanket, a small mattress, a towel, a thermometer, baby oil, shampoo, toys, nail-cutter, gloves, socks, among other things. The cost of the kit is around Rs 2,000. For this cause, Child Development Minister Pankaja Munde distributed baby-care kits to the children born in primary health centres and government hospitals.