Current Affairs Quiz - July, 2019

Notes:
The historic walled city of Jaipur in Rajasthan has recently declared UNESCO World Heritage site at the ongoing 43rd Session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee at Baku, Azerbaijan. The city was founded in 1727 AD under the patronage of Sawai Jai Singh II. It is known for its iconic architectural legacy and vibrant culture, and serves as the capital city of the culturally-rich state of Rajasthan. In town planning, it shows an interchange of ancient Hindu, Mughal and contemporary Western ideas that resulted in the form of the city. In addition, Jaipur City is an exceptional example of a late medieval trade town in South Asia and defined new concepts for a thriving trade and commercial hub. Additionally, the city is associated with living traditions in the form of crafts that have national and international recognition.

Notes:
Under Puducherry smart city development plan, the Union Territory government has decided to introduce Bi-cycle sharing scheme in a couple of months. The registered users or customers can use bicycles to hop from one place to another within the boulevard area. The bicycles can be left at any of the docking stations after use. For the scheme, 100 spots have been identified for cycle docking stations. To begin with, 20 docking stations with 10 to 15 cycles each, are to be set up in places like beach promenade, Bharathi Park, Gandhi Thidal, Aurobindo ashram and railway station. The novel scheme is a boon to tourists who throng to Puducherry in thousands whose number swells to several thousand on weekends. The project under the public-private partnership model will be operationalised after a suitable operator is found out through tender. This scheme is one among the 22 prioritised schemes of the Puducherry Smart City Project for which about 194 crore rupees would be spent.

Notes:
The new human atlas initiative – named Manav – has been launched by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and Persistent Systems for holistic understanding of human body. The aim of the initiative is to create a unified database of molecular network of all the tissues in the human body and to derive a holistic picture of working of human body. The database would eventually help researchers in identifying gaps in current knowledge and help in future projects in diagnostics and disease biology. In this public-private venture, DBT and Persistent Systems will invest Rs 13 crore and Rs 7 crore respectively. The project will be executed by Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) and National Center for Cell Sciences (NCCS) based at Pune.

Notes:
The Naveen Patnaik led Odisha Government has recently informed the state High Court that it has implemented the Central Government’s Witness Protection Scheme-2018. The aim of the scheme is to ensure that investigation, prosecution and trial of criminal offences are not prejudiced because witnesses are intimidated or frightened to give evidence without protection from other criminal forces. According to the state government’s notification, the scheme includes three categories of witnesses as per threat perception. Category A consists of those cases where threat extends to the life of witness or family members during an investigation, trial or thereafter. Cases where the threat extends to safety, reputation or property of the witness or family members during the investigation or trial falls under category B. Category C will have cases where the threat is moderate and extends to harassment or intimidation of the witness or family members, reputation or property during investigation, trial or thereafter. The important features of the scheme include protective measures like ensuring that the witness and accused do not come face to face during probe, protection and change of identity, relocation of witness, confidentiality and preservation of records and recovery of expenses among others.

Notes:
The film ‘Gully Boy’, directed by Zoya Akhtar, has won the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC) Award for Best Asian Film at the 23rd Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFAN) in South Korea. ‘Gully Boy’, which features actors Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt, is based on the lives of street rappers. It is inspired by the lives of Mumbai street rappers Vivian Fernandes aka Divine and Naved Shaikh aka Naezy. It will also be screened at the 2019 Indian Film Festival of Melbourne.

Notes:
According to a study conducted by property consultant Commercial Real Estate Services (CBRE), New Delhi’s Connaught Place (CP) is the 9th most expensive office location in the world with an annual rent of nearly USD 144 per sq ft. In its annual Global Prime Office Occupancy Costs survey, CBRE tracks the cost of leasing prime office space globally. At the top of the list was Hong Kong (Central) for the second consecutive year with an average price of $322 per square feet. , followed by London (West End) with an average occupancy rate of $222.7 per square feet. London’s (West End) is ranked 2nd, followed by Hong Kong (Kowloon) and New York (Midtown Manhattan). Beijing’s (Finance Street) is at the fifth position on the list. As per the report, Mumbai’s Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) and Nariman Point-Central Business District (CBD) ranked at 27th and 40th positions, respectively.

Notes:
In Mumbai, a documentary film club “KSHITIJ” has been launched by Film Division of India (FDI) in association with Indian Documentary Producer Association (IDPA). The public screenings will be organized on the 2nd and 4th Friday of every month during 5:00 pm – 6:30pm at Films Division Complex, followed by a short interaction of audience with the director / curator of the film. The acclaimed documentary film “Secret Life of Frogs” by Ajay & Vijay Bedi will be screened as the inaugural film. Films Division, established in 1948, has been relentlessly striving to maintain a record of the social, political and cultural imaginations and realities of the country on film. It works under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) to produce documentaries and news magazines for publicity of Government programmes and cinematic record of Indian history.

Notes:
On 11th July 2019, the centuries-old annual Kharchi Puja festival has started with great pomp & show at Puran Agartala in Tripura. The word ‘Kharchi’ is derived from the word Khya which means earth. Kharchi Puja is basically done to worship the earth. Originally a Hindu tribals’ festivity, it is now observed by all communities and religions. The royal fest, which lasts for 7 consecutive days, is meant to cleanse the sins of mortal souls. It involves the worship of the 14 deities – Shiva, Durga, Vishnu, Laxmi, Saraswati, Kartik, Ganesha, Brahma, Abadhi (God of water), Chandra, Ganga, Agni, Kamdev and Himadri (Himalaya) – forming the dynasty deity of the Tripuri people.

Notes:
The Spektr-RG space telescope is a joint venture of Russia & Germany that will map X-rays across the entire sky in unprecedented detail. It has been successfully launched into the space from the cosmodrome in Baikonur, Kazakhstan on 13th July 2019. The Spektr-RG is a space observatory intended to replace the Spektr-R (Known as the “Russian Hubble”). The hope is Spektr-RG can provide fresh insights on the accelerating behaviour of cosmic expansion. It should also identify a staggering number of new X-ray sources, such as the colossal black holes that reside at the centre of galaxies.

Notes:
The researchers at the Indian Institute of Spices Research (IISR) in Kozhikode have developed a technology to pack microbial strains beneficial to farmers in tiny capsules. It will eliminate the need for lugging around sacks of bio-fertilisers as farmers do currently. The bio-capsules made with the technology weigh just one gram. But the microbial population they contain is equivalent to what is present in a one-kg pack of powder-based biofertliser or a one-litre bottle. The beauty of the technology is that it can be used for packing any kind of farm-friendly microbes, including nitrogen-fixing bacteria, solubolise phosphates, micronutrients and fungi that help control pathogens. The achievement by the IISR scientists led by Dinesh Raghavan is remarkable because no such technology is commercially available world over. The IISR is a subsidiary of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), New Delhi, under the Ministry of Agriculture.