Current Affairs Quiz - July, 2019

Notes:
The Cricket Association of Pondicherry (CAP) has been granted the status of a Full Member of the BCCI by the Committee of Administrators (CoA). CAP will now become a voting member of the BCCI. It was given Associate Member status in October 2018 and went on to take part in the Ranji Trophy and other age-group tournaments of the Board.

Notes:
15-year-old Prithu Gupta from Delhi has become the India’s 64th Grandmaster as he crossed the 2500-mark. He beat IM Lev Yankelevich in the fifth round of the Portuguese League 2019 to cross the Elo threshold. Gupta has joined an elite list, 31 years after Viswanathan Anand became India’s first Grandmaster.

Notes:
In 21st Commonwealth Table Tennis Championship 2019 held in Cuttack on 18th July, India made a record by winning gold in both men’s and women’s category at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. The Indian women team won the gold for the first time in the history in the commonwealth games. The women’s team defeated Singapore 3-0 to dethrone the previous champions whereas men’s team outclassed England 3-2. As a result of this win, the men’s team has extended their reign for the second successive time. The Indian men had won their first crown in Kuala Lumpur in 2004.

Notes:
Indian bodybuilder Ravinder Kumar Malik has clinched Mr. South Asia title. He has crowned the overall champion at 12th South Asian Bodybuilding and Physique Sports Championship in Kathmandu on July 20, 2019. Malik, the winner of 80 kg category, was adjudged best bodybuilder among the winners of nine senior men’s weight categories. Afghanistan won team championship by securing a top position with 535 points. Host Nepal finished second with 445 points, while India remained third with 380 points. A total of 91 bodybuilders participated in the championship organised by South Asian Bodybuilding and Physique Sports Federation under the auspices of Nepal Bodybuilding and Fitness Association.

Notes:
In a bid to preserve the drug’s efficacy in humans, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has banned the manufacture, sale and distribution of Colistin and its formulations for food-producing animals, poultry, aqua farming and animal feed supplements. The ban has been imposed under provisions of section 26A of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act of 1940 and a notification in this regard has been issued by the Centre. According to a ministry official, the antibiotic is being used as a last resort for treatment of patients suffering from infections caused by drug-resistant bacteria. But the drug is highly misused in poultry industry as a growth promoter for prophylactic purpose.

Notes:
The Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) facility has been inaugurated by Union Minister of Science and Technology Harsh Vardhan at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), a CSIR lab in Hyderabad. This is the fourth such facility in the country, which can sequence 30 human genomes (or 384 diagnostic samples) in a day. It costs around Rs 1 lakh to sequence one genome using this facility. This opens up multiple avenues in investigating fundamental biology of individual cells in tissues as well as fighting disease like cancer through understanding the heterogeneity in cell populations. By using the facility, scientists hope to find genetic cause of rare diseases and develop kits which can be used to find population at the risk of genetic or other rare diseases. These services would be available to hospitals, industry, and academicians by paying charges.

Notes:
India was represented by Indian envoy to United Nations Syed Akbaruddin at the 2019 Non Aligned Movement (NAM) Ministerial Meeting in Caracas, Venezuela. Here, India has strongly rejected Pakistan’s references to Kashmir & said that the global forum can never be a platform for a self-serving narrative that aims to undermine the territorial integrity of one nation by another state. The NAM needs to be in the vanguard of those addressing the primary issues of our times that cry for global cooperation, rather than become a platform for venting bilateral grievances between members. Akbaruddin did not name Pakistan but his comments were aimed at Islamabad raising the issue of Kashmir at the multi-lateral forum. NAM was established in Belgrade in 1961 and was a joint initiative of former Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito.

Notes:
Andhra Pradesh has become the first Indian State to reserve 75% jobs for local youths in all private industries. The state assembly has recently passed the Andhra Pradesh Employment of Local Candidates in Industries/Factories Act of 2019, which reserves 75% jobs in industrial units, factories, joint ventures and projects set up under public-private partnership mode. According to the new law, if a company does not find the necessary skills in locals, then it will need to train them in association with the state government. In this way, no company will be able to hide behind the excuse of not finding skilled local labourers. The act will ensure the employment of youth in the state but at the same time, the state will have to ramp up the training centres in order to make them skillful.

Notes:
Boris Johnson, the former foreign secretary and London Mayor, has officially took over the charge as new British Prime Minister after Theresa May handed in her resignation to the Queen at Buckingham Palace. He promised to leave the European Union (EU) on 31st October 2019 under a “new deal, a better deal” with the 28-member economic bloc. Mr Johnson is expected to use the opportunity to increase the number of women in full cabinet positions and boost the representation of ethnic minorities.

Notes:
In a first, the Goa government has decided to ply ‘water taxis’ in its inland waterways between Panaji and Old Goa. The announcement was made while tabling the performance budget of the River Navigation department (RND) for the financial year 2019-2020. The department also plans to upgrade existing ferry ramps and jetties and provide better facilities on all the ferry routes. The RND has a fleet of 34 ferry boats which cater to different inland routes, connecting islands to the mainstream areas. The Central government’s Sagarmala project has also funded reconstruction of 9 jetties in Goa. A flagship programme of the Ministry of Shipping, the Sagarmala project aims to promote port-led development by exploiting India’s 7,500 km long coastline, 14,500 km of potentially navigable waterways and its strategic location on international maritime trade routes.