Current Affairs Quiz - July, 2019

Notes:
The 14-year old Indian golfer Arjun Bhati has won the FCG Callaway Junior world Golf Championship 2019 by defeating Taiwan’s Jeremy Chen in Palm Desert, California. Out of 637 golfers from 40 counties that participated in the tournament, Arjun secured the first position with a total of 199 strokes in the three-day final. He was followed by Chen and New Zealand’s Joshua Bai at second and third positions with 202 and 207 strokes respectively.

Notes:
Delhi Police Commissioner Amulya Patnaik has recently launched the new e-challan system and the e-payment gateway for the use of Delhi Traffic Police. The E-challan devices are enabled with active GPS where the challaning officer and the violator, both can be logged and tracked to a particular geo-location. This is an important tool for evidence to establish the credibility of the prosecution. The payment gateway will help the citizens with the flexibility to login securely at their convenience and settle the pending violation notices with proof of payment. It is an important step towards cashless economy. It also ensures that the citizen interface with police improves and becomes more transparent.

Notes:
India’s track and field legend PT Usha has been nominated for the International Association of Athletics Federation’s (IAAF) ‘Veteran Pin’ for her outstanding service to the sport. She is often called the “queen of track and field”. The IAAF CEO Jon Ridgeon has also extended an invitation to PT Usha to attend the award ceremony during the opening of the 52nd IAAF Congress in Qatar in September 2019. She won five gold medals — 100 metres(m), 200m, 400m, 400 m hurdles and the 4×400 m relay — besides a bronze in the Asian Games which were held at Jakarta in 1985 . Usha’s most memorable performance came in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics where she became the first Indian to reach the finals of the 400m hurdles, but lost the bronze by one-hundredth of a second.

Notes:
The 2019 Durand Cup will be the 129th edition of the Durand Cup, which will be held at Kolkata in West Bengal from August 2 to 23. This will be for the first time that the tournament will be played outside New Delhi, its traditional venue. The matches will be played across three locations in West Bengal – Kolkata, Siliguri and Kalyani in 5 different stadiums namely East Bengal Ground, Mohun Bagan Ground, Kalyani Stadium, Siliguri Stadium and Salt Lake Stadium from 2nd August 2019. Army Green is the defending champion, who won its first title beating NEROCA FC on penalties in the last edition in 2016. The Durand Cup is the Asia’s oldest football tournament and third oldest football tournament in the world.

Notes:
The Kerala Government has decided to set up a state-of-the-art Space Systems Park at Knowledge City Thiruvananthapuram to attract global start-ups working in space sector and also develop it as a major manufacturing hub for space-related technology, research and development. The state government has claimed that it will be the India’s first space park. The state government has issued orders to make Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Centre and Space Museum part of the space park and to allot the land required for the facility. This will be an added attraction to the park and the entire investment will be made by the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC). The government will transfer 20.01 acres as lease to the Kerala State Information Technology Infrastructure Ltd (KSITIL) to develop the space park at Knowledge City within Technocity as an international space technology ecosystem. Of this, 16.07 acres, now having SEZ status, will be denotified by KSITIL. The land belongs to Technopark. The project will be implemented by the Electronics and IT Department, government of Kerala.

Notes:
Two-time Olympic gold medal winning Hockey Player Keshav Dutt and former India Football Captain Prasun Banerjee has been chosen for 2019 Mohun Bagan Ratna. This is the first time that the club is conferring the award on a sportsperson from a discipline other than football. Dutt (93) was part of the team that won gold in the 1948 (London) and 1952 (Helsinki) Olympics. Prasun was a prominent midfielder of his times. He played in three Asian Games in 1974, 1978 and 1982 and was part of an Asian All Star XI team. The Best Footballer for the 2018-19 will be given to Arijit Bagui. Mohun Bagan will also felicitate pacer Mohammed Shami, India’s hat-trick hero of the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup, while footballer Ashok Chatterjee will be given the Lifetime Achievement award. The Mariners will also give Life Memberships to Sourav Ganguly, ChuniGoswami, Dr Vece Paes, Prasenjit Chatterjee and Deb Shankar Halder. The awards will be given away on Mohun Bagan Day on July 29. July 29 is celebrated as the ‘Mohun Bagan Day’ because on this day in 1911, the Mariners became the first club to defeat a British club, East Yorkshire Regiment, and lift the IFA Shield.

Notes:
Scientists in Bangladesh have developed a method to convert Jute fibre into low-cost bio-degradable cellulose sheets named ‘Sonali’ which can be used as wrapping material and carrying bag. The Eco-friendly jute poly bags made up of Sonali can be used in garments and food packaging work and they are not harmful for human health. The commercial production of these bags is likely to start by the year-end. The main challenge in the large scale adoption of Sonali sheet is the relatively high cost of production which is almost double that of polythene. However, production on a large scale is expected to bring down the cost.

Notes:
The Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) set up to look into the legality of cryptocurrencies and blockchain has recently submitted its report to the Finance Ministry and recommended that private cryptocurrencies be banned completely in India. It has also drafted a law, the ‘Banning of Cryptocurrency & Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2019’, which mandates a fine and imprisonment of up to 10 years for offences. The committee was formed under the Chairmanship of Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg. The draft law says that anybody who mines, generates, holds, sells, deals in; transfers, disposes of or issues cryptocurrencies with will face a fine and/or jail time of between 1 and 10 years. The fine has been set at the either three times the loss or harm caused by a person, or three times the gain made by the person, whichever is higher.

Notes:
The Western Railway (WR) has opened the first-of-its-kind printing press heritage gallery of the Indian Railways at Mahalaxmi in Mumbai. With this, the Western Railway Mahalaxmi General Stores Depot (GSD) has become the first in Indian Railways to portray a heritage gallery of the printing and allied machines used in the Western Railway Printing Press since 1948, which are still in working condition. The GSD Mahalaxmi is spread over 12,171 sq meter area, which is a British-era single-storey building made with black stone having interiors made with wood, has its own beauty and uniqueness. The press came into existence in 1912 under the Greater Indian Peninsular Railway (GIP) Bombay, as the railway needed stationery and tickets to run the operations.

Notes:
Ehsan Mania, the current Chairman of Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), has been appointed chief of the ICC’s influential Finance & Commercial Affairs (F&CA). The move may not be music to Indian board’s (BCCI) ears. The fear within the Indian cricket circles is that it could pit India against Pakistan in the corridors of the game’s administration in the near future. F&CA is one of the ICC’s most important committees & is responsible for designing budgets for ICC events and distributing money to its member countries.