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:
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:
Arun Kumar Roy (90), the veteran Left leader and chief patron of CITU Jharkhand state committee, has passed away in Dhanbad, Jharkhand on 21st July 2019. He was the former Lok Sabha MP and founder of Marxist Coordination Committee (MCC). Roy won the Dhanbad Lok Sabha seat in 1977, 1980 and 1989. He also represented Sindri in the Bihar Assembly in 1967, 1969 and 1972. Along with Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) supremo Shibu Soren and former MP, the late Binod Bihari Mahto, Roy began the Jharkhand movement that demanded a separate State from Bihar in 1971. Jharkhand became a separate State on November 15, 2000. Roy was called a ‘political saint’ by his associates and followers, as his bank account always showed a ‘zero’ balance.

Notes:
Four-time Asian medallist Shiva Thapa has become the India’s first gold-medallist at the President’s Cup boxing tournament after getting a walkover in the finals in Astana, Kazakhstan on July 20, 2019. It was his international debut in the newly-introduced Olympic category of 63kg. Thapa was to fight Kazakhstan’s Zakir Safiullin in the summit clash but his opponent had to pull out due to injury. Earlier, this year, Thapa had lost to Safiullin in the 2019 Asian Championship semifinal.

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 2019 edition of India and China joint military exercise titled “Hand-in-Hand” will be held in Umroi near Shillong, Meghalaya in December 2019. It will be a two-week exercise which will be based on counter-terrorism and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations. The exercise aims to build close relations between the armies of the two countries. It comes in the backdrop of situation along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), which has so far remained peaceful. It will be a company-level exercise, where around 120 troops from each side will be participating.

Notes:
In Kerala, the 4-day International shark meet 2019 is being held in Kochi from July 24 to set up a platform for researchers from across the globe working on shark and ray trade to share their experience in the field. It is a first-of-its-kind event in India, which is being jointly organized by the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) and the FAO under the collaborative research project of the two entities on sharks and rays non-fin commodities. The purpose of the meet is to bring together scientific community in the spectrum to describe various methodologies being transpired and adopted in research works on sharks and rays, to define their strengths and weaknesses and develop practical but not rigid set of guidance. Representatives from the FAO and experts from various countries such as UK, Australia, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Indonesia, Malaysia, Peru, Italy, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Somalia, Myanmar and Namibia will attend the meet to discuss the priorities in monitoring shark and ray fisheries, trade and market chain assessment..

Notes:
Lt Gen. Manoj Mukund Naravane appointed next Vice Chief of Indian Army. He will succeed Lt Gen Devraj Anbu who is slated to retire on August 31. Lt Gen Naravane will be in contention for the Army chief’s post as he will be the senior-most commander when incumbent Gen Bipin Rawat retires on December 31. In his 37 years of service, Lt Gen Naravane has served in numerous command and staff appointments in peace, field and highly active counter insurgency environments. He has also commanded a Rashtriya Rifles Battalion in Jammu and Kashmir and an Infantry Brigade on the eastern front.

Notes:
In a move to help geriatric care, students of IIT Kharagpur have built an app which will inform the caregiver when the elderly person falls down with the exact location. The app named ‘CARE4U’ will connect the caregiver to the elderly person. The neural network-based fall detection algorithm in the app installed on the phone of the elderly can detect whether the elderly has fallen down. If there is a fall, it automatically calls the caregiver and emergency services with the location of the elderly person. CARE4U can also detect emotions and whenever the elderly opens the app, the phone takes his picture and a mood index is calculated. This detects whether the person is sad or not and automatically updates the caregiver with the time stamp. The caregiver can check what mood the senior citizen has been through in the day. To make this feature more effective the team has developed a cognitive intelligent chatbot for the elderly person to engage with.

Notes:
The Government of India (GoM) has reconstituted the Group of Ministers (GoM), under the chairmanship of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, looking after the issues of how to prevent sexual harassment at workplace and strengthen legal frameworks. The other members of the reconstituted GoM are: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ and Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani. The GoM was set up to examine and give recommendations for strengthening the legal and institutional frameworks to deal with and prevent sexual harassment at workplace in October 2018.