Current Affairs Quiz - July, 2019

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:
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:
Priti Patel, a prominent member of the Back Boris campaign for the Conservative Party leadership, has become the Britain’s first Indian-origin home secretary as part of new Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s top team. She succeeded Pakistani-origin Sajid Javid, who moves to the Treasury department as the first ethnic minority Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr Javid, a former banker from a modest background, was a contender for the premiership but endorsed Johnson when he failed to get enough support from fellow Conservative MPs. Mr Johnson has also named Brexit hardliner Dominic Raab as the country’s Foreign Secretary.

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has assigned deputy governor B.P. Kanungo to run the monetary policy portfolio after the resignation of fellow deputy governor Viral Acharya. Kanungo would become the 6th member of the RBI’s Monetary Policy Committee, which will next convene on 5-7 August. He will also retain his currency management portfolio. Now, all the other three deputy governors — N S Vishwanathan, B P Kanungo and M K Jain — have been made responsible for 12 departments each.

Notes:
Dejan Papic from Canada has been appointed the new national coach of the Indian table tennis team. He accepted the one-year contract that was offered to him by the Sports Authority of India (SAI). He will be paid USD 7000 per month and his contract will be up for renewal after the Tokyo Olympics. The Indian team has been playing without a coach since the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta. Without a coach, the team suffered a lot of defeats in several important tournaments. However, in the recently concluded 2019 Commonwealth Table Tennis Championship, India won the gold medal in all categories.

Notes:
India’s first space war drill ‘IndSpaceEx’ has kick started by Indian armed forces in New Delhi on July 25 and 26. The aim of the exercise is to assess imminent threats to the nation beyond earth. It also plans on drafting a joint space doctrine for future battles. The development comes on the background of China’s growing influence in space defence and counter-space capabilities.

Notes:
Veteran star Meryl Streep will become the first-ever recipient of the TIFF Tribute Actor award at the 44th Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF-2019). She will receive the award in person on 9th September for her tremendous contribution to cinema, television and the stage spans five decades. Streep is a 3-time Oscar winner for ‘The Iron Lady’, ‘Sophie’s Choice and Kramer vs. Kramer. She previously scored an Emmy win for her leading role in HBO’s miniseries adaptation of ‘Angels in America’. The actor’s next film “The Laundromat”, about the Panama Papers scandal, is among the films that will be screened at the famed festival.

Notes:
The scientists at the IIT-Kanpur have developed two-finger robotic hand (exoskeleton) to help paralysed stroke patients. For the exoskeleton, Prof. Ashish Dutta and Prof. KS Venkatesh have partnered with the University of Ulster (based in the United Kingdom) and their teacher Girijesh Prasad, who belongs to Gorakhpur. The exoskeleton uses a four-bar mechanism and has four degrees of freedom (DOF). It can be used by a patient on the hand. It uses brain signals, with the help of the Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) that is worn on the head, and helps paralyzed patients to open and close the movement of their thumb, forefinger and middle fingers for physical practice. The exoskeleton is operated by a MEGA microcontroller of 300 Mhz and powered by a battery. The device will cost around Rs 15,000.

Notes:
After nearly four decades, Chandigarh has finally received affiliation from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). Now, the city can also have its own team in the Ranji Trophy and other domestic tournaments organised by the BCCI. This was stated by Union Territory Cricket Association (UTCA) President Sanjay Tandon. Following the development, Chandigarh cricketers, who were earlier forced to represent Punjab or Haryana to be able to play at the national or international level, can now directly represent the city. UTCA was registered in 1982 and since then various attempts were made to get the affiliation. Delhi is the only other Union Territory with BCCI affiliation.

Notes:
The researchers from Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bengaluru have discovered a new vine snake species called Proahaetulla antiqua in Western Ghats . This is an ancient species which is endemic to southern Western Ghats. This is thought to have evolved around 26 million years ago during the mid-Oligocene period. Vine snakes get their names due to their slender bodies and vine-like appearances. These new vine snakes are named after the Latin words ‘antiqua’, meaning ‘old or ancient’. The common name suggested for these individuals is ‘keeled vine snake’. They are found in the protected habitats of the Kalakkad Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve in Tamil Nadu and the Shendurney Wildlife Sanctuary in Kerala, both located in the southern Western Ghats. The discovery not only help the researchers know more about the evolution of vine snakes but also the evolutionary history of the Western Ghats (a landmass older than the Himalayas).