Current Affairs Quiz - June, 2019

Notes:
The Indian junior women’s hockey team clinched the 2019 Cantor Fitzgerald U21 International 4-Nations title after beating Ireland 1-0 in the final at Dublin, Ireland on June 4. The win meant India ended the tournament with an unblemished record. With three goals in four games, Mumtaz Khan finished as the highest goal scorer of the tournament.

Notes:
Tijjani Muhammad-Bande, Nigeria’s Ambassador to UN, has been elected as President of the 74th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA). In accordance with the rules, the President of the 74th session of the General Assembly should be elected from among the African States. Muhammad-Bande was elected by acclamation and he will succeed Ecuador’s Maria Fernanda Espinosa in September 2019. He assumes charge as the world body gets ready to celebrate the 75th anniversary of its creation next year.

Notes:
On June 6, the 6-member Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has reduced the repo rate by 25 basis points to 5.75% from 6.0% with immediate effect in its 2nd bi-monthly monetary policy statement for 2019-20. Repo rate is the interest rate at which the central bank provides liquidity to banks to overcome short-term liquidity mismatches. A repo rate cut allows banks to reduce interest rates for consumers on loans, and lowers equal monthly installments on home loans, car loans and personal loans. Consequently, the reverse repo rate stands adjusted to 5.50%, and the Marginal Standing Facility (MSF) rate and the Bank Rate to 6.0%. Beside this, RBI has also unanimously decided to change the stance of monetary policy from neutral to accommodative. The next meeting of the MPC is scheduled during August 5 to 7.

Notes:
Facebook has launched its first interactive game show titled “Confetti” in India, which will start from June 12 on its dedicated video platform – Facebook Watch. The interactive show will air from Wednesday to Sunday and will challenge participants to answer pop culture trivia questions for a chance to win Rs 3 lakh as cash prize every day. In 2018, the social networking giant globally rolled out Facebook Watch as its video-on-demand service in an attempt to take on its rival YouTube. The video service allows users to enjoy videos from different genres, including entertainment, sports and news in their personalised “Watch Feed” that carries a collection of recent videos from the pages they follow.

Notes:
Indian-American Congresswoman, Pramila Jayapal has become the first South Asian American woman to preside over the US House of Representatives. She is a Democrat from Washington DC. The 116th Congress broke records with women and lawmakers crossing racial and religious barriers, including an all time high for Asian American lawmakers. A record number of 17 Asian Americans serve in Congress, with 14 in the House and three in the Senate.

Notes:
Indian tennis player Sidharth Rawat defeated Rio Noguchi of Japan to win his first title in the $25,000 ITF men’s Futures tennis tournament on June 2, 2019. With the ATP points being restored for events of this level, he will be able to improve his current rank of 510. He had a career-best rank of 430.

Notes:
China has successfully launched a space rocket from sea for the first time and became the third nation to successfully demonstrate the ability to launch satellites into orbit from a floating platform after Russia and United States. The China National Space Administration (CNSA) has announced that a Long March 11 rocket was launched from a floating launch pad in the Yellow Sea just off the coast of Shandong on 5th June 2019. China now spends more than Russia and Japan on its civil and military space programmes. Earlier this year, China became the first nation to land a rover on the far side of the moon. It also unveiled ambitious plans to build a research base on the lunar surface, send a probe to Mars and build a space station in Earth orbit.

Notes:
Former President Jimmy Carter will be bestowed with the George H. W. Bush Award for Statesmanship for his contributions to relations between the U.S. and China. A private award ceremony is scheduled June 12 at the Carter Center in Atlanta. The George H. W. Bush Foundation has said that the award goes to people who have made profound contributions to the development of constructive and mutually beneficial relations” between the U.S and the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

Notes:
The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) has instituted the first Antarashtriya Yoga Diwas Media Samman (AYDMS) for 2019 to mark the contribution of media in spreading the message of Yoga. The AYDMS will be conferred to print and electronic media houses. The contribution of the media in popularizing Yoga would be assessed by six juries. A total of 33 awards, under three categories, will be conferred. The award will comprise a special medal, plaque and trophy and a citation. The duration of the coverage for AYDMS would be from June 10 to June 25. Yoga has been universally acknowledged by the United Nations (UN) and is now practiced globally around 200 countries on June 21 every year.

Notes:
The first-ever World Food Safety Day (WFSD) has officially celebrated on 7th June 2019 to strengthen efforts to ensure that the food we eat is safe. The theme of this year’s inaugural WFSD ‘Food Safety, everyone’s business’ invites us to recognize that food safety is everyone’s business. The day gives us an opportunity to share the outcomes of the two food safety conferences, discuss ways in which food safety can incentivize healthy diets, and discuss how the United Nations in New York can further support the efforts to improve food safety. The day was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in December 2018. The UN has designated two of its agencies – the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) – to lead efforts in promoting food safety around the world.