Current Affairs Quiz - June, 2019

Notes:
The researchers at the University of St Andrews in Scotland have found that gray seals can copy the sounds of human words and songs including “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”. The study showed that 3 trained seals were able to imitate parts of popular tunes. The study gave the researchers a better understanding of the evolution of vocal learning and human language development. It also suggested that gray seals could be a new model to study speech disorders since they use their vocal tracts the same way as humans. The grey seal is found on both shores of the North Atlantic Ocean. It is a large seal of the family Phocidae which are commonly referred to as “true seals” or “earless seals”. It is the only species classified in the genus Halichoerus.

Notes:
In Boxing, Indian team has been adjudged the best team of the tournament in the Black Forest Cup in Villingen, Schwenningen, Germany. In the tournament, the Indian junior women pugilists clinched 7 medals, including five gold. Haryana’s Neha (54kg) and Karnataka’s Anju Devi (50kg) claimed the honours of best boxer and promising player of the tournament. Ten countries including India, Ukraine, Germany, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Hungary, Lithuania, Mongolia, Greece, and Poland took part in this tournament. India’s powerful performances helped the contingent win the best team trophy.

Notes:
The South-East Asian countries will jointly bid to host the 2034 Football World Cup. For this, the meeting of ASEAN countries was held in Bangkok. Prime Minister of Thailand Prayuth Chan-ocha invited the people of ASEAN to support the football associations in their countries to host the tournament. The FIFA World Cup has held only once in the continent when Japan and South Korea were joint hosts in 2002. Qatar will bring it back to Asia in 2022. The ASEAN countries are Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Brunei. ASEAN region is home to more than 640 million people many of whom follow football avidly.

Notes:
The Imphal Peace Museum (IPM) has been gifted by Japan to Manipur to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Imphal, which was one of the fiercest battles of the Second World War. The museum was inaugurated at Maibam Lokpa Ching popularly known as Red Hill. Around 70,000 Japanese soldiers, alongside those of Subhash Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army (INA), died in battles with the British-led Allied forces in areas around Imphal and Kohima from March to June 1944. The last of these battles was fought at Red Hill, where the Japanese War Memorial was built in 1944 to mark the 50th anniversary of the battle. The museum symbolizes the reconciliation between Japan & Britain and Japan & India. It is to reinforce the message that history changes and makes us learn from the past.

Notes:
Saudi Arabia has become the first Arab country to be granted full membership of Financial Action Task Force (FATF) following its Annual General Meeting at Orlando in Florida, USA. Since November 2004, Saudi Arabia has been a founding member of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) arm of the FATF group. Its full FATF membership comes after it was reported the Kingdom had made “tangible progress” for its efforts in implementing the FATF’s guidelines. FATF is responsible for issuing international standards, policies and best practices to combat money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation. The FATF Secretariat is housed at the OECD headquarters in Paris. As of June 2019, there are 39 Member countries of FATF and policies drafted by FATF are highly regarded and treated as law.

Notes:
Union Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri inaugurated the Central Command Centre for Air Traffic Flow Management (C-ATFM) at Vasant Kunj, New Delhi. The C-ATFM system is primarily meant to address the balancing of capacity against the demand to achieve optimum utilization of the major resources viz., airport, airspace and aircraft at every Indian airport where there is a capacity constraint. It integrates flight data from various subsystems like ATC Automation System, flight updates and flight update messages. The system also displays weather information along with static information about airports, airspaces and air routes. The system processes the demand and capacity information and provides decision-making tools to the ATFM Flow Manager for collaborative decision making and to ensure regulated flow of traffic at each airport in India. After successfully implementing the AFTM, India has become the 7th country after the US, Europe, Australia, South Africa, Japan, Brazil.

Notes:
To commemorate 20 years of Kargil War, the Indian Air Force (IAF) has turned the Gwalior air base virtually into a conflict theatre with dramatic reenactment of some of the milestones of the operation in 1999. In a symbolic ‘recreation’ of the Tiger Hill attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Drass-Kargil area, the air force used the Mirage 2000 aircraft and explosives were blown up on a ‘model hill’ to recreate the crucial events of the war. The chief guest for the event is Air Chief Marshal BS Dhanoa. It is observed in the remembrance of recapturing the towering hills in Kargil district in Ladakh division subsequent the occupancy of Pakistani troops. The objective of these celebrations is to evoke feeling of patriotism through nationwide campaigns especially amongst youth and to pay homage to the valiant soldiers.

Notes:
On June 26, the 32nd Congress of the International Seed Testing Association (ISTA) has kick-started in Hyderabad, Telangana. The Seed Congress is being held for the first time in South Asia. Over 600 delegates including seed experts, officials, policy makers and representatives of national and international companies from nearly 70 countries like the UK, South Africa, Argentina, New Zealand, Canada, Austria are taking part in the Congress. The deliberations will be mainly focusing on various technologies for increasing quality seed production and seed export-import policies. Several pre and post-event workshops, conferences and exhibitions are also being held as part of the 8-day long Congress.

Notes:
The Rajasthan government has decided to set up Vedic education board and culture board in the state. It was announced by Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot at the 25th ‘Bhamashah Sammelan’ at Birla Auditorium in Jaipur. The board will help future generations take inspiration from Vedic culture.

Notes:
In Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir, tourist’s promotional festival – Ladakh Singhey Khababs Sindhu Festival celebrated on the bank of Indus River at Leh. The festival presents the Indus River as a symbol of the multi-dimensional cultural identity of India that got its name from the Indus River. Folk songs and dances are performed and local handicrafts and ethnic foods are being exhibited before the tourists during the festival.