Current Affairs Quiz - June, 2019

Notes:
Author Amish Tripathi has been appointed the new director of Nehru Centre in London, which is under the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR). He will replace diplomat Srinivas Gotru. Tripathi is the author of best-selling books such as the Secret of the Nagas and Sita – Warrior of Mithila. The Nehru Centre was founded in 1992 with Gopalkrishna Gandhi as its founder director. Playwright-actor Girish Karnad was among the prominent people to have helmed the centre.

Notes:
The second edition of the “Healthy States, Progressive India” report has been released by NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Dr Rajiv Kumar. Kerala has topped among large states on overall health performance in NITI Aayog’s Health Index followed by Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. Though, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have emerged as the worst performing states. However, in terms of incremental performance Haryana, Rajasthan and Jharkhand are the top three states who performed well in comparison to the last health index. The report ranks states and Union territories innovatively on their year-on-year incremental change in health outcomes, as well as, their overall performance with respect to each other. The report focuses on measuring and highlighting the overall performance and incremental improvement over a two-year period, 2016-17 and 2017-18 in the States and UTs. It takes a comprehensive look at health in terms of Health Outcomes, Governance and Processes and impact of policy interventions. The report has been prepared in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) and with technical assistance from the World Bank.

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:
Rachna Khaira of The Tribune has bagged the prestigious RedInk Award for ‘Journalist of the Year’ for her expose during 2018 on the functioning of the UIDAI and its Aadhaar data cache. The Mumbai Press Club, which has instituted the RedInk Awards for Excellence in Journalism, has bestowed the coveted Lifetime Achievement Award 2019 jointly to two retired senior journalists Dinu Ranadive (94), who retired as the chief reporter of Maharashtra Times, and photojournalist Sebastian D’Souza, who had served as photo editor of Mumbai Mirror. Ranadive started his career as the founder-editor of the “Samyukta Maharashtra Patrika”in the 1950s, which had a lasting impact in the movement for the unification of Maharashtra as a state based on language. He had also covered the Goa freedom struggle in 1961, the Bangladesh war in 1970-71 and broke stories on cement scandal of 1982. D’Souza had achieved acclaim for his photographs that captured the Lashkar-e-Taiba terror attack on Mumbai on November 26, 2008.

Notes:
Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has launched a unique flood hazard atlas on the basis of historic flood inundation captured through satellite imagery over the period from 2001 to 2018. It is expected to help the State manage floods more efficiently. The atlas will help the authorities to systematically plan flood control measures, to carry out relief operations, to plan relief shelters & health centres and to control development activities on flood plains. The atlas is prepared by Odisha State Disaster Management Authority (OSDMA) and National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Hyderabad. Around 14 lakh hectare of agriculture land is being affected by floods every year in Odisha.

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:
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:
Vijaya Nirmala (75), the veteran actress and filmmaker , has passed away in Hyderabad on June 27, 2019. Born on 20th February 1946, Nirmala made her acting debut in 1950 as a child artiste in the Tamil movie ‘Machcha Rekhai’. She holds a record in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the first woman to direct as many as 47 films in different languages. She was also feted with the Raghupathi Venkaiah Award in 2008 for her contributions to Telugu cinema. She featured in over 200 films in Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam.

Notes:
Samant Kumar Goel, a 1984 batch IPS officer from Punjab cadre, has been appointed as the new of the Research & Analysis Wing (RAW). He succeeded Anil Dhasmana. He is said to have been involved in the planning of the Balakot air strike and played an important role in checking militancy in Punjab. Mr. Goel, a recipient of the Police Medals for Gallantry and Meritorious Service, joined the RAW in 2001. The Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) is the foreign intelligence agency of India. It was established in 1968 following the intelligence failures of the Sino-Indian War, which persuaded the Government of India (GoI) to create a specialised, independent agency dedicated to foreign intelligence gathering. The head of RAW is designated Secretary (R) in the Cabinet Secretariat, and is under the direct command of the Prime Minister, and reports on an administrative basis to the Cabinet Secretary of India, who reports to the Prime Minister. It is headquartered in New Delhi.

Notes:
Sarada Kumar Hota has been appointed as the new Managing Director of National Housing Bank (NHB) for a period of three years. Prior to this appointment, Hota was Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Can Fin Homes. NHB, which is now 100% owned by the government, is the nodal agency for supervision, refinance and development of the housing finance segment.