Current Affairs Quiz - June, 2019

Notes:
A well-known educationist, paediatrician & the author, Dr Gaurav Nigam has been conferred ‘Innovative Research Excellence Award 2019’ at Asian Leadership Summit (ALS) in Thimphu, Bhutan. Dr. Nigam is the founder of iCare – an organization working in the area of new-age child health care; and Intelligentsia, a research-based play school. Intelligentsia is all about scientific research and delivering early education through STEM approach. He has also authored a book titled ‘Devil Inside My Mind’.

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:
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:
Under the flagship Sagarmala Programme, the Union Ministry of Shipping has recently signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) with IIT Kharagpur for setting up the Centre for Inland and Coastal Maritime Technology (CICMT) at IIT Kharagpur. The first-of-its-kind Centre will focus on ship design for coastal/inland waterways, shipbuilding technology and structural design, transport systems & logistics, cryogenic cargo handling, green/renewable energy harvesting from coastal and inland waters and automation and artificial intelligence (AI) for maritime operations. It will provide technological support, research, testing and experimentation facility to agencies involved in inland water transport, shipbuilding, ports. etc. Presently, only Germany, the Netherlands, Russia and Belgium have model testing facilities for ships.

Notes:
India’s chief national badminton coach Pullela Gopichand has been bestowed an honorary doctorate by IIT Kanpur on the occasion of their 52nd convocation on June 28, 2019. He received the honour from former ISRO chairman and Chairman of the board of Governors of IIT Kanpur, Prof K Radhakrishnan. The past recipients of the honour are Former President Prof. APJ Abdul Kalam and former Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh. Gopichand, as a player, won the 2001 All England Open Badminton Championship. He became the second Indian after Prakash Padukone to achieve this feat. Post retirement, the Hyderabad-based shuttler started his own badminton academy — Gopichand Badminton Academy — in 2008. Many top Indian players including the likes of Saina Nehwal, PV Sindhu, Srikanth Kidambi, Parupalli Kashyap etc. have been trained at Pullela Gopichand’s academy in Hyderabad.

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.

Notes:
Sharad Kumar Saraf has been appointed as the new President of the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO). He succeeded renowned exporter Ganesh Kumar Gupta. Saraf is the chairman and founder of Technocraft Industries (India) Ltd. The FIEO is a trade promotion organisation in India, which is responsible for representing and assisting Indian entrepreneurs and exporters in foreign markets.

Notes:
India has signed a loan agreement worth $400 million with the World Bank (WB) to help treat and eliminate Tuberculosis from the country. In India, around five lakh people died every year due to Tuberculosis. According to Finance Ministry, the World Bank supported program will cover 9 States and it will support the government’s National Strategic Plan to end TB in India by 2025. The Program will provide financial incentives to private sector care providers for reporting cases of TB and ensuring that their patients complete the treatment regimen. It will also provide Direct Benefit Transfers to patients for acquiring the critical nutrition needed during treatment. The Program will also strengthen the detection, treatment and monitoring of Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis and will track progress in the detection of additional drug resistance.

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.