Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - May, 2019

Notes:
Air Marshal Rakesh Kumar Singh Bhadauria has been appointed as the new Vice Chief of Indian Air Force (IAF). He succeeded Air Marshal Anil Khosla. Prior to this post, Bhadauria was head of IAF’s Bengaluru-based Training Command. He was commissioned into the fighter stream of the Air Force on June 15, 1980 with the Sword of Honour. He went on to hold several important positions such as Commandant of the National Defence Academy (NDA), Senior Air Staff Officer at the Central Air Command and Deputy Chief of the Air Staff from January 2016 to February 28, 2017. Bhadauria served as the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief (AOC-in-C), Southern Air Command from March 1, 2017. He took over as the chief of the Bengaluru-based Training Command on August 1, 2018.

Notes:
The Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) has launched an awareness programme on Goods and Services Tax (GST) in collaboration with Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Institute Limited to help small scale businesses. The purpose of the GST programme is to impart basic knowledge and skills required to fulfil various requirements under the GST Act. It would be beneficial to people who are engaged in maintaining accounts and filing of various indirect tax returns. The main objective of the programme is to impart skills to book keeping professionals to file various regular GST returns along with the various compliance requirements. Those who have passed Class 12 are eligible for the course, which will be offered in January and July cycle of admissions.

Notes:
Israel has recently honoured 1971 war hero Lt. Gen. (retd) Jack Farj Rafael (JFR) Jacob with a plaque on Ammunition Hill Wall of Honour in Jerusalem. Lt. Gen. Jacob, who died in 2016 at the age of 92 , negotiated the historic surrender of Pakistani troops in Dhaka after the 1971 Bangladesh’s liberation war,. He was one of the most prominent members of India’s relatively small Jewish community, and also served as a Lieutenant General in the Indian Army and later as a Governor of two Indian states-Goa and Punjab. The Wall of Honour at the Ammunition Hill pays tributes to the heroism and courage of Jewish soldiers who fought in the defence of their countries they lived in implementing values of bravery, loyalty, commitment and dedication to a mission, leadership, creativity, camaraderie and sanctity of life.

Notes:
The Dredging Corporation of India Limited (DCIL) has inked a MoU with Water & Power Consultancy Services (India) Limited (WAPCOS) to jointly identify suitable future projects and carry out geotechnical investigation and engineering consultancy.The two firms will work together to explore projects in water resources, power and infrastructure, port and harbour dredging, shallow water dredging, beach nourishment, lake rehabilitation, flood management, erosion control, river morphology and other related sectors. WAPCOS is a mini ratna PSU under the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation. The headquarters of WAPCOS is located at New Delhi.

Notes:
In Meghalaya, the Geological Survey of India (GSI) North Eastern Region (NER) has recently installed two geological display boards at two important geological sites in the State with geo-scientific information which will help in creating awareness among visiting tourists, students and the general public. The boards are unvieled at two important geological sites in the State namely Mawmluh cave and Therriaghat, Sobhar in East Khasi Hill District. The stalagmite in the Mawmluh cave has been tagged a Global Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP). It makes it first formally ratified marker of a geological time period in India. The Um-Sohryngkew (Wahrew) river section at Therriaghat is known for having the most complete records of Cretaceous-Palaeogene (K-Pg) boundary transition in India. There is also a high level of iridium metal from the boundary which marks catastrophic event when a giant meteorite hit earth. The Meghalayan Age period began about 4200 years ago experienced an abrupt mega-drought and cooling around the world.

Notes:
To commemorate the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA) to the Government of India and IIT Delhi have signed an MoU to set up a Centre of Excellence for Waste to Wealth Technologies for implementation of sustainable, scientific and technological solutions for waste management, through validation and deployment of available technologies for transformation of waste to wealth. The waste to wealth mission project has been approved under the recently constituted Prime Minister’s Science Technology and Innovation Advisory Council (PM-STIAC). The partnership will provide an effective platform for stakeholders to bring together integrated approaches for effective recycle, reuse and resource recovery of waste.

Notes:
Former ISRO chairman A S Kiran Kumar has been conferred with France’s highest civilian award – Chevalier de l’Ordre national de la Lgion d’Honneur – for his contribution to India-France space cooperation. Throughout his career at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), including as its chairman from 2015 to 2018, Kumar fostered the historic and ambitious space cooperation between India and France. The Ordre national de la Lgion d’Honneur (National Order of the Legion of Honour) was created in 1802 by Napoleon Bonaparte, and is the highest civilian award given by the French for outstanding service to France, regardless of the nationality of the recipient. The President of the French Republic is the Grand Master of the Ordre national de la Lgion d’Honneur.

Notes:
Common Service Centre’s (CSC) e-Governance Services India Limited has tied up with Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Kanpur to upscale ‘Unnat Bharat Abhiyan’, which is an initiative of the Ministry of HRD. It aims to find solutions to accelerate sustainable growth in rural India. Under the Unnat Bharat Abhiyan, IIT-Kanpur has brought together 15 leading higher education institutions from Uttar Pradesh. These institutions have agreed to work with CSC for the development of villages under the scheme. IIT Kanpur has adopted five villages — Hridayapur, Baikanthpur, Ishwariganj, Pratappur Hari and Saxupurva — situated on the outskirts of Kanpur for its overall development. The e-Governance Services India is a special purpose vehicle under the Ministry of Electronics & IT.

Notes:
India is officially invited to Group of 7 (G-7) industrialized nations summit along with Australia, Chile and South Africa. The summit is scheduled to be held in Biarritz, France in August 24-25, 2019. According to analysts, the invitation clearly reflects the strong strategic connect between India and France. And also, the invitation to Australia, France and Chile besides India reflects the French emphasis on the Indian Ocean and the Pacific region. The G-7 groups together the US, Britain, France, Italy, Canada, Japan and Germany. This is not first time that India will be present at this exclusive club. In 2005, the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had attended the G-8 +5 meet in Gleneagles in Scotland at the invitation of then British prime minister Tony Blair.

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In Mali, President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has recently announced the new government of 37 members under Prime Minister Boubou Cisse after its predecessor resigned last month. Last week, Cisse signed a pact with opposition and majority party representatives declaring their willingness to set up a politically-inclusive new government. Cisse’s predecessor Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga and his entire cabinet resigned on April 18 following the massacre of some 160 members of the Fulani herding community on March 23 in the village of Ogossagou near Mali’s border with Burkina Faso. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets on April 5 to protest against an upsurge of violence that has claimed around 600 lives.