Current Affairs Quiz - May, 2019

Notes:
India has been unanimously chosen as co-chair of the Consultative Group (CG) of Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) for the fiscal year 2020. The decision was taken during the meeting of GFDRR held in Geneva, Switzerland on the margins of the 6th Session of the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (GPDRR) 2019. This will give India an opportunity to work with the member countries and organizations with a focused contribution towards advancing the disaster risk reduction agenda during the course of the year. The GFDRR is a global partnership that helps developing countries better understand and reduce their vulnerability to natural hazards and climate change. It is is a grant-funding mechanism, managed by the World Bank, that supports disaster risk management projects worldwide.

Notes:
On May 9, the Indian Armed Forces carried out Exercise Bull Strike at Teressa Island in Andaman and Nicobar (A&N). The military drill was conducted to showcase joint operations capability of the armed forces. During the exercise, the army personnel got the chance to display their prowess by undertaking company level airborne operation at Teressa island. Around 170 troops from three services – Army, Navy and the Air force undertook Para drop Ops in a Combat Free Fall & Static Line mode from the C-130 J. There were 149 Indian Army, 12 Indian Air Force and 9 Indian Navy soldiers who participated in several combat drills ahead of the jumps and during jumps.

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has released a vision document – Payment and Settlement Systems in India: Vision 2019 – 2021 – with its core theme of ‘Empowering Exceptional E-payment Experience’, for ensuring a safe, secure, convenient, quick and affordable e-payment system. The move comes as the apex bank expects the number of digital transactions to increase more than four times to 8,707 crore in December 2021. The vision document has been envisages to achieve a highly digital and cash-less society through the goal posts of competition, cost-effectiveness, convenience and confidence (4Cs). The document talks about creating customer awareness, setting up a 24X7 helpline and self-regulatory organisation for system operators and service providers, among others. And also, the ‘no-compromise’ approach towards safety and security of payment systems remains a hallmark of the vision.

Notes:
The first full-fledged Services Selection Board (SSB) of Indian Navy has been inaugurated by Navy Chief Admiral Sunil Lanba at Diamond Harbour near Kolkata. The SSB (Kolkata) will boost the induction of officers, both men and women, into the Indian Navy. Its location will reduce the travel time and effort for candidates from northern and northeastern parts of the country. This is the fifth SSB of the Indian Navy and will cater for selection of both permanent and short service commission (SSC) officers. The other boards are located in Bhopal, Bengaluru, Visakhapatnam and Coimbatore. The board can accommodate 160 candidates at a time and has separate facilities and accommodation for men and women candidates. Facilities available at the board include a GTO ground, testing hall, conference room, accommodation for staff and a medical inspection room.

Notes:
Justice Arjan Kumar Sikri, the former judge of Supreme Court of India (SCI), has been appointed as the chairperson of News Broadcasting Standards Authority (NBSA) by the News Broadcasters Association (NBA). He will succeed Justice (Retd.) R. V. Raveendran, and will assume the office of Chairperson of NBSA on May 26. This is an honorary post and not a government job. Justice Sikri was retired as senior most puisne judge of Supreme Court of India on 6 March 2019. NBSA is an independent body for self-regulation of 24×7 news channels, who are members of the NBA. Its task is to consider and adjudicate upon complaints about broadcasts.

Notes:
A comprehensive survey on plastic pollution has been conducted by marine scientists on the Australian external territory of Cocos (Keeling) Islands. Around 600 people live in these remote places, which are sometimes described as “Australia’s last unspoilt paradise”. The scientists found an estimated 414 million pieces of plastic including nearly one million shoes and 370,000 toothbrushes on the beaches of remote Islands in the Indian Ocean. The survey published in the journal ‘Scientific Reports’ estimated that the beaches on the islands are littered with 238 tonnes of plastic. They believe their overall finding is conservative, as they weren’t able to access some beaches known to be hotspots of pollution. Researchers said, the scale of the problem means cleaning up our oceans is currently not possible, and cleaning beaches, once they are polluted with plastic, is time consuming, costly, and needs to be regularly repeated as thousands of new pieces of plastic wash up each day. The only viable solution is to reduce plastic production and consumption while improving waste management to stop this material entering our oceans in the first place.

Notes:
The book titled “Coming Round the Mountain”, will be released officially by India’s beloved children’s author Ruskin Bond on his 85th birthday on 19th May 2019 at Cambridge bookstores in Mussourie. The book is the third installment of Bond’s award-winning memoir series for children that includes “Looking for the Rainbow” and “Till the Clouds Roll By”. In “Looking for the Rainbow”, Bond described the two years he had spent with his father when he was just nine years old, and in “Till the Clouds Roll By” he talked about the sudden change in his circumstances, the efforts he had to make to adjust to a new and very different life with his mother and stepfather. Now, the third part of the series will deal with Bond’s story as a boy of 13 during the crucial year of India’s partition.

Notes:
Dr. Pramod Kumar Mishra, Odisha-born IAS officer and Additional Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister of India, has been conferred with the prestigious United Nations Sasakawa Award for Disaster Risk Reduction for the year 2019 in Geneva, Switzerland. He received the 2019 Sasakawa award in recognition of his long-term dedication to improve the resilience of communities most exposed to disasters and his personal commitment to social inclusion as a critical principle to reduce inequality and poverty, enhancing the safety net of the socially and economically marginalized. The UN Sasakawa Award is the most prestigious international award in the area of Disaster Risk Management. It was instituted more than 30 years ago and is jointly organized by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) and the Nippon Foundation. A total grant of USD 50,000 is distributed among the winners which can be either organizations or individuals. The theme of the 2019 Sasakawa award was “Building Inclusive and Resilient Societies”.

Notes:
Ieoh Ming Pei (102), the Chinese-American architect behind buildings including the glass pyramid outside the Louvre in Paris, has passed away in Manhattan, United States on May 16, 2019. His designs are renowned for their emphasis on precision geometry, plain surfaces and natural light. He carried on working well into old age, creating one of his most famous masterpieces – the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar – in his 80s. Born in Guangzhou (China) in 1917, Pei moved to the US at the age of 18 to study at Pennsylvania, MIT and Harvard. He worked as a research scientist for the US government during World War Two, and went on to work as an architect, founding his own firm in 1955. Pei sparked controversy for his pyramid at the Louvre Museum. The glass structure, completed in 1989, is now one of Paris’ most famous landmarks. His other work includes Dallas City Hall and Japan’s Miho Museum. In 1983, Pei was given the prestigious Pritzker Prize. He used his $100,000 prize money to start a scholarship fund for Chinese students to study architecture in America.

Notes:
Joko Widodo has been officially re-elected to a second term as President of Indonesia. His win is a victory for stability and continuity in Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest country and a geopolitical anchor for the region. Widodo and his vice-presidential running mate Ma’ruf Amin won the election by a 55.5% to 44.5% margin over rival Prabowo Subianto and Sandiaga Uno. The two rival election campaigns focused on the economy, infrastructure and corruption. Religion was also a core issue. Though Indonesia has no official state religion and the right to practise other faiths is enshrined in the constitution, some 80% of the country is Muslim.