Current Affairs Quiz - May, 2019

Notes:
On 13th May 2019, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial meeting of developing countries has started in New Delhi. The two-day meeting is being held at a time when the multilateral rule-based-trading system is facing serious and grave challenges. The meeting will provide an opportunity for the Ministers to discuss various issues and the way forward. Sixteen developing countries and six Least Developed Countries, LDCs are participating in the meeting. It includes China, South Africa, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Kazakhstan and Bangladesh. The Director-General of WTO Roberto Azevedo is also participating in the meeting. In two-day meeting following issues are likely to be discussed: Finding a solution to the ongoing impasse in the Appellate Body on an urgent basis, Issues of importance and priority for developing countries including Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in the reform agenda, How to reinvigorate negotiating agenda on issues of critical importance for developing countries?, and How to ensure effective S&D for all developing countries including LDCs?.

Notes:
The first edition of world’s first exclusive women’s cricket magazine ‘Criczone’ has been released in Jaipur, Rajasthan. In it, Indian team cricket vice-captain Smriti Mandhana has featured as the cover story. The purpose of the magazine is to empower young aspiring women cricketers to take the sport as a profession and able to make a sustainable living. Top international cricketers like Mithali Raj, Harmanpreet Kaur, Smiriti Mandhana along with overseas players like Danielle Wyatt, Sophie Devine attended the event which is held on the sidelines of the inaugural women’s T20 challenge. Yash Lahoti is the publisher of the magazine.

Notes:
Islamic State (IS) has claimed for the first time that it has established a “province” in India, after a clash between militants and security forces in the Kashmir region killed a militant with alleged ties to the group. The new ‘province’ is called “Wilayah of Hind ” by the militant group. IS’s Amaq News Agency also claimed IS inflicted casualties on Indian Army soldiers in the town of Amshipora in the Shopian district of Kashmir. The statement of establishing the new province appears to be designed to bolster its standing after the group was driven from its self-styled “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria in April 2019, where at one point it controlled thousands of miles of territory. IS has stepped up hit-and-run raids and suicide attacks, including taking responsibility for the Easter Sunday bombing in Sri Lanka that killed at least 253 people.

Notes:
Pacer Jasprit Bumrah, who made a mark for India and IPL franchise Mumbai Indians, has been adjudged as International Bowler of the Year during the CEAT Cricket Rating (CCR) International awards 2019. The ceremony was held in Mumbai in presence of a galaxy of past and present cricketers on May 13. Indian captain Virat Kohli bagged the International Cricketer and Batsman of the Year award. Afghanistan leg-spinner Rashid Khan was awarded for outstanding bowling and Australian batsman Aaron Finch for his exceptional performance in T20. Young prodigy Yashasvi Jaiswal, who performed exceptionally over the year was awarded Junior Cricketer of the Year, while chinaman Kuldeep Yadav took the home outstanding performance of the year award. Ashutosh Aman was awarded Domestic Cricketer of the Year. Legendary Mohinder Amarnath, who played a key role in India’s 1983 World Cup triumph, was bestowed with the ‘CCR International Lifetime Achievement Award’.

Notes:
The 18 nations ADMM-Plus (Asean Defence Ministers’ Meeting-Plus) multilateral maritime security field exercise has recently concluded in Singapore on May 13. In it, two Indian Navy ships – Guided Missile Destroyer INS Kolkata and Fleet Support Ship INS Shakti carried out Group Sail with the naval ships of Japan, the Philippines and the U.S. in the disputed South China Sea (SCS). The exercise was jointly organised by Singapore and South Korea, which was started in Busan on April 30. This is the 4th such exercise conducted under the ADMM-Plus grouping. The ADMM-Plus consistes of 10 ASEAN countries along with Australia, China, Japan, India, South Korea, New Zealand, Russia and the United States.

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:
In Madhya Pradesh, women will handle the entire work of counting votes in Harda district of the state. As per reports, the initiative is probably the first of its kind. Harda district is a part of Betul parliamentary seat and the counting of votes of Timarni and Harda assembly segments will take place at Harda district headquarter. At present, 84 women are being trained for counting in Polytechnic College. Apart from the counting of votes, only women will be deployed for the security of the counting centre. Betul was voted on 6 May and the women had taken the responsibilities of voting in 60 all women polling booths in Harda district. Now they are ready to take accountability of counting on 28 tables. More than 75 percent of voting has been recorded in Harda district, so the number of votes is also high.

Notes:
On May 15, Sri Lanka has declared a National Vesak Week to mark the most significant event for Buddhists all over the world. The festival commemorates the birth, enlightenment (Buddhahood), and death (Parinirvāna) of Gautama Buddha in the Theravada or southern tradition. The Vesak Festival- 2019 will be held under tight security and people have been encouraged to organize celebrations at Buddhist temples and not in public places in the wake of Easter Sunday attacks last month. The state Vesak festival will be held in Galle under the patronage of the President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe. This year’s Vesak festival aims to create a society of wise Buddhists making the village temple as the center of spiritual development in order to realize the sustainable goals of development.

Notes:
After 29 glorious years of service from 1990 to 2019, the Indian Coast Guard ship (ICGS) Vigraha has recently decommissioned at Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh on May 16. During the 29 years of service, the ship has participated in major coast guard operations involving search and rescue, anti-poaching, pollution response, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, repatriation and joint exercises among others. ICGS Vigraha was the 7th Vikram-class offshore patrol vessel built by the Mazagaon Dock Limited, Mumbai and it was commissioned on April 12, 1990.

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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.