Current Affairs Quiz - May, 2019

Notes:
Scott Morrison has been sworn-in as new Prime Minister of Australia, after retaining the position in the 2019 general election. Along with Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack, Mr. Morrison was sworn in by Queen Elizabeth’s official representative , Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove, at a ceremony in the capital, Canberra. Mr. Morrison became Australia’s 30th Prime Minister through an internal party vote in August 2018 in which he replaced Malcolm Turnbull as chief of the ruling Liberal Party. The 46th Parliament of Australia is expected to open in the first week of July.

Notes:
The International Everest Day (IED) is observed every year on May 29 to mark the first successful climb to the world’s highest peak Mount Everest. On this day in 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa reached the zenith of the mountain and became the first humans to achieve the feat in memory of the first summit of Mt. The day is celebrated with memorial events, processions, and special events in Kathmandu and the Everest region. Nepal decided to observe the day as International Everest Day (IED) since 2008, when the legendary climber Hillary passed away.

Notes:
India has invited the leaders of the BIMSTEC Member States for the swearing-in ceremony of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on May 30, 2019. Beside this, the invitations have also been sent to the President of Kyrgyzstan Sooronbay Jeenbekov who is the current Chair of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and Mauritius Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth, the Chief Guest at this 2019 Pravasi Bhartiya Divas (PBD). The invitations are in line with the Government’s focus on its ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy. The BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) member states are: Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Nepal and Bhutan including India. President Ram Nath Kovind will administer the Oath of Office and Secrecy to Mr Modi for the second term and other members of Union Council of Ministers at a function in Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has constituted a 6-member committee to review the existing state of mortgage securitisation in India and suggest measures to deepen it. The committee on the development of housing finance securitisation market, headed by Bain & Co Senior Advisor Harsh Vardhan, will review the regulations relating to Mortgage-Backed Securitization (MBS) currently in place, and make specific recommendations on suitably aligning the same with international norms. It will recommend specific measures for facilitating secondary market trading in mortgage securitisation instruments, such as broadening the investor base, and strengthening the market infrastructure.

Notes:
The Trump administration has recently removed India and Switzerland from its currency monitoring list of major trading partners. Both the countries were removed from the list because for two consecutive reports they had both met only one of three criteria necessary for inclusion on the monitoring list. According to the report, India had a significant bilateral surplus & Switzerland had a material current account surplus. The watch list contains the names of countries that have potentially questionable foreign exchange policies and are suspected to be manipulating their currencies to gain trade advantages over the US. However, the list includes China, Japan, South Korea, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam among others.

Notes:
India has been ranked 43rd most competitive economy in the 2019 edition of the IMD World Competitiveness Rankings on the back of its robust economic growth, a large labour force and its huge market size. In the 2019 rankings, India has scored well on several economic parameters and tax policies but has lagged in terms of public finance, societal framework, education infrastructure, health and environment. Singapore has topped the index, followed by Hong Kong SAR and United States. The IMD World Competitiveness Rankings, established in 1989, incorporate 235 indicators from each of the 63 ranked economies to evaluate their ability to foster an environment where enterprises can achieve sustainable growth, generate jobs and increase welfare for its citizens.

Notes:
To celebrate 2019 World Environment Day (WED), the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change (MoEFCC) has recently launched the song ‘Hawa Aane De’ to spread awareness about Air pollution. The theme song is written by Swanand Kirkire and sung by Shantanu Mukherjee, Kapil Sharma, Sunidhi Chauhan and Shankar Mahadevan. The film has been directed by Romanchak Arora. Every year, Union Environment Ministry celebrates WED focusing on the theme declared by UNEP and organizes several events. This year, the theme of Environment Day is ‘Air Pollution’. Hence, the events will include launch of film competition on environment, release of several books and three thematic sessions on Air Pollution, Waste Management and Forests: the Green Lungs of cities. It is noteworthy that to combat air pollution, MoEFCC has recently launched the National Clean Air programme (NCAP) which is a mid-term 5 Year Action Plan with targets of 20-30% reduction of PM 2.5 and PM 10 concentration in 102 cities, out of which 84 cities have already submitted their action plan. The main objective of NCAP is to control and abate air pollution across the country. It is a multi sectoral and collaborative approach with mainstreaming and integration.

Notes:
The IIT- Guwahati has signed a MoU with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to set up a Space Technology Cell (STC) within the premise of IIT Guwahati. The new IITG-ISRO STC would be first-of-its-kind in the North-east region to augment research and capacity building processes in the field of space-technology. Through the STC, IIT Guwahati aspire to partner with ISRO for performing cutting edge research not only catering to the socio-economic needs of the Northeast but also to contribute towards the basic research activities of various ISRO projects across India. With STC, the Institute of IIT Guwahati and ISRO can work together to solve space science related problems in the modern world.

Notes:
Indians Scientists has recently identified a new species of primate wasp from the genus Kudakrumia in Goa. The new species was collected in the forests of Western Ghats. The wasp, which is dubbed as Kudakrumia rangnekari, was named after Goa-based researcher Parag Rangnekar. Rangnekar is the author of a book “Butterflies of Goa”, which is perhaps a first field guide with photographs of the species found in this region. His quest to document the butterflies of this unique region resulted in a record of 220 species, of which 13 species had not been described before. He is the founder-president of the Goa Bird Conservation Network. The holotype is from Kotigao Wildlife Sanctuary of Goa of northern Western Ghats and the paratype is from Ranipuram hill of Kerala of southern Western Ghats. A wasp is any insect of the order Hymenoptera and suborder Apocrita that is neither a bee nor an ant.

Notes:
India’s only orangutan, ‘Binny’, has passed away at the age of 41 at Nandankanan Zoological Park in Odisha. The great ape was brought to the Odisha zoo in November 2003 from Pune’s Rajiv Gandhi Zoological Park on November 20, 2003, when she was 25. Orangutans are one of the world’s three extant species of great apes. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), there are three species of orangutans — Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli. Bornean and Sumatran orangutans differ a little in appearance and behaviour. All three kinds of orangutans are listed as “Critically Endangered” by the United Nations-affiliated International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). They are native to Indonesia and Malaysia and at present are found only in the rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra. The WWF states that orangutans, with distinctive red fur, are the largest arboreal mammal, spending most of their time in trees.They are considered to be among the most intelligent primates. They can live up to 45 years in the wild and even more in zoos.