Current Affairs Quiz- November, 2019

Notes:
John Witherspoon, the US actor and comedian, has passed way . He was best known for his role as rapper Ice Cube’s father in the comedy trilogy Friday. He made his film debut in the 1980 ‘The Jazz Singer’ and appeared in Hollywood Shuffle, Boomerang, Vampire in Brooklyn and The Ladies Man

Notes:
On the occasion of World Cities Day (WCD-2019), UNESCO has announced that Mumbai and Hyderabad have been designated as Creative City of Films and Creative City of Gastronomy, respectively. By joining the UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN), the cities pledge to share their best practices and develop partnerships involving public and private sectors as well as civil society to strengthen creation, production, distribution and dissemination of cultural activities, goods and services. Beside this, Chennai and Varanasi are designated as UNESCO cities of music while Jaipur is the City of Crafts and Folk Arts.

Notes:
The 35th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit 2019 has started in Bangkok, Thailand on 1st of November with theme ‘Advancing Partnership for sustainability’. During 5-days summit East Asia summit (EAS) and Regional Comprehensive Economic Summit (RCEP) will be also held. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend this summit on 3rd and 4th November. The ASEAN is a group of 10 member countries that encourages political,economic and social co-operation in the region. The summit would  discuss comprehensive and sustainable ASEAN economic development and s on negotiations related to the RCEP including market opening. The RCEP is a proposed Free Trade Agreement ( FTA) between the 10 members state of ASEAN and its partner countries.

Notes:
India’s first-ever Arts Exposition for Artists blessed with Down Syndrome, Autism, Mental Retardation, Seizure Disorder and Dyslexia has started in New Delhi on 3rd November 2019. The “eCAPA 2019 – Art from the Heart” is a unique nationwide platform-cum social venture for such artists to showcase their visual and performing arts.  The aim of this exposition is to create an exclusive platform to showcase the visual and performing art talents of young adults with intellectual challenges. It will also provide Divyang artists with opportunities to find mentors in the visiting artists and eminent masters of different crafts. This exposition will continue till 14th November at STIR Gallery, Chattarpur Farms. 

Notes:
The Spanish capital city of Madrid will host the UN Climate Change Conference (COP 25) from 2nd to 13th December 2019. The decision was taken after Chile withdrew as host for the event due to the ongoing street protests in the South American country. The annual Conference of the Parties (COP) summit is a key event which allows representatives from around 200 nations to monitor and discuss the current situation of the world’s warming climate.   

Notes:
In Sri Lanka, the biennial Commonwealth Law Ministers’ Conference has recently begun in Colombo under the theme Equal Access to Justice and the Rule of Law. In the 4-day conference participated by Law Ministers and Attorney Generals from Commonwealth countries seeks to address challenges faced by millions of people seeking to resolve legal problems or disputes. Union Minister for Law and Justice Ravi Shankar Prasad isrepresenting India at the conference.

Notes:
The first-of-its-kind-ready-reckoner ‘Red Atlas Action Plan Map’ has been launched by Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu along with the ‘Coastal Flood Warning System App (CFLOWS-Chennai). The ‘Red Atlas Map’ is prepared by the Union Ministry of Earth Sciences to aid Tamil Nadu government in effective flood mitigation in Chennai which witnessed the worst deluge in 2015. The purpose of the atlas is to  flood mitigation, preparedness, operations and management aspects. The CFLOWS-Chennai is a complete webGIS-based decision support system that can be used both for mitigation planning operations before flooding and in real time to for aspects like relief work.

Notes:
On the first day of India International Science Festival (IISF- 2019), the Guinness World Records for the largest astrophysics lesson (45 minutes) and assembly of spectroscopes was successfully achieved at the Science City in Kolkata with the participation of over 1,598 students. A small personal model of advanced spectroscopes can easily be made by anyone using a box made of cardboard that has a very narrow window used to channel light into the spectroscope. A piece of a Compact Disc (CD) is used to split the light by a process called diffraction. This attempt is dedicated to Meghnad Saha and Sir C V Raman. The astronomers use spectroscopes to know details like temperature, chemical composition, etc. of celestial objects hundreds or millions of light years away from us.

Notes:
In an effort to productively use India’s wastelands, the Union Ministry of Rural development has released with the 5th edition of Wasteland Atlas -2019 that provides State and district wise distribution of different categories of wastelands area in the country and will be helpful in addressing land degradation. This is significant as it also takes into account 12.08 MHa of unmapped area of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) for the first time. The changes in wastelands between 2008-09 and 2015-16 have been presented in the Atlas. The new wastelands mapping exercise was carried out by National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC)  using the Indian Remote Sensing Satellite (IRSS) data. It is helpful in rolling back the wastelands for productive use through various land development programmes and schemes. The last edition was published in 2011.

Notes:
The Government of Bangladesh has banned the Islamist outfit ‘Allar Dol’ because it poses threat to public safety and security. It is the 9th Islamist group to be banned for extremism and militancy in Bangladesh.The Allah’r Dol was formed in 1995 with the aim to establish Caliphate through armed struggle. In 2004, it merged with banned militant organisation Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB). After arrest of leaders of JMB following serial blasts of 2005, some of its leaders left it to re-organise Allar Dol.