Current Affairs Quiz- November, 2019

Notes:
The 70th Constitution Day (or Samvidhan divas) is celebrated on 26th of November 2019 across the country to mark the adopting of the Indian Constitution by the Constituent Assembly on this day in 1949.  The constituent assembly took two years, 11 months and 17 days to accomplish the stupendous task of drafting the historic document.  It is the longest written constitution of any sovereign country in the world. The Constitution declares India a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic, assuring its citizens justice, equality and liberty and endeavours to promote fraternity. It came into force on 26th January 1950 to marking the beginning of a new era in the history of Indian Republic. 

Notes:
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy has recently launched a citizen helpline number – 14400 – to enable people to complain about graft in government departments. The citizens could directly call the helpline and lodge a complaint against corruption in any government department. All complaints would be investigated in 15 to 30 days and required action will be taken.

Notes:
Renowned cartoonist Sudhir Dhar (87) has passed away in Gurgaon on 26th of November 2019. His works graced several newspapers in a career spanning 58 years. He began his career with The Statesman in 1961 after which he moved to Hindustan Times.  His cartoons have also appeared in The Independent, The Pioneer, Delhi Times, New York Times, Washington Post and Saturday Review among others.   

Notes:
Top US diplomat Alice Wells has strongly criticized China’s international development projects and lending practices under its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). He also questioned the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) on its commercial viability. China does not report on its overall lending despite being the largest lender globally. Hence, neither rating agencies nor the Paris club nor IMF are able to monitor those financial transactions. The lack of transparency was a means to hide risks to countries that borrowed from China to finance the development projects. It leads to a surrender of strategic assets and it diminishes sovereignty. The case of Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka and a runway in the Maldives were among the projects cited as examples of China financing projects of questionable commercial viability.

Notes:
By amending the State Panchayati Raj Act of 1993, the Chhattisgarh Cabinet has made it mandatory the presence of at least one differently-abled member to each panchayat. If differently abled members are not elected through the electoral process, then one member – either male or female – would be nominated as a panch. The state will now have 11,000 persons with disabilities as representatives at the panchayat level. The state Cabinet also decided to drop the educational qualifications eligibility criterion for contesting panchayat elections.

Notes:
The Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs, Hardeep Singh Puri launched Credit-linked Subsidy Services Awas Portal (CLAP)  in New Delhi on 27th of November 2019. The portal provides a transparent and robust real-time web-based monitoring system for credit-linked Subsidy Services, CLSS, beneficiaries. Using the portal, a beneficiary can track his application status in real-time.

Notes:
On the occasion of 70th Constitution Day, Union HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ launched the kartavya.ugc.ac.in portal as a part of year long nationwide ‘Nagrik Kartavya Paalan Abhiyan’. The portal will be used primarily for holding monthly essay competitions for students as well as other activities like quizzes, debates, poster making etc pertaining to  Abhiyan.

Notes:
The Child Relief and You (CRY) has recently its report titled “How vulnerable are children in India to crime?”, which is based on the latest National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) for 2016-2017 data released on 21st October 2019 after a gap of two years. The report reveals that crimes against children rose by 20% higher than overall number of crimes which rose by 3.6%. As per CRY report, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh have topped the list of States for overall crimes against children. Both stood at 14.8% with over 19,000 cases. The highest increase in crimes against children was seen in Jharkhand at 73.9% while Manipur had a significant decline of 18.7% between 2016 and 2017.

Notes:
The Madhya Pradesh government has decided to launch the project  titled ‘Shakti’  to alert the public through Short Message Service (SMS) system about crimes like abduction. The system will help prevent such crimes and solve them too.

Notes:
As part of its ‘Swachha Odisha Sustha Odisha’ campaign, the Odisha Government has decided to replicate Tamil Nadu model of Micro Composting Centre (MCC) for proper segregation and management of wet waste. The Solid waste management is a cause of concern for urban local bodies (ULBs) due to a rapid urbanisation.