Current Affairs Quiz - October, 2019

Notes:
England all-rounder Ben Stokes has been named the 2019 PCA (Professional Cricketers’ Association)  Player of the Year award after his splendid show in the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup and a remarkable unbeaten 135 run to win the third Ashes Test against Australia at Headingley. 

Notes:
Bahrain sprinter  Salwa Eid Naser has become the first woman athlete from Asia to win the 400m gold in the ongoing IAAF World Athletics Championships (WAC) Doha 2019.  She clocked 48.14 seconds i.e., the third-fastest lap in history and the fastest in 34 years.

Notes:
India’s first e-waste clinic is being set up in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. For this noble cause, the Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) and the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) have signed pact that would enable segregation, processing and disposal of waste from both household and commercial units. Initially, it will be 3-month pilot project and being successful, it would be replicated elsewhere in the country. The clinic will be formed in compliance with the Solid Waste Management Rules of 2016. 

Notes:
The Nobel Prize 2019 for Chemistry has jointly been awarded to three scientists – John D. Goodenough, M. Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino – for the development of lithium-ion batteries that we use in everyday life from mobile phones to electric vehicles.

Notes:
The “Spirit Of Kerala”, which is directed by Arun Joseph, has become the first Indian short film that bagged the People’s Choice Award at the recently concluded My Rode Reel film competition. It is a short film by a group of Malayali youngsters on Vallamkali (boat racing) that showed the celebration of the spirit of survival in the face of disaster. My Rode Reel film competition is touted as the ‘world’s largest short film competition’.

Notes:
The first-ever India International Cooperatives Trade Fair (IICTF) has started at Pragati Maidan in New Delhi on 11th October 2019. The 3-day fair is a major platform to promote export of Indian cooperative produce which will lead to enhanced rural and farm prosperity. The event is also packed with exhibitions, B2B/C2C meetings, conferences, cultural programmes etc. The organizations from 36 countries are participating in the Fair.  

Notes:
The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) and Airport Authority of India (AAI) has launched a new satellite-based GEMINI system that will alert deep-sea fishermen of upcoming disasters. The acronym ‘GEMINI’ stands for “GAGAN Enabled Mariner’s Instrument for Navigation and Information”& is works on GAGAN (GPS-Aided Geo Augmented Navigation) satellite system of ISRO & AAI. Through GEMINI, all key alerts and messages would be sent through GAGAN and the designated device would receive and transfer it to a mobile phone through Bluetooth communication. The related mobile application would then decode and display the information to the user. It can be decoded into 9 languages. The technology for the device has been transferred to a Bengaluru-based company ‘Acord’. 

Notes:
Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu has been   conferred the highest Civilian Honour of East African island nation Comoros — The Order of the Green Crescent – at its capital Moroni. The honour was conferred by the President of the Union of Comoros Azali Assoumani. India and Comoros signed 6 agreements on defence, health and culture. Both the countries also decided to exempt each other from Visa for diplomatic and official passport holders for short visits. India has also extended over 60 million dollar line of credit  to Comoros in the field of energy and maritime defence cooperation.

Notes:
Union Minister of State for Culture and Tourism Prahlad Singh Patel participated in 2019 BRICS Culture Ministers’ meetingheld in Curitiba, Brazil. He reaffirmed India’s commitment to contribute towards strengthening bonds between member countries and also proposed to add literature as another field of cooperation between the countries to enhance cooperation in the field of literary works.

Notes:
Air India has become the first airline in the world to use a Taxibot on a A-320 aircraft with passengers on board. Taxibot is a robot-used aircraft tractor for taxiing an aircraft from parking bay to runway and vice-versa. Air India CMD Ashwani Lohani flagged off flight AI665 and it was carried to runway using Taxibot at Terminal 3 of the Delhi Airport – to Mumbai. It is a pilot controlled semi-robotic towbar-less aircraft tractor used as alternate taxiing equipment.