Current Affairs Quiz - October, 2019

Notes:
The International Day of the Girl Child is celebrated on every year on 11th of  October to highlight and address the needs and challenges girls’ face. It aims to promote girls’ empowerment and the fulfillment of their human rights. The 2019 theme is “GirlForce: Unscripted and Unstoppable”. The day also reflects the successful emergence of girls and young women as a distinct cohort in development policy, programming, campaigning and research.

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Ashleigh Barty has won ‘The Don’ award at the annual Sport Australia Hall of Fame and was recognized as currently the top Australian athlete. She won the 2019 French Open tennis tournament and is currently the top-ranked WTA player in the world. Barty became only the 2nd tennis player to win the prestigious award after  Pat Rafter in 2001. ‘The Don’ award is Australian sport’s highest individual honour.

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The International Day of Rural Women is celebrated every year on 15th of October to recognize the critical role and contribution of rural women (including indigenous women) in increasing agricultural and rural development, improving food security and eradicating rural poverty”. The 2019 theme is “Rural women and girls building climate resilience”.

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K Satish Reddy, Chairman of Dr Reddy’s, has been appointed as President of the Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance (IPA) for 2019-2021. The IPA represents research-based National Pharmaceutical Companies.

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Indian-American Abhijit Banerjee, his wife Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer have jointly won the 2019 Nobel Economics Prize for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty. Mr Banerjee was educated at the University of Calcutta, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and Harvard University, where he received his Ph.D in 1988. He is currently the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Ms Duflo is the 2nd woman to be awarded a Nobel in economics after Elinor Ostrom (2009) and  is also the youngest person-ever to receive the Economics Prize. The prize amount of 9 million Swedish krona will be shared equally between the three Laureates.

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Retired academic Kais Saied has been elected as new President of Tunisia after a landslide victory in  the 2019 Tunisian presidential election. 

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The IIT Madras has collaborated  with ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company (EMRE)  for research on energy and biofuels. The 5-year joint-research agreement focuses on biofuels, data analytics, gas conversion and transport, and is intended towards finding low-emission solutions.

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The Global Handwashing Day (GHD) is observed every year on 15th of October to motivate and mobilize people around the world to improve their handwashing habits. It is a  global campaign to raise awareness of handwashing with soap as a key factor in disease prevention. The 2019 theme is ‘Clean Hands for All’.

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On 16th of October, the 17-year-old Mumbai teenager Yashasvi Jaiswal created history as he became the youngest cricketer in the world to score a double century in 50-overs cricket including List A and ODIs. He scored 203 in 154 balls against Jharkhand in the ongoing Vijay Hazare Trophy at Alur, Karnataka. His, scintillating innings helped Mumbai set a mammoth target of 359 for Jharkhand in the Elite Group A match.

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The Hurun Research Institute has released it’s first-ever Hurun Global Unicorn List 2019. It is a ranking of the world’s billion-dollar tech ‘start-ups’ founded in the 2000s and not yet listed on a public exchange. This is the first year of the list and follows from the 6th quarterly Hurun China Unicorn Index. China has topped the list with 206 unicorns, followed by US with 203. While India has been ranked 3rd in the list with 21 unicorns, led by payments solutions platform One97 Communications ($10 billion) and followed by cab aggregator Ola Cabs ($6 billion); online educator Byju’s ($6 billion) and travel-stay finder OYO Rooms ($5 billion).