Current Affairs Quiz - October, 2019

Notes:
On 12th October 2019, the SARAS Aajeevika Mela has been organised by the Ministry of Rural Development at India Gate Lawns in New Delhi and will carry on till October 23. It was formally inaugurated by Rural Development Minister Narendra Singh Tomar. The aim of this SARAS Mela to bring the rural women Self Help Groups (SHGs) formed with support of Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM), under one platform to show-case their skills, sell their products and help them build linkages with bulk buyers. 

Notes:
India and Japan will hold the 2nd edition of joint military exercise ‘DHARMA GUARDIAN-2019’ in Mizoram from 19th of October to 2nd of November 2019. The focus of the 2-week-long exercise will be to increase the interoperability between the two forces and enhance coordination in dealing with various security challenges including counter-terrorism. The scope of this exercise covers platoon-level joint training on counter-terrorism operations in jungle and urban scenario.

Notes:
American artistic gymnast Simone Biles broke the all-time record for most medals by any gymnast at the world championships by winning the balance beam competition at the 2019 World Gymnastics Championship in Stuttgart, Germany. She surpassed Belarusian Vitaly Scherbo’s record 23 world medals by winning her 24th and 25th world medals (both gold).

Notes:
On 13th October 2019, the noted director and producer Priyadarshan has been conferred the National Kishore Kumar Samman for 2018-19 in Khandwa, the birthplace of the legendary singer- actor. According to the official, the Kishore Kumar Samman jury selected noted actor Waheeda Rehman for the award for 2017-18. The award was  instituted by the Madhya Pradesh  Department of Culture. It carries a cash prize of Rs 2 lakh and a citation. Kishore Kumar, who passed away on 13th October 1987, is considered as one of the most popular and successful singers of Hindi film industry and from soft numbers to peppy tracks to romantic moods.

Notes:
In London, Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo have jointly won the prestigious 2019 Man Booker Prize for Fiction for their novels – ‘The Testament’ and ‘Girl, Woman, Other’, respectively. The pair will split the literary award’s £50,000 prize money equally. The Booker rules say the prize must not be divided, but the judges insisted they “couldn’t separate” the two works. Atwood (79) is the oldest-ever Booker winner, while Evaristo is the first black woman to win since its creation in 1969.

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.

Notes:
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.

Notes:
I&B Secretary Amit Khare,  an IAS officer of 1985 batch from Jharkhand cadre, has been given the additional charge of Secretary of Department of School Education and Literacy in Ministry of Human Resources Development (HRD). The Department of Higher Education is in charge of secondary and post-secondary education. It is empowered to grant deemed university status to educational institutions on the advice of the University Grants Commission (UGC) under Section 3 of the University Grants Commission (UGC) Act of 1956.

Notes:
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.

Notes:
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’.