Current Affairs Quiz - October, 2019

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:
Alexei Leonov (85), the legendary Soviet Russian cosmonaut, has passed away in Moscow on October 11, 2019. On 18th March 1965, he created history by becoming the first human to conduct a spacewalk for 12 minutes and 9 seconds during the Voskhod 2 mission.

Notes:
India has been ranked 102nd out of 117 nations at the 2019 Global Hunger Index (GHI) that tracks hunger and malnutrition. The GHI is a peer-reviewed annual report, which is jointly published by Ireland’s Concern Worldwide and Germany’s Welthungerhilfe. It scores countries on a 100-point “severity scale”, where zero is the best score (no hunger) and 100 is the worst. With a score of 30.3, India suffers from a level of hunger that is serious threat.

Notes:
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).

Notes:
The 2nd edition of Indo-French Knowledge Summit was held at University of Lyon in France on October 17-18.  It is dedicated to higher education, research and innovation. The summit was organised by the Embassy of France in India in association with the Ministry of Science and Technology and the HRD Ministry.

Notes:
A Chinese company “Sam Enterprise Group” has signed a secretive deal with the  government of the Solomon Islands to lease an entire Tulagi island for up to 75 years but the status of the lease remains unclear since it is a non-binding agreement. The deal was signed just a few days after the Solomon Islands abandoned Taiwan and began diplomatically recognizing Chinese aid and investment to flow. The purpose of the deal is to establish a Pacific military base on a strategic gateway to Australia. The island of Tulagi served as a South Pacific headquarters for Britain and then Japan. It is the site of a former Japanese naval base and was the scene of fierce fighting in World War II.

Notes:
India will host the 91st Interpol General Assembly in the year 2022 after a proposal received the overwhelming support of member countries at the 2019 congregation at Santinago in Chile. The 91st Interpol General Assembly (IGA-2022) will be held as part of celebrations of the 75th anniversary of Indian Independence. Based in Lyon, France, Interpol (International Criminal Police Organisation) has 194 member states and 100 years of experience of international cooperation in policing.  The organisation has 90-million records spread across 17 databases.

Notes:
Kalidas Karmakar (73), an internationally acclaimed painter of Bangladesh, has passed away in Dhaka on 18th October 2019. Kalidas was prolific in using new mediums and style for his art work while maintaining his signature style. He called his work alluvial art meaning the art of the delta land which gave expression to the precarious nature of the alluvial land and its people, their struggles and hopes. Karmakar also experimented with performance art which combined artist’s body as an object of art along with his paintings.

Notes:
The 7th edition of Military World Games (MWG-2019) is being held from October 18–27 in Wuhan, China with theme ‘Military Glory and Peace’. It is for the first time that China is hosting the MWG, which is also known as Military Olympics.  In it, more than 10,000 military officials from over 140 counties, including India are expected to participate with a record-high 329 events across 27 sports. The first MWG was inaugurated in Rome in 1955, and since then, it is held in every 4 years by the International Military Sports Council (or CISM).

Notes:
The International Osteoporosis Foundation observes the World Osteoporosis Day (WOD) every year on October 20th to raise global awareness on prevention, diagnosis and treatment of osteoporosis and metabolic bone disease. The 2019 theme is ‘Love your bones and Protect your future’.