Current Affairs Quiz- September, 2019

Notes:
In Delhi, a cultural event ‘Namaste Pacific’ was recently jointly organised by the High Commissions of Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Fiji to showcase in India the culture of the Pacific countries. Aaradhna, a multi-award-winning R&B and soul artist from New Zealand, performed with her band. Aaradhna is part Indian and part Samoan and has to her credit four individual albums. Traditional masks and artefacts from Papua New Guinea and Pacific Green furniture and other products from Fiji were also displayed. There was also showcase of the International Solar Alliance (ISA) and Pollinate Energy based in Australia, Nepal and India, and solar lanterns from Barefoot College in Rajasthan.

Notes:
Asian Games gold medallist shotputter Tejinderpal Singh Toor clinched a silver with a best throw of 20.09m in his last attempt during an athletic meet at Decin, Czech Republic. Tajinder was awarded with the 2019 Arjuna Award. Though, he couldn’t meet the World Championship standard but his efforts were good enough to earn him a silver at the event.

Notes:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has recently inaugurated the Garvi Gujarat Bhavan in New Delhi. The new building is situated near the Congress headquarters at Akbar Road in the national capital & has been built at a cost of around Rs 131 crore by the Gujarat Government. It has 19 suite rooms, 59 regular rooms, a restaurant, a public dining hall, a business centre, a souvenir shop, a multi-purpose hall, conference hall, four lounges, a gymnasium, a yoga centre, a terrace garden and a library built on an area of 20,325 square meters. The Bhavan is equipped with traditional and modern artefacts and technologies and will serve as a home for Gujaratis in the national capital. It will represent the culture, craft and cuisine of Gujarat. This building is in addition to the old Gujarat Bhavan at Chanakyapuri, which will continue to function.

Notes:
The Punjab Employment Generation Department (PEGD) has decided to play the role of a recruitment agency for the youth wanting to go abroad for studies and work. It will also set up a special cell to send the youth for studies abroad. The move came after regular complaints of fraud by travel agents. The special cell will have a tie-up with foreign public universities which offer education at reasonable rates. This will not only save students from frauds but also help them financially as the commission which foreign institutes pay to the agents would be returned to them. This facility is already available in Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Telangana.

Notes:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be honoured with the prestigious ‘ 2019 Global Goalkeeper Award’ by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for his leadership and commitment to his ambitious pet project “Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (SBA)” on 24th September 2019. The Prime Minister will also address global leaders and corporate executives at the Bloomberg Global Business Forum during his visit here for the high-level UN General Assembly (UNGA) session. The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (SBA), which was launched on 2nd October 2014, is a nationwide initiative aimed to inspire the public to voluntarily clean public spaces as a service to the nation. The aim of the campaign is to achieve the vision of a ‘Clean India’ by 2nd October 2019. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is a private foundation owned by billionaire philanthropist and Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda Gates.

Notes:
The World Coconut Day (WCD) is observed every year on 2nd of September to increase coconut farming with focus on productivity and product diversification. The day is also celebrated to commemorate the formation day of Asian Pacific Coconut Community (APCC). In India, the day is celebrated every year under the aegis of Coconut Development Board (CDB) in various coconut growing states across the country. The 2019 theme is ‘Coconut for Family Wellness’. The APCC is an inter-governmental organisation of 18- member countries mandated to promote, coordinate, and harmonise coconut developmental activities of the Asian Pacific region.

Notes:
Ashok Leyland has become the first Indian Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) to meet the Bharat Stage VI (BS-VI) emission norms across its full range of heavy-duty trucks with gross vehicle weight of 16.2 tonnes and above. The company has recently received certificates from Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) confirming compliance with BS-VI emission standard. ARAI is an autonomous body affiliated to the Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, which offers comprehensive certification and homologation services for all kinds of vehicles. As per Supreme Court ruling, no BS-IV vehicle will be sold across the country with effect from April 1, 2020. Instead, the BS-VI emission norm will come into force across the country. Ashok Leyland is a flagship company of the Hinduja Group and is the India’s 2nd largest commercial vehicle manufacturer.

Notes:
In Sri Lanka, the UNICEF South Asian Parliamentarian conference on Children Right’s Convention was held in Colombo from 2nd to 3rd September 2019.  The conference gave the parliamentarians the opportunity to make fresh commitments to push the national agendas for the realization of child rights. The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most widely ratified human rights treaty. But, during the conference, the Pakistani delegates tried to raise the Kashmir issue which led to a sharp reaction from the Indian side. The Indian delegation consists of  Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi and BJP MP Sanjay Jaiswal spoke in unison to counter Pakistan’s claims. 

Notes:
The Gujarat Government has recently signed the Sister State MoU with elaware State of America in Gandhinagar.  This is the first sister state MoU signed by Gujarat with any state of America. According to official sources, cooperation in the field of services and investment opportunities in GIFT IFSC have also been discussed during the meeting. The sectors like Biotechnology University, bio sciences, financial services, animal husbandry and dairy, port services have been short listed for future cooperation.

Notes:
The Global Liveability Index 2019 has been released by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). The index assesses which locations around the world provide the best or the worst living conditions. Each factor in a city is rated as acceptable, tolerable, uncomfortable, undesirable or intolerable. The 2019 index is topped by Vienna (Austria), followed by Melbourne and Sydney. In India, New Delhi and Mumbai ranked 118th and 119th out of 140 cities. While war-ravaged Damascus (Syria) ranked the world’s  least liveable city, followed by Lagos (Nigeria) and Dhaka (Bangladesh).