Current Affairs Quiz- September, 2019

Notes:
Ponung Doming  has created history by becoming the first woman Army officer from Arunachal Pradesh to be elevated to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Indian Army. Earlier, IAF Wing Commander Shaliza Dhami  became the 1st female officer to be appointed as flight commander of a flying unit. 

Notes:
The 17-year old Payal Jangid from Rajasthan has become the first Indian to win the Goalkeepers Global Goals Changemaker Award by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in New York. She  was recognised for her campaign to end child labour and child marriage. Jangid, who fought against her own marriage at a young age, work towards the abolition of child marriage in her village “Hinsla”, which is a child-friendly village (Bal Mitra Gram), and other neighbouring villages. Her campaign includes organizing rallies, putting up posters, paining walls and going door-to-door to speak to families on the same.

Notes:
The 16-year-old Swedish climate activist, Greta Thunberg has been honoured as one of four winners of the 2019 Rights Livelihood awards for inspiring and amplifying political demands for urgent climate action reflecting scientific facts. The award is known as Sweden’s alternative Nobel Prize. Ms. Thunberg shares the award with Brazilian indigenous leader Davi Kopenawa of the Yanomami people, Chinese women’s rights lawyer Guo Jianmei and Western Sahara human rights defender Aminatou Haidar. The four laureates will received a cash award of 1 million Swedish crowns ($103,000) each.

Notes:
Bulgarian economist Kristalina Georgieva has been named as the new Managing Director (MD) of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). She is the first person from an emerging market economy to lead the IMF. Georgieva will succeed Christine Lagarde for a five-year term from October 2019.

Notes:
To promote innovation, 2nd edition of Singapore – India Hackathon will be organised at IIT Madras in Chennai from Sep 28 to 29, 2019. The Hackathon is the first of its kind joint International hackathon between India and Singapore during which the selected bright students from India and Singapore will work in collaboration to develop innovative and out-of-the- box solution for some of the daunting problems faced by our societies. This year, the hackathon is focused on quality education, Good Health and clean energy.

Notes:
The 5th edition of India International Science Festival (IISF- 2019)   will be held at Kolkata with theme “RISEN India – Research, Innovation, and Science Empowering the Nation” from 5th to 8th November. The event expects to host a gathering of approximately 12,000 participants from India and abroad.

Notes:
Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) has become the first state in India to issue highest number of golden cards under Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY). Over 11 lakh golden cards have been generated within first 90 days of the launch of the scheme with 60% families having at least one golden card which is highest in the country.   

Notes:
As per latest IMD World Digital Competitiveness Ranking 2019 (WDCR), India has been ranked at 44th position in terms of digital competitiveness in the world as the country has made improvement in terms of knowledge and future readiness to adopt and explore digital technologies. The ranking measures the capacity and readiness of 63 nations to adopt and explore digital technologies as a key driver for economic transformation in business, government and wider society.  

Notes:
The National Film Archive of India (NFAI) has recently discovered 30 reels of unedited footage on Mahatma Gandhi that amounts to almost 6 hours of duration. These 35mm celluloid footages, unedited and stock shots with title cards in between, belonged to several prominent film studios of the time like Paramount, Pathe, Warner, Universal, British Movietone and Wadia Movietone. The major highlight of the discovery is a rare half-an-hour footage that has visuals of a special train carrying Mahatma Gandhi’s ashes, after his assasination on 30th January 1948, from Madras to Rameshwaram. In 1964, the NFAI was established as a media unit of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) with headquarters at Pune, Maharashtra.

Notes:
The West Bengal government has decided to set up a museum at the north Kolkata house of 19th century social reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar where he had spent the last few years of his life. The museum chronicles his life from his birth place at Birsinghapur village in Paschim Medinipur district to the house in north Kolkata. He was a key figure of the Bengal Renaissance and the most prominent campaigner for Hindu widow remarriage.