Current Affairs Quiz-December, 2019

Notes:
South Asian Games 2019 concluded on 10 December,2019 in Nepal, with India finishing on top with a best-ever medal haul of 312 medals comprising of 174 gold, 93 silver and 45 bronze. Host Nepal remained second and Sri Lanka got third place in the regional multi-sporting. The year 2019 marks the 13th edition of South Asian Games.
India finished on top, continuing its undisputed domination in regional multi-sporting event by finishing on top for the 13th time-in-a-row. India has topped the medal tally of every South Asian Games since its establishment in 1984.

Notes:
The Asom Natya Sanmilan has announced the annual awards of Asom Natya Sanmilan Award-2019 is Nandeswar Saikia Auditorium, Nalbari, Assam. The awards were announced by Dulal Roy, president, and Bipul Chaliha, principal secretary of Asom Natya Sanmilan. The awards will be presented at the 58th conference of Asom Natya Sanmilan that will be held at Nalbari in January 2020.

Notes:
United States has surpassed Kuwait to become India’s sixth-largest oil supplier. India began to import crude oil from the US in 2017 as a move to diversify India’s import basket beyond the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) nations. Note that, currently Iraq is top supplier of crude oil for India, while Qatar is top supplier of natural gas to India.

Notes:
Author Peter Handke was conferred the Nobel Literature Prize. He received the 9 million-kronor ($948,000) award from King Carl XVI Gustaf at a ceremony in Stockholm. Peter Handke, 76, is an Austrian author and playwright. He was recognized for his influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has explored the periphery and the specificity of human experience. He has been a controversial figure as he supported the Serbs during the 1990s Yugoslav war. He was charged in 2001 with the Bosnian Genocide.

Notes:
Barcelona forward Ansu Fati became the youngest scorer in the history of the UEFA Champions League after he netted a late winner in his side’s 2-1 victory over Inter Milan .At just 17 years and 40 days old, Fati overtook Peter Ofori-Quaye as the competition’s youngest marksman after coming on as an 85th-minute substitute.

Notes:
Renowned Telugu actor and writer Gollapudi Maruti Rao, who enthralled people with his writings and acting for several decades, passed away on December 12,2019. He was 80. Rao, who acted in around 250 films in about four decades, passed away in Chennai following a cardiac arrest, his family members told reporters.

Notes:
Audible, a part of e-commerce giant Amazon, on December 12 launched an India-first audio service ‘Suno’. Audible Suno – which will be available via a separate Android app – provides free and advertising-free access to hundreds of hours of original audio entertainment in Hindi and English. Suno includes more than 60 original and exclusive audio series available at launch.

Notes:
West Bengal has got the first prize in 100-day work programme for promoting livelihoods. State’s Bankura and Cooch Behar stood first and second respectively among districts in the country in implementation of the rural job scheme. Baburmahal GP (gram panchayat) of Kulpi, South 24 Paraganas also got the best performance award.

Notes:
Pakistan and the World Bank have signed a loan agreement worth USD 406 million for the Khyber Pass Economic Corridor (KPEC) project. The project is expected to create more than 100,000 jobs in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The project aims to construct of a 48-km long, four-lane, 7.3- meter-wide dual carriageway, high speed access-controlled motorway, which will run from Peshawar to Torkham border point with Afghanistan, in a bid to promote economic development and uplift areas adjoining the expressway and falling in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).

Notes:
The National Securities Depositories Limited recently reintroduced the electronic signature facility after temporarily suspending the service. The eSign facility allows the holders of Aadhaar card to digitally sign a document. NSDL is based in Mumbai and is a depository of shares and stocks for Indian investors.