Current Affairs Quiz - February, 2020

Notes:
The MLA of Sivasagar constituency in the state of Assam, Pranab Kumar Gogoi recently passed away. He had also served as the Speaker of the Assam state assembly.
The noted legislator was born in 1936 and was an advocate by profession. He was a veteran member of the Congress Party and was first elected to the state assembly in 2001. He was known for introducing the definition of the term “Assamese”, during the previous term of Congress government in the state.

Notes:
The United States recently launched the International Religious Freedom Alliance, which is aimed at protecting and preserving religious freedom across the world.
The U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the formal launch of the alliance. As many as 27 countries have joined the alliance and the prominent countries among them are Australia, Brazil, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Greece. He also announced that the next ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom will be hosted by Poland in Warsaw, in July 2020.

Notes:
Top media agency of India, GroupM recently revealed that India would become the 8th-largest global advertising market in 2020. This is two places higher than the previous year’s rank.
It also estimates the overall size of India’s advertising market to be 13.2 billion (Rs 94,000 crore), which is 10.7 per cent growth from the last year, when the overall size was 11.9 billion (Rs 84,917 crore). The first place was bagged by the United States with a huge lead from the rest of the countries, followed by China and Japan.

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) recently projected the economic growth of the country to grow by 6 per cent during the next financial year. This is the lower end of the growth projection as announced by the government in the economic survey, which estimated a rate of 6-6.5 per cent. RBI also stated that the Indian economy continues to be weak.
The first half of the year would grow in the range of 5.5-6.0 per cent and the third quarter at 6.2 per cent, as per the RBI. But this projection is higher than the GDP growth projection of 5%, made in the monetary policy statement of December 2019.

Notes:
23rd edition of the two day annual National Conference on e-Governance recently concluded in Mumbai. Its focus was on improving delivery of public services by promoting use of digital platforms. During the event, Blockchain Sandbox – Maharashtra was also launched. Mumbai Declaration on e-Governance was also unanimously adopted on the concluding day.

Notes:
The state government of Kerala has recently unveiled a scheme to establish hotels to provide meals at subsidised rates called ‘Kudumbashree’ hotels. The announcement was made during the presentation of state’s budget.
The hotels are to be set up in in each of the 1034 local bodies and Kerala meals is to be available at a subsidised price of Rs 25. Kudumbashree is an initiative of the state government for poverty eradication and women empowerment.

Notes:
The City Police has recently launched ‘Operation Nakail’ in Ghaziabad, to verify the identity of auto-drivers of the city. Under the initiative, a unique four-digit number will be allotted to every auto-rickshaw of the city.
The owner of the vehicle has to paint the number, his name and mobile number on the auto, which would be easy to identify them. After many crimes were reported to be held in auto-rickshaws, this initiative was launched.

Notes:
The Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA) was established in 1972, by an act of Parliament, to act as the nodal agency for the development of Indian seafood industry. It is head-quartered at Kochi.
Recently, MPEDA announced that it is to start the upgradation and modernisation 25 fishing harbours in the country. The project is to be undertaken with the assistance from the Centre
at a proposed outlay of Rs 2500 crore.

Notes:
Indian cueist Aditya Mehta was seen in news recently as he won the National Snooker Championship, held at Pune. He represented the Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (PSPB) and defeated the 22-time-world champion Pankaj Advani 6-2 to win the title. Pankaj recently won the National Billiards Championship.
Vidya Pillai of Karnataka clinched the women’s snooker title, by beating Amee Kamani of Madhya Pradesh.

Notes:
European countries witnessed a devastating storm named ‘Ciara’, which caused huge damage and killed as many as six people. The hurricane-force winds and heavy rains damaged several thousand buildings in the region.
The storm moved on near Germany, after hitting Britain and Ireland. It was called as ‘Ciara’ by the Irish weather service and dubbed as ‘Sabine’ in Germany. Flood warnings are given and flight operations are suspended in the countries.