Current Affairs Quiz - February, 2020

Notes:
The 15th East Asia Summit conference of the year 2020 is set to be organised by India, in the southern city of Chennai, Tamil Nadu. The conference will mainly focus on co-operation in maritime security and challenges in maritime domain.
During the 14th East Asia Summit (EAS) in Bangkok in November 2019, the Indian Prime Minister announced that the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) would organise the next EAS conference, in partnership with the governments of Australia and Indonesia. As announced, the EAS Conference on Maritime Security Cooperation would be held in Chennai from February 6-7, 2020. This is the fourth EAS conference organised by India.

Notes:
Moody’s Investors Service recently released its estimates for India’s GDP growth in the upcoming fiscals. It lowered the real GDP growth projection for the next 2020-21 fiscal to 5.5 per cent, from its previous estimate of 6.3 per cent. The government’s Economic survey has projected a growth rate of 6-6.5% for the next fiscal.
It also stated that the GDP growth for the current fiscal ending March 31 would be 4.9 percent, which is slightly lower than the estimate of the government. For the fiscal 2021-22, it predicted a growth rate of 6 per cent, down from 6.7 per cent which was projected earlier.

Notes:
The noted astronaut of the US- based National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Christina Koch recently completed the longest-ever single spaceflight by a woman.
Christina Koch landed through a parachute at Kazakhstan, from the Russian Soyuz spacecraft she was onboard. She had created a record by spending 328 days on the International Space Station (ISS) and surpassed the previous record held by the American astronaut Peggy Whitson. In October last year, she performed the first all-female spacewalk along with her fellow astronaut Jessica Meir.

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:
As per the Supreme Court ruling on November 9, 2019, a trust had to be set up for the construction of the Ram Temple within three months of the court order. Hence the Indian Government constituted the trust, which is named as ‘the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teertha Kshetra’.
Former Attorney General of India, Advocate K Parasaran has been named as the head of the trust, which will function at his residence in Delhi. The advocate had earlier represented the litigant ‘Ram Lalla’ in the dispute and earned the verdict in its favour. An independent 15-member team has been named as the members of the trust, which will always have a trustee from the Dalit community, as per the Union Home Ministry.

Notes:
Indian weight-lifter Pardeep Singh was seen in news recently, as he won the men’s 102kg gold medal in the National weightlifting championships, recently held in Kolkata.
He improved his performance than what he did in the Asian championships in China, last year. Another leading lifter Vikas Thakur won gold medal in the men’s 96kg category. Both the lifters are in the promising list for the upcoming Asian championships in Kazakhstan. Mirabai Chanu and Jeremy Lalrinnunga were named as ‘Best Lifters’ of the championships.

Notes:
Pranash is the name of India’s 200-km strike range tactical ballistic missile which is currently under development by DRDO. This missile is advanced version of the 150-km strike range Prahar missile. Pranash will be a surface-to- surface ballistic missile and will be used by Air Force and Army.

Notes:
The Chief Minister of Telangana recently flagged off the stretch of Hyderabad Metro between Hyderabad and its sister city Secunderabad. With this, Hyderabad Metro has become the second largest operational metro rail network in the country, only after the Delhi Metro Rail.
Hyderabad Metro is also the biggest metro project in the world in Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode, with a total project cost of ₹20,000 crore, constructed by Larsen & Toubro.

Notes:
The South African country Botswana has the largest elephant population in the world. Recently, the country was seen in news as it auctioned licenses to hunt elephants, to tackle human-animal conflict.
In the capital city of the country Gaborone, the licenses to hunt 70 elephants were said to be auctioned. The government had lifted the ban on hunting, which was prevalent for five years.

Notes:
The state of Maharashtra recently announced that ‘Bharosa Centre’ would be launched in the state to monitor the impact of social media on youth.
The proposed Centre would comprise a psychologist, woman police officer and counsellor in the Raigad district of the state to monitor the impact of social media on youth. The announcement was made during the closing ceremony of the seventh Aurangabad International Film Festival.