Current Affairs Quiz - February, 2020

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:
Esperanza Base (Hope Base) is a permanent, all-year-round Argentine research station in Hope Bay, Trinity Peninsula in Antarctica.

Notes:
The Union Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs has recently launched two Assessment Frameworks, namely Ease of Living Index (EoLI) and Municipal Performance Index (MPI) 2019.
The two indices are expected to assess the quality of life of citizens in 100 Smart Cities and 14 other cities, with more than 1 million population. The MPI assesses the performance of municipalities based on five parameters of Service, Finance, Planning, Technology and Governance.

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.

Notes:
The ‘International Day of Women and Girls in Science’ is celebrated across the world on 11 February. The United Nations General Assembly adopted the resolution in 2015 and declared 11 February as the day of Women and Girls in Science. Since then, the day is celebrated annually.
The day is aimed to achieve complete gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls and to encourage more women to take up their career in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) field.

Notes:
The proclamation of UNESCO member states was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2013 to celebrate February 13 as the World Radio Day. The theme of this year’s celebration is “Radio and Diversity’.
The day celebrated to raise awareness about the importance of radio and access to information. This year, the day is celebrated across the world, led by UNESCO. It has started a campaign called ‘We are Radio; We are Diversity’.

Notes:
The Ministry of Tribal Affairs launched the ‘Pradhan Mantri Van Dhan Yojana’ in 2019, through TRIFED. It aims at creating livelihood for tribal people by using the forest produce. Van Dhan Kendras are set up to add branding and packaging their products.
Recently, Union Minister for Tribal Affairs Shri Arjun Munda inaugurated the “Workshop on Van Dhan and Entrepreneurship Development” organized by TRIFED (Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India).

Notes:
The Union Cabinet approved a proposal for capital infusion and immediate release of Rs 2,500 crore to three state-owned general insurance companies. The three public sector companies are: United India Insurance, National Insurance Company and Oriental Insurance Company.
The capital infusion is announced at the backdrop of their critical financial position and breach of regulatory solvency requirements, stipulated by the insurance regulator IRDAI. The companies are expected to be merged in this year.

Notes:
The New Zealand Police have recently unveiled their first Artificial Intelligence (AI) Police officer Ella. Ella stands for ‘Electronic Lifelike Assistant’, which will be configured at the digital kiosks, to resolve the queries of public and reduce queues in stations.
Ella will be made available in the headquarters building initially, and will be expanded to other parts of the country soon. The virtual assistant has been designed as a mix of 26 different people.

Notes:
‘Apiary on wheels’ means ‘Collection of bees on wheels’. The ‘Apiary on Wheels’ initiative is designed by the Indian statutory body, ‘Khadi and Village Industries Commission’.
The initiative includes effective migration of Bee boxes with live bee colonies/ collection. It is a platform by which 20 Bee boxes can be carried from one place to another without any difficulty. The unique scheme of KVIC was recently inaugurated by the Union Minister of MSME Shri Nitin Gadkari.