Current Affairs Quiz - January, 2020

Notes:
In order to promote road safety and reduce vehicular pollution, Rajasthan Transport department is going to observe a “No Vehicle Day” once a month in 2020. The employees of the transport department are to come to their offices as pedestrians, via bicycles or a public transport.

Notes:
According to the central government’s cleanliness survey, Indore is declared to be the cleanest city in India for the fourth time in a row. Kolkata is designated as the worst performer. It the category of cities having population more than 10 lakh, Bhopal stood second in the first quarter of the result and Rajkot got the second spot in the second quarter of the results.

Notes:
The birth anniversary of the tenth Sikh Guru, Guru Gobind Singh was celebrated across the country and many parts of the world on January 2, 2020. The birth anniversary of a Sikh Guru is also called as “Prakash Parv”. As per the traditional Sikh calendar (Nanakshahi) , birthday of Guru Gobind Singh falls on January 2, this year (Though he was born on 5 January 1666 by Gregorian Calendar). Guru Gobind Singh was named as the tenth Sikh guru, at the age of 9, after the ninth Guru and his father Guru Teg Bahadur was killed.

Notes:
The World Health Assembly has designated 2020 as ‘the International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife’. According to the WHO, the world needs 18 million more health workers to achieve universal health coverage by the year 2030 and approximately 9 million health workers of the world are nurses and midwives. The World Health Assembly, which is the decision making body of the World Health Organization (WHO), holds the assembly at Geneva, Switzerland every year and it determines the policies of WHO.

Notes:
Maharashtra Government recently launched ‘Cyber Safe Women’ scheme on the birth anniversary of the social reformer and educationist Savitribhai Phule. Under this initiative, awareness camps will be held across all the districts of the state regarding cyber safety. The Maharashtra Cyber department and Police in all districts will conduct the awareness campaign in more than 100 schools and colleges and educate women on using cyber space safely.

Notes:
The second tallest statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in the world is recently unveiled at Ahmedabad, Gujarat by the Chief Minister of Gujarat, Vijay Rupani. This 50 feet tall bronze statue is the second tallest statue of Patel only after the ‘Statue of Unity’, located in the Narmada district of Gujarat. Ram Vanji Sutar, the famous sculptor and designer who designed the 182 feet tall statue of unity has also designed this statue.

Notes:
The foundation of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) Academy was recently laid in Nagpur, Maharashtra by the Union Home Minister Amit Shah. He also inaugurated a campus of the Nagpur based National Fire Service College. The NDRF Academy, once completed will contain state-of-the-art infrastructure to simulate disasters and provide training to the personnel in various rescue operations. The National Disaster Response Force, a dedicated force for disaster response related operations was constituted in the year 2006.

Notes:
Veteran Theatre artist and Social Activist of Assam, Ratna Ojha passed away at Guwahati. He played an instrumental role in reviving the theatre play movement of the state. He had also actively participated and addressed demonstrations in several social issues of the country including those against Citizenship amendment act. For his great contribution towards the theatre art, he was honoured with the ‘Natasurya Award’ by the Assam Government.

Notes:
A leading research agency, HexGn conducted a study of the funding patterns in the start-up ecosystem in the year 2019. The total international funding for technology start-ups decreased by 22% to $293 billion when compared to the funding of $375 billion, last year. However, the start-up funding in India has grown by 18% to $14 billion in 2019. For the first time, two Indian cities namely Delhi NCR and Bengaluru were ranked in the “Global Top 10 Cities for Start-up Funding” list.

Notes:
The State Government of Odisha recently launched the e-Gazette portal, to release all gazette publications of the state in digital format. This scheme is launched a s part of the ‘5T initiatives’ of the Odisha Government. After the launch of the portal, the gazette notifications will be published online saving paper and cost of transportation. All the departments of the state will be asked to upload their data in the portal, which will be monitored and verified by digital signatures.