Current Affairs Quiz - January, 2020

Notes:
Former Governor of Karnataka and Padma Vibushan awardee T.N. Chaturvedi passed away recently. He served the State from 2002 to 2007 as its14th Governor. Chaturvedi was an Indian Administrative Service Officer and a Member of the Rajya Sabha. He also served as the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. The Chief Minister of Karnataka, Yediyurappa paid condolences to the former Governor.

Notes:
The Manas National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage site and a biosphere reserve is situated in Assam. Recently a one-horned rhinoceros of the national park named R3A gave birth to its calf. The R3A was also born in the same park to the elder rhino ‘Laisri’ in 2013.
The One-horned rhinoceros or the Indian rhinoceros is an endangered species and is listed as ‘Vulnerable’ in the IUCN Red list of threatened species. At present, the national park is home to 42 rhinos.

Notes:
The 12th edition of the ‘Naseem-Al-Bahr’ bilateral exercise between the navies of India and Oman is to be held in Goa. The exercise is held once in every two years between Indian Navy and the Royal Navy of Oman since 1993.The previous edition of the exercise was held in December 2017 in Muscat, Oman.
Recently, two naval ships of the Oman Navy arrived in Goa, while the Indian Navy ships Beas and Subhadra will participate in the exercise.

Notes:
The Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) recently announced that indigenous relay satellite series called the Indian Data Relay Satellite System (IDRSS) will be launched soon .
The IDRSS is a set of relay satellites that will continuously track the Indian satellites and exchange information with them. The first of the two proposed satellites will be launched by the end of 2020, before the unmanned space flight to be conducted preceding the Gaganyaan Mission. Such crucial missions can be continuously monitored by the new relay satellite series.

Notes:
On January 8, 2020, Union Cabinet has approved promulgation of Mineral Laws (Amendment) Ordinance 2020. The Ordinance will amend Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation ) Act 1957 and Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act 2015. The Ordinance will ease rules for auctioning of coal mines and to open up to all sectors. Government has also done away with end-use restrictions of the coal mining blocks.

Notes:
PARIVESH is a web based, role based workflow application which has been developed for online submission and monitoring of the proposals submitted by the proponents for seeking Environment, Forest, Wildlife and CRZ Clearances from Central, State and district level authorities. It automates the entire tracking of proposals which includes online submission of a new proposal, editing/updating the details of proposals and displays status of the proposals at each stage of the workflow.

Notes:
The International passport ranking ‘Henly Passport Index’ was recently released. It ranks various countries of the world in the order of travel-friendly passports based on the data of International Air Transport Association.
In the recent report, India’s rank is 84, which is two ranks above that of last year. The mobility score of Indian passport is 58, and it means that Indian passport holders can travel to 58 countries without a prior visa. The first rank in the index is bagged by Japan with a score of 191, followed by Singapore.

Notes:
India’s first indigenous aircraft carrier Vikrant is being manufactured at the Cochin Shipyard Limited (CSL) in Cochin. The manufacturing of the carrier is currently under the third phase and it is expected to be commissioned by early 2021.
The Directorate of Naval Design of the Indian Navy has created the basic design of the indigenous aircraft carrier. The plan was subsequently developed by the Cochin Shipyard Limited. The 40000-tonne aircraft with the MiG-29K aircraft fleet will be fully operational by 2022.

Notes:
The edition of ‘Crime in India’ statistics for the year 2018 was released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). As per the report Uttar Pradesh is the worst place for women’s security with the most crimes against women at 59445.
Madhya Pradesh recorded the highest number of rape cases in the year and West Bengal registered the highest number of acid attack cases. The report also said that Crime in India has increased by 1.3% in 2018 compared to that of 2017. The overall number of crime against women has also steadily increased in the last 3 years.

Notes:
Union Minister for Women and Child Development and Textiles, Smriti Irani recently launched a scheme named ‘Yashaswini’ from Goa. It is a women empowerment scheme, which aims at supporting women Self Help Groups (SHGs) with interest free loans up to ₹5 lakh. The scheme will also help them to get guidance from experts.
During the event, the Minister also launched Swasthya Sakhi Project and a mobile breast cancer screening initiative, which will be carried out by Anganwadi workers to screen all women of Goa for breast cancer.