Current Affairs Quiz - January, 2020

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:
Retired Indian Police Service Officer and Former Director General of CRPF, Rajiv Rai Bhatnagar was recently appointed as the advisor to the Lieutenant Governor of Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
Rajiv Rai retired from the Central Reserve Police Force in December 2019.He will serve as the third advisor to the Lieutenant Governor, Girish Chandra Murmu. The other two advisors are retired IAS officer K K Sharma and retired IPS Officer Farooq Khan.

Notes:
The state government of Mizoram is to organise the cultural festival ‘Zo Kutpui’ in many states of India as well as in some countries including the USA, Bangladesh and Myanmar. The first edition of the festival will begin in Tripura and will be celebrated in other states, that are home to the people of Mizo tribe.
The festival will witness several cultural programmes and traditional events of the Mizo tribe thereby increasing their unity and fraternity. Chief Minister of Mizoram, Zoramthanga is to inaugurate the first edition of the festival.

Notes:
The State Government of West Bengal has started an environmental-friendly project to save paper. It has also decided to use digital medium for most administrative works. The State Secretariat,Nabanna already follows the method, which will be extended to other districts as well.
The government also proposed to recycle the paper used for administrative purpose, by converting them into writing pads and reusing them. The process is to be continuously monitored by the state secretariat.

Notes:
According to the India Meteorological Department’s (IMD’s) Statement on Climate of India During 2019 report, the number of cyclones in the Arabian Sea was 400% higher than normal frequency because five out of eight cyclones affected Arabian Sea. These give cyclones were Vayu, Hikka, Kyarr, Maha and Pavan. This after the sea on India’s west coast normally undergoes only one cyclone annually — read a 400% rise. (India normally has five cyclones in total every year.) However, the Bay of Bengal — usually the more cyclone-prone coast of India — was relatively subdued in 2019 with three (Pabuk, Fani, Bulbul) instead of four cyclones that occur there annually on an average.

Notes:
Proposed “Global Electricity Grid” was an idea mooted by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The grid plans to leverage solar power generated in one geography to feed the electricity demands of other nations. India is reportedly in talks with World Bank as its technical partner to implement the plan.

Notes:
The World Economic Forum, held annually at Davos, is a meeting in which world leaders discuss economic matters. This year’s summit will take place on January 21- 24.

Notes:
As a part of the major Udhampur- Srinagar-Baramulla rail link project, which would connect the Kashmir valley with the Indian Railway network, a new railway bridge is to be constructed connecting Bakkal and Kauri. This bridge in the newly formed Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir will be the world’s highest railway bridge. The project is expected to be completed by December 2021.
The proposed bridge will be 1.315 km long and will be built 359 m above the river bed. Presently, the highest railway bridge in the world is the Beipan river Shuibai railway bridge of China.

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 leading digital payment company, Paytm has recently launched an all-in-one QR code for merchants. Using the QR code the businessmen can accept unlimited payments through Paytm Wallet, Rupay Cards and all UPI-based payment directly into their bank account.
The transactions are processed at zero percent fee using the code. The company also launched ‘Paytm Business Khata’ service. This will help the merchants to maintain ledgers of all transactions of their customers in the digital form.