Current Affairs Quiz - January, 2020

Notes:
The movie titled ‘1917’ bagged the ‘Best Motion picture- drama’ in the recently released Golden Globe awards 2020. The movie was released in December 2019 and was co-written and directed by Sam Mendes, who also won the ‘Best Director’ award in the ceremony. The film is based on the World War I in 1917 and two British soldiers in the war. George MacKay and Dean-Charles Chapman featured in the film in the lead roles.

Notes:
The third ‘International Symposium on Marine ecosystems- challenges and opportunities’ (MECOS-3) is to be held in Cochin from January 7 to 10, 2020. The summit will be organised by the Marine Biological Association of India at the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, Cochin. A veteran Marine Fisheries Researcher of Finland, Petri Suuronen will be the Chief Guest. The event will focus on United Nation’s SDG Goal of ‘Life Under water’ and sustainable utilisation of marine wealth.

Notes:
Mission Indradhanush is a Universal Vaccination Programme launched by the Ministry of Health and Family welfare in 2014. The Intensified Intensified Mission Indradhanush 2.0 is carried out from December 2019 to March 2020.
Under the Indradhanush scheme, unvaccinated or partially vaccinated children and pregnant women are vaccinated. The target fixed for the scheme is 2020. Recently the Ministry launched IMI 2.0 portal to record the target and real time data of the campaign.

Notes:
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is set to launch its new block-chain based platform, which is named as ‘Vajra’. The new payment platform will be based on ‘Distributed Ledger Technology’ (DLT).
The platform is expected to make the payments secure and the transactions would be stored in a decentralised database. The bank nodes after receiving the requests from the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) will process them on the Vajra platform.

Notes:
According to the recent study published in ‘Astrophysical Journal’, Scientists have discovered thirteen huge black holes in some dwarf galaxies. The galaxies are found to be located several light years from the earth and in half of the galaxies, the black holes are not in the centre of the galaxies.
The high-resolution images of the galaxies with black holes were captured using the Very Large Array (VLA) observatory. It is a radio telescope observatory, which is situated in New Mexico, U.S.A. VLA was set up by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

Notes:
The State Bank of India’s economic research department has lowered its projection for the GDP growth rate of India for FY 20 to 4.6%. Earlier it has projected the GDP rate to be 5%.
The research department also estimated that the GDP of India would be below 6% for two successive years. The CSO also recently estimated the GDP growth of FY20 to be 5%, in lines with the Reserve Bank of India. But the RBI projected 5.9 – 6.3% growth rate for the next fiscal.

Notes:
The Union External Affairs Minister S. Jai Shankar recently launched the book titled ‘PAX SINICA: Implications for the Indian Dawn’ authored by Dr. Samir Saran. The book was co-authored by Akhil Deo. The book highlights the steps of China during the presidency of Xi Jinping and the key policy measures of China.
Dr Samir Saran is the President of the renowned Asian think tank, Observer Research Foundation. He is also a member of the World Economic Forum’s South Asia advisory board.

Notes:
MILAN is a multilateral naval exercise, which is scheduled to be held at Vishakhapatnam in March 2020. The event was previously planned at Andaman and Nicobar Islands and then has been changed to Vishakhapatnam as navies from many countries are participating in the event.
Nearly 30 international navies have confirmed their participation in the event. The theme of the exercise is “Synergy Across the Seas”. This event would help the navies to have professional discussions and learn the best practices in the naval arena across the world.

Notes:
The 23rd National Youth Festival is to be organised by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports in Lucknow from January 12 to 16, 2020, in association with the Uttar Pradesh Government. The festival is celebrated to commemorate the birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda.
Every year, the birthday of the famous Indian monk from Kolkata, Swami Vivekananda is celebrated as the National Youth day on January 12 and the week commencing from the day as the National Youth week. During the youth festival, several competitions are held for the youth and National Youth awards are also presented.

Notes:
The ruler of Oman and one of the longest serving rulers in the Middle East countries, Sultan Qaboos bin Said al Said recently passed away. He was not keeping well for a long time and was undergoing medical treatment in Belgium last month.
After his demise, the former culture minister of Oman, Haitham bin Tariq was named as the successor of Sultan Qaboos. It is mandatory to name the successor of the vacant throne within three days, as per the constitution of Oman.