Current Affairs Quiz - January, 2020

Notes:
The Armed Forces Veterans Day is celebrated on January 14 every year and was instituted in the year 2017, to commemorate the retirement date of the first Indian Chief of Army Staff, K M Cariappa. He served as the Chief of Army Staff from 1949 to 1953.
The present Indian Army Chief General M M Naravane attended the event organised to observe the Armed Forces Veterans Day and announced that special pensions would be provided to the emergency commissioned and short service commissioned officers who fought in the wars of 1965 and 1971 against Pakistan.

Notes:
India recently signed an MoU with Bangladesh for content exchange programme between All India Radio and the national broadcaster of Bangladesh, Bangladesh Betar in New Delhi.
An MoU was also signed between National Film Development Corporation, India and Film Development Corporation, Bangladesh in the presence of Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar and his Bangladesh counterpart. A biopic on the life of the great leader of Bangladesh Sheikh Mujibur Rahman jointly produced by the countries, will be released in March 2020.

Notes:
‘Sahyog-Kaijin’ is an annual joint exercise between the Coast Guards of India and Japan. The 19th edition of the exercise is scheduled to begin in Chennai, India. Recently, the Coast Guard Ship of Japan, ‘Echigo’ arrived in Chennai on a goodwill visit, for participating in the annual joint exercise.
The exercise has been organised between the Indian and the Japanese Coast Guards for 18 years since 2000. Four Indian Coast Guard ships and a vessel from the National Institute of Ocean Technology are participating in the exercise.

Notes:
Army Day is celebrated every year on January 15, across the country to honour the contributions made by the soldiers to the country. The 72nd Army day was recently observed on January 15, 2020.
On January 15, 1949, General KM Carriappa became the first Commander-in-Chief of Indian Army after Independence. This day is being commemorated every year as Army Day. The Indian Army holds Army Parade every year in the Parade ground, New Delhi. Captain Tania Shergill becomes the first female to lead an all-men contingent at the Army Day Parade.

Notes:
Verizon Media, an arm of the international tele- communication company, Verizon communications, has recently launched a new privacy-focused search engine called ‘OneSearch’.
The search engine claims that the search history of the users will not be stored and the self-destructible search data of the users will not be shared with advertisers. The new search engine is also expected to give unbiased and unfiltered results, which will be personalised only based on locations and will separate IP addresses from users and their search results.

Notes:
The United Nation’s World Economic Situation and Prospects (WESP) report was recently released. As per the report, the UN projects the GDP growth of India in the current fiscal year to be 5.7 %. The UN also predicted that the GDP growth rate of the next fiscal year will rise to 6.6%.
In the WESP report of 2019, the UN had predicted India’s growth rate to be 7.6% for the current fiscal year, which has now been lowered to 5.7%. As per the recent report, East Asia continues to be the world’s fastest growing region and the largest contributor to global growth. The report also predicted that the global growth would dip to 1.8 per cent this year.

Notes:
Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology (RGCB) is a research institute in India, under the aegis of Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology. It has a dedicated research centre in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology. It is located at Thiruvananthapuram, the capital city of Kerala.
RGCB is to organise the 39th Annual Conference of Indian Association for Cancer Research (IACR) from February 5 to 7. The theme of the research conference is “Leading the Fight Against Cancer”. Several students, research fellows and oncologists will have a discussion about current developments in cancer therapeutics.

Notes:
Former Indian cricketer Bapu Nadkarni passed away recently in Mumbai. He was a left-arm spinner and an all-rounder, who played for India in international cricket matches. He had created the record of bowling 21 successive maiden overs, when he achieved it in the test match against England.
Known for his bowling skills, Nadkarni had a bowling economy of just 1.64 after playing in 191 first-class matches. Nadkarni represented India in 41 Test matches and subsequently served as a member of the National Selection Committee and the joint secretary of Mumbai Cricket Association.

Notes:
The construction project of the Z-Morh Tunnel, to be built in in Jammu and Kashmir has been awarded to APCO Amarnathji Tunnelway. An MoU was recently inked between National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation (NHIDCL) and the company in this regard, in the presence of Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari.
The project entails a cost of Rs. 2,379 crores and it would provide road connectivity to the tourist spot Sonamarg, in Jammu & Kashmir. The tourist destination mostly remains closed due to heavy snowfall.

Notes:
Recently, India has successfully test-fired fired a 3,500 km range nuclear capable missile from the coast of Andhra Pradesh. The ballistic missile named ‘K-4’ that can be launched from a submarine, is developed by Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
The missile, which is to be fitted into the Arihant-class submarines of the Indian Navy, has ideal configuration to strike its targets. Arihant is India’s first nuclear-powered submarine of 6000 tonnes, which was successfully tested in November 2018.