Current Affairs Quiz - January, 2020

Notes:
The Team of Maharashtra dominated the Khelo India Youth Games by clinching the overall trophy for the second time with a huge haul of 256 medals, including 78 gold and 77 silver. Last year, Maharashtra topped the table with 228 medals. The trophy was presented to Maharashtra by the Chief Minister of Assam Sarbananda Sonowal in the presence of Union Sports Minister Kiren Rijju, during the closing ceremony.
The second place was bagged by the state of Haryana with 200 medals and Delhi with 122 medals. Khelo India Youth games has been organised in Assam’s Guwahati for the last 13 days.

Notes:
Kumar Munnan Singh has been selected for the Subhash Chandra Bose Aapda Prabandhan Puraskar 2020 under the Individual category. Under the Institution category, Disaster Mitigation & Management Centre, Uttarakhand has been selected for the award. Kumar Munnan Singh was the founding member of the National Disaster Management Authority in 2005. He is also lauded for establishing the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), from scratch.
The award is given by the Government of India to recognize the commendable work done by individuals and organisations in the field of disaster management. The award is announced every year on 23rd January which marks the birth anniversary of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose.

Notes:
The Bal Shakti Puraskar award is given to children in the fields of innovation, social service, scholastic activities, sports, art and culture and bravery. The Indian President Ramnath Kovind recently presented the awards to 49 children in the age group of 5-18 years.
Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar award was instituted by Ministry of Women and Child Development and is given under two categories. Bal Shakti Puraskar is awarded to meritorious children while Bal Kalyan Puraskar is awarded to individuals and institutions, who have contributed for child welfare.

Notes:
India has been ranked at the 80th rank among 180 countries and territories in the Corruption Perception Index (CPI), which is prepared by the non-profit organisation Transparency International.
The Corruption Perception Index was recently released during the Annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos. It ranks 180 countries and territories across the world, by their perceived levels of corruption prevailing in public sector, according to experts and business people.
Denmark and New Zealand have been placed at the top spot. India was given a score of 41 and was placed at the 80th rank, similar to China, Benin, Ghana and Morocco in the same rank.

Notes:
The country’s first Super Fab Lab (Fabrication laboratory) was recently launched at the Integrated Startup Complex of the Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM). The facility was inaugurated by the Chief Minister of Kerala, Pinarayi Vijayan.
This fab lab, which is the only such facility outside the United States, will function in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The KSUM Super Fab Lab comprises a 10,000 square feet area and has state-of-the-art machines worth more than Rs 7 Crores. This will enable the state to produce machines locally and boost the hardware industry of India.

Notes:
Sixteen eminent personalities were selected for the ‘Padma Bhushan’ award, for their distinguished service of high order. Out of the 141 total Padma awardees selected this year, there were seven Padma Vibhushan, 16 Padma Bhushan and 118 Padma Shri Awardees.
Famous personalities who were selected for the ‘Padma Bhushan’ award includes, top-rated Badminton Player PV Sindhu, Former Chief Minister of Goa- Manohar Parrikar (posthumous), father of modern legal education in India, N R Madhava Menon and businessmen Anand Mahindra and Venu Srinivasan.

Notes:
The Prime Minister of Netherlands Mark Rutte was recently seen in news, as he made the country’s first apology for the persecution of Jews during the World War II.
He made this historic apology, first-of-its kind made by any government in this regard, during the country’s annual Holocaust commemoration in Amsterdam, on the eve of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz. More than 1.1 million Jews out of the 1.4 million who lived in Netherlands were killed in the Auschwitz concentration camp, at the outbreak of World War II.

Notes:
The United Kingdom recently released a new 50 pence coin with inscription of “Peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations” and the Brexit date of 31 January 2020.
The bill to implement the exit of Britain from the European Union officially became law recently this week. The coin is minted to mark the leaving of the country from the European Union. Britain Finance Minister Sajid Javid was presented with the first set of coins. Nearly 10 million such coins are to be distributed and the first three million will be available from January 31, in all banks, post offices and shops.

Notes:
The Government of United Kingdom has recently launched a 4 million pound – ‘Innovation Challenge Fund’ in India. The fund focusses on two major tech clusters in two Indian states, which are Artificial intelligence and Big data in Karnataka and Future mobility in Maharashtra.
The initiative, which comes under the UK-India Tech Partnership announced in 2018, is aimed to encourage collaborative research by industry and academia for developing technological solutions for various economic, social and environmental challenges in India. The successful bidders with the required proposals can collaborate with international partners.

Notes:
The noted Swedish research institute, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has released a new report, which revealed that China is the world’s second-largest producer of arms, only after the United States.
In the previous report of SIPRI, which was published in 2017, China was placed at the sixth place in the world. Whereas in the recent report, it is placed ahead of Russian companies, from whom China was importing arms earlier. The report also stated that four Chinese arms groups were ranked among the world’s top 20 weapons sellers.