Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - August, 2017

Notes:
Mohammad Mustafa, a 1995 batch IAS officer of Uttar Pradesh cadre, has been appointed as the new Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) of Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) for a period of 3 years. At present, he is the joint Secretary in Department of Financial Services. SIDBI is an independent financial institution aimed to aid the growth and development of micro, small and medium-scale enterprises (MSME) in India and is headquartered in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh.

Notes:
The 7th Meeting of BRICS Trade Ministers was held in Shanghai, China from August, 1-2, 2017. From India, the 6-member delegation led by Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman , along with Ambassador J.S. Deepak, PR to WTO participated in the meeting. The trade ministers of BRICS nations discussed trade facilitation, economic and technological cooperation, capacity building and the multilateral trade system in the meeting. And, adopted the following documents at the conclusion of the meeting: 7th BRICS Trade Ministers’ Joint Statement, BRICS trade in services cooperation roadmap, BRICS e-commerce cooperation initiative, BRICS IPR cooperation guidelines, etc.

Notes:
India’s first private sector missile sub-systems manufacturing facility has inaugurated near Hyderabad on August 4, 2017. It has been established a line with the ‘Make in India’ initiative and Government’s policy to encourage private sector participation in defense product. It is a joint venture between the $2.5 billion Kalyani Group and Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defence Systems Ltd. The Kalyani Rafael Advanced Systems (KRAS) plant will make anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) Spike and the production is expected to start soon within weeks.

Notes:
The high level committee under the Chairmanship of Justice BN Srikrishna has recently submitted its on review of the Institutionalization of Arbitration Mechanism in India. The committee has recommended for setting up an Autonomous Body, Arbitration Promotion Council of India (APCI) having representatives from all stakeholders for grading arbitral institutions in India. The APCI may recognize professional institutes providing for accreditation of arbitrators. The APCI may hold training workshops and interact with law firms and law schools to train advocates with interest in arbitration and with a goal to create a specialist arbitration bar comprising of advocates dedicated to the field. It has also recommended for creation of a specialist Arbitration Bench to deal with such Commercial disputes, in the domain of the Courts. 

Notes:
Indian shooter Ankur Mittal has clinched the individual as well as the team gold medal in men’s double trap at the 7th Asian Shotgun Championship at Astana, Kazakhstan on August 5, 2017. Mittal shot 71 in the six-man final to finish at the top of the podium. With scores of Sangram Dahiya and Mohammad Asab added to Mittal’s final total, India managed to bag the top prize in the team event also. Dahiya had a score of 43 and Asab had shot 34.

Notes:
The researchers at Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru have developed a low-cost highly sensitive nanometre-scale carbon monoxide sensor by employing an innovative fabrication technique. It is known that Carbon Monoxide (CO) can have adverse effects on the health of people exposed to it. Thus, it becomes necessary to have good, low-cost carbon-monoxide sensors. Typically, a sensor would be a thin, current carrying plate whose resistance changes on exposure to carbon monoxide. This in turn changes the value of the current flowing through it. This change when measured indicates the level of carbon monoxide in the air. The research is published in Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical.

Notes:
The FIBA Asia Cup, which is known as the Asia’s biggest basketball tournament, has started in Beirut, Lebanon from August 8-20, 2017. All 16 teams who qualify for the tournament also qualify for the first round of the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup qualification for FIBA Asia and FIBA Oceania. Indian men’s team, led by Amjyot Singh Gill, is participating in the tournament in group A.

Notes:
Justice Dipak Misra, the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court, has been appointed as the new Chief Justice of India (CJI) and will have a tenure of nearly 13 months. He will succeed Chief Justice J S Khehar, who will retire on August 27, 2017. Justice Misra is known for the judgment on Yakub Memon who made a last minute attempt to escape the gallows. He had rejected his plea for a stay on the death warrant. Memon was convicted in 1993 Mumbai blasts, in which 257 people were killed.

Notes:
Indian shooter Kynan Chenai from Hyderabad has won a bronze in men’s trap event at the 7th Asian Championship Shotgun at Astana, Kazakhstan on August 8, 2017. It was his first international medal at the senior level. So far, India has won two golds and a bronze in the competition. Before Chenai, Indian shooter Ankur Mittal clinched the individual as well as the team gold medal in men’s double trap in the championship. Mittal shot 71 in the six-man final to finish at the top of the podium. With scores of Sangram Dahiya (43) and Mohammad Asab (34) added to Mittal’s final total, India managed to bag the top prize in the team event also.

Notes:
The Gujarat government has recently issued a tender for power developers to receive cheap coal marked for the state in return for selling coal-based power at less than Rs 2.82 a unit. Through the auction, Gujarat will transfer the coal allocated to power generating stations owned by Gujarat State Electricity Corporation (GSECL) to more fuel-efficient private power plants. With this, Gujarat will become the India’s first state to implement coal utilisation between power units. The move is in line with the initiatives of the central government to ensure fuel availability to stressed power plants. The aim is to reduce the cost of fuel for financially ailing distribution companies and ensure effective distribution of domestic coal.