Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - August, 2017

Notes:
India’s first helicopter-taxi (heli-taxi) service will be started in Bengaluru, Karnataka for those who cannot afford to spend time battling traffic to travel across the city. The Kempegowda International Airport will become the first airport in India to have this facility. The service will be operated by Thumby Aviation Private Limited and is expected to take off within three months. Initially, the helicopter service will be operated between Bengaluru’s Kempegowda International Airport and the Electronics City area. The travel time will be cut down to 15 minutes instead of the two hours taken by road.

Notes:
The ISRO and NASA are jointly working on the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission to co-develop and launch a dual frequency (L & S Band) synthetic aperture radar satellite. This earth monitoring satellite is scheduled to be launched in 2021. In this joint mission, NASA will be responsible for design and development of L-band SAR, 12m un-furlable antenna, GPS system and data recorder. ISRO will be responsible for design and development of S-band SAR, Spacecraft Bus, data transmission system, Spacecraft integration and testing, launch using GSLV and on-orbit operations. It is the first big collaboration between NASA and ISRO.

Notes:
Recently, the Union Government has merged National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) with the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPRD) to improve administrative efficiency and optimal utilisation of resources related to policing. The BPRD Director General (DG) will be the head of the merged new entity, where the NCRB Director, an Additional DG rank post will report to the former. The BPRD is the national police organisation to study, research and develop on subjects and issues related to policing. The headquarters of BPRD is located in New Delhi.

Notes:
Amazon India has recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Telangana Department of Handloom and Textiles to educate, train and enable weavers and artisans to directly sell their products to Amazon customers across the country. Amazon India will not only provide an online marketplace for marketing but will also engage with weavers and artisans across the state to train them on making the products more attractive, appealing and marketable across the online domain. The partnership also intends to empower and generate livelihood opportunities and income for the artisans and boost their economy

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:
The 2017 India – ASEAN Youth summit will be held in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh from August 14 to 19, 2017 with theme ‘Shared values, common destiny’. This event is being organized in collaboration with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Secretariat and the India Foundation. Over 100 delegates from 10 ASEAN countries – Brunei, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam – will participate in the summit. This forum will enhance people-to-people contacts between India and ASEAN countries.

Notes:
India shooter Shapath Bhardwaj (15) from Merrut has become the India’s youngest athlete to be named in the Union Government’s Target Olympic Podium (TOP) scheme. He is among 45 elite athletes, including Olympic medallists PV Sindhu, Sakshi Malik and Saina Nehwal, to be selected for the scheme. The TOP scheme elite athletes identification committee, which is chaired by ace shooter and Olympic gold medallist Abhinav Bindra, selected the athletes after evaluating their performance in relation to the international standard. The purpose of the TOP committee is to identify and support potential medal prospects for 2020 and 2024 Olympic Games under the TOP scheme.

Notes:
‘Rayichapalu’ has been officially declared as one of the rarest species of fish in the world by the researchers from the Marine Living Resources Department of Andhra University. The fish is a regular catch for fishermen in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh. It is a colourful fish which is around 97mm in length and lives near the reefs. The researchers stated that this fish has a unique colour pattern with spectacular diamond shaped bands. Reportedly, it is the only fifth fish in this category of size. Now, the tiny colourful fish will have the scientific name ‘Pseudathias Vizagensis’, after the city where it was first discovered.

Notes:
The Keoladeo National Park (KNP) is located in the Bharatpur district of Rajasthan. It is home to Nilgai, feral cattle, chital deer, wild boar, Indian porcupine, etc. The park is famous avifauna sanctuary that hosts thousands of birds, especially during the winter season. The reserve protects Bharatpur from frequent floods, provides grazing grounds for village cattle, and earlier was primarily used as a waterfowl hunting ground.

Notes:
Rinku Hooda (18) from India has won silver in the F46 javelin throw event at the World U-20 Para Athletics Championships in Nottwil, Switzerland on August 7, 2017. He got disabled as a three-year-old when his left arm got stuck in a paddy-sowing machine. He won his first national level medal in 2013 during a para nationals meet at the Rajiv Gandhi stadium in Rohtak.