Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - August, 2017

Notes:
India and United States (US) will co-host the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES-2017) at Hyderabad from November 28-30, 2017. The summit is a unique opportunity for bringing together entrepreneurs and start ups with global leaders. It will promote economic growth, inclusion and opportunities among entrepreneurs from across the world, with a special focus on emerging nations from Africa and Asia.

Notes:
The Grizzled Squirrel Wildlife Sanctuary (GSWS) is located in Virudhunagar and Madurai districts of Tamil Nadu and covers an area 485.2 sq Kms. Over 240+ species of birds are seen in this sanctuary including 14 species of birds endemic to the Western Ghats, such as the critically endangered Oriental white-backed vulture and the long-billed vulture. In addition to grizzled giant squirrels, the sanctuary is home to numerous animals such as barking deer, bonnet macaque, common langur, elephants, flying squirrels, gaur, Indian giant squirrel, leopard, lion-tailed macaques, mouse deer, Nilgiri langur and Nilgiri Tahrs. There are over 220 species of butterflies including many rare and endemic species. Some of the rare butterflies spotted here include Eversheds ace , Silver royal , Orange awlet , Hampsons hedge blue , etc.

Notes:
Vijay Nambisan (54), the well-known poet, writer and journalist of India writing in English, has passed away on August 10, 2017. He was the first-ever All India Poetry Champion in 1988 for his poem Madras Central. He co-authored a book of poems ‘Gemini’ with Dom Moraes and Jeet Thayil. Nambisan passionately championed the ethical use of language and made an appeal to readers, writers and enthusiasts of literature in his monumental book ‘Language as an Ethic’. His poetry served keen observations about politics — both internal and external — with gentle wit, often directed at himself.

Notes:
Yisrael Kristal (113), the world’s oldest man who lived through both World Wars, has passed away in Haifa, Israel on August 11, 2017. He was officially recognised as the world’s oldest man by the Guinness Book of Records in March 2016. Kristal, a Polish-Israeli supercentenarian, became the world’s oldest recognized Holocaust survivor in 2014 and the world’s oldest man in 2016.

Notes:
The Orang National Park (ONP) is located on the north bank of the Brahmaputra River in the Darrang and Sonitpur districts of Assam and covers an area of 78.81 square kilometers. The park has a rich flora and fauna, including great Indian one-horned rhinoceros, pigmy hog, elephants, wild buffalo and tigers. It is the only stronghold of rhinoceros on the north bank of the Brahmaputra river.

Notes:
The International Maritime Search and Rescue Exercise (IMMSAREX) will be chaired by Bangladesh at the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS) in the Bay of Bengal in November 2017. The ships and aircraft of the members and observers of the IONS including China, India and Pakistan will participate in the exercise. The IONS is a regional forum of Indian Ocean littoral states, represented by their Navy chiefs, launched by India in February 2008. It presently has 23 members and nine observers.

Notes:
Sankara Rao has been appointed as the new Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the India Infrastructure Finance Company Limited (IIFCL). According to an order issued by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) has approved his appointment to the post for a period of 3 years. Currently, he is the Chief General Manager at IIFCL. Rao is also currently a director and chief executive officer at IIFCL Asset Management Company Ltd.

Notes:
Preethi Srinivasan, the former State under-19 cricket captain, has bestowed with the 2017 Kalpana Chawla Award for courage and daring enterprise from Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami during the 71st Independence Day celebrations at Fort St. George in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Beside her, the Government of Tamil Nadu has also awarded S.P. Thyagarajan with the APJ Abdul Kalam award for discovering a patented drug to treat hepatitis B.

Notes:
India will host the next steering committee meeting of the proposed 1,814 kilometre-long Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline in New Delhi. The decision was taken during the 6th joint Inter-Governmental Committee (IGC) meeting on trade, economic, scientific and technological cooperation. The benefit of the TAPI project is that it will give an opportunity to India to secure its interest in Central Asia. The project’s success will also ensure that India, Pakistan and Afghanistan find ways of cooperating on other issues as well.

Notes:
S Paul (88), the veteran photographer, has passed away in New Delhi on August 16, 2017. He was a self-taught photographer who discovered his passion for the art as a teenager. He joined The Indian Express in the 1960s and retired from the newspaper in 1989. Paul received recognition and fame as a professional photographer when his pictures were selected for publication in three renowned British publications — Amateur Photographer, Miniature Camera and Miniature Camera World. B&W Magazine of US had described him as ‘The Henry Cartier-Bresson of India’. Apart from other recognitions, Paul was the first Indian to be profiled by The British Journal of Photography in 1967. He was the first Indian to win the Nikon International Photo Contest in 1971. Paul was born on 19 August, 1929 in Jhang, Pakistan. He moved to India after Partition and his family shifted to Shimla. His younger brother, Raghu Rai, is also a renowned photographer