Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - August, 2017

Notes:
The International Youth Day (IYD) is observed every year on August 12 to draw attention to a given set of cultural and legal issues surrounding youth. The 2017 theme is “Youth Building Peace”, which recognizes the contributions of young people to preventing conflict, supporting inclusion, social justice, and sustainable peace.

Notes:
Milkha Singh, the legendary athlete, has been appointed as the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Goodwill Ambassador for physical activity in the South-East Asia Region (SEAR). As goodwill ambassador, he will promote WHO SEAR’s Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) prevention and control action plan which seeks to reduce the level of insufficient physical activity by 10% and NCDs by 25% by 2025. Milkha Singh, also known as ‘the Flying Sikh’, is a Padma Shri awardee and had won medals in athletics in Commonwealth and Asian games.

Notes:
India’s first-ever railways disaster management centre is expected to come up near Bengaluru, Karnataka by 2018 and will be used to replicate train accidents to improve rescue operation efforts. It will also have a virtual reality centre for analyzing railway accidents. The focus is on imparting state-of-the-art training on rescue, medical relief and rolling stock restoration techniques in a classroom and also using various simulated teaching aids. Though, it is the practical reproduction of accidents on site and the ensuing rescue operations that are being touted as the big ticket venture.

Notes:
Melbourne has been declared the world’s most liveable city for the 7th consecutive year by The Economist’s annual global liveability survey, despite soaring housing costs and serious congestion challenges. The annual survey assesses 140 cities and ranks them according to their stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure. Others in the 10 most liveable cities in the world include Vienna (3rd), followed by Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary, Adelaide, Perth, Auckland, Helsinki and Hamburg. As per the survey, the least liveable city was Damascus at 140th place, followed by Lagos (139), Tripoli (138), Dhaka (137), Port Moresby (136), Algiers (135), Karachi (134), Harare (133), Douala (132) and Kiev (131).

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:
The Government of India (GoI) has signed Global Environment Facility (GEF) Grant Agreement with the World Bank (WB) for $24.64 million for Ecosystems Service Improvement Project (ESIP). The project is entirely be financed by the World Bank out of its GEF Trust Fund. The project’s duration is 05 years. The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) will implement the Project in the States of Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh through Indian Council of Forestry Research & Education under the National Mission for Green India. The purpose of the Project is to strengthen the institutional capacity of the Departments of Forestry and Community Organisations to enhance forest ecosystem services and improve the livelihoods of forest dependent communities in Central Indian Highlands.

Notes:
Tata Power has become the first power utility to introduce a QR code based bill payments system in India. The QR code linked to Unified Payments Interface (UPI) will be printed on the electricity bills. The customers can scan the QR code with BHIM app or any other UPI linked bank app and pay their bills without any hassle. The bill details will be displayed on the app, post which the customer can authorise the payment within a few seconds and his bill will be paid instantaneously. Some of the advantages of QR code service are that the consumer need not visit any Tata Power bill collection/ customer relation centre or any other payment avenues and can make the payment from the comfort of his home/office or on-the-go. The Tata Power Company Limited is an Indian electric utility company based in Mumbai, Maharashtra and is part of the Tata Group.

Notes:
Dr. Mamta Suri has taken charge as Executive Director of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) in New Delhi on August 16, 2017. Before joining IBBI, Dr. Suri was serving as Chief General Manager, Insurance Regulatory Development Authority of India (IRDAI). The IBBI is the regulator for overseeing insolvency proceedings and entities like Insolvency Professional Agencies (IPA), Insolvency Professionals (IP) and Information Utilities (IU) in India. Madhusudan Sahoo is the current chairman of the organization.

Notes:
Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao has been selected for the prestigious National Agriculture Leadership Award-2017 by the Indian Council of Food and Agriculture (ICFA) under the chairmanship of well known agriculture scientist Prof MS Swaminathan. Rao. The Chief Minister has been selected for the award for his innovative services rendered to the welfare of farmers and the farm sector. The award will be presented on September 5, 2017 at Taj Palace Hotel in New Delhi.

Notes:
Para Athlete Devendra Jhajharia and Hockey player Sardar Singh have been selected for the 2017 Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award. Cricketer Cheteshwar Pujara, Women Cricketer Harmanpreet Kaur and shooter P. N. Prakash are among the 17 sportsmen who will be given Arjuna Awards for their outstanding performance. Seven persons have been chosen for Dronacharya Awards for producing medal winners at prestigious International sports events. They include late Dr. R. Gandhi in Athletics, Brij Bhushan Mohanty in Boxing and P.A. Raphel in the field of hockey. Dhyan Chand Award will be given to Bhupender Singh in Athletics, Syed Shahid Hakim in Football and Sumarai Tete in Hockey for their life time contribution to sports development.The awardees will receive their awards from the President Ram Nath Kovind in a special function at Rashtrapati Bhawan on August 29, 2017.