Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - August, 2017

Notes:
Uhuru Kenyatta, the current President of Kenya, has officially declared the winner of the 2017 Kenya Presidential election amid allegations of voting fraud by the opposition. According to official figures released by the country’s electoral commission, Kenyatta secured 54.27% of the ballots cast, while his rival, Raila Odinga, won 44.74%.

Notes:
Gerish Khemani and Akshat Nigam have won The Hindu Playwright Award 2017 for their play ‘In Search of Dariya Sagar’ at the 13th edition of The Hindu Theatre Fest in Mumbai. ‘In Search of Dariya Sagar’ is a play that brings together public events and private lives, political history and personal memory, in a manner that resonates both the real and the magical. The Rs 2 lakh award, instituted in 2008 to reward the best new unpublished and unperformed play-script in English.

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 Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has recently approved the proposal of Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) for the strategic disinvestment. The approval will help in speedy completion of strategic disinvestment transactions. The department will set up an alternative mechanism comprising of the Finance Minister, Minister for Road Transport and Highways and Minister of Administrative Department, to decide on the matters relating to terms and conditions of the sale from the stage of inviting of Express of Interests till inviting of financial bid. It will also empower the Core Group of Secretaries to take policy decisions with regard to procedural issues and to consider deviations as necessary from time to time for effective implementation of decisions of CCEA.

Notes:
The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has conferred the ‘best performance award’ for 2015-16 and 2016-17 to Karnataka Vikas Grameen Bank (KVGB) for its work in the field of credit-linking joint liability groups (JLGs). The KVGB is sponsored by syndicate bank.

Notes:
Sohail Mahmoodm, the senior diplomat, has taken charge as the new Pakistan’s high commissioner to India. He succeeded Abdul Basit. The High Commission of Pakistan in New Delhi is the diplomatic mission of Pakistan in India. Prior to this, Mahmood served as Pakistan’s ambassador in Turkey.

Notes:
The Parambikulam Tiger Reserve (PTR) is a protected area located in Chittur taluk in Palakkad district of Kerala and covers an area of 391 square kilometers. It is alos home to lion-tailed macaques, Nilgiri tahr, elephants, Bengal tigers, Indian leopards, Nilgiri marten small Travancore flying squirrel, etc. According to recently conducted tiger census at the regional level in 2016, there are 33 tigers in Periyar reserve and 25 in Parambikulam reserve respectively, which is informed by the Forest Minister K Raju in the state assembly on August 18, 2017. It must be noted that as per a tiger census conducted at the national level in 2010, considered as authoritative figure, there were 38 tigers in Parambikulam spread over 643 sq feet area and 34 in Periyar that covers an area of 925 sq feet.

Notes:
Arun Jaitley, the Union Minister of Finance, Defense and Corporate Affairs, was the Chief Guest at the National Conference on ” Insolvency and Bankruptcy: Changing Paradigm”, which was held at Mumbai on August 19, 2017. Besides inaugurating the conference, Jaitley also launched the website for National federation for corporate governance. The one-day National Conference is being jointly organized by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA), National Foundation for Corporate Governance (NFCG) and Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) to facilitate the better understanding of intricacies of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC)- 2016, share the experiences gained during the initial nine months and also discuss the challenges that need to be overcome.

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.