Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - December, 2017

Notes:
Billionaire conservative Sebastian Pinera has won the 2017 presidential election of Chile on December 17, 2017. With 98.44% of the ballots counted, Pinera had won 54.57% in the run-off vote, to 45.43% for senator Guillier, a wider than expected margin in a race that pollsters had predicted would be tight. Pinera has pledged support and stable funding for Chile’s state-run miner Codelco , and has promised to slash red tape which had bogged down projects under Bachelet.

Notes:
The Gautam Budha Wildlife Sanctuary (GBWS) is a wildlife sanctuary located in Gaya district of Bihar state and Koderma district of Jharkhand state in east-central India. The sanctuary covers an area of 259 square kilometres. It is home to tigers, leopards, wolves, sloth bears, chitals, chinkaras, and many species of birds.

Notes:
Recently, Indian junior boxers had clinched total 11 Medals (six gold, four silver and a bronze medal) at the fifth International Sven Lange Memorial Tournament, to finish as overall champions in the German city of Schwerin. Bhavesh Kattamani (52kg) picked up the best boxer trophy along with his gold medal. In the three-day tournament, the other gold-medallists for India were Vijeydeep (63kg), Akshay (60kg), Ish Pannu (70kg), Lakshay Chahar (80kg) and Vinit (75kg). The performance of these boxers also earned them the ‘Best Team’ of the tournament award.

Notes:
Project ‘Mausam’ is the initiative of Ministry of Culture to be implemented by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) as the nodal agency with research support of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) and National Museum as associate bodies. This project aims to explore the multi-faceted Indian Ocean ‘world’ – collating archaeological and historical research in order to document the diversity of cultural, commercial and religious interactions in the Indian Ocean. The main purpose of the project is to inscribe places and sites identified under Project Mausam as trans-national nomination for inscription on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. Till date, 39 countries have been identified under Project Mausam viz. Bahrain, Bangladesh, Iran, Pakistan, Somalia, Turkey, Vietnam, Yemen, UAE, Thailand, South Africa, etc.

Notes:
Mamang Dai, Itanagar-based author and journalist, has won the 2017 Sahitya Akademi Award in English language for her 2014 novel “The Black Hill”. The novel gives innate descriptions of the life of the tribal people of north east India from the yester years, interweaving their lives with fiction and history. It is the story of Gimur, a girl from the Abor tribe who runs away with Kajinsha of the Mishmee tribe. Their tale of love is painted with the mid-19th century Northeast India as the background. It had also brought in missionaries, one of them being Father Nicolas Krick, a Jesuit priest who wanted to carry his mission to Tibet. ‘The Black Hill’ is a richly imagined story descriptively created around two recorded historical events – this French priest’s mysterious disappearance and the execution of Kajinsha for his murder. The award in the form of a casket containing an engraved copper-plaque, a shawl and a cheque of Rs 1 lakh will be presented to the author at a special function on February 2018.

Notes:
Manoj Sinha, the union minister of communications, has launched project “DARPAN – The Digital Advancement of Rural Post Office for A New India” in New Delhi on December 21, 2017. The project has an outlay of Rs 1400 crore and intends to provide a low power technology solution to each Branch Postmaster (BPM). This will enable each of approximately 1.29 lakhs branch post offices to improve service delivery. DARPAN offers core banking services to the account holders. The project will improve the quality of service, add value to services and achieve financial inclusion of un-banked rural population. It is targeted to complete the project by March 2018.

Notes:
The United Kingdom (UK) has topped the Forbes’ rankings of best countries in the world for business in 2018. It is the first time this country has taken the top spot in the Forbes 12th annual survey after rising from 5th in 2016. The UK scored well on technology plus the size and education of the workforce although ‘political risk’ was seen as the weakest point. The list ranks 153 countries on 15 factors including property rights, innovation, taxes and red tape. New Zealand ranked second overall for the third straight year, followed by Sweden and Canada. India was ranked 62nd on the list.

Notes:
The 32nd Indian Engineering Congress (IEC-2017) was held in Chennai, Tamil Nadu from December 21 to 23, 2017. President Ram Nath Kovind gave valedictory address at the IEC-2017, which was organised by the Institution of Engineers. The congress offered great opportunity to young engineers to benefit from the experience of experts & veterans from industry, research institutions and institutions of higher academic excellence.

Notes:
The National Farmer’s Day (NFD), popularly known as Kisan Diwas, is celebrated every year in India on December 23 to acknowledge the role of farmers in India’s socio-economic development and to mark the birth anniversary of 5th Prime Minister Late Chaudhary Charan Singh. He used to be referred to as the ‘champions of India’s peasants’ for his strive for the betterment of farmer’s lives in the country.

Notes:
Jairam Thakur, the 5-time BJP MLA , has been sworn-in as the new Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh after he was elected as the leader of the BJP legislature party on Sunday. Thakur is a MLA from Seraj in Mandi district. In the recent 2017 election, the BJP ousted the Congress from power by winning 44 out of the 68 seats.