Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - December, 2017

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.

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The annual meeting of World Economic Forum (WEF) 2018 will be held in Davos, Switzerland from January 22. In the 5-day event, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be the first Indian PM in 20 years to visit the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos. It was in 1997 when the then Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda had attended the event. More than 100 Indian CEOs along with the hot shots of Indian business diaspora, like Mukesh Ambani, Chanda Kochhar and Uday Kotak is expected to be present at the forum. The WEF is a Swiss non-profit foundation, based in Cologny, Geneva.

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India’s first home-grown high purity gold reference standard – the Bharatiya Nirdeshak Dravya (BND-4201) – was launched at the India Government Mint (IGM), Mumbai on December 24, 2017. The BND-4201 is the reference material for gold of ‘9999’ fineness (gold that is 99.99% pure) and will be beneficial to the consumers and public at large to ensure purity of gold. The high purity gold reference standard has been developed through collaboration between IGM, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre — National Centre for Compositional Characterisation of Materials (Hyderabad), and Council of Scientific & Industrial Research-National Physical Laboratory (New Delhi). The gold reference standard is indispensable in gold and jewellery hall marking. This will also be useful for Collection and Purity Testing Centres to certify the purity of gold deposits under the gold monetization scheme.

Notes:
Partha Mukhopadhyay (70), the veteran Bengali film actor , has passed away in Kolkata, West Bengal. He had portrayed a number of roles in Bengali classics like Atithi, Balika Badhu, Amar Prithivi, Baghbandir Khela, Agniswar and had made his mark as a character actor in 1970s and 1980s. He had the distinction of having acted in films helmed by renowned directors such as Tapan Sinha, Tarun Majumdar and Goutam Ghosh.

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The Government of India (GoI), the Government of Tamil Nadu and the World Bank (WB) has signed a $318 million loan agreement for the Tamil Nadu Irrigated Agriculture Modernization Project to promote climate resilient agriculture technologies, improve water management practices, and increase market opportunities for small and marginal farmers. About 500,000 farmers, of which majorities are small and marginal, are expected to benefit from improved and modernized tank irrigation systems.The project will rehabilitate and modernize about 4,800 irrigation tanks and 477 check dams, spread across 66 sub-basins, in delivering bulk water to irrigation systems. The $318 million loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) has a 5-year grace period and a maturity of 19 years.

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The world’s tallest and longest glass floor bridge has opened in Shijiazhuang, China to the public. The bridge stretches 488 meters long and two meters wide. It stands at 218 meters above the valley between two steep cliffs in Hongyagu Scenic Area in Pingshan County. It is made of 1,077 panes of transparent glass with each being four centimeters thick and weighs a total of 70 metric tons. The sky bridge is designed in a such a way that it swings a little when visitors walk to its center. As per reports, the bridge can support up to 2,000 people, however, only 500 people will be on it at one time.

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Bollywood actress Anushka Sharma has been named PETA’s Person of the Year 2017 for her efforts to help protect dogs from fireworks. She was also against the use of horses to pull carriages in Mumbai, Maharashtra. It was given by animal rights organisation People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

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Radha Mohan Singh, the Union Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Minister, has launched Livestock Disease Forewarning –Mobile Application (LDF-Mobile App) in New Delhi. It is developed by ICAR-National Institute of Veterinary Epidemiology and Disease Informatics (ICAR-NIVEDI), Bengaluru. This app will be beneficial for the consumers and stakeholders engaged in disease control programmes. Apart from early warning, the app will also provide information about clinical samples for the diagnosis in case of the epidemic so that immediate action in case of the epidemic. This app works on all kind of Android smartphones and takes up 2.5 MB space.

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Pluto Exchange will launch the India’s first bitcoin trading app for transacting in virtual currencies. The Pluto Exchange mobile app offers a solution to the coordination problem between payment processors, financial gateways and banks. Pluto Exchange will enable transactions using mobile numbers only. With this, by using a four-digit personal identification number (PIN), users can now buy, sell, store and spend bitcoins via a mobile number. The app would permit a range of transactions, including payments, remittances, business-to-business commerce, supply chain finance, asset management and trading.

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India has been ranked 5th on a list of countries with highest Non-performing Assets (NPA) levels and is on top spot among the BRICS nations, according to latest report by CARE Ratings. The NPA list is topped by Greece (36.4%) followed by Italy (16.4%), Portugal (15.5%) and Ireland (11.9%). All these countries, along with Spain, are commonly referred to as PIIGS, and have been victims of sovereign debt crises in recent years. Spain is ranked at 7th spot below India and Russia. At 9.85%, India’s NPA ratio is 400 points higher than that of Spain’s. The CARE ratings report was compiled in four categories, including low, very low, medium, and high level of NPAs. With NPA ratio of just 1%, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Republic of Korea and the United Kingdom were listed in the first category, while China, Germany, Japan, and the USA – with less than 2% of NPA – was listed in the second category. Growing economies like Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa and Turkey were listed in the third category.