Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - February, 2018

Notes:
The 44th Khajuraho Dance Festival 2018 will be held at the temple town in Chhatarpur district on February 20. The fest is being organised by the culture department of the Madhya Pradesh government. The 6-day fest will showcase classical dances including Kathak, Odissi, Bharatnatyam, Kuchipudi, Kathakali and Mohiniattam. This year, the Art Mart (which is part of the festival) would showcase paintings of international artists from Germany, France and China among other countries. During the festival, dances are performed in an open- air auditorium, usually in front of the Chitragupta Temple dedicated to the Sun God and the Vishwanatha Temple dedicated to Lord Shiva. The temples at Khajuraho, built by the Chandela dynasty between 950 AD and 1050 AD, are world-wide known for their erotic.

Notes:
Didier Lockwood (62), the noted French jazz violinist, has passed away in Paris on February 18, 2018. He was known for his use of electric amplification and experimentation on different sounds on the electric violin. Lockwood was a disciple of the late Stephane Grappelli.

Notes:
The Kallanai dam is an ancient dam, which is built across the Kaveri river in Tiruchirapalli district in Tamil Nadu. It is the 4th-oldest water-diversion or water-regulator structures in the world and the oldest in India which is still in use. Originally, the dam was constructed by the Chola king Karikalan in 2nd century AD.

Notes:
Roger Federer, a Swiss professional tennis player, has won the 2018 Rotterdam Open men’s singles tennis tournament by defeating Grigor Dimitrov in the final by 6-2-6-2 in Rotterdam, Netherlands. It was his 97th career title. This was Federer’s 3rd title in Rotterdam following successes in 2005 and 2012. In the Open era, only American Jimmy Connors has won more titles than Federer, with 109.

Notes:
The University Grants Commission (UGC) has recently constituted a four-member Empowered Expert Committee (EEC), which is being entrusted to conduct the appraisal of applications for short listing 20 Institutions of Eminence. N Gopalaswami, former Chief Election Commissioner of India is the Chairperson of the committee. The government is likely to announce the names of the selected institutions by April 2018. The committee was constituted by the UGC after the approval of the central government, as per the UGC (Institutions of Eminence Deemed to be Universities) Regulation, 2017, and UGC (Declaration of Government Educational Institutions as Institutions of Eminence) Guidelines, 2017.

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has constituted a new 5-member expert Committee under the chairmanship of Y H Malegam, a former member of the Central Board of Directors of RBI, to look into the reasons for wide divergence by banks in asset classification and provisioning by banks and measures to prevent frauds. The committee will also look into the issue of huge non-performing asset divergences — between what banks classify and what is detected in RBI inspection — and recommend steps to address the issue. The other members of the committee are Bharat Doshi, S. Raman and Nandkumar Saravade. A.K. Misra, Executive Director of RBI, will be the Member-Secretary of the committee.

Notes:
Flying officer Avani Chaturvedi from Madhya Pradesh has scripted history by becoming the first Indian woman to fly a fighter aircraft solo. She flew a MiG-21 bison in her first solo sortie from IAF’s Jamnagar base in Gujarat on February 19. She is one of the three in the first batch of female pilots, besides Bhawana Kanth and Mohana Singh, who were inducted in Indian Air Force fighter squadron in 2016. They were commissioned as flying officers after the government took the decision in 2015 to open the fighter stream for women on an experimental basis in three women pilots had undergone strenuous training programme to fly fighter jets. The IAF has already selected the next batch of three women trainee pilots for the fighter stream.

Notes:
Kunhiraman Panoor (84), the renowned author and human rights activist, has passed away in Kannur, Kerala on February 20, 2018. He was known for his work ‘Keralathile Africa’, in which he portrayed the ill-fated, slavish lives of Kerala tribals. He had won the Kerala Sahithya Akademi award for comprehensive contribution in 2006.

Notes:
India and France will co-host will co-host the first International Solar Alliance (ISA) summit at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi on 11th March 2018, where at least 10 heads of state are expected to be present. The ISA will see representation from over 120 countries and multilateral bodies like the United Nations, World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB). The ISA is a treaty-based international body for promotion of solar energy in alliance with 121 countries, which are lying fully or partially between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. The summit would discuss various projects being prepared by different countries in areas including rural electrification, off grid solar, water supply and irrigation.

Notes:
The Government of India (GoI) has contributed 1 million aid for the rehabilitation efforts in kingdom of Tonga after the Tropical Cyclone Gita caused massive destruction in the Pacific island nation. India has allocated 500,000 in the India-UN Development Partnership Fund for the rehabilitation efforts while $500,000 will be provided for immediate relief assistance. The India-UN Development Partnership Fund is supported and led by the Government of India (GoI) and managed by the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation. The Fund supports Southern-owned and led, demand-driven, transformational sustainable development projects across the developing world, with a focus on least developed countries and Small Island developing states. The United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that the Category 4 cyclone was the worst on record to hit Tonga.