Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - February, 2018

Notes:
The Assam government will observe September 22 as ‘Rhino Day’ to generate public awareness on protection of the one-horned pachyderm. It was officially declared at the 10th meeting of the State Board for Wildlife, which was chaired by Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal. The day will be exclusively dedicated to the approximately 2,500 rhino population in the state would be a tribute to the rhinoceros, which are the “pride of Assam”. The state government will soon launch the State Rhino Project in line with National Rhino Project in Assam for protecting the pachyderms from threats of poaching.

Notes:
The Jawahar Sagar Dam is a dam across the Chambal River. It is situated about 24 km (15 mi) south-west of Kota, Rajasthan. The dam has a catchment area of 27, 195 km ² and provides relief to the people of the area during times of severe water shortage. It is one of the dams which have been built under the Chambal Valley project of State of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. The dam also produces 99 MW (3×33 MW) of hydropower.

Notes:
The Tamil Nadu government has tied up with Microsoft to accelerate cloud technology adoption. The partnership aims to reform education sector, build tech capacity and enhance digital literacy across all levels. As a part of the agreement, Microsoft will adopt 7 schools identified by the government and train their teachers and students around building 21st century skills which includes critical thinking, creative coding and gaming, app development, robotics, and entrepreneurship. It will also offer its Microsoft Innovative Educator Program to all educators in primary, secondary, vocational and tertiary education across the state. Additionally, the company will train and provide a digital literacy certification District Education Officers (DEOs) in Tamil Nadu. 

Notes:
Uma Bharti, the Union Minister of Drinking Water and Sanitation, has launched the 2nd project of Swajal Yojana at village Bhikampura, Karauli, Rajasthan with a budget of more than Rs 54.17 lakh. Besides ensuring the availability of clean drinking water to every household round the year, the project would also generate employment. Swajal is a community owned drinking water programme for sustained drinking water supply. Under the scheme, 90% of the project cost will be taken care by the Government and the remaining 10% of the project cost will be contributed by the community. The Operations and management of the project will be taken care by the local villagers.

Notes:
The Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) has signed a MoU with the Regional Center for Science and Technology Transfer (RCSTT) of Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) for designating Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, Lucknow (CSIR-CIMAP) as Coordinating Center on Medicinal Plants. The IORA Center at CSIR-CIMAP will establish a database on the important medicinal plants, their value added products, related experts and industries of the IORA member states and organize meetings and training programmes to promote trade, commerce and scientific exchanges to complement the strength and limitation of the member states. The IORA is an association of 21 countries and 7 dialogue partners which have identified 6 areas of cooperation including medicinal plants.

Notes:
The Central institute of Psychiatry is one of the premier training centers in India for mental health professionals. It is directly governed by the Government of India and is located in Kanke, Ranchi in Jharkhand.

Notes:
The National Science Day (NSD) is observed every year on February 28 to mark the discovery of Raman effect by Physicist CV Raman on 28th February, 1928. The purpose of the day is to spread the message of importance of science and its application among the people. The theme of NSD-2018 is “Science and Technology for a Sustainable Future”, which has been chosen for the purpose of raising public appreciation of the scientific issues involved.

Notes:
Television journalist Rahul Mahajan has been appointed as the new editor-in-chief of the television channel Rajya Sabha TV. He is currently a consulting editor in Prasar Bharati. Mahajan has been a journalist for 26 years, starting off with Hindi daily ‘Jansatta’. He later branched out to television news. He worked with leading Hindi television channels such as Aaj Tak, Zee News and Star News.

Notes:
The Karnataka cricket team has won the 2018 Vijay Hazare trophy after defeating Saurashtra in the final by 41 runs at the Feroz Shah Kotla, Delhi on February 27. With this, It has won the Vijay Hazare trophy 3 times. During the tournament, Karnataka’s Mayank Agarwal scored 723 runs and won the Player of the match award. Beside this, Mohammed Siraj from Hyderabad took 23 wickets in the tournament.

Notes:
Moody’s Investors Service has recently estimated India’s GDP growth forecast for year 2018 & 2019. In it, it has kept the GDP growth forecast for India in the calendar year 2018 unchanged at 7.6 % and for 2019 at 7.5 %, amid signs of economic recovery from the negative impact of demonetisation and disruption caused by GST roll out. In its global growth forecasts for 2018 and 2019, Moody’s said the Budget for fiscal year beginning April 1 (2018-19) includes some measures to stabilize rural economy that was disproportionately hit by scrapping of high denomination 500 and 1000 rupee notes.