Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - January, 2018

Notes:
Ravi Menon, an Indian-origin banker in Singapore has been named as the best central bank governor in Asia-Pacific for 2018 by the leading UK-based magazine ‘The Banker’ for his contribution in the makeover of Singapore’s financial system. He is the managing director of Singapore’s central bank Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

Notes:
Peter Denis Sutherland (71), the former Director General (DG) of World Trade Organization (WTO), has passed away in Dublin, Ireland. Sutherland became the WTO’s first chief in 1995, having previously been head of its precursor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). He also served as Ireland’s youngest Attorney General and then youngest European Union (EU) commissioner during the 1980s.

Notes:
The Indravati Dam is a gravity dam on the Indravati River, about 90 km from Bhawanipatna in the state of Odisha. It is connected to the main Indravati reservoir via 4.32 km long and 7 m dia head race tunnel designed for a discharge capacity of 210 cumecs and terminating in a surge shaft. It is one of the largest Dam in India as well as Asia. Currently, it is the largest power producing dam in eastern India with a capacity of 600 MW.

Notes:
John Watts Young (87), the legendary astronaut who walked on the Moon and later commanded the first space shuttle flight, has passed away at Houston, United States on January 5, 2018. He became the 9th person to walk on the Moon as Commander of the Apollo 16 mission in 1972. Young enjoyed the longest career of any astronaut, becoming the first person to fly six space missions (with seven launches, counting his lunar liftoff) over the course of 42 years of active NASA service. He was the only spaceman to span NASA’s Gemini, Apollo and shuttle programs and became the first person to rocket away from Earth six times.

Notes:
Aanchal Thakur, a 21-year-old from Himachal Pradesh, has created history by becoming the first Indian to register an international medal in skiing. She clinched bronze in the slalom race category at Alpine Ejder 3200 Cup organised by Skiing’s international governing body, Federation International de Ski (FIS) at the Palandoken Ski Centre, in Erzurum in Turkey on January 9, 2018.

Notes:
The 34th Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival 2018 and the 3rd China International Ice and Snow Tourism Summit has officially started on January 5 in Harbin, capital of northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province. The festival mainly features ice and snow-themed scenic spots such as the world’s largest ice and snow park and a snow sculpture art expo as well as diverse ice and snow sports and entertainments. Statistics show that during the 33rd ice and snow festival the number of tourists received by Harbin stood at 18.49 million, up 12.2% year on year.

Notes:
The World Hindi Day (WHD) is observed every year on January 10 to mark the first anniversary of World Hindi Conference (WHC) which was held in 1975. The first WHC was inaugurated by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Apart from India, the language is also spoken in Nepal, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, Fiji and Mauritius. Apart from this, the National Hindi Divas (NHD) is celebrated every year in India on September 14 to mark the day on which the Constituent Assembly adopted Hindi written in Devanagari script as the Official Language of the Union.

Notes:
The Punjab government has rolled out e-Raktkosh web portal in all the 45 government blood banks. The web portal provides the guidelines and streamlines the workflow of blood blanks and storage centres across the nation and interconnects all blood banks with a single network. Brahm Mahindra, the State Health Minister, has stated that in the next phase all 59 private blood banks of the state will be linked with the e-Raktkosh application software.

Notes:
The Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya (IGRMS) is an anthropology museum to present an integrated story of the evolution of man and culture with special reference to India. It is located in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh and is also known as the National Museum of Humankind. This museum depicts the story of mankind in time and space. Prof. Sarit Kumar Chaudhuri is the current director-in-charge of IGRMS. The museum also has a regional centre for the South India region at Mysore in Karnataka.

Notes:
Anil Khanna, the Senior sports administrator, has been appointed the Chairman of newly formed Finance Commission by Indian Olympic Association (IOA). The IOA also formed a Medical Commission and Games Technical Conduct Committee and nominated office bearers of IOA and National Sports Federations (NSFs) to the Committees. The advisory committee comprises Tarlochan Singh, GS Mander, S Regunathan and BS Landge. The Khanna-led Finance Commission has Sahdev Yadav, Secretary General, Indian Weightlifting Federation and DK Singh, Secretary, Uttarakhand Olympic Association, as members.