Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - July, 2018

Notes:
The Government of India (GoI) has given ‘In-Principle’ approval for construction and operation of LIGO-India (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory in India) Laboratory in Hingoli District of Maharashtra. The LIGO-India Observatory is scheduled to be operational in 2024 in collaboration with the LIGO Laboratory in United States. This is the 3rd observatory identical to two other LIGO observatories in USA: Hanford ( Washington) and Livingston ( Louisiana). Regarding to this, a MoU was signed between DAE-DST of India and National Science Foundation of USA in March 2016. This information was provided by Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Development of North-Eastern Region (DoNER), Dr Jitendra Singh in written reply to a question in Lok Sabha on 18th of July 2018.

Notes:
On July 19, the Elphinstone Road station on the suburban rail network of Mumbai has been rechristened as Prabhadevi station in honour of a local deity Prabhadevi and to erase a “colonial” name. The new nomenclature of the station will be PBHD. The station was named after Lord Elphinstone who had taken over as the then Governor of Bombay in 1853 (1853-1860), the year railways were introduced in India. The deity Prabhadevi also has its own importance as the area is locally known as Prabhadevi, after the temple that was first established by Raja Bhimdev in 13th century.

Notes:
Repco Micro Finance Ltd (RMFL), a non-banking finance company promoted by Repco Bank, has won the 2018 NABARD award for its service to Self-Help Group (SHG) linkage in Tamil Nadu for the fiscal year 2017-18. Since its inception, the NBFC has disbursed loans amounting to Rs 2,500 crore to over 10 lakh beneficiaries through 50,000 SHGs.

Notes:
According to the Public Affairs Index (PAI) for 2018, Kerala stands as the best-governed state in the country, followed by Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Karnataka and Gujarat. Apart from this, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Odisha ranked the lowest on the index, indicating higher social and economic inequalities. The Bengaluru-based think tank Public Affairs Centre (PAC ) has been releasing the index annually since 2016 and ranks the states according to their socio-economic development. The think tank PAC was founded in 1994 by renowned Indian economist and scholar late Samuel Paul. It works to mobilize a demand for better governance in the country.

Notes:
On July 22, the official mascots for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games have been unveiled during a ceremony in the Japanese capital Tokyo. The Olympic mascot “Miraitowa” is a blue-checked pointy-eared figure, which fuses the Japanese words ‘mirai’, which means future, and ‘towa’, which means eternity. Its Paralympic counterpart “Someity” is derived from a type of cherry blossom ‘Somei-yoshino’. It is represented as a pink-checked and wears a cape and is sounds similar to English phrase “So mighty”. The Tokyo Olympics are schedule to run from July 24 to August 9, 2020. The Paralympics will take place between August 25 and September 6.

Notes:
On July 22, Typhoon Ampil hit Chinese financial hub Shanghai that brought heavy rainfall and disrupted transport and shipping. More than 600 flights from the city’s two airports were cancelled and high-speed rail services also impacted. The National Meteorological Centre stated that the typhoon first hit the island of Chongming, 45 km east of the city, with winds of up to 100kmh near its eye. As per reports, the city had already relocated 190,000 people from coastal areas. It said that Shanghai Tower, the tallest building in China, has suspended rooftop sightseeing. In neighbouring Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces, more than 42,500 people were relocated. More than 28,000 ships, including 22,900 fishing boats, have returned to port in Zhejiang.

Notes:
The NITI Aayog has signed Statement of Intent (SoI) with Lupin Foundation to collaborate in Aspirational Districts Programme. The purpose of the programme is to improve indicators in education, health and nutrition, financial inclusion and skill development, agriculture and water resources, and basic infrastructure in Aspirational Districts of India. As per the terms of the SoI, Lupin Foundation, with the NITI Aayog, will work in 3 states – Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan – to facilitate the creation of an ideal template to develop economic strength, technological viability and moral leadership across three districts in these states as part of Phase I of the cooperation. The phase I of this cooperation with NITI Aayog will focus on the districts of Dholpur in Rajasthan, Nandurbar in Maharashtra and Vidisha in Madhya Pradesh, and help develop a comprehensive district-level action plan with integrates various initiatives and interventions.

Notes:
The Andhra Pradesh government has launched ‘e-Pragati core initiative’ at Undavalli to provide integrated services to citizens. The aim of the digital initiative is to connect citizen to 34 departments, 336 autonomous organisations and 745-plus government services. In simple words, e-Pragati will act as a platform to connect all departments and stand alone to resolve the issues. As of now, the initiative offers around 20 services and 100 more will be added by the year-end. The e-Pragati authority will achieve the goals of the project by supporting the seven development missions launched in the areas of e-Governance, Social Empowerment, Skill Development, Urban Development, Infrastructure, Industrial Development and the Services sector. Through this project, the State government intends to realise the vision of ‘Sunrise AP 2022’.

Notes:
On July 23, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik released the first-ever tribal atlas of Odisha — a set of maps and statistics – to highlight the tribal demography of the state. The atlas has been brought out utilising the data of Census 2011 and other relevant statistics, which is said to be the first of its kind in the country. The atlas has been prepared by the SC & ST Research and Training Institute in collaboration with Academy of Tribal Language and Culture. It has been edited by Prof A B Ota, director of SC & ST Research Institute, and reviewed by development commissioner R Balakrishnan. The atlas displays the salient features of tribal population of Odisha with a series of maps, charts and diagrams. It contains 60 plates pf maps along with corresponding graphs and diagrams which portray the distributional aspects of the Odisha’s tribal population, ecological setting of the tribal habitats, their socio-cultural attributes such as linguistic/dialectical affinity, sex composition and literary levels.

Notes:
On July 23, the Lok Sabha passed the Negotiable Instruments (Amendment) Bill, 2017 that allows a court hearing a cheque bounce case to direct the drawer — the person who wrote the cheque — to pay interim compensation to the person who filed the complaint. The interim compensation, to be paid within 60 days of the court’s order, can be up to 20% of the value of the cheque. The court may direct the payee to repay the interim compensation, with interest, if the drawer is acquitted. Now , the bill will go to the Rajya Sabha for its nod. If bill gets Parliament’s nod, it will preserve the sanctity of cheque transactions by stopping the practice of people trying to deliberately delay cases through filing of appeals and obtaining stay a on proceedings. The bill, which amends the Negotiable Instruments Act 1881, is aimed to reduce the number of cheque dishonour cases pending in courts.