Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - July, 2018

Notes:
Punjab shot-putter Dhanvir Singh set the new record at the 15th National Youth Athletics Championships in Vadodara on July 23, 2018. He clinched gold medal by throwing 19.69m in his 5th attempt to crack the record of 19.34m set by Navtejdeep Singh in 2011. In the event, Dhanvir was declared as the best male athlete while Kerala’s sprint hurdler Aparna Roy won the honours in the girls section. In women’s 400 metre hurdles, Kerala’s Priya won the gold and set the new record by crossing the finish line in a season-best time of 1:02.52 seconds. In doing so, she erased the previous meet record of 1:02.58 seconds set by P O Sanya in Bambolim in 2015. In women’s 200 metre race, Kerala’s Ancy Sojan won the gold in 24.91 seconds. Haryana won the overall title with 165 points while Kerala (150) finished in the 2nd place.

Notes:
The Odisha government has launched a plantation drive ‘Green Mahanadi Mission’ to stop soil erosion and recharge groundwater reserve of Mahanadi river. Under the mission, more than 5 crore saplings will be planted over an area of 41,000 hectares. The plantation will be done on either side of major rivers of Odisha as well along roadside length of about 5,000 km over a period of five years at an expenditure of around Rs 5,000 crore. To provide additional livelihood opportunities to the locals, the volunteers will plant fruit-bearing trees like mango, jackfruit and jamun within one kilometre radius of the river bank. Apart from Mahanadi, plantation will also be done on the banks of river Tel and Ib. The plantation drive will be implemented jointly by the departments of Forest, Horticulture and Watershed Development.

Notes:
Mohammed Ayazuddin Patel, a Kalaburagi-based artist, has bagged the Senior Fellowship Award for 2016-17 instituted by the Centre for Cultural Resources and Training Centre, an autonomous organisation under the Union Ministry of Culture. The fellowship, which carries a cash of Rs 4.8 lakh, is offered to those eligible to work on a particular subject in the field of art and culture for two years. Mr. Patel is selected to work on Deccan Heritage with a special reference to Bahmani Sultanate through his digital painting. He is the only artist from Karnataka selected for the fellowship for the year. Mr. Patel has extensively travelled across the globe and exhibited his artworks in 24 countries. He is also the recipient of National Lalitkala Academy award in 2014. As a freelance artist, he is currently serving as member of the Karnataka Lalithakala Academy.

Notes:
The book ‘Gandhi: The Years That Changed The World (1914-1948)’ has been authored by Ramachandra Guha, the renowned historian and author. It will be published by Penguin Random House India and will come in public domain in September 2018. As per sources, the book will not only narrate the story of Gandhi’s life, from his departure from South Africa to his dramatic assassination in 1948, but also the history of our freedom movement and its many strands. The book will also include new readings of Gandhi ji’s arguments with B.R. Ambedkar, Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Subhas Chandra Bose, among others.

Notes:
The citizen centric online portal “Innovate India Platform” has been jointly launched by NITI Aayog’s Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) and MyGov on July 26, 2018. The portal will serve as the common point for all the innovation happening across the nation. Through the portal, users can view, comment, share, and rate the innovations crowdsourced on the #InnovateIndia platform. They can view the leaderboard which is calculated based on the votes on each innovation. Citizens can also share their or other organisations’ innovation on the platform by logging into the MyGov website. These innovations can also be shared on various social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter.

Notes:
The Government of India (GoI) has approved a new scheme ” Mahila Shakti Kendra” to empower rural women through community participation. The cost for implementing the scheme from 2017-18 up to 2019-20 would be shared in the 60:40 ratio between the Centre and states, except for North East and Special Category States where the ratio is 90:10. The scheme is envisaged to work at various levels and at the national level (domain based knowledge support) and state level (State Resource Centre for Women) technical support to the respective governments on issues related to women is provided. This information was given by Minister of State for Women and Child Development, DR. Virendra Kumar in reply to an Unstarred Question in the Rajya Sabha on July 26, 2018.

Notes:
Cherkallam Abdullah (76), the senior Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) leader and former Kerala Minister, has passed away on July 27, 2018. He was a prominent leader of the Opposition Congress-led UDF in north Kerala. A 4-time MLA from Manjeswaram in Kasaragod district since 1987, Abdullah was the local self development minister in the A K Antony cabinet from 2001-2004.

Notes:
Ace Indian shuttler Sourabh Verma has lifted the 2018 Russian Open Badminton trophy at Vladivostok on July 29. In the title clash, Sourabh defeated Japan’s Koki Watanabe by 18-21, 21-12, 21-17, and win his first title of the season. In Mixed Doubles, the pair of Rohan Kapoor and Kuhoo Garg lost in the Final against the Russian-Korean team of Vladimir Ivanov and Min Kyung Kim, 19-21, 17-21.

Notes:
In a unique and first-ever in the country, the Assam government has decided to implement a Pranam Scheme to ensure that government staff take care of their parents & physically challenged siblings. The scheme will part away with 10 to 15% of state government employees’ monthly salary if they are found guilty of not taking adequate care of their dependent elderly parents and physically challenged siblings.

Notes:
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has designated India as a nodal centre for preparing flash-flood forecasts to Asian nations including Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand. That means the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) under Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) will have to develop a customized weather model that can issue advance warning of floods. Using a combination of satellite mapping and ground-based observation, this system — called the Flash Flood Guidance System — aims to provide forecasts six hours in advance. Like India, several south-east Asian countries depend on the monsoon and are prone to its vagaries. The proposed model will provide forecasts by computing the likelihood of rainfall and the soil moisture levels to warn of possible floods. The WMO has estimated that flash floods account for 85% of flooding incidents across the world, causing some 5,000 deaths each year.