Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - June, 2018

Notes:
India has been ranked 113th among 175 countries in the “End of Childhood Index 2018”, issued by global child rights group “Save the Children”. The Index which is part of the report titled “The Many Faces of Exclusion” indicated that the child marriages in India have come down to 15.2% from 21.1% in 2017. It is significant to point that the child marriage data assessed does not include data on consensual unions. However, the Index shows that under five mortality rate (deaths per 1000 live births) was 43 which is a cause of concern. Also child stunting (children aged 0-59 months) was 38.4% and rated as high. The Index ranked countries with regards to where childhood is threatened as a result of poor health, malnutrition, exclusion from education, child labour, child marriage, early pregnancy and extreme violence. Singapore and Slovenia are placed at the top sharing the first place in the index and Niger figures at the end of the list at 175.

Notes:
On June 3, the Indian Navy evacuated 38 stranded Indians from Socotra Island in Yemen where they were stranded for nearly 10 days after a severe Cyclonic storm Mekunu hit the area. The Navy evacuated the Indians as part of operation code name ‘NISTAR’, carried out off the coast of Socotra and embarked them at Indian Naval ship INS Sunayna to bring them back to India. The evacuated Indians were immediately provided with medical care, food, water and telephone facilities to call and reassure their families at home. The Island of Socotra is considered the jewel of biodiversity in the Arabian Sea and is recognised as a world natural heritage site by UNESCO in 2008. It is one of the most isolated landforms on Earth that a third of its plant life is found nowhere else on the planet. Notable are the dragon’s blood trees that look like flying saucers perched on trunks.

Notes:
Timothy Pereira (75), the former international footballer who represented Tata FC, has passed away in Mumbai on June 1, 2018. He played for the country in 1967-68. Pereira also played hockey and represented Catholic Gymkhana in the local league.

Notes:
The Chandrabhaga beach on the Konark coast of Odisha has become the Asia’s first beach to get the Blue Flag certification — the tag given to environment-friendly and clean beaches, equipped with amenities of international standards for tourists. The beach awarded the honour on World Environment Day (WED) on June 5, 2018. Apart from this, 12 more Indian beaches are being developed by the Society for Integrated Coastal Management (SICOM), an Environment Ministry’s body working for the management of coastal areas, in accordance with the Blue Flag certification standards. Among them are the Chiwla and Bhogave beaches in Maharashtra and one beach each from Puducherry, Goa, Daman and Diu, Lakshadweep and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The Blue Flag beach standards were established by Copenhagen-based Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE) in 1985. In order to get the Blue Flag tag, a beach has to be plastic-free and be equipped with a waste management system.

Notes:
Omar Razzaz, a Harvard-educated former senior World Bank official, has been appointed as the new Prime Minister of Jordan by King Abdullah II. He succeeded Hani Mulki, who recently resigned as a result of widespread protests against his government’s austerity program. Prior to this post, Razzaz served as education minister in the outgoing Mulki government.

Notes:
The Union Government has constituted a group of eminent persons to study the Special Economic Zones (SEZ) Policy of India. The group will be headed by Industrialist Baba Kalyani. The group will evaluate the SEZ policy, suggest measures to cater to the needs of exporters in the present economic scenario and make the SEZ policy WTO compatible. The Group has to submit its recommendation in 3 months. The SEZ Policy was implemented from 1st April, 2000. Subsequently, the Special Economic Zones Act, 2005 was passed by Parliament in May, 2005 which received Presidential assent on the 23rd June, 2005 and the Special Economic Zone Act was enacted. The SEZ Act, 2005, supported by SEZ Rules, came into effect on 10th February, 2006.

Notes:
The Mitti Dam is a concrete and earthen dam built on the Mitti River in Abdasa Taluka of Kutch District, Gujarat. The Mitti River is an intermittent stream and provides a catchment area of 468.78 sq kms for the reservoir. The dam is 4405 m long and has 17.40 million cubic metres (MCM) of gross storage, 2.68 MCM of dead storage, and 14.72 MCM of live storage capacity.

Notes:
Andhra Pradesh will become the first Indian state to use auto-disable syringes for all clinical purposes to prevent infection. The move will be enforced from the World Hepatitis Day (WHD-2018) when the state government will declare itself as “Safety Injection Use State”. The initiative will ensure one injection will be given from one syringe by mandating universal usage of auto-disable syringes in all clinical/therapeutic cases as part of infection prevention. The move would strengthen the healthcare system by lowering the burden of infections and breaking the cycle of cross infection.

Notes:
President Ram Nath Kovind has recently declared the ‘Queen’ variety of pineapple as the state fruit of Tripura. The famous ‘Queen’ variety is spiny, golden yellow in color and emits pleasant aroma and flavor at the ripen stage. The fruits are harvested when eyes turns yellow during mid-May to mid-July when the fruit is available. The average weight of fruit varies from 600 Grams to 800 Grams. It got the Geographical Indication (GI) in 2015 and is the best quality of pineapple in the world. Tripura is one of the largest pineapple growing states in the country and there are more than 100 commercial scale pineapple plantations in the state. Earlier, President Kovind dedicated a 73.71km stretch of National Highway 8 from Mata Tripurasundari temple in Udaipur of Gomati district to Sabroom in South Tripura.

Notes:
Anthony Bourdain (61), the United States celebrity chef and television personality, has passed away in Strasbourg, France on June 8, 2018. He was a best-selling food, fiction and nonfiction author. He shot to fame in 2000 with a best-selling book “Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly”, which is known for its treatment of the professional culinary industry. The book alternates between a confessional narrative and an industry commentary, providing insightful and humorous anecdotes on the cooking trade. Though best known for his culinary achievements and television presentations, along with several books on food and cooking and travel adventures, Bourdain’s lesser-known writings include both fiction and historical nonfiction.