Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - June, 2018

Notes:
The 2018 International Conference on TRIPS- CBD Linkage will be held in Geneva, Switzerland on 7-8 June 2018. The conference will bring together indigenous people/local communities in developing and developed countries, internationally acclaimed academicians working on the subject, Geneva-based negotiators and capital based experts. Resource persons, stakeholders and experts from a large number of countries, including Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Peru, Philippines, New Zealand, South Africa, Switzerland, and the US, would participate in the international conference. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is a multilateral agreement on sustainable development and fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resource. It has membership of 196 countries.

Notes:
Indian star cricketer Yuvraj Singh has been honoured with the ‘Most inspiring icon of the year for Social Welfare’ award by the Dadasaheb Phalke International Film Festival (DPIFF) for his exemplary contribution in the field of social welfare. Yuvraj, who was a member of India’s 2011 World Cup winning squad, was diagnosed with cancer (mediastinal seminoma) shortly after the World Cup. After successfully completing his chemotherapy cycle in the United States, Yuvraj returned to India in 2012 and made his international comeback in a Twenty20 match against New Zealand. Post his diagnosis, Yuvraj launched the YouWeCan foundation to fight Cancer by spreading awareness about the aggressive disease.

Notes:
The Odisha government has launched the health insurance scheme “Gopabandhu Sambadika Swasthya Bima Yojana” for working journalists in the state. It will be implemented with effect from June 1, 2018. In the first phase, as many as 3,233 working journalists will get health insurance coverage up to Rs 2 lakh a year. Under the scheme, at least five members of the journalists family will be covered. The scribes will get their health insurance card from the District Information and Public Relations Officer (DIPRO) in their respective districts.

Notes:
Giuseppe Conte, an academic and political novice, has been sworn in as the new Prime Minister of Italy on June 1, 2018. He succeeded the Democrat Paolo Gentiloni. Conte will head a government of ministers from the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) and the far-right League Party. According to many journalists and political commentators, Conte’s cabinet is the first populist government in Western Europe.

Notes:
The BRICS Foreign Ministers’ meeting has started in the South African city of Johannesburg on June 4, 2018. The meeting is expected to lay the foundation for 2018 annual summit of the grouping which will also be held in Johannesburg. The BRICS comprises Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj is leading the Indian delegation. Beside this, Mrs Swaraj will also chair a meeting of Foreign Ministers of IBSA (India, Brazil, South Africa), another bloc working to deepen coordination among the three countries on major global issues. She will also attend a series of events marking the 125th anniversary of the historic incident where a young Mahatma Gandhi was thrown out of a train compartment in Pietermaritzburg railway station in 1893. The incident proved to be a turning point in Mahatma Gandhi’s fight against racial discrimination in South Africa.

Notes:
Pedro Sanchez of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) has been officially sworn in as the new Prime Minister of Spain on June 1 after the success of a motion of no confidence against former Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. Being an atheist, Mr Sanchez became the first Spanish prime minister to take the oath to protect the Spanish constitution without a bible or crucifix since the country transferred to democracy in 1977. He plans to see out the remaining two years of the parliamentary term.

Notes:
Mahesh Kumar Jain, who is currently MD & CEO of IDBI Bank, has been appointed as the fourth deputy governor Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India for a period of three years. The post was lying vacant since the retirement of S.S. Mundra in August 2017. With more than 30 years of experience in banking, Jain has been at the helm of IDBI Bank since March 2017. As per the RBI Act, the central bank should have four deputy governors – two from within the ranks and one commercial banker and another an economist to head the monetary policy department. The other deputy governors at RBI are Viral Acharya, B.P. Kanungo and N.S. Vishwanathan.

Notes:
On June 6, the screening of the biopic ‘Making of the Mahatma’ in Pietermaritzburg marked the opening of a three-day series of events to commemorate the historic incident 125 years ago when Mahatma Gandhi was evicted from a train because the compartment he was in was reserved for whites only. On the night of June 7, 1893, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, a young lawyer then, was thrown off the train’s first class compartment at Pietermaritzburg station in South Africa for refusing to give up his seat. The incident led him to develop his Satyagraha principles of peaceful resistance and mobilise people in South Africa and in India against the discriminatory rules of the British. The film, a co-production between India and South Africa, was made in 1996, soon after Nelson Mandela ascended to the position of South Africa’s first democratically-elected President. The film was directed by Shyam Benegal based on the book ‘Apprenticeship of a Mahatma’ by late freedom activist Prof Fatima Meer.

Notes:
The IBSA Foreign Ministers’ Meeting was held in Pretoria, South Africa on June 4, 2018. The External Affairs Minister of the Republic of India, Sushma Swaraj chaired the IBSA (India, Brazil, South Africa) ministerial meet and hold talks on how to deepen coordination among the three countries on major global issues. On this occasion, Ministers adopted and jointly released the IBSA Declaration on South-South Cooperation, to contribute to greater understanding of development cooperation as a common endeavor of the Global South. The Ministers also considered proposed IBSA events planned for 2018-19 to mark the fifteenth-anniversary of IBSA. The Ministers agreed to host these events in all three countries as well as on the margins of multilateral events.

Notes:
Tommy Thomas, an ethnic Indian Christian lawyer, has been appointed as the new attorney general of Malaysia. He succeeded Mohamad Apandi Ali. Tommy is the first practising lawyer to be appointed directly from the Malaysian Bar to be the attorney general, and the first non-Malay and non-Muslim Malaysian to hold this post. The appointment has been approved by Malaysia’s king Sultan Muhammad V, amid protests from Islamic groups that the job must be held by a Muslim. Thus, he became the first person from a minority community to hold the post since Malaysia was formed in 1963.