Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - May, 2017

Notes:
Ueli Steck (40), a renowned Swiss rock climber and mountaineer, has passed away on April 30, 2017 in an accident at a camp near Mount Everest in Nepal. At the time of his death, he was trying to climb the 25,791-foot Himalayan peak of Nuptse in preparation for an ambitious ascent of Everest. Steck was known as “Swiss Machine” for his rapid ascents of some of the world’s most imposing peaks. He was best known for his speed-climbing, including setting several records for ascending the north face of the Eiger, a classic mountaineering peak in the Bernese Alps that he climbed in two hours and 47 minutes without using a rope.

Notes:
The top-seeded Indo-American pair Leander Paes and Scott Lipsky has won the 2017 Tallahassee Challenger title of the men’s doubles by defeating Argentine third seeds Leonardo Mayer and Maximo Gonzalez by 4-6, 7-6, 10-7 in the summit clash in Florida. This is Paes’ 2nd Challenger level title of the season.

Notes:
Prakash Javadekar, the Union Human Resource Development Minister, has launched Students for soldiers- a nationwide “Vidya – Veerta Abhiyan” on May 2, 2017 to encourage Universities to display portraits of Param Veer Chakra (PVC)-decorated soldiers. The aim of this Abhiyan is to instill a sense of patriotism and nationalism among students. The initiative has been launched in the wake of demand by the ex-servicemen that portraits of martyrs and tanks used in wars should be put on display in the campus to instill sense of nationalism and patriotism among the students. The Param Veer Chakra (PVC) is the India’s highest military decoration awarded to officers or enlisted personnel from all branches of the Indian military for displaying distinguished acts of valour during wartime.

Notes:
Dubai has become the first city in the world to have its own Microsoft-designed font “Dubai Font”. The type face “Dubai Font” supports both Arabic and Latin script and will be available in 23 languages. It was created in partnership with Microsoft and is now available to Microsoft Office 365 users around the world. The font is available in three styles as ‘Dubai’, ‘Dubai Medium’ and ‘Dubai Light’. The new font was officially launched by the Dubai government on May 1, 2017 to reflect the city’s symbols of tolerance, happiness and respect, enabling people to express, communicate and connect.

Notes:
T C A Anant, India’s Chief Statistician and MOSPI Secretary, will launch the new series of Index of Industrial Production (IIP) with a base year 2011-12 on May 9, 2017 with an aim to map economic activities more accurately. The new data is expected to provide a more realistic and reliable growth in production. Currently, the IIP is calculated on base year of 2004-05. The IIP gives a broad outlook on output of various types of goods like basic, consumer and capital ones, which helps in gauging the level of economic progress and investments in the economy. The other leading indicators – Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Gross Value Addition (GVA) and Consumer Price Index (CPI) are already on the base year of 2011-12. The Wholesale price index (WPI) is also in process to be shifted to the new base year.

Notes:
In an annual “Asian Development Outlook” economic report released by Asian Development Bank (ADB), India’s GDP growth is predicted at 7.4% in FY 18 (2017-18). The report states that the growth rate will continue to expand to 7.6% in the successive year FY 19 (2018-19). India had grown 7.1% in the previous fiscal year FY 2016-17). As per ADB Chief Economist Yasuyuki Sawada, the reforms like the Goods and Services Tax and the new bankruptcy law will make it easier to do business in India. Apart from this, the 50th annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) Board of Governors has started in Yokohama, Tokyo from May 4 to 7, 2017. The theme of the meeting is ‘Building Together the Prosperity of Asia.’

Notes:
The Sualgiri and Swalgiri communities of Odisha have been notified as Scheduled Castes (SC) after President Pranab Mukherjee gave the nod to the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order (Amendment) Act, 2017. Now, the SC category status will entitle these communities to reservation in government jobs and admission in educational institutions, besides some other financial benefits. As per the modified list for Odisha, the “Sabakhia, Sualgiri, Swalgiri” are notified Scheduled Castes. The Constitution empowers the president to specify the scheduled castes in states and union territories in a list of notified scheduled castes. It also allows the list to be modified by Parliament. The new law has also replaced the term Union Territory of Pondicherry to Puducherry in the Constitution (Pondicherry) Scheduled Castes Order, 1964.

Notes:
The world’s highest railway bridge will come up over Chenab River in Jammu and Kashmir (J& K), which is expected to be completed in 2019. The bridge will form a crucial link in the 111-km stretch between Katra and Banihal, which is part of the Udhampur- Srinagar-Baramu rail link project. It will be constructed at a cost of around Rs 1,100 crore in hostile terrain, will use over 24,000 tonnes of steel and will rise 359 m above the river bed. It will be designed to withstand wind speeds of upto 260 km per hour, the 1.315 km long engineering marvel” will connect Bakkal (Katra) and Kauri (Srinagar). Once completed, it will surpass the record of the Beipan river Shuibai railway bridge (275 m) in China.

Notes:
Mallikarjun Kharge, the Congress leader, has been appointed as the new chairman of the 21-member Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament. He succeeded KV Thomas, whose term ended on April 30, 2017. The Committee on Public Accounts is the oldest Parliamentary committee that examines the accounts showing the appropriation of sums granted by Parliament for expenditure of Government of India and such other accounts of autonomous and semi-autonomous bodies. The committee also examines the Reports of Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) on various subjects like Civil, Defence, Posts, Railways and Taxation. Besides, the Committee examines the CAG reports on performance appraisals of various centrally sponsored schemes.

Notes:
European X-ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL), the biggest X-ray laser in the world, has generated its first beam of light in a 3.4 km-long underground facility from the German city of Hamburg to the town of Schenefeld that will allow scientists to get a glimpse of new materials, drugs and chemical reactions at the atomic level. The laser’s light is a billion times brighter than the typical light sources normally used in particle accelerators. The European XFEL has a wavelength of 0.8 nanometres and can be used to make pictures and videos of objects at an atomic level. The laser will be used to photograph biomolecules, from which researchers hope to understand the basis of illnesses and develop new therapies.