Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - May, 2018

Notes:
Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah from Egypt has been named the Football Writers’ Association (FWA) Footballer of the Year for 2017/18. With this, Salah became the first African to be given the accolade after edging out Manchester City midfielder Kevin De Bruyne by less than 20 votes in a ballot of more than 400 FWA members. Beside this, Salah also became the first Egyptian player to won the Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA) player of the year award in April 2018.

Notes:
Arun Date (84), the veteran Marathi singer, has passed away in Mumbai, Maharashtra on May 6, 2018. Date, famous for non-film ‘bhavgeet’ (lyrical poetry) songs, had crooned numbers like “Shukratara” and “Ya Janmavar”, which became very popular among people. He was the first recipient of the state government’s ‘Gajananrav Vatave Puraskar’. His father, Ramubhaiyya Date, was also a well-known classical music connoisseur.

Notes:
The 2018 International Children’s Theatre Festival will be held at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kolkata, West Bengal from June 17 to 21. Children of various theatre groups from eight countries besides host India will take part in fest. The participating countries are France, Slovenia, Swaziland, Mexico, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh. Children of theatre groups from Indian states such as Kerala, Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Manipur, Odisha and West Bengal will also be participating in the 5-day festival. There will be no entry free and the festival will be open for everybody.

Notes:
The World Athletics Day (WAD) is observed every year on May 7 to popularize sports among the youth, to promote athletics as the primary sport in schools and institutions and to encourage and introduce new talent and youngsters in the field of athletics.

Notes:
India has signed a loan agreement of $200-million with the World Bank for the National Nutrition Mission (POSHAN Abhiyaan) to achieve its goal of reducing stunting in children aged 0-6 years from 38.4% to 25% by 2022. The loan will support the first phase of scaling up of interventions in 315 districts across all states and union territories. A large component of POSHAN Abhiyaan involves gradual scaling-up of the interventions supported by the ongoing World Bank assisted Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Systems Strengthening and Nutrition Improvement Project (ISSNIP) to all districts in the country over a 3-year period. The project will ensure convergence of all nutrition-related schemes and provide performance-based incentives to states and community nutrition and health workers, facilitating a focus on results. The POSHAN Abhiyaan was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 8 in Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan.

Notes:
The birth anniversary of Asia’s first Nobel laureate Rabindra Nath Tagore has celebrated on May 7, 2018. Rabindra Jayanti is popularly called Poncheeshe Boishakh and being celebrated ceremoniously and jauntiness all across West Bengal and Bangladesh. A revered poet, mercurial writer, and a cursive painter Tagore was a prolific composer with 2,230 songs to his credit. His songs are known as Rabindra Sangeet. Tagore has composed the national anthems of both India and Bangladesh. Tagore was highly influential in introducing Indian culture to the West and is generally regarded as the outstanding creative artist of modern India. Tagore’s own English translations of his collection of Bengali poems Gitanjali fetched him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Tagore’s works were widely translated into English, Dutch, German, Spanish, and other European languages.

Notes:
The Sikkim government has nominated Bollywood singer Mohit Chauhan as the Green Ambassador of the state for promoting Sikkim as a Green Destination, nationally and internationally, on voluntary basis. He is a playback singer and singer of a band known as ‘Silk Route’. Earlier, the state government had roped in AR Rahman as its official brand ambassador to promote tourism in Sikkim. The tiny Himalayan state of Sikkim is an example of tolerance, compassion, peace, integrity and communal harmony for the rest of the country. The state is known for its rich biodiversity and abundant natural resources due to environment-friendly policies being followed by the state government for more than two decades.

Notes:
Prof. Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel laureate and noted economist, has been conferred with the 11th KISS Humanitarian Award 2018 on May 11 for his unwavering commitment to eradicate global poverty and foster economic and social development. He is the founder of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and is widely known as the Father of Microfinance. The KISS Humanitarian Award is a prestigious international award given to someone who has made exceptional contribution to the society in various fields relating to social issues and who has distinguished himself or herself as a true humanitarian. It was instituted in 2008 by Dr Achyuta Samanta, the founder of Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) Bhubaneswar.

Notes:
The International Nurses Day (IND) is celebrated every year across the world on May 12 to mark the birth anniversary of Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing. The day is also mark to recognize the strong commitment, compassion and dedication that nurses display in the practice of their profession. The 2018 theme is – Nurses A Voice to Lead – Health is a Human right.

Notes:
The World Thalassaemia Day (WTD) is observed every year on May 8 to raise awareness about this deadly disease and the importance of blood donation. Thalassemia is an inherited blood disorder in the blood in which the body produces abnormally low Red Blood Cells (RBCs) which are the protein carriers. The disease causes a number of complications such as bone deformities, heart palpitations, jaundice and delayed puberty, among others. As the disease is inherited, it cannot be cured but can be managed or treated through blood transfusion and bone-marrow cell transplantation if diagnosed at the right time. The 2018 theme is ‘Thalassaemia past, present and future: Documenting progress and patients’ needs worldwide’.