Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - May, 2018

Notes:
The 26th BASIC Ministerial Meeting of Environment Ministers was held in Durban, South Africa. India was represented by Union Environment Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan. In it, Dr Vardhan reiterated his appeal to make joint efforts to create a societal movement in combating climate change through “Green Good Deeds”. He told his counterparts from BASIC countries and Michal Kurtyka of Poland, who will take over as next president of Conference of Parties (COP-24), that India has shown the vision and the political will to act. The Basic countries is a bloc of four countries – Brazil, South Africa, India and China, formed by an agreement on November 28, 2009. In a joint statement issued, the Basic countries had committed to work together with other parties to ensure the full, effective and sustained implementation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), its Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement.

Notes:
IIT Kanpur has set up the India’s first advisory Centre for Energy Regulation (CER) with the help of Government of United Kingdom to strengthen policy and regulatory limitations in energy and power sector. It would adopt innovative approach to engage with stakeholders in the power sector, especially the electricity regulatory commissions, electric utilities and the academia. The centre would also develop a regulatory database to enable stakeholders in taking more informed decisions. The online learning modules and tools would help enhance understanding of the regulatory and policy aspect for the beginners as well as advanced learners and the centre’s output can later be accessed from its web portal cer.iitk.ac.in.

Notes:
The Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd. (MCX) has launched the India’s first options contract on copper futures on May 21, 2018. The option contract will provide physical market participants an additional instrument to hedge their risk. Currently, June, August and November 2018 option contracts are available for trading, with one MCX copper futures contract (1 MT) as the underlying. The exercised positions of the options contract post expiry shall devolve into the respective underlying future positions. This new options contract provides the optimal tool to hedge and mitigate price risk in copper for the stakeholders. MCX copper options are available to trade from 10:00am-11:30pm/11:55pm on weekdays. In order to encourage active participation in the market the exchange is not levying any transaction fees on all the commodity options contracts till September 30, 2018.

Notes:
The 5th edition of Kalinga literary festival 2018 is scheduled to be held in Bhubaneswar, Odisha that will explore concepts of equality, equity and humanity in literature. The 3-day festival will witness innovative sessions on radio, poetry recitation, short story, lyrics and cinema by speakers like writer Amish Tripathi, politician-author Pavan Verma, Urdu poet and lyricist Rahat Indori, writer Mridula Garg, entrepreneur-author Ravi Singh, and commentator and journalist Vinod Dua among others. Discussions on issues ranging from youth to inclusion, transgender to equality, women to equity, and governance to justice will be held at the festival. Over 250 speakers, poets, musicians, artists and performers will participate in the fest.

Notes:
India has been ranked 145th among 195 countries with score of 41.2 in terms of Healthcare Access and Quality (HAQ) index of 2016, as per Lancet’s latest study “Global Burden Of Disease”. According to the study, India performed poorly in tackling cases of tuberculosis, rheumatic heart diseases, Ischaemic heart diseases, stroke, testicular cancer, colon cancer and chronic kidney disease among others. However, the report mentioned that India has seen improvements in healthcare access and quality since 1990. The five countries with the highest levels of healthcare access and quality in 2016 were Iceland (97.1 points), Norway (96.6), the Netherlands (96.1), Luxembourg (96.0), and Finland and Australia (each with 95.9). The study used an index to measure the quality and accessibility of healthcare, based on 32 causes of death which should be preventable with effective medical care. Each of the 195 countries and territories assessed were given a score between 0-100.

Notes:
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation-Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (SCO-RATS) meeting has started in Islamabad, Pakistan on May 23, 2018. It is first time that Pakistan is hosting the meeting. The legal experts from 8 member states, including India, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Pakistan, as well as representatives of the SCO and RATS Executive Committee are participating in the meeting. The purpose of the 3-day meeting is to discuss terrorist threats facing the region and ways and means to enhance counter-terrorism cooperation between SCO member states. Other goals of the meeting included strengthening trust amongst the member states and promoting cooperation in politics, trade, economy, research, technology and culture, as well as in education, energy, transport, tourism, and environmental protection.

Notes:
C K Prasad, the retired judge of the Supreme Court of India (SCI), has been appointed the chairman of the Press Council of India (PCI) for a second term. Prasad headed the media watchdog for three years from November 2014. He had succeeded Justice Markanday Katju. The Press Council of India is a statutory body with a mandate to act as a watchdog to oversee the conduct of the print media. It was reconstituted for three years in October, 2014 and the term ended in October 2017. According to the Press Council Act, the council shall consist of a chairman and 28 other members.

Notes:
Japanese women’s badminton team has clinched the Uber Cup for the first time since 1981 when they defeated hosts Thailand 3-0 at the IMPACT Stadium on May 26, 2018. Ranked two in world singles, Akane Yamaguchi began Japan’s title got off to a flying start as she beat World No. 4 Ratchanok Intanon 21-15, 21-19. Doubles pair Yuki Fukushima and Sayaka Hirota gave Japan their second point, winning the tie 21-18, 21-12. Nozomi Okuhara spelled victory for her side as she made light work of Nitchaon Jindapol, who looked visibly tired, beating her by 21-12, 21-9. Earlier Japan lifted this coveted cup in 1966, 1969, 1972 and 1978. China won the title 14 times. The Uber Cup is also known as the Women’s World Badminton Championship. It is second in prestige only to the Olympics as a national team event.

Notes:
The Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) and IIT Bombay have been awarded the Clarivate Analytics India Innovation Award 2018 in the Academic Institutions category at the 2018 India Innovation Conference in Bengaluru on May 16. The award places IIT Bombay in the top 12 innovators in India. Under the Government Research Organizations category, the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) and Department of Biotechnology (DBT) have been awarded the Clarivate Analytics India Innovation Award 2018. Every year, Clarivate Analytics recognizes the most innovative companies in India according to patent-related metrics that get to the essence of what it means to be truly innovative. This analysis is done using proprietary Clarivate Analytics data and tools. The evaluation is strictly driven by metrics for both patent volume (patents published) as well as patent quality (grant success rate, extent of globalisation, and citations).

Notes:
The World Health Organization (WHO) has validated Nepal for having eliminated trachoma as a public health problem. With this, Nepal has become the first country in WHO’s South-East Asia Region to defeat the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness. Trachoma, an eye disease caused by infection with the bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis, is spread through contact with infective eye or nose discharges. Infection is particularly common in young children. Transmission is associated with poor sanitation and hygiene, which increase the availability of eye discharges and encourage the breeding of flies. Trachoma puts more than 190 million people at risk of blindness in 41 countries. It is responsible for the blindness or visual impairment of around 1.9 million people worldwide.