Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - May, 2018

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Raghuvir Singh (95), the lone freedom fighter of Muzaffarnagar district, has passed away in Noida, Uttar Pradesh on May 19, 2018. Singh was part of Subhas Chandra Bose’s Azad Hind Fauj.

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Bernard Lewis (101), the renowned Jewish-American historian, has passed away in New Jersey, United States on May 19, 2018. He was one of the most famous and influential Middle East scholars in the world who warned of a “clash of civilizations” between Islam and the West. His influential books shaped generations of scholars on the West Asian region but whose views stirred fierce passions. Mr. Lewis, who was born in London and was a long-time professor at Princeton University, was a Cold War hawk, a strong pro-Israel Jew, and influential among White House and Pentagon planners of the U.S.-led 2003 invasion of Iraq. The books included The Arabs in History (1950), The Emergence of Modern Turkey (1961), and The Crisis of Islam (2003).

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The International Museum Day (IMD) is observed every year on May 18 to raise awareness of the fact that, “Museums are an important means of cultural exchange, enrichment of cultures and development of mutual understanding, cooperation and peace among peoples”. The 2018 theme is “Hyperconnected museums: New approaches, new publics”.

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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.

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Dr Hemu Adhikari (81), the veteran film and theatre actor, has passed away in Mumbai, Maharashtra on May 22, 2018. He acted in Sai Paranjpe’s “Katha” and Marathi films like “Dhyaas Parya” and “Harishchandrachi Factory”. He was known for his cameo in Rajkumar Hirani’s “Lage Raho Munna Bhai” (2006).

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Polish author Olga Tokarczuk has won the prestigious 2018 Man Booker International Prize for fiction for her novel ‘Flights’. The novel, translated by Jennifer Croft, interweaves narratives of travel with explorations of the human body. It combines tales of modern-day travel with the story of a 17th century anatomist who dissected his own amputated leg and the journey of composer Frederic Chopin’s heart from Paris to Warsaw after his death. Tokarczuk is the first Polish author to have won the prestigious award that honours the finest works of translated fiction from around the world. The prize is a counterpart to the Man Booker Prize for English-language novels and is open to books in any language that have been translated into English. The £50,000 ($67,000) award is split evenly between the writer and her translator, Jennifer Croft.

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The National Anti Terrorism Day (NATD) is celebrated every year in India on May 21 to generate awareness in the country among all sections of people, about the danger of terrorism and violence and its effect on the people, society and the country as a whole. It was on this day in 1991, the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a suicide squad of Liberation of Tamil Tigers Eelam (LTTE), while attending a rally in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu. The aim behind the observance of Anti-Terrorism Day is to wean away the people from terrorism and violence.

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The Union Cabinet, chaired by PM Narendra Modi, has approved an ordinance to set up the India’s first national sports university in Imphal, Manipur. The ordinance is on the lines of the bill introduced in Lok Sabha in August, 2017, which is already pending in Parliament. The proposed university will be spread over 325 acres and cost Rs 524 crore. It will promote sports education in the areas of sports sciences, sports technology, sports management, and sports coaching. It will function as a national training centre for select sports disciplines. It may also establish campuses and study centres in other parts of the country. The University will be empowered to grant degrees, diplomas and certificates.

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On May 23, NITI Aayog and ABB India have signed a Statement of Intent (SoI) to work together in preparing key sectors of the economy for digitalisation, Artificial Intelligence (AI), robotics and industrial automation. Jointly, NITI Aayog and ABB will work with government ministries, solicit feedback for areas critical to them and discuss solutions using industrial automation, and digitalization technologies. The initiative also covers the fast growing segment of electric mobility. The first workshop for senior government officials, under this collaboration, would be organised in June 2018 at ABB Ability Innovation Centre in Bengaluru. Given the importance of the food processing sector, the workshop will focus on digital and automation technologies in this sector. NITI Aayog, in collaboration with ABB, will come out with a report on policy recommendations based on the feedback received in the workshops, by December 2018.

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India has been ranked 44th in terms of competitiveness for year 2018, in the annual rankings compiled by International Institute for Management Development (IMD). The US became the most competitive economy globally driven by its strength in economic performance and infrastructure, followed by Hong Kong and Singapore in the second and third place. Netherlands and Switzerland were the other two nations in the top five slots. This year India ranked the 12th most competitive economy out of the 14 Asian countries on the list. Regarding India, the report said some of the challenges which India has to face for the year 2018 would be skilling of manpower and employment generation, streamlining the implementation of goods and services tax and balancing high growth with sustainable development goals. The report further noted that digital literacy and adequate bandwidth at rural areas and mobilisation of resources for infrastructure development needs are few more key areas where the government needs to concentrate.