Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - November, 2017

Notes:
Himachal Pradesh will be the first state to use EVMs with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines on all booths during assembly elections. The state will go to polls on November 9, 2017 in a single phase. Over 37 thousand polling personnel’s have set up 7,525 polling stations for more than fifty lakh voters in different parts of the state. The election department has identified 983 as vulnerable while 399 as critical polling stations. The polling parties have also arrived in far flung areas of Pangi in Bharmour, Bara Bhangal in Baijnath and Dodra Kawar in Rohru assembly constituencies. The Kaa polling station Kinnaur tribal assembly constituency has only six voters. In Dharmashala segment of Kangra district two polling stations will be fully handled by divyang officials.

Notes:
The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has successfully conducted a flight test of its indigenously designed and developed long-range sub-sonic cruise missile ‘Nirbhay’, which can carry warheads of up to 300 kg. The state-of-the-art missile was successfully test-fired from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) in Chandipur, Odisha. The missile has the capability to cruise at the speed of 0.7 Mach and loiter at altitudes as low as 100 m. Powered by a solid rocket motor booster, Nirbhay missile with a turbo-fan engine is guided by a highly advanced inertial navigation system. The missile is capable of carrying 24 kinds of war weapons, the missile is able to target multiple places simultaneously. Nirbhay is very manoeuvrable and can fly at tree-top level, making it difficult to detect on radar, and strikes targets of 1,000 km away carrying nuclear warheads, giving India the capability to strike deep into enemy territory.

Notes:
Indian boxer M C Mary Kom won gold medal in 48kg category at Asian women’s Boxing Championships by defeating North Korea’s Kim Hyang Mi in Ho Chi Minh City of Vietnam on November 8, 2017. It is her first Asian gold medal in this category.

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The think tank NITI Aayog in collaboration with Proffer, a blockchain startup founded by graduates of MIT and Harvard, will organise a ‘Blockchain Summit’ and hackathon at IIT Delhi from Nov 10-13, 2017. The objective of the event is to explore how blockchain architectures can enable a new digital infrastructure for India, improving efficiency, transparency, privacy, and cost across all sectors. 1,500+ students from IITs, MIT, Harvard, Berkeley, and top engineering institutions around the world will be participating in the event, with 500 attending in-person on IIT Delhi’s campus. Multinational majors that include Microsoft, IBM, Accel, Coinbase, and Amazon AWS are sponsoring $17,000+ in prizes to reward the top 5 blockchain-based applications addressing problems in government/enterprise infrastructure, finance, energy markets, supply chain, decentralized Aadhar identities, information exchange, and more.

Notes:
Pinarayi Vijayan, the chief minister of Kerala, has launched the She Pad scheme for school girls on November 8, 2017, which will be implemented in 300 government schools across 114 panchayats in Kerala. The scheme will facilitate free sanitary napkins, storage spaces for napkins and environment-friendly incinerators at all government & aided schools in the state. It is a first-of-its-kind scheme in India, which aims to raise awareness about the need for menstrual hygiene and break the taboo around the subject. The financial cost for the project, about Rs30 crore, is provided by local panchayats and Kerala State Women’s Development Corporation.

Notes:
The third edition of international film festival “Russian Film Days” has started at Siri Fort Auditorium in Delhi on November 10, 2017 with a special tribute to Raj Kapoor. It is an initiative to strengthen the Indo-Russian relationship through cinematic and cultural exchange. During the festival over the course of three days, Delhi movie-goers will be able to watch ‘The Bolshoi’, ‘The Ghost of Sonora’, ‘Yana + Yanko’, ‘Kitchen: World chef battle’, and ‘Attraction’ at DT Cinemas in Saket. This year the event expanded its borders and will be held in three major cities—Delhi, Mumbai and Panaji (Goa).The festival will come to an end in Delhi on November 12 before moving to Mumbai. It will conclude at the 48th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Panaji, Goa from November 20.

Notes:
Hyderabad Police Commissioner M Mahender Reddy has been appointed the new Director General of Police (DGP) of Telangana State. He will be the second DGP of the state after its formation in 2014. He succeeded Anurag Sharma, who has been appointed as advisor to Home Department of Telangana State Government. Meanwhile, Hyderabad Police Additional Commissioner V.V. Srinivas Rao will be in-charge Hyderabad Commissioner of Police.

Notes:
Ace Indian cueist Pankaj Advani clinched his 17th world title after thrashing his arch-rival Mike Russell of England in the 2017 IBSF World Billiards Championship at Doha on November 12, 2017. In the best-of-11 summit clash, Advani beat Russell 6-2 to defend the 150-up format title he had won in Bengaluru last year. Advani will be eyeing a ‘Grand Double’ as the lengthier format (long-up) of the IBSF World Billiards Championship 2017, which will begin on November 13, 2017 at Doha.

Notes:
The 34th annual conference of the Asian Bankers Association (ABA) will be held in Mumbai, Maharashtra from November 16-17, 2017. The 2017 summit will be hosted by State Bank with theme ‘Asia’s turn to transform’. This year, summit will discuss the impact of the ongoing global downturn on the outlook of the Asian economies; economic consequences of the Brexit in March 2019 on Asia, the America-first policy of the Trump administration; implications of fintech on banks, among others. Approx 80 members from 25 countries will participate in the conference.

Notes:
The 10th South Asia Economic Summit (SAES-2017) has started in Kathmandu, Nepal on November 14, 2017 with theme “Deepening Economic Integration for Inclusive and Sustainable Development in South Asia”. The 3-day summit is organised by National Planning Commission and Ministry of Commerce of Nepal and South Asia Watch on Trade, Economics and Environment, Nepal. Approx 200 participants including ministers, members of parliament, former MPs, ambassadors, government officials, researchers, eminent experts and thinkers will attend the summit. The summit is a regional platform for discussing and analyzing economic and development issues and challenges faced by South Asian countries and advancing the cause of regional integration and cooperation.