Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - October, 2017

Notes:
Birendra Sasmal, a Ghana-based Indian entrepreneur, has won a prestigious International Business Person of the Year at the Asian Achievers Awards in London for his efforts to bring innovative IT solutions to Africa. Sasmal is CEO of Subah Group, which employs around 350 people with offices in Guinea, Sierra Leone, New York City and Dubai. Under Sasmal’s leadership, the group’s revenues have increased by over 3,000% and it has been named among one of Africa’s fastest growing tech companies.

Notes:
The 3rd edition of Women of India Organic Festival has started at Dilli Haat in New Delhi on October 1, 2017. The purpose of the 15-day festival is to promote women entrepreneurs and farmers in the organic sector. Maneka Gandhi, the Union Minister of Women and Child Development (WCD) has inaugurate the festival. The theme of the festival is – Good for Women, Good for India, Good for You.

Notes:
The National Hard Court Tennis Championship has started in New Delhi on October 2, 2017. Among the men players, Tamil Nadu led Dhakshineswar Suresh, who last year won the Under-16 National championship, Aryan Goveas and Paramveer Singh Bajwa are participating in the tournament. Among the women players, Zeel Desai will head the field. Other players to watch out for would be Mihika Yadav, Sai Samhita, Snehadevi S Reddy and Mahak Jain. Tennis is the only sport in the country where the top players do not compete at the Nationals.

Notes:
The sixth edition of the World Government Summit (WHS) is scheduled to be held from February 11th – 13th, 2018 in Dubai, UAE. India will be the guest of honour in this summit. The summit is the largest movement to review and share the best experiences, and the first global forum for governments, countries, organizations and private sector leaders interested in the industry of the future. At its 5th session in February 2017, the World Summit of Governments attracted more than 4,000 participants from 139 countries and 150 speakers attended 114 sessions.

Notes:
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2017 has awarded jointly to Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young for their discoveries on how plants, animals and humans adapt their biological rhythm so that it is synchronised with the Earth’s revolutions. For many years, we have known that living organisms, including humans, have an internal clock that helps them adapt to the rotation of earth. But how does this clock actually work? It is explained through 2017 Nobel laureates discoveries. Using fruit flies as a model organism, they isolated a gene that controls the daily biological rhythm. They showed that this gene encodes a protein that accumulates in the cell during the night, and is then degraded during the day. The trio will share the prize sum of nine million Swedish kronor (about 1.1 million US Dollars) by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.

Notes:
The 8th Conference of the Association of SAARC Speakers and Parliamentarians will be held in Colombo, Sri Lanka from October 4, 2017. The 3-day conference will be inaugurated by Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena. The Indian delegation will be lead by Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, who will deliver the lead speech on the topic Association of the SAARC Speakers and Parliamentarians, a platform for the Parliamentarians of South Asia to work together to reach the 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development. She is accompanied by a delegation of MPs and senior officials of Lok Sabha.

Notes:
The 3rd National Wildlife Action Plan (NWAP) for 2017-2031 has recently unveiled by Dr. Harsh Vardhan , the Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change(MoEFCC), at the 2017 Global Wildlife Programme (GWP) conference in New Delhi. This NWAP plan was drafted by a 12-member committee chaired by JC Kala, a former secretary to the ministry. The plan is unique as this is the first time India has recognised the concerns relating to climate change impact on wildlife and stressed on integrating actions that need to be taken for its mitigation and adaptation into wildlife management planning processes. The plan adopts a landscape approach in conservation of all wildlife – uncultivated flora and fauna – that have an ecological value to the ecosystem and to mankind irrespective of where they occur. It gives special emphasis to recovery o hreatened species of wildlife while conserving their habitats.

Notes:
The 8th Conference of the Association of SAARC Speakers and Parliamentarians has started in Colombo, Sri Lanka from October 4, 2017, which is inaugurated by Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena. In the 3-day conference, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan is leading the Indian delegation. She delivered the lead speech on the topic Association of the SAARC Speakers and Parliamentarians, a platform for the Parliamentarians of South Asia to work together to reach the 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development. She is accompanied by a delegation of MPs and senior officials of Lok Sabha.

Notes:
The Union Ministry of Tourism has started a festival of Tourism ‘Paryatan Parv’ from Humayun’s Tomb in Delhi from October 5, 2017 & will continue across the country till 25th of this month. The event is being organized by the Ministry of Tourism in collaboration with other Central Ministries, State Governments and Stakeholders. The objective is to draw focus on the benefits of tourism, to showcase the cultural diversity of the country and reinforce the principle of Tourism for All. It will have three main components, Dekho Apna Desh, Tourism for All and Tourism & Governance. The components aims to encourage Indians to visit their own country, tourism events at sites across all states and interactive Sessions and workshops with stakeholders on varied themes.

Notes:
Pooja Kadian has created history by becoming the first Indian to clinch a gold medal at Wushu World Championships in the 75 kilogram women Sanda category after defeating Evgeniya Stepanova in the final at Kazan on October 5, 2017. Apart from her, four other members of the Indian contingent – Rameshchandra Singh Moirangthem, Bhanu Pratap Singh, Rajinder Singh, and Arunpama Devi Keisham – won bronze medals in the tournament held at Kazan, Russia. Wushu is one of the two umbrella words used to describe Chinese Marial arts, the other one being Kung-Fu. It is also a full contact sport and is governed by the International Wushu Federation.