Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - October, 2017

Notes:
India’s first-ever Industrial Training Institute (ITI) for the Divyangans will come up in Assam. Recently, the foundation stone for the institute was laid at Dibrugarh ITI Complex at Borboruah in Assam. As per the guidelines of National Council for Vocational Training (NCVT), the ITI will have sixty seats for three different trades with 20 seats per trade. The three different trades included in the curriculum are Computer Operator and Programming Assistant, Cutting and Sewing Technology and Hair & Skin Care.

Notes:
Purushottam Lal Kaushik (87), the former Minister for Information and Broadcasting, has passed away in Mahasamund, Chhattisgarh on October 5, 2017. He was elected to the Lok Sabha twice in 1977 and 1989. The departed leader was the Minister for Tourism and Civil Aviation in the Morarji Desai Ministry and later, the Minister for Information and Broadcasting in the Charan Singh government.

Notes:
The Daroji Sloth Bear Sanctuary is located in Ballari district in Karnataka and covers an area of 82.72 square kilometers. The sanctuary’s flagship species is the Indian sloth bear (Melursus ursinus). Some species of mammals recorded in this sanctuary are leopards, monitor lizards, mongoose, pangolins, star tortoises, etc.

Notes:
The Uttar Pradesh government has launched a mass marriage scheme ‘Mukhyamantri Samoohik Vivaah Yojana’. In it, the state government will spend Rs 35,000 on each couple, besides gifting them mobile phones and household items, and the social welfare department will conduct the mass marriages. The marriage programs regarding the scheme will be organized by urban local bodies like Nagar panchayat, Nagar Palika and Nagar Nigam, kshetra panchayats, Zila panchayats, overnment/semi-government organizations and NGOs, which will be authorized by district magistrates of respective districts. As per the scheme, the parents of the brides must be the residents of Uttar Pradesh and must belong to Below Poverty Line (BPL) families in order to avail the benefits of the scheme. There must be minimum 10 couples in the mass marriage ceremony.

Notes:
The Bori Wildlife Sanctuary (BWS) is located in in Hoshangabad District of Madhya Pradesh and covers an area of 518 square kilometers. It is an important transition zone between the forests of western and eastern India. The sanctuary is mostly covered in mixed deciduous and bamboo forests, part of the Eastern Highlands moist deciduous forests eco-region. It is home to tiger, leopard, wild boar, muntjac deer, gaur, chital deer, etc.

Notes:
The Supreme Court of India (SCI) has appointed senior advocate and former additional solicitor general Amrender Sharan as amicus curiae on a petition seeking reprobe into the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. The matter is posted for further hearing on October 30, 2017. The petition filed by Mumbai-based Dr. Pankaj Phadnis , a researcher and a trustee of Abhinav Bharat, has sought reopening of the probe on several grounds, claiming it was one of the biggest cover-ups in history. According to petition, there is possibility of involvement of more people in the murder. Mahatma Gandhi was shot dead at point blank range in New Delhi on January 30, 1948 by Nathuram Vinayak Godse, a right-wing advocate of Hindu nationalism.

Notes:
Indian shuttler Samiya Imad Farooqui from Hyderabad has clinched gold at the Under-15 women’s singles competition after defeating Indonesia’s Widjaja Stephani at the Asian Junior Championship in Yangon, Myanmar on October 9, 2017. Earlier, P V Sindhu had won the gold in U-19 Asia Junior championship in 2012 at Gimcheon, South Korea.

Notes:
The World Bank (WB), in its biannual economic update “South Asia Economic Focus (Fall 2017)”, has reduced India’s GDP growth forecast to 7.0% for 2017-18 from 7.2% estimated earlier. As per report, the unexpected slowdown in India’s growth story is because of the delayed consequence of demonetization, sharp decline in the growth rate of public expenditures and uncertainty created by the introduction of Goods and Services Tax (GST). Apart from WB, Both the Asian Development Bank (ADB) as well as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have also cut their growth projections for India to 7% and 6.7%, respectively, for fiscal 2017-18.

Notes:
Film actor Anupam Kher has been appointed as the new chairman of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII). He succeeded Gajendra Chauhan. Kher has worked in more than 500 films and over 100 plays in last three decades. He was conferred the Padma Shri in 2004 and the Padma Bhushan in 2016 by the Indian government. Some of his prominent films include Saaransh, Daddy, Lamhe, Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge and Maine Gandhi Ko Nahi Maara. He has also been a part of international projects such as Bend It Like Beckham, Lust, Caution, and David O Russell’s 2013 Oscar-winning Silver Linings Playbook.

Notes:
The Maenam Wildlife Sanctuary (MWS) is located in the South Sikkim district of Sikkim and is spread over 35 square kilometres. Here, one can find species of the temperate forest such as Red Panda, Serow, Goral, Barking Deer, Leopard-Cat, Marbled-Cat, Civet-Cats, and birds like Common Hill Partridge, Blood Pheasant, Magpies, Blue necked Pita, Sunbird and Black Eagle.