Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - September, 2017

Notes:
The 13th edition of the joint military training exercise “Yudh Abhyas – 2017” will be conducted at Joint Base Lewis McChord, Washington, USA from September 14 to 27. The exercise is one of the largest joint running military training and defence corporation endeavors between India and USA. The exercise Yudh Abhyas will provide an opportunity to the armed forces of both countries to train in an integrated manner at Battalion level with joint planning at Brigade level. It is also an ideal platform to learn from each-other’s experiences of planning and execution of operations. Both armies will jointly train, plan and execute a series of well-developed operations for neutralization of threats of varied nature.

Notes:
Indian weightlifters Sivalingam Sathish Kumar and Ragala Venkat Rahul have qualified for 2018 Commonwealth Games after winning a gold medal each in their respective weight divisions at the 2017 Commonwealth Senior (men & women) Weightlifting Championships in Gold Coast, Australia. Two Indian women weightlifters- S.Nirupama Devi and Nikeeta Kale- also claimed gold medals in 69 kilogram weight division of junior section in the Championships.

Notes:
The Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) will undertake major research works on agriculture this year (in 2017) with the World Bank (WB) fund of Rs 1100 crore. It is announced by the Deputy Director General of the national apex agricultural research body Narendra Singh Rathore in the convocation function at the Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University in Chennai yesterday. The funds will be allocated to ten each of the premier agricultural and veterinary universities in the country. It must be noted that though India ranks first in milk production in the world, the milk yield per animal is very low as compared to international standards. The headquarters of ICAR is locaed in New Delhi.

Notes:
Viveck Goenka, the CMD of Express Group, has been elected as the new Chairman of Press Trust of India (PTI). He succeeded Riyad Mathew, who is Senior Assistant Editor and a member of the Manorama management. N. Ravi, the former Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu, has been unanimously elected as new Vice Chairman of PTI.

Notes:
The Punjab National Bank (PNB) and state-run owned BSNL has signed an agreement to roll out open mobile wallet Speedpay across 10 states in the country. Under the agreement, BSNL will expand Speedpay services in Punjab, Chandigarh(UT), Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand. PNB’s Speedway wallet will operate like any other mobile wallet for paying bills, recharging phone besides its users will be able to deposit and withdraw money from authorised retail outlets. Also, Speedway users will be able to operate Internet banking services from the application.

Notes:
The 2018 World University Rankings (WUR), released by Times Higher Education, has found that India’s flagship Indian Institute of Science (IISc) fall from previous year’s 201-250 band to 251-300. This was attributed to drops in its research influence score and research income. In it, Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore has been named the top university in India, followed by IIT-Bombay, IIT-Delhi, IIT-Kanpur and IIT-Kharagpur. Globally, the University of Oxford has retained its first place in the rankings, followed by University of Cambridge, California Institute of Technology and Stanford University. The World University ranking is the only global university performance table to judge research-intensive universities across all of their core missions: teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.

Notes:
India will host the 2018 Junior Asian Wrestling Championship (JAWC), which is scheduled to be held from July 19 to 22 in New Delhi. Recently, the United World Wrestling (UWW) has announced the hosting rights to Indian city for the tournament. The UWW is the international governing body for the sport of amateur wrestling and is headquartered in Corsier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland.

Notes:
The Bhindawas Wildlife Sanctuary (BWS) is a protected area in Jhajjar district of Haryana and covers an area of 411.55 hectares. The major wildlife supported here are neelgai, geedar, langur and Bandar, blue peafowl, rufous treepie, greater coucal, Indian grey hornbill, coppersmith barbet, etc.

Notes:
The researchers at IIT-Roorkee have developed a low-cost method for treating Osteoarthritis (OA), a disease that causes pain and stiffness in the joints leading to degeneration of the bone cartilage. Under the new method, a nano-material and a polymer are injected around the knee joint followed by a regular heat therapy, which is believed to be far superior to the conventional treatment administered in the form of multiple injections and anti-inflammatory drugs like steroids, which have critical side effects.

Notes:
R M Hidayathulla, who is from Androth in Lakshadweep, in his research work stated that biodiversity-rich uninhabited ‘Parali I island’ of Lakshadweep has been eroded to an extent of 100% due to coastal erosion. The study stated that the complete erosion and inundation of Parali I was pointing to the gravity of issues associated with coastal erosion within the atoll. Apart from Parali I, net erosion was higher in Parali II (80%), followed by Thinnakara (14.38%), Parali III (11.42%) and Bangaram (9.968%). Hidayathulla was awarded a doctoral degree in July 2017 by Calicut University in Kerala for his work entitled “Studies on coastal erosion in selected uninhabited islands of Lakshadweep archipelago Archipelago with Special Reference to Biodiversity Conservation.” He conducted studies on the biodiversity of five uninhabited islands — Bangaram, Thinnakara, Parali I, II and III, of which Parali I has been inundated.