Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - September, 2017

Notes:
Waltherus Norbertus Maria Marijne has been named as the new chief coach of the Indian Senior Men Hockey Team. Marijne will succeed Roelant Oltmans on September 20, 2017. Currently, Marijne is the chief coach of Indian Senior Women Hockey Team. Besides, Harendra Singh, who is hockey coach and Dronacharya Awardee, has been appointed as High Performance Specialist Coach for Indian Senior Women Hockey Team. The decisions were announced by the newly-appointed Sports Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore on his official twitter page. According to a top Hockey India official, both Marijne and Harendra have been given a tenure till the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Notes:
Rattihalli Nagendra Sudarshan (78), the veteran Kannada actor, producer and singer, has passed away in Bengaluru, Karnataka on September 8, 2017. In his five decade film career, Sudarshan acted in Kannada, Tamil, Hindi, Telugu and Malayalam films. He was one of the villains in Nayagan directed by Manirathnam. His last film was Super (2010) by Upendra in Kannada. Music lovers still remember him for songs such as Hoovandu Balibandu and Irabeku, Irabeku, Ariyada, which he sung in Shubhamangala (1975) directed by Puttanna and songs from his own film Naguva Hoovu (1971).

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:
Dr Tahir Mahmood, the well-known jurist, has won the prestigious Prof N R Madhava Menon Best Law Teacher Award – 2017 in recognition of his distinguished services to legal education and legal profession during the 9th Teachers’ Day Award Function organized by Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF) and Menon Institute of Legal Advocacy Training (MILAT) in New Delhi. Among the institutions, Mar Gregorios College of Law in Thiruvananthapuram bagged 2017 SILF-MILAT Institutional Excellence Award. Among other awardees, Prof V C Vivekanandan received the SILF-MILAT Legal Education Innovation Award and Dr. T.K Vishwanathan was conferred with Prof A.V Rohatgi Jurist Award 2017.

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.

Notes:
The BWF World Senior Badminton Championship has started at Rajiv Gandhi Indoor Stadium in Kochi, Kerala on September 11 and will continue till September 17. It is for the first time that India is hosting the Championship. The President of Badminton Association of India (BAI) Himanta Biswa Sarma has formally inaugurated the week long Championship. The tournament will see a total of 665 players from 40 countries battle it out in eight different age groups and will be played in all the five categories. About 175 players are representing India including Olympians in the Championship.

Notes:
Dr Harsh Vardhan, the Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, has launched the “Wood is Good” campaign at conference on “Sustainable Landscapes & Forest Ecosystems: Theory to Practice” in New Delhi on September 12, 2017. Wood is a climate-friendly material, as it is a renewable resource, having zero carbon footprints. The conference has organized to deliberate and come out with out-of-the-box ideas and solutions on increasing the forest cover much beyond the stipulated 33 per cent. The union ministery advocated the balancing of environmental and developmental concerns and also urged the gathering of scientists and foresters to devise a solution to the problem of weeds.

Notes:
P.S. Kayal (8) of Lawspet in Puducherry has won a gold medal in the 8th Modern Pentathlon National Championship – 2017 in Pune, Maharashtra. She beat 30 other participants to claim the title. In the competition, the participants had to run 200 metres and swim 50 metres. Kayal is a Class IV student of a private school in The Study school at Kalapet and started to learn swimming from the age of six at the swimming pool on the school campus.

Notes:
The Shingba Rhododendron Sanctuary (SRS) is a nature park in the Yumthang Valley of Flowers north of Lachung in North Sikkim district and covers an area of 43 sq kms. Bird species found in the park include Wood snipe and Hoary-throated barwing.

Notes:
Peter Thomson, the outgoing president of the General Assembly, has been appointed as the first special envoy for the oceans by the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Thomson played a leading role at the first-ever UN conference on oceans in June 2017. The 193 UN member states issued an urgent call for action to reverse the decline in the health and productivity of the world’s oceans.