GK & Current Affairs Quiz: August 22, 2017

Notes:
Para Athlete Devendra Jhajharia and Hockey player Sardar Singh have been selected for the 2017 Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award. Cricketer Cheteshwar Pujara, Women Cricketer Harmanpreet Kaur and shooter P. N. Prakash are among the 17 sportsmen who will be given Arjuna Awards for their outstanding performance. Seven persons have been chosen for Dronacharya Awards for producing medal winners at prestigious International sports events. They include late Dr. R. Gandhi in Athletics, Brij Bhushan Mohanty in Boxing and P.A. Raphel in the field of hockey. Dhyan Chand Award will be given to Bhupender Singh in Athletics, Syed Shahid Hakim in Football and Sumarai Tete in Hockey for their life time contribution to sports development.The awardees will receive their awards from the President Ram Nath Kovind in a special function at Rashtrapati Bhawan on August 29, 2017.

Notes:
Recently, the Union Ministry of Defence has granted additional administrative and financial powers to the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) to speed up the construction of roads along the Indo-China border. With this, from now, a chief engineer in BRO can now accord administrative approval for contracts of up to Rs50 crore, the additional director general (ADG) can approve projects worth up to Rs75 crore and the director general (DG) can take decisions on projects worth up to Rs100 crore. These projects can be implemented through departmental and contractual modes of execution. The BRO is functioning under the control of the Ministry of Defence since 2015 and is engaged in road construction to provide connectivity to difficult and inaccessible regions in the border areas of the country. Its headquarters is located in New Delhi.

Notes:
In September 2018, Senior IPS officer Arun Kumar was appointed as Director General of Railway Protection Force (RPF). Kumar, a 1985 batch officer of the Uttar Pradesh cadre, is serving as Special Director General of Border Security Force.

Notes:
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the Union Ministry of Health has inked a pact with the International Vaccine Institute (IVI) to collaborate on vaccine research and development. With this partnership, India will commit an annual contribution of $5,00,000 to IVI and joins Sweden and South Korea as financially contributing signatories to IVI. In addition, ICMR will be focussed on research and development of vaccines combatting various infectious diseases. As per official statement, the IVI has 35 signatory countries and India officially became a signatory in 2012. The IVI is an international nonprofit organization i.e. devoted to developing and introducing new and improved vaccine to protect the people, especially children, against deadly infectious diseases. The headquarters of IVI is located in Seoul, South Korea. The ICMR is the apex body in the country for the formulation, coordination and promotion of biomedical research.

Notes:
Bulgarian weightlifter Velichko Cholakov (35), an Olympic and world medalist, has passed away in Smolyan, Bularia on August 20, 2017. He took +105 kg bronze at the Athens 2004 Olympics and silver in the same division in the 2003 world championships. He was part of the Bulgarian team pulled from the Beijing 2008 Games after failed dope tests. Cholakov was one of 11 members of the contingent to test positive for a banned anabolic steroid. In recent years Cholakov dedicated his time to training young weightlifters in Smolyan.

Notes:
Prakash Javadekar, the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD), has recently launched ‘Swasth Bachche, Swasth Bharat’ Programme. The programme is an initiative of Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS) to prepare a physical health and fitness ‘Profile Card’ for over 12 lakh Kendriya Vidyalaya students. The programme will provide a comprehensive and inclusive report card for children of all age groups and differently-abled kids. The programme aims to make students, teachers and parents aware of the importance of good health and fitness and encourage ‘60 minutes of play’ every day. The programme also intends to imbibe values of Olympics and Paralympics among students.

Notes:
The Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry has recently constituted a 40-member ‘preview committee’ with filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri as its convenor to select movies for the 2017 International Film Festival of India (IFFI). The other members of the new committee include Pallavi Joshi, Narendra Kohli, Hrishitaa Bhatt, Aarti Bajaj, Khalid Mohamed, and film director Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury. The 2017 IFFI will be held in Panaji, Goa from November 20 to 28. Earlier, the I & B Ministry had constituted the steering committee and the technical committee for the IFFI.

Notes:
The Karnataka Government has recently launched an ambitious clouding seeding Project Varshadhari in Bengaluru to deal with poor monsoons in the state. Under the project, an aircraft will spray chemicals to induce rainfall. The purpose of the project is to condense small water particles by clouds (size less than 10 microns) to droplets of 50 microns, which can constitute rains. It is an experimental project that will cover Bengaluru, Gadag and Yadgir districts of the state. The Cloud seeding (also known as weather modification technique) is an artificial way to induce moisture in the clouds so as to cause a rainfall.

Notes:
Home Minister Rajnath Singh has launched digital police portal under Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems Project (CCTNS) on August 21, 2017. The portal is a smart policing initiative to provide services to citizens and aid efficient police investigation. It is a platform for citizens to file online crime related complaints and also request for antecedent verification. The portal will also provide access to authorized persons to use National Database of crime records for the purpose of investigation. In addition, central investigating and research agencies have also been provided logins to the portal to access crime statistics. Till date, the CCTNS national database has around seven crore records of old and new criminal cases.

Notes:
The Sepahijala Wildlife Sanctuary (SWS) is located in Bishalgarh, Tripura and covers an area of 18.53 square kilometres. It is famous for its clouded leopard enclosures. It is woodland with an artificial lake and natural botanical and zoological gardens. It gives shelter to about 150 species of birds and the unique bespectacled monkey, Phayre’s langur. The sanctuary has been developed both as a wildlife sanctuary and as an academic and research centre.