GK & Current Affairs Quiz: January 17, 2018

Notes:
The newly-constituted 5-judge constitution bench of the Supreme Court has been set up to hear a range of crucial cases & its hearings has started on January 17, 2018. The bench is headed by Chief Justice Dipak Mishra and also comprises of Justices AK Sikri, AM Khanwilkar, DY Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan. The cases that the bench will hear include challenging the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Act and the 2013 apex court judgement re-criminalising gay sex between consenting adults. The bench will also hear the issue of ban on the entry of women between 10 and 50 years of age in Kerala’s Sabarimala temple. It will also resume hearing a legal query on whether a Parsi woman would lose her religious identity if she marries a man from a different religion. The other issues to be dealt with by the bench include the pleas, which have raised a question as to when will a lawmaker, facing the criminal trial, stand disqualified. All these matters were earlier referred to larger benches for adjudication by different benches of the apex court.

Notes:
Charu Rohatgi, the Bollywood and TV actor, has passed away in Mumbai, Maharashtra on January 15, 2018. She is known for working in Parineeti Chopra – Arjun Kapoor starrer film ‘Ishaqzaade’. She was also an integral part of daily soaps like Pratigya and Uttaran. Her filmography includes films like 1920 London, Second Marriage Dot Com and 15 Park Avenue.

Notes:
N. Vembusamy Sankaran (64), popularly known as Gnani, has passed away in Chennai, Tamil Nadu on January 15, 2018. He was the veteran Tamil writer, journalist and theatre personality. Known as a firebrand writer, Gnani led a theatre group known as “Pareeksha,” produced television serials on social themes and has been participating in various television debates. He wrote articles under the pseudonyms Vamban, Cynic and Nandan, and is known for frank and uncompromising views on politics and culture, which he has expressed in the media for 30 years. He has also written several novels and for a brief time involved himself in politics too, though unsuccessfully.

Notes:
The Logistics Division of the Union Commerce Ministry has signed an agreement with industry body Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on January 16 to address challenges facing the country’s logistics sector and help take measures to bring down costs. As per the MoU, CII will identify logistics challenges facing industry and suggest action solutions to the Logistics Division. It will also interact with state governments and work on promoting the logistics sector, along with capacity building programs. The two sides will cooperate in organising a National Logistics convention each year to bring together stakeholders in the sector. The headquarters of CII is located in New Delhi.

Notes:
The NITI Aayog has launched the first Global Initiative on Academic Network (GIAN) course on Sustainable Urban planning using remote sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS) has been launched at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur’s outreach center in Noida on January 15, 2018. The purpose of the course is to give participants state-of-the-art remote sensing and GIS skills which will allow them to rise to the challenge of managing the rapidly changing urban environment of Indian cities. The focus will be on issues such as water resource management, water pollution and strategic emplacements for water treatment facilities. The course is being coordinated by Professor Rajiv Sinha from the Department of Earth Sciences at IIT Kanpur and Dr. Patrice Carbonneau from the Department of Geography, University of Durham, UK.

Notes:
In an attempt to fight air pollution, China has constructed an experimental air purifying tower, touted to be the “world’s biggest air purifier” at a height of over 100 meters (328 feet). The tower has been built in Xian in Shaanxi province and is being tested by researchers at the Institute of Earth Environment at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. As per reports, the air purifier has produced more than 10 million cubic meters of clean air since it was launched. The air purification system works through greenhouses covering about half the size of a soccer field around the base of the tower.

Notes:
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government and Fukuoka Prefecture in Japan has recently signed a friendship agreement for cooperation in various fields including environment, cultural exchange, education, tourism and heritage, and air pollution. Chief Minister of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal and Governor of Fukuoka Hiroshi Ogawa represented the two governments. The two cities signed this agreement for three years, with effect from April 2017, till 2020. The first MoU/Friendship Agreement between Delhi and Fukuoka was signed in March 2005 and was done for the second time in March 2012.

Notes:
Prime Minister Modi and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu have dedicated the iCREATE facility to the nation, located on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, Gujarat. iCreate is an independent Centre created with the objective of facilitating entrepreneurship through a blend of creativity, innovation, engineering, product design and leveraging emerging technologies to deal with major issues such as food security, water, connectivity, cybersecurity, IT and electronics, energy, bio-medical equipment and devices etc. The purpose of iCreate is to develop an ecosystem in India to generate quality entrepreneurs.

Notes:
Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, the Union Minister of State for Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, is leading the Indian delegation to 10th Global Forum for Food & Agriculture (GFFA-2018) from 18-20 January, 2018 which includes the 10th Berlin Agriculture Ministers’ Conference. The theme of 2018 event is “Shaping the future of livestock – sustainably, responsibly, efficiently”. The discussions will focus on sustainable and productive animal production among other issues. The GFFA is an international conference that focuses on central questions concerning the future of the global agri-food industry. The GFFA is organised by the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection (BMEL) in cooperation with GFFA Berlin e.V., the Senate of Berlin and Messe Berlin GmbH.

Notes:
The Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI) is a multidisciplinary research laboratory in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh that employs scientific personnel from various areas of biomedical sciences. CDRI is among the 39 laboratories that are functioning under the aegis of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) of India. The CDRI was formally inaugurated on 17 Feb 1951 by the then Prime Minister Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru with a vision to strengthen and advance the field of drug research and development in the country.