GK & Current Affairs Quiz: October 07-08, 2018

Notes:
The 10th Biennial International Exhibition & Conference “India Chem 2018” was held in Mumbai, Maharashtra from October 4-6. The conference was jointly organised by the Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI). India Chem 2018 will showcase Government policy for sustained growth in the sector that will provide platform for investors, both domestic and international, and other stakeholders to interact and forge alliances. It is one of the largest composite events of Chemicals and Petrochemicals industry of the Asia Pacific region. The event comprises of an international exhibition and a conference of representatives of participating global giants from various associated fields.

Notes:
India has been ranked 28th among 73 countries in the Visa’s 2018 Government e-Payment Adoption Ranking (GEAR). The 2018 GEAR is an Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) global Index and benchmarking study commissioned by Visa. This is the third edition of the study after those in 2007 and 2011. It ranks governments by quantifying their e-payment capabilities based on various indicators. The survey has lauded India for taking “rapid strides” in advancing government e-payments capabilities and called it one of the top- performing countries in terms of Citizen-to-Government (C2G), Government-to-Citizen (G2C), Business-to-Government (B2G), Government-to-Business (G2B) transactions. Norway leads the pack in the 73-country ranking, followed by France and Denmark. The 73-country survey looks at availability of government electronic transaction services and the underlying environment of mechanisms that support digitisation for all transactions in a market, such as policy and infrastructure.

Notes:
The World Teachers’ Day (WTD), also known as International Teachers Day, is held every year on October 5 to focus on “appreciating, assessing and improving the educators of the world” and to provide an opportunity to consider issues related to teachers and teaching. The day also commemorate the anniversary of the signing of the 1966 ILO/UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers. For 2018, the UNESCO adopted the theme: “The right to education means the right to a qualified teacher”. It commemorates the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and serves as a reminder that the right to education cannot be realized without trained and qualified teachers.

Notes:
Pravin Srivastava, the 1983-batch Indian Statistical Service officer, has been appointed as new Chief Statistician of India (CSI). This appointment comes into effect from the date of his assuming charge of the post till the date of his superannuation (August 31, 2020) or until further orders, whichever is earlier. He has worked in the ministries of statistics and health in various positions, and briefly in the Union Public Service Commission, in his 35-year career. He was a secretary to the Indian Statistical Commission, popularly known as the Rangarajan Commission, which laid the foundation of the modern statistical system. The National Statistical Commission was set up in 2005 on its recommendations.

Notes:
In Assam, the Namrup-based Assam Petrochemicals Limited (APL) rolled out Asia’s first cannisters based and India’s first “Methanol Cooking Fuel Program” on 5th October 2018. The project has been promoted by NITI Aayog. The safe handling cannister based cooking stoves are from Swedish Technology and through a Technology transfer a large-scale cooking stove manufacturing plant will come up in India in the next 18 months producing 10 lakh Cookstoves and 1 Crore Cannisters per year. This technology is very unique, it handles methanol extremely safely, does not need regulator or any piping system. In it, Ritu Bordoloi of Namrup has become the India’s first owner and user of a cooking stove fuelled by methanol. She was one of 500 people who were handed over a stove with two 1.2-litre canisters of methanol, as part of a pilot project by APL. The APL is the India’s first public sector producer of methanol and formalin from natural gas as feed stock.

Notes:
Pankaj Sharma has been appointed India’s Ambassador & permanent representative to United Nations Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. Sharma is currently the joint secretary (Disarmament and International Security Division) in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). He will replace Amandeep Gill.

Notes:
Vikram Limaye, the MD and CEO of National Stock Exchange’s (NSE), has been appointed the Chairman of the Working Committee (WoCo) and Director on the Board of the World Federation of Exchanges (WFE). The decision was taken at the global body’s 58th general assembly and annual meeting that is currently underway in Athens, Greece. The WFE is the global industry association for exchanges and clearing houses. It represents nearly 45,000 listed companies & has its headquarters in London. It works with policy makers and regulators around the world to support the development of effective rules and standards for exchanges and market participants.

Notes:
On October 7, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference (CPC) of India Region, Zone III has started in Guwahati, Assam. The four-day conference will discuss on several issues on North East region. During the conference, Women empowerment, Skill development, connectivity are some of the topics that would be discussed. Sumitra Mahajan, the Lok Sabha Speaker will also launch the North East chapter of Speaker’s Research Initiative during the conference. The MPs and MLAs from the North-East are likely to attend the conference.

Notes:
The Odisha and Andhra Pradesh Police have recently decided to conduct joint operations and share information to effectively combat the Left Wing Extremism (LWE) in the border areas of the two states. This was decided in a meeting in Bhubaneswar, which was attended by Odisha DGP R P Sharma, his Andhra Pradesh counterpart R P Thakur and other senior police officers of both the states engaged in anti-maoist operations. The aim of the initiative is to enhance the inter-state coordination and cooperation, particularly conducting joint operations in the core areas like the CutOff area in Malkangiri district to effectively combat and contain the LWE menace.

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has kept all key policy rates unchanged in its fourth bi-monthly monetary policy review, which is recently announced on October 5, 2018. A six-member Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), headed by Governor Urjit Patel, decided to keep the repo rate unchanged at 6.5% and the reverse repo rate at 6.25%. Repo rate is the rate at which RBI lends to banks, while the reverse repo is the rate at which RBI borrows money from banks. Accordingly, the Marginal Standing Facility (MSF) rate and the Bank Rate too were kept at 6.75%. On the growth front, RBI retained GDP growth projection for 2018-19 at 7.4%.