Current Affairs Quiz - December, 2018

Notes:
Salome Zurabishvili, a French-born Georgian politician, has elected the first woman president in the history of Georgia. She will be inaugurated as President of Georgia on 16 December 2018. The President of Georgia is head of state and a guarantor of national independence and unity of the country. He/she is elected on the basis of universal, equal and direct suffrage by secret ballot, for a period of five years. The President ensures the functioning of state bodies in accordance with the Constitution.

Notes:
India’s Olympic and world champion shooter Abhinav Bindra has been bestowed with the prestigious ISSF’s highest shooting honour ‘Blue Cross’at the General Assembly in Munich for his outstanding services as the chairman of the International Shooting Sport Federation’s Athletes Committee. The Blue Cross is the highest laurel for shooters given by the ISSF. In 2008, by winning the gold in the 10 metre Air Rifle event at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, he created history by becoming the first Indian to win an individual gold medal at the Olympic Games. He is the first and only Indian to have held both the World and Olympic titles at the same time, a feat he accomplished by capturing the Gold Medal at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, after having won the gold at the 2006 ISSF World Shooting Championships. Bindra also won the Gold Medal at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

Notes:
On 3rd December 2018, the 80th Session of the Policy Commission of the World Customs Organization (WCO) was held in Mumbai, Maharashtra . The Session is being organized by the WCO and hosted by the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), India. The Indian delegation was headed by CBIC Chairman, S Ramesh. The custom heads of more than 30 countries participated in the 3-day long discussion on various matters related to customs. Some of the important topics discussed during the meeting include trade facilitation, controlling illicit financial flow, performance measurement, challenges of small island economies, etc. The WCO is the only global organization which defines global standards and procedures for customs clearances at the border and their implementation. It is headquartered at Brussels, Belgium.

Notes:
Asian Games gold medalist Swapna Barman has become the brand ambassador for State Bank of India (SBI)’s unified integrated app ‘YONO (You Only Need One)’. Through YONO, users are capable to access a variety of financial and other services such as taxi bookings, online shopping, or medical bill payments. It is the first digital banking platform that offers customised products and offers from over 60 e-commerce players. This is also the first to offer online purchase and view of insurance policies without redirecting customers to the respective service providers. It can be accessed through mobile phones and on the web. Hails from West Bengal, Barman clinched gold in the women’s heptathlon with 6026 points at the 18th Asian Games 2018 in Jakarta. With this, she created history by becoming the first Indian heptathlete to win an Asian Games gold.

Notes:
Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has launched National Challenge for Youths ‘Ideate for India – creative solutions using technology’ at New Delhi on December 6. The aim of this National Challenge is to give school students across the country a platform and opportunity to become solution creators for the problems they see around them and their communities. It is open to students of classes 6 – 12 all across the country – all 29 States and 7 Union Territories and aims to reach out to at least 1 million youth over the next 3 months. “Ideate for India” will help inculcate innovation skills in youth and equip all students to utilise technology for the betterment of their communities and the society at large. Simultaneously, this will prepare them to contribute towards the realization of Digital India goals. The challenge has been designed and launched by the National e-governance Division in collaboration with Intel India, with support from the Department of School Education and Literacy (DoSE&L) of Ministry of Human Resources Development (HRD).

Notes:
The World Soil Day (WSD) is observed every year on December 5 to focus attention on the importance of healthy soil and advocating for the sustainable management of soil resources. The 2018 theme is ‘Be the Solution to Soil Pollution’. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Soil holds 3 times as much carbon as the atmosphere and can help meet the challenges of a changing climate. It further stated that 815 million people are food insecure and 2 billion people are nutritionally insecure, but it can be mitigated through soil. 95% of food comes from soil and 33% of the global soils are already degraded. In wake of this cause, the Government of India (GoI) has launched nationwide Soil Health Card Scheme (SHCS) to take care of Soil Health for the first time in a uniform manner to evaluate the soil fertility across the country. Soil health card provides information to the farmers on fertility status of their soil and enables them to apply soil health card based recommended dosages of fertilizers including micro-nutrients, bio-fertilizers, manures as well as soil ameliorants. It is helpful in checking the declining fertility of agriculture land and improve the fertility of soils to increase productivity besides enhancing farmers income.

Notes:
Dr Krishnamurthy Subramanian has been appointed the new Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) for a period of three years. The post of CEA had been lying vacant since Arvind Subramanaian left the finance ministry after a four-year stint. Dr Krishnamurthy is currently working as an Associate Professor and the executive director at the Indian School of Business (IBS), Hyderabad. The CEA is the ex-officio cadre controlling authority of the Indian Economic Service (IES) & is under the direct charge of the Minister of Finance.

Notes:
Maulana Asrar-ul-Haque Qasmi (76), noted Islamic scholar and Congress Lok Sabha MP from Bihar’s Kishanganj constituency, has passed away on December 7, 2018. Qasmi won the Kishanganj seat in 2009 general elections by contesting on an Indian National Congress ticket after five consecutive failures. He retained his constituency in the 2014 general elections by defeating BJP’s Dilip Kumar Jaiswal. He was a member of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board and also a founder member of the All India Milli Council.

Notes:
The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has approved India’s proposal to observe 2023 as the International Year of Millets. This decision was taken at the 160th session of FAO Council, currently underway in Rome. The move will enhance global awareness to bring back these nutri-cereals to the plate. In addition, the FAO Council has also approved India’s membership to the Executive Board of the United Nations World Food Program for 2020 and 2021. Millets consists of Jowar, Bajra, Ragi and minor millets together termed as nutri-cereals.

Notes:
On December 8, the Japanese government enacted a new law to bring more blue-collar foreign workers into the country, in a controversial move to address chronic labour shortages. Under the new law, Japan plans to bring in 345,000 foreign workers in construction, food services, nursing and other sectors for 5 years. The law will take effect in April 2019 and create two new visa categories. The first status allows foreign nationals with skills in sectors facing severe shortages to obtain five-year visas, which will not allow them to bring their families. The second status allows foreign workers in those fields who hold stronger qualifications and pass a more difficult Japanese language test will be able to obtain a visa that can be extended indefinitely, eventually leading to residency, and will be able to bring over family.