GK & Current Affairs Quiz: August 03, 2018

Notes:
Rajasthan has become the first Indian state to implement the National policy on bio fuels, which was launched by the Union Government in May 2018. The desert State will lay emphasis on increasing production of oilseeds and establish a Centre for Excellence in Udaipur to promote research in the fields of alternative fuels and energy resources. The policy on bio fuels seeks to help farmers dispose of their surplus stock in an economic manner and reduce the country’s oil import dependence. It has expanded the scope of raw material for ethanol production by allowing use of sugarcane juice, sugar containing materials, starch containing materials and damaged food grains like wheat, broken rice and rotten potatoes for ethanol production.

Notes:
The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) hiked policy repo rate by 25 basis points to 6.50% in its third bi-monthly monetary policy review of 2018-19. Repo rate is the rate at which the RBI lends money to commercial banks in the event of any shortfall of funds. Reverse repo rate, the rate at which the Reserve Bank borrows money from commercial banks within the country, was adjusted to 6.25%. Accordingly, the Marginal Standing Facility (MSF) rate and the Bank Rate too stand adjusted at 6.75%. This time too, RBI has maintained neutral stance with an objective of achieving the medium-term target for headline inflation of 4 per cent while supporting growth.

Notes:
Akshay Venkatesh, a renowned Indian-Australian mathematician, has won the 2018 Fields Medal for his profound contributions to an exceptionally broad range of subjects in mathematics. Venkatesh is one of four winners of mathematics’ top honour known as the Nobel prize for math. The Fields medals are awarded every four years to the most promising mathematicians under the age of 40. Each winner receives a 15,000 Canadian-dollar cash prize. The other three winners are: Caucher Birkar, a Cambridge University professor of Iranian Kurdish origin; Germany’s Peter Scholze, who teaches at the University of Bonn and Alessio Figalli, an Italian mathematician at ETH Zurich.

Notes:
Umbayee (68), the noted ghazal singer and composer from Kerala, has passed away at Aluva on August 1, 2018. Born in Mattancherry, he was a disciple of Ustad Munawar Ali Khan and was known his reinvention of several old Malayalam film songs in his own natural style. His birth name was PA Ibrahim.

Notes:
Dr Bhishma Narain Singh (85), the former Union Minister and Congress leader, has passed away in Noida on August 1, 2018. Dr Singh held various portfolios during the Congress rule led by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. He was also the Governor of Assam and Tamil Nadu.

Notes:
The Government of Odisha has launched a 360 degree nation-wide publicity campaign “Heartbeats for Hockey” to attract fans for 2018 men’s hockey World Cup. The movement attempts to get India behind the game by way of music, entertainment, fashion, pure sport and panel discussions. Each time anyone holds the custom-made hockey stick, named ‘Heart Beat’, their heart beat will be recorded as a pledge to support hockey. The ‘Heart Beat’ will take a round of the country through ‘Hockey Adda’, a curated on-ground discussion platform for hockey players and experts. The event will take place at the Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar from November 28 to December 16. The state is the title partner for the hockey event and Odisha Tourism is the host partner. The maximum players in the national team are also from Odisha.

Notes:
India has been ranked 96th in the United Nation’s E-Government Development Index (EGDI) 2018. The survey, released by UN every two years, noted that India has scored 100% in the first stage of the E-Participation sub-index, followed by 95.65% in the second stage and 90.91% in the third stage. The overall score of 0.9551 on the E-Participation sub-index has put India among top 15 countries in the list of 193 counties surveyed. In this category, India has emerged as sub-region leader. Denmark is the world leader, both on E-Government index and E-Participation sub-index.

Notes:
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has launched a desktop software ‘e-Aksharayan’ for converting any scanned or printed Indian language documents into a fully editable text format in Unicode encoding. The text can be also saved separately. The application is free of cost and supports editing in 7 Indian languages viz. Hindi, Bangla, Malayalam, Gurmukhi, Tamil, Kannada & Assamese.

Notes:
K. Anvar Sadath, the vice chairman and executive director of the Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITE), has won the 2018 International Contributions Award given by the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT), USA. He has been chosen for the award to recognize his outstanding contribution to the field of educational communication and technology in an international setting. With this, he has become the first Indian to be honoured with the International Contributions award. The award will be presented at 2018 AECT International Convention function to be held in Kansas City, Missouri, on October 26, 2018. The AECT is a premier professional association for instructional design and educational technology.

Notes:
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has recently launched a landmark 3-month visa amnesty programme which will benefit hundreds of illegal foreign workers, including Indians, overstaying their permits by allowing them to leave the country without penalties and giving them six months to find a job. The UAE is home to 2.8 million Indian expatriates, the largest expatriate community in the country. Professionally qualified personnel constitute about 15 to 20% of the community, followed by 20% white-collar non-professionals and the remainder 65% comprises blue-collar workers. The government did not release specific numbers, but says thousands of people, primarily labourers from countries like India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal and the Philippines, will benefit from the amnesty scheme which will facilitate their smooth return to their home countries. As per Federal Authority for Identity and Citizenship (ICA), the entity responsible for entry and residence of foreigners in the UAE, visa violators before August 1, 2018 will be able to rectify their status legally during the amnesty period, which will end on October 31.