GK & Current Affairs Quiz: July 25, 2019

Notes:
Boris Johnson, the former foreign secretary and London Mayor, has officially took over the charge as new British Prime Minister after Theresa May handed in her resignation to the Queen at Buckingham Palace. He promised to leave the European Union (EU) on 31st October 2019 under a “new deal, a better deal” with the 28-member economic bloc. Mr Johnson is expected to use the opportunity to increase the number of women in full cabinet positions and boost the representation of ethnic minorities.

Notes:
Priti Patel, a prominent member of the Back Boris campaign for the Conservative Party leadership, has become the Britain’s first Indian-origin home secretary as part of new Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s top team. She succeeded Pakistani-origin Sajid Javid, who moves to the Treasury department as the first ethnic minority Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr Javid, a former banker from a modest background, was a contender for the premiership but endorsed Johnson when he failed to get enough support from fellow Conservative MPs. Mr Johnson has also named Brexit hardliner Dominic Raab as the country’s Foreign Secretary.

Notes:
The Western Railway (WR) has opened the first-of-its-kind printing press heritage gallery of the Indian Railways at Mahalaxmi in Mumbai. With this, the Western Railway Mahalaxmi General Stores Depot (GSD) has become the first in Indian Railways to portray a heritage gallery of the printing and allied machines used in the Western Railway Printing Press since 1948, which are still in working condition. The GSD Mahalaxmi is spread over 12,171 sq meter area, which is a British-era single-storey building made with black stone having interiors made with wood, has its own beauty and uniqueness. The press came into existence in 1912 under the Greater Indian Peninsular Railway (GIP) Bombay, as the railway needed stationery and tickets to run the operations.

Notes:
Ajay Kumar Bhalla, the1984-batch Assam Meghalaya cadre IAS officer , has been appointed Officer on Special Duty (OSD) to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) with immediate effect. He will take over as Home Secretary from incumbent Rajive Gauba. Mr. Bhalla will have a fixed two-year tenure as Union Home Secretary till August 2021. Excerpts of the major reshuffle in the senior bureaucracy: Subhash Chandra Garg has been shifted to the Power Ministry as Secretary, while Gujarat cadre IAS officer Atanu Chakraborty has been made new Economic Affairs Secretary. Anshu Prakash has been appointed new Secretary of Telecommunications. This is the first reshuffle in the top bureaucracy after the parliamentary polls that saw return of the Narendra Modi government with thumping majority. The reshuffle includes IAS officers of 1984, 1985 and 1986 batches.

Notes:
India has improved its rank by five places to stand at 52nd in the Global Innovation Index (GII) 2019 of the world’s most innovative economies and maintained its position as the top exporter of IT services. The list continues to be topped by Switzerland while Israel finds its place in the top ten for the first time. The latest GII ranking shows that India has constantly been maintaining its leadership position as the most innovative country in Central and South Asia region every year since 2011. The GII ranks 129 economies based on 80 indicators, ranging from intellectual property filing rates to mobile-application creation, education spending and scientific and technical publications. The rankings are published annually by Cornell University, INSEAD and the UN World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and GII Knowledge Partners.