Current Affairs Quiz - December, 2018

Notes:
On 27th December, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat launched a universal health coverage scheme, which is known as the ‘Atal Ayushman Uttarakhand Yojana’. Under the scheme, each household in the state will be able to avail medical treatment of up to Rs 5 lakh annually. The scheme will benefit 23 lakh households and will cover 1,350 critical diseases. A total of 99 government and 66 private hospitals have been selected under the scheme. With this, the hill state has become the first in the country to offer universal health coverage.

Notes:
Dronacharya awardee C A Kuttappa has taken over as India’s chief boxing coach at the ongoing national camp. Kuttappa is credited with shaping some of the country’s most successful boxers such as Vijender Singh, M Suranjoy Singh and Shiva Thapa, among others. He took over from veteran coach SR Singh at the beginning of the camp which started December 10. Singh has since retired. The current set of boxers in the camp, barring the national champions, will be giving trials in the second week of January 2019, which will lead to a pruning and form the basis of selection for the India Open and the prestigious Strandja Memorial in Bulgaria.

Notes:
The Madhya Pradesh government has declared the Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary (KWS) as National Park in compliance with the last condition imposed by a Supreme Court-appointed committee for the much awaited ‘translocation of Asiatic lions from Gir in Gujarat’. The move is expected to pave way for translocation of lions from Gir National Park (GNP) in Gujarat to Kuno. The Palpur-Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary is located in Sheopur district of Gwalior division & has been chosen as a second home for over 500 Asiatic lions. It is spread over 750 sq km area.

Notes:
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has recently resumed its diplomatic service in Syria after six years of suspension, signaling a thaw in the relations between the two countries, as also with the Arab world. The diplomatic thaw comes after the U.S. announced plans to pull its troops from Syria. This move will also prevent the dangers of regional interference in Syrian affairs. Hence, this marks the first official acknowledgment by regional adversaries of Syrian President Bashar Assad that he has won the almost 8-year civil war to dislodge him. Earlier, the UAE broke ties with Syria in February 2012 when “Arab Spring”-inspired protests began against Assad’s rule and metastasized into a sectarian conflict that killed hundreds of thousands, made millions of others refugees and laid waste to vast areas of the country. Syria was also expelled from the 22-member Arab League in 2011. Arab countries sanctioned Damascus and condemned its use of military force against civilians.

Notes:
The scientists at Cambridge University have built a Virtual Reality (VR) 3D model of cancer that will help increase the understanding of cancer as well as in the search for new treatment. Researchers from the Cancer Research UK (CRUK) Researchers started with a one millimetre cubed piece of breast cancer tissue biopsy, containing around 100,000 cells. They cut wafer thin slices, scanned and then stained them with markers to show their molecular make-up and DNA characteristics. The tumour was then rebuilt using virtual reality (VR), which allows multiple users from anywhere, in the world to examine the tumour. Although the human tissue sample was about the size of a pinhead, using the VR headsets, it could be magnified to appear several metres across. To explore the tumour in more detail, the VR system allows one to ‘fly through’ the cells.

Notes:
The book titled “Early Indians: The Story of Our Ancestors and Where We Came From” has been authored by journalist Tony Joseph, which unravels our history using the results of genetics and other research. According to book, the Indian population is a result of four major migrations, including that of the Aryans, into the country in prehistoric times. Apart from the formation of the Indian population and the development of the Harappan Civilisation, the book also looks into when and how the caste system began.

Notes:
The Union Cabinet has recently approved Submission of India’s 2nd Biennial Update Report (BUR) to the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), which contains 2014 updates of national greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories. As per an official statement, in 2014, approx 2.607 billion tonnes of of CC-2 equivalent) of GHGs were emitted from all activities, excluding ‘land use, land use change and forestry’ (LULUCF) in India. The net national GHG emissions after including LULUCF were around 2.306 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent. The BUR contains five major components – National Circumstances; National Greenhouse Gas Inventory; Mitigation Actions; Finance, Technology and Capacity Building Needs and Support Received and Domestic Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) arrangements. As per the report, India is on course of achieving the target for emission intensity of the economy and share of non-fossil fuel-based power capacity.

Notes:
The Pakistan Cabinet has recently approved the issuance of first-ever Chinese renminbi-denominated bonds to raise loans from China’s capital markets. The Panda bonds will be denominated in Chinese yuan. It is expected that the possible transaction size of bonds will be equivalent to $500 million in two different tranches. They will help the government diversify the investor base of capital market issuance and provide a source of raising renminbi (RMB). The size, tenure and pricing would be determined on the basis of market response at the time of issuance. Earlier, in March 2018, the Philippines became the first Association of Southeast Asian Nations member to issue Panda bond.

Notes:
The 3rd edition of women’s national boxing championships has started at the JSW Sports-owned Inspire Institute of Sport in Vijayanagara, Karnataka on December 31, 2018 and will be held till 6th of the next month. With close to 250 entries received from 31 states and institutions, pugilists will compete in all 10 weight categories viz. 48kg, 51kg, 54kg, 57kg, 60kg, 64kg, 69kg, 75kg, 81kg and +81kg class. The Inspire Institute of Sport, which will be hosting the women’s national championship is heralded for its multispecialty facilities and is India’s first privately-funded High-Performance Olympic Training Centre.

Notes:
The Delhi Police has become the first police force in the country to digitize all malkhanas, when Delhi Police commissioner Amulya Patnaik inaugurated the e-malkhana project in the remaining 10 districts at Chinamaya Mission. A booklet on e-malkhana functioning was also released on the occasion and a short film on how the project was executed was shown. Malkhanas are rooms for keeping seized arms and ammunition, across every police station in the state. Under the new innovative system, details of the case property are first entered into the software and a photograph is uploaded. The case property is packed in a cardboard box to prevent damage, and a unique barcode is generated for the same. The box is then placed on to a specific almirah or rack whose details are entered in the software. This makes location of the case property easier by simply entering details of the case property in the software module. The software also allows the details of any case property being visible at the simple click of a button. According to the official release, around 3, 11,600 case properties have been encrypted in digital form across all the police stations in the state.