Current Affairs Quiz - April, 2019

Notes:
The Asian Tea Alliance (ATA), a union of five tea-growing and consuming countries, was launched on Friday in Guizhou in China. The members of the alliance are the Indian Tea Association (ITA), China Tea Marketing Association (CTMA), Indonesian Tea Marketing Association, Sri Lanka Tea Board and Japan Tea Association. ATA plans to work towards enhancing tea trade, cultural exchanges, technology exchanges as well as globally promoting tea. It will also work towards enhancing global consumption of tea, while creating a sustainability agenda for the future of Asian tea. The forging of this alliance comes in the aftermath of the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in December 2018 between the Indian Tea Association and China Tea Marketing Association. The two associations signed the pact to promote green and black tea consumption in major tea markets of Europe, the U.S., Russia and West Asia, besides India and China.

Notes:
World No.1 Bajrang Punia made India proud once again by clinching the India’s first gold at the Asian Wrestling Championships 2019 in Xi’an, China. Punia logged 10 points in a row in the gold medal bout to reclaim his Asian Championship crown. He defeated Kazakhstan’s Sayatbek Okassov 12-7 in a nail-biting 65kg men’s freestyle final. It is Bajrang’s second gold at this championship, having won one in 2017. Another Indian Parveen Rana, lost to Bahman Mohammad Teymouri of Iran in the final 0-3 in 79kg category securing a silver medal. In 97 Kg category, Satywart Kadian picked a bronze defeating Haobin Gao of China by 8-2.

Notes:
Gomathi Marimuthu from Tamil Nadu has clinched India’s first Gold in the women’s 800m race at the 2019 Asian Athletics Championships in Doha, Qatar. Gomathi clocked a personal best time of 2 minute 02.70 seconds in the half mile event to win a surprise gold for India. Then, Asian Games champion Tajinder Pal Toor added the 2nd gold medal to India’s tally by clinching the top spot in the podium in men’s shot put with a season’s best throw of 20.22 metres. While Shivpal Singh added a silver in men’s javelin throw by sending the spear to a distance of 86.23m, his personal best. In the process, Shivpal also booked a berth for the World Championships to be held at the same venue in September-October as he crossed the qualifying mark of 83m.

Notes:
Scientists have long been known that Mercury and the Earth have metallic cores. Like Earth, Mercury’s outer core is composed of liquid metal, but there have only been hints that Mercury’s innermost core is solid. Now, in a new study, scientists from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland have found evidence that Mercury’s inner core is indeed solid and that it is very nearly the same size as Earth’s inner core. To explore what the core of Mercury is made of the science team used several observations from the NASA’s MESSENGER (Mercury Surface, Space Environment, GEochemistry, and Ranging) mission looking at the planet’s spin and gravity. The findings of Mercury’s solid inner core not only help scientists better understand Mercury but also offer clues about how the solar system formed and how rocky planets change over time. The study is published in Geophysical Research Letters.

Notes:
On 26th April, Divyansh Singh Panwar bagged silver in 10m Air Rifle event with 249.0 points in the 2019 ISSF World Cup for pistol and rifle shooters in Beijing. He also secured a quota for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. In the ongoing tournament, Divyansh had bagged a gold in 10m Air Rifle Mixed Team event along with Anjum Moudgil. This is India’s fourth 2020 Tokyo Olympic quota after Anjum Moudgil and Apurvi Chandela (10m air rifle women) and Saurabh Choudhary (10m Air Pistol men) had secured berths in the earlier World Cups and last year’s World Championship.

Notes:
The unmanned BepiColombo spacecraft is the joint mission of the European-Japanese space agencies. It is named after Italian scientist Giuseppe “Bepi” Colombo. Recently, it has successfully completed its near-Earth commissioning phase and is now ready for the operations that will take place during the cruise and for its scientific investigations at Mercury. The mission comprises two science orbiters: ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and JAXA’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO). The ESA-built Mercury Transfer Module (MTM) will carry the orbiters to Mercury using a combination of solar electric propulsion and gravity assist flybys – one of Earth, two at Venus, and six at Mercury – prior to MPO and MMO orbit insertions. Earlier, on 20th October 2018, BepiColombo started its 7-year long journey to the Solar System’s innermost planet from an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. Since launch, BepiColombo has already covered over 450 million km – just about 4% of the total distance it will have to travel before arriving at Mercury at the end of 2025. The composite spacecraft is now some 50 million km from Earth, and tele-commands take about 3 minutes to reach it.

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has recently announced that it will shortly issue Rs 20 denomination banknotes in the Mahatma Gandhi (New) Series. The new denomination has motif of Ellora Caves on the reverse that depicts the country’s cultural heritage. It also contains a portrait of Mahatma Gandhi at the centre, with micro letters ‘RBI’, ‘Bharat’, ‘India’ and ’20’, along with a guarantee clause, Governor’s signature with Promise Clause and RBI emblem towards the right of Gandhi’s portrait. On the right side of the portrait are — an Ashoka Pillar emblem and electrotype (20) watermarks. The base colour of the note is Greenish Yellow. It will bear the signature of RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das. The dimension of the new Rs 20 note will be 63 mm x 129 mm. All the banknotes in the denomination of Rs 20 issued by the RBI in the earlier series will continue to be legal tender.

Notes:
Indian Army signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) to construct four underground tunnels for storage of ammunition along the China and Pakistan border. This is a pilot project and the tunnels are expected to be completed within two years. The cost of the pilot project is around Rs 15 crore. At Under the pilot project, three tunnels will be built on China border while one will be built along the Line of Control with Pakistan. The project is meant to bolster the Indian Army’s capabilities along the Chinese border where India’s infrastructural development is far outpaced by that of China. Besides strengthening the defensive capabilities, the tunnels will protect the ammunition and other stored equipment from the air-strikes and detection by the enemy satellite. present, ammunition dumps are mostly over-ground and could be targeted by the enemies and their spies.

Notes:
The “Politics of Jugaad: The Coalition Handbook” has been authored by journalist Saba Naqvi. In it, the author examined the possibility of a coalition government after 2019 Lok Sabha polls. It traces the history of political alliances in the country taking into account their performance on economic and and social policies, among others. The book also makes a study of the Congress’ “tryst with dynasty” with Priyanka Gandhi Vadra taking a plunge into active politics for the party helmed by her brother Rahul Gandhi.

Notes:
Alfred Brownell from Liberia, an environmental lawyer and activist, has been awarded the prestigious 2019 Goldman Environmental Prize for exposing alleged abuse by the palm oil company Golden Veroleum Liberia and helping to prevent it from converting about 50 km2 of forest that is home to elephants, pygmy hippopotamuses and chimpanzees into palm oil plantations. The other winners of the top environment prize are: Linda Garcia of Vancouver, Ana Colovic Lesoska of North Macedonia, Bayarjargal Agvaantseren of Mongolia, Jacqueline Evans of the Cook Islands and Alberto Curamil of Chile. The Goldman Environment Prize is awarded annually to six grassroots activists from six different continents who have taken action and risked their lives to protect the planet.