Current Affairs Quiz - August, 2019

Notes:
On August 1, East Bengal club has officially started the centenary celebrations on its foundation day with a glittering ceremony at the Netaji Indoor Stadium. On this occasion, the iconic football club awarded its highest honour – Bharat Gaurav – to India’s first cricket World Cup-winning captain Kapil Dev. Kapil is no stranger to football as he had donned the club’s colours in an exhibition match against Mohun Bagan in 1992. Kapil is no stranger to football as he had donned the club’s colours in an exhibition match against Mohun Bagan in 1992.

Notes:
Microsoft India has partnered with Apollo Hospitals to set up a National Clinical Coordination Committee (NCCC), which will guide the two entities on all cardiology and cardiovascular related Artificial Intelligence (AI) projects. It will also provide clinical insights on developing clinical algorithms and treatment guidelines based on the inferences of national, multi-centre prospective study. The committee will work for the AI-powered Cardiovascular Disease Risk Score API. It will have members drawn from Apollo Hospitals, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi; and King George’s Medical University, Lucknow. Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the biggest cause of mortality in India with nearly 25% of mortalities – amongst the age group of 25 to 69 years.

Notes:
The joint venture company namely Khanij Bidesh India Ltd. (KABIL) has been set up with the participation of three Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) to ensure a consistent supply of critical and strategic minerals to Indian domestic market. These CPSEs are National Aluminium Company Ltd. (NALCO), Hindustan Copper Ltd. (HCL) and Mineral Exploration Company Ltd. (MECL). The newly setup company will ensure supply of Lithium and Cobalt which is available in less quantity in the country. It will help in building partnerships with other mineral rich countries like Australia and those in Africa and South America, where Indian expertise in exploration and mineral processing will be mutually beneficial bringing about new economic opportunities. The equity participation between NALCO, HCL and MECL is in the ratio of 40:30:30.

Notes:
In Kolkata, the West Bengal Government has launched an awareness campaign – Save Green, Stay Clean – for preserving the greenery and keeping the environment clean. The State Government will distribute more than 1 lakhs saplings throughout the state for spreading of greenery.

Notes:
A 23-year-old Indian-origin doctor, Bhasha Mukherjee has been crowned Miss England after fending off competition from dozens of other models. She holds two different medical degrees & has an IQ of 146, which makes her officially a ‘genius’. Mukherjee speaks five languages – English, Bengali, Hindi, German and French -and has a Bachelor’s degree in medicine and surgery from the University of Nottingham. As winner of Miss England, she will be entered into the Miss World contest and will also bag a holiday to Mauritius.

Notes:
In a landmark judgment, the Supreme Court has recently held that a judicial magistrate can order an accused to give his voice samples even against his consent in the course of a criminal investigation. This judgment was rendered by a Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and comprising Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna. The bench dealt with the issues, including that whether in the absence of any provision in the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPc), can a magistrate authorise the investigating agency to record the voice sample of the person accused of an offence. The CJI pointed out that the Supreme Court has issued this order under Article 142 of the Constitution following the interpretation of all the pertinent laws.

Notes:
The University Grants Commission (UGC) has recommended the grant of the Institute of Eminence (IoE) status to 20 institutions such as IITs Madras and Kharagpur, Delhi University, University of Hyderabad, Amritha Vishwa Vidyapeetham and VIT. The recommendations are based on the reports of the Empowered Expert Committee (EEC) under the chairmanship of N Gopalaswami. The aim of Institute of Eminence (IoE) scheme is to develop 20 world-class institutions which would put India on the global education map. Those selected will be given greater autonomy and freedom to decide fees, course durations and governance structures. The public institutions will also receive a government grant of Rs 1,000 crore, while the private institutions will not get any funding under the scheme.

Notes:
India’s transsexual woman Naaz Joshi has been crowned Miss World Diversity 2019 at Port Louis in Mauritius on August 3. She has made the country proud with a third successive victory in the beauty pageant Miss World Diversity. Apart from the Miss World Diversity title, Naaz also bagged the Best Project, Miss Congeniality, Miss People’s Choice Ambassador and Best National Costume titles. She was the first transgender in the world to win a coveted international crown against natural born females in 2017.

Notes:
The United States has designated China a “currency manipulator”, following the devaluation of the Yuan. The move could escalate the tense trade relations between the two nations. The US action came after China allowed its yuan to weaken past the key seven-per-dollar level for the first time in more than a decade. This decision will engage with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to eliminate the unfair competitive advantage created by China’s latest actions. The decision to label China as a currency manipulator for the first time since 1994 comes just 4 months after the U.S. Treasury passed on an opportunity to make such a formal designation as part of its semiannual currency report. The Treasury uses three criteria to apply the designation: actively intervening in their currency markets, having large trade surpluses with the U.S., and having large overall current-account surpluses.

Notes:
The Rajasthan government has launched a new higher education model titled “Resource Assistance for Colleges with Excellence (RACE)” for distribution of faculties and movable assets among the government colleges at the district level to rationalize the availability of resources. The new model will create a pool for sharing of facilities which will benefit the colleges lacking infrastructure. The colleges in need will have to submit their requirement to the nodal college in the district that will send the teachers on deputation (if needed) and provide the facilities such as projectors, digital libraries, equipment and technicians.