Current Affairs Quiz - August, 2019

Notes:
The 52nd ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (AMM-52) has recently taken place in Bangkok, Thailand from July 29 to Aug 3. The annual meeting opened with a call from the host Thailand for deeper integration to expand trade and bolster prosperity in the region amid rising global challenges. The meeting takes place in the shadow of rising security tension on the Korean Peninsula, China’s aggressive territorial claims in the South China Sea and the US-China trade war. The Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) is seeking to boost its own voice as a global player. It also plays host to a series of foreign ministers from key strategic and dialogue partners, including US, China and Russia.

Notes:
Australian all-rounder Ellyse Perry has become the first cricketer of either gender to reach the rare milestone of scoring 1000 runs and taking 100 wickets in T20 international cricket. She achieved the feat run in the multi-format 2019 Ashes series where Australia beat England by 7 wickets in Hove. Former Pakistani all-rounder Shahid Afridi (1416 runs and 98 wickets) currently stands closest to achieving the feat, while Bangladesh’s Shakib al Hasan, with 1471 runs and 88 wickets, stands next in line to join Perry.

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:
NDTV India’s senior executive editor, Ravish Kumar has been honoured with the prestigious 2019 Ramon Magsaysay Award for his ‘ethical journalism’. Kumar has won the honour for his news show, Prime Time, which deals with real-life & under-reported problems of ordinary people. He is among five individuals who were declared winners of the award. The four other winners of the 2019 Ramon Magsaysay Award are Ko Swe Win from Myanmar, Angkhana Neelapaijit from Thailand, Raymundo Pujante Cayabyab from Philippines and Kim Jong-Ki from South Korea. The Ramon Magsaysay Award is the highest honour given to Asian individuals and organisations and often referred to as the Asian version of the Nobel Prize.

Notes:
Kanti Bhatt (88), the veteran Gujarati journalist, author and columnist, has passed away in Mumbai. He was born on 15th July 1931 in Sachra village in erstwhile Bhavnagar state of Gujarat. He started his journalism career in the late 1960s as a financial journalist in Mumbai. He also worked as journalist, writer, columnist and editor in various Gujarati publications like Chitralekha, Mumbai Samachar, Janshakti, Sandesh, Yuva Darshan, Jansatta, Vyapar and Abhiyan. Bhatt was also the founding editor of one of the leading Gujarati magazines ‘Abhiyan’, which he launched with his wife Sheela, also a veteran journalist and member of the Editors Guild of India.

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:
According to the revised state-wise wild elephant population estimate based on the 2017 census, jumbo population across the country stood at 29,964 against 29,576 recorded as the mean figure in 2012. The South Region accounted for 14,612 followed by North East with 10,139 elephants. Among the South Indian states, Karnataka leads the table with 6,049 elephants followed by Kerala. The tiger population across the country is estimated at 2,967 as per the 2018 census. The census of tigers is undertaken at the national level once every 4 years and that of elephants at every 5 years. As per the India State of Forest Report 2017, there has been an increase of 6,778 kilometers of forest cover at the national level as compared to the assessment of 2015. The increase in forest cover is attributed to plantation and conservation activities both within and outside Recorded forest areas.

Notes:
Nobel Prize-winning US author Toni Morrison (88) has passed away in New York, United States on 5th August 2019. She is the first African-American woman to win a Nobel Prize in Literature for her novels depicting the struggles of black Americans living in a white society ridden with racial discrimination. She won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for “Beloved” that told the story of a runaway female slave and was made into a film starring Oprah Winfrey in 1998. In 2012, President Barack Obama presented her with the highest civilian honor – Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Notes:
In India, the 5th edition of National Handloom Day (NHD) has celebrated on 7th August 2019 to honour the handloom weavers in the country and also highlight India’s handloom industry. The day seeks to focus on the contribution of handloom to the socio economic development of India and also to increase the income of weavers. This year, Bhubaneswar has been chosen as the venue for the main event due to its rich tradition of Handlooms. The prime objective of holding the NHD in Bhubaneswar is to empower women and girls. The day was chosen as the National Handloom Day (NHD to commemorate the Swadeshi Movement which was launched on 7th August 1905 in Calcutta Town Hall to protest against the partition of Bengal by the British Government. The movement had aimed at reviving domestic products and production processes.

Notes:
Rajalakshmi Parthasarathy (93), Acclaimed educationist, journalist and patron of the arts, has passed away in Chennai, Tamil Nadu on 5th August 2019. Parthasarathy founded the Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan Group of Schools driven by her desire “to Indianise school education”. She waspopularly known as Rashmi or ‘Mrs YGP’. In 2010, she received the Padma Shri for her contribution to literature and education. She also worked in ‘The Hindu’ and had written regularly for its Sport & Pastime magazine.