Current Affairs Quiz - February, 2019

Notes:
The railway workers union — National Federation of Indian Railwaymen (NFIR) has recently opposed the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project. They asked the government to first prioritize work on existing train routes instead of focusing on the bullet train. Before the bullet train starts running, it is important to undertake repairs and maintenance work of the tracks across the country. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe had launched the bullet train project in Ahmedabad in September 2017. The ambitious project is expected to be completed by 2022 and will cut travel time between the two cities from 7 hours to less than three. The bullet train between Ahmedabad and Mumbai will run a total length of 508 km, of which 21 km will be covered in a tunnel under the sea. The cost of the tunnel is estimated at Rs 3,500 crores. The cost of the total train project is Rs 1.08 lakh crore. The headquarters of NFIR is located at New Delhi.

Notes:
Sunil Chhetri, the all-time leading scorer for India in international football, has been conferred the first-ever ‘Football Ratna’ by Football Delhi, the State Association governing the sport in Delhi. Chhetri was recently named as the 6th Indian Footballer in the elite Padma Shri list of 2019. Popularly known as Captain Fantastic, he scored 2nd highest number of goals in international matches among active players after Cristiano Ronaldo. He has also been named AIFF Player of the Year five times in 2007, 2011, 2013, 2014 and 2017.

Notes:
On February 16, the Himachal Pradesh Assembly passed a Bill to make Sanskrit as the second official language of the state. The Himachal Pradesh Official Language Bill, 2019 (Amendment) was introduced by Irrigation and Public Health Minister Mahender Singh Thakur in the ongoing budget session. The bill was passed without any discussion. The first official language of Himachal is Hindi. The state’s name was coined from the Sanskrit—Him means ‘snow’ and achal means ‘land’ or ‘abode’—by Acharya Diwakar Datt Sharma, one of the state’s eminent Sanskrit scholars. According to a survey of CMS – India Corruption Study 2017, Himachal Pradesh is India’s least corrupt state.

Notes:
The Andhra Pradesh government has signed a 30 year concession agreement with the UAE-based company “National Central Cooling Company PJSC (DFM: Tabreed)” to offer District Cooling solutions to the greenfield city of Amaravati. The agreement is for a contracted cooling capacity of 20,000 refrigeration tons (RTs) that will build, own, operate and transfer India’s first district cooling system in Amaravati, the new capital of Andhra Pradesh. The cooling services will start from early 2021. Tabreed’s district cooling system is a part of Andhra Pradesh’s vision for Amaravati to create jobs and homes along with a world-class infrastructure and efficient resource management. Compared to other cooling systems, district cooling uses only 50% of the primary energy consumption for cooling urban buildings, thereby reducing CO2 emissions. It also helps in improving the air quality and reducing general noise levels when compared to other traditional air conditioning systems. This will be Tabreed’s first plant outside its Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) market.

Notes:
Yuwa, a Jharkhand-based NGO which works for girl empowerment, has won the prestigious 2019 Laureus Sport for Good Honour at Monaco. The NGO was founded in rural Jharkhand in 2009 by Americans Franz Gastler and Rose Thomson Gastler. They are using football to improve the lives of young girls from disadvantaged communities and from regions where child marriage is prevalent. They are currently covering 450 girls – some amateurs and some who have gone on to become coaches. It was only the third time the honour was coming to India. The first time was in 2004 when the cricket teams of India and Pakistan were jointly declared the winner for resuming the bilateral series despite the political tension between the countries. Then 10 years later, Magic Bus won it for transforming the lives of the underprivileged children in the country.

Notes:
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has recently launched the country’s first semi-heavy missile-equipped submarine, dubbed as Fateh (‘Conqueror’ in Persian). The new submarine will fill a gap between the light Ghadir class and the heavy Kilo-class submarines that the country possesses. The Fateh has subsurface-to-surface missiles with a range of about 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles), capable of reaching Israel and U.S. military bases in the region.

Notes:
Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) has recently launched a new micro insurance plan ‘Micro Bachat’. It is a regular premium, non-linked, participating endowment micro insurance plan, which offers a combination of protection and savings. For the first time, a micro insurance plan has been launched providing coverage up to Rs 2 lakh. This plan provides financial support for the family in case of unfortunate death of the policyholder during the policy term and a lumpsum amount at the time of maturity for the surviving policyholders. This plan is available for standard healthy lives only in the age group of 18-55 years without undergoing any medical examination. The policyholder need not undergo any medical examination.

Notes:
President Donald Trump has recently signed an executive order ‘Space Policy Directive-4 (SPD-4)’ to establish its Space Force as a new military service within the Department of Air Force. The main goal of the Space Force is to secure and extend American dominance of the space domain. As per the order, the Space Force would be an armed branch of the military and include both combat and combat support functions to enable prompt and sustained offensive and defensive space operations in all domains. The force will be organized, trained, and equipped to meet and protect the US national interests in the space, consistent with international laws. Currently, the Air Force is the US military branch that currently has responsibility for space.

Notes:
On 21 Feb, the 2019 edition of Medical Fair India (MFI) was kick started in New Delhi in which global medical device manufacturers, healthcare experts, industry bodies, think tanks and policy makers from over 25 countries are participating. The 3-day medical trade show ‘MFI’ is organised by Messe Dusseldorf India, a fully owned subsidiary of Messe D sseldorf GmbH, the world’s leading trade fair organiser and exhibitions service provider. The MFI is well known for its ability to detect trends and respond to new innovations. Therefore, each edition is unique as it explores new sub-segments and opportunities for diversification. It will act as a platform for healthcare experts and stakeholders to share and discuss tangible solutions to diverse healthcare bottlenecks, challenges and issues of concerns.

Notes:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has recently launched the supercomputer ‘Param of 833 teraflop capacity built at the IIT-BHU. It is built at the cost of Rs 32.5 crore under the National Super Computing Mission. About 40% of the total computer power will be used by the students of Navodaya Vidyalaya. The institute claims that relevant social issues faced by common people like irrigation schemes, traffic management, health, an affordable drug will also be taken care of with the help of this supercomputer centre. The ‘Param Shivay’ will include 1 peta byte secondary storage and appropriate open source system and application software suite using 223 processor nodes, 384 GB per node DDR4 RAM, parallel file system, including CPU and GPU. India’s first supercomputer called PARAM 8000 was launched in 1991. At present, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) has Pratyush, National Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF) has Mihir and IISc has SERC-Cray as supercomputers in India.