Current Affairs Quiz - March, 2019

Notes:
Haku Shah (85), the renowned Indian artist, has passed away in Ahmedabad, Gujarat on March 21, 2019. He was best known for his themes of tribal and folk art. Born on 26th March 1934, Shah did his Masters in Fine Art under renowned artists like K G Subrahmanyam. A large part of his work was deeply influenced by tribal art and culture, as well as the Bhakti movement, especially its Nirguna poetry. Shah was also a cultural anthropologist. He carried out extensive field research and documentation on rural and tribal arts and crafts, traditions and folk lore, and established a tribal museum at Gujarat Vidyapith. Fondly known as “Haku bhai”, the award-winning artist also set up the first of its kind Crafts Village – Shilpgram in Udaipur in Rajasthan in the 1980s. Shah, who published his memoirs, “Manush” in 2009, received several awards including the Padma Shri (1989), the Jawarharlal Nehru Fellowship and the Kala Ratna for his contribution to art.

Notes:
The International Day of Forests is observed every year on 21st of March to celebrate and raise awareness of the importance of all types of forests. It also seeks to highlight vital role played by forests in poverty eradication, environmental sustainability and food security. The 2019 theme is “Forests and Education”. This year, the International Day of Forests promotes education to Learn to Love Forests. It underscores the importance of education at all levels in achieving sustainable forest management and biodiversity conservation. Healthy forests mean healthy, resilient communities and prosperous economies.

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In Mumbai, ESPNcricinfo has partnered with IIT Madras to launch ‘Superstats’, a next level artificial intelligence tool that can analyse cricket statistics through machine learning. The tool will forecast if and how a player’s or a team’s performance can turn around a game, on real time. Superstats will analyse the game of cricket on a combination of stats metrics- Luck index, Forecaster and Smart Stats using data science for the first time to give a context to every event in a game and also venture into new territories such as luck and forecasting. According to IIT researchers, the algorithms process data to quantify the impact of luck and analyse the real value of a player’s performance in the game of cricket on real time. Apart from forecasting, it also reveals trends and patterns during a game as the actual match data is fed on real time. For this, Superstats uses the vast ball-by-ball database of ESPNcricinfo, which has more than a decade of detailed data, and scientific methods, processes and complex algorithms based machine learning. This work was led by Raghunathan Rengaswamy and Mahesh Panchagnula of IIT-Madras along with the ESPN team.

Notes:
India has moved up two places to rank 76th on a global energy transition index 2019. This annual list, compiled by Geneva-based World Economic Forum (WEF), has ranked 115 economies on how well they are able to balance energy security and access with environmental sustainability and affordability. Sweden remains on the top on this annual list and is followed by Switzerland and Norway in the top three. Among major economies, the UK is ranked 7th, Singapore 13th, Germany 17th, Japan 18th and the US 27th. Within Asia, Malaysia is ranked highest at 31st, Sri Lanka is 60th, Bangladesh 90th and Nepal 93rd. The report said that India is amongst the countries with high pollution levels and has a relatively high CO2 intensity in its energy system. Despite this, India has made significant strides to improve energy access in recent years, and currently scores well in the area of regulation and political commitment towards energy transition. The report suggested there was a ground for optimism regarding India despite the current outdated energy system not being ready for the transition because an enabling environment is being built to support the future transition.

Notes:
The World Meteorological Day (WMD) is observed every year on 23rd of March to mark the establishment of World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on this day in 1950. This year, the organisation is celebrating its 69th anniversary. The 2019 theme ‘The Sun, the Earth and the weather” recognizes the critical role that the Earth’s nearest star plays in what transpires on the planet. The energy that the Sun sends towards the Earth is taken up by all life forms to perform their biological functions. It also regulates global climate, which, in turn, influences local weather conditions. The same energy is also absorbed by the oceans which carry it around the planet, creating further conditions for diverse marine life to exist.

Notes:
Indian paddler Archana Kamath clinched a silver in the under-21 women’s singles section of the Seamaster ITTF Challenge Plus 2019 Oman Open table tennis tournament at Muscat. Archana started playing table tennis at the age of 9 years. She won her first U-12 and also a U -18 State title in 2011, and retained her Karnataka State No 1 Sub-Junior ranking throughout 2012 with some consistent performances. Since 2013 her career graph has seen a very steep rise. As a player, she describes herself as a fierce attacker.

Notes:
On 21st March, Italy’s PRISMA Earth observation satellite launched into orbit by the European Vega rocket from the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana. PRISMA (or Precursore Iperspettrale della Missione Applicativa) is a small hyperspectral imaging satellite i.e. designed to provide information about environmental monitoring, resources management, pollution and crop health. The satellite includes a medium resolution camera that can view across all visual wavelengths, as well as a hyperspectral imager that can capture a wider range of wavelengths between 400 and 2500 nanometers. The satellite will operate in a sun-synchronous orbit, meaning that it circles the Earth in such a way that the sun is always in the same position as the satellite takes pictures of the planet below. PRISMA has been constructed by OHB Italia and will be operated by the Italian Space Agency “Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI)”.

Notes:
The Langkawi International Maritime Aero Expo (LIMA-2019) has started in Langkawi, Malaysia from 26 March 2019 to 30 March 2019. Indian Air Force (IAF) is participating in the Maritime Aero Expo for the first time, during which it will showcase its indigenously developed Light Combat Aircraft (LCA)-Tejas. The participation of IAF in LIMA-2019 will provide an opportunity to air-warriors to interact with their Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) counterparts and foster close relationship between the two services. This will serve as a foundation for any future interaction with the Malaysian Air Force. It will also provide an opportunity to RMAF to assess the capabilities of LCA.

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On 25th March, US President Donald Trump has officially recognized Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights. With this, Israel has got an absolute right to self-defence. Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war, and subsequently annexed it in 1981. But, Israel’s sovereignty over the territory is not recognized by the international community. Mr Trump’s move reversed more than a half-century of the US policy over the issue. Meanwhile, Russia said, it feared a new wave of tensions in the West Asia following the decision by Washington to recognise Israeli sovereignty over the disputed Golan Heights, which are claimed by Syria. The Syrian government has criticized the move calling it a blatant attack on its sovereignty. The Golan Heights is a rocky plateau in south-western Syria. It is located about 60km south-west of the Syrian capital ‘Damascus’, and covers about 1,200 sq km. The area is also a key source of water for an arid region. Rainwater from the Golan’s catchment feeds into the Jordan River. The area provides a third of Israel’s water supply. The land is fertile, and the volcanic soil is used to cultivate vineyards and orchards and raise cattle. The Golan is also home to Israel’s only ski resort.

Notes:
Chennai Super Kings star Suresh Raina has scripted history as he became the first cricketer in the history of the Indian Premier League (IPL) to score 5,000 runs. He reached the milestone during the first match of the 2019 IPL season against Royal Challengers Bangalore at MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai. Raina has 5000 runs from 177 matches at a strike-rate of 138.15 including 35 fifties and one hundred.