Current Affairs Quiz - March, 2019

Notes:
The World Consumer Rights Day (WCRD) is observed every year on March 15 to promote the basic rights of all consumers and empower them. It also gives people a chance to protest against the market abuses and social injustices. The day was inspired by former US President John F Kennedy, who was the first leader in the world to address the issue of consumer rights in a special message sent to the US Congress on 15th March 1962. The 2019 theme is ‘Trusted Smart Products’ has been chosen in view of the increased popularity of smart gadgets like smart phones to wearable fitness trackers, to voice-activated assistants and smart TVs. In India, we observe the National Consumer Day (NCD) on 24th of December every year.

Notes:
Astronomers from Japan, Taiwan, and Princeton University have discovered 83 quasars powered by supermassive black holes in the distant universe, which were formed when the universe was only 5% of its current age. These quasars are lying 13 billion light-years away from the Earth. The team used data taken with ‘Hyper Suprime-Cam’ (HSC) instrument, mounted on the Subaru Telescope of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, which is located on the summit of Maunakea in Hawaii. This finding, published in The Astrophysical Journal, increases the number of black holes known at that epoch considerably, and reveals, for the first time, how common they are early in the universe’s history. It also provides new insight into the effect of black holes on the physical state of gas in the early universe in its first billion years. Supermassive black holes, found at the centers of galaxies, can be millions or even billions of times more massive than the Sun. While they are prevalent today, it is unclear when they first formed, and how many existed in the distant early universe. A supermassive black hole becomes visible when gas accretes onto it, causing it to shine as a quasar.

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Padmanaban Gopala, a social entrepreneur from Tamil Nadu, has bestowed with the 2019 Commonwealth Youth Award for the Asian region at the Commonwealth Secretariat in London for his technology-based food rescue organisation. Gopalan, founder of No Food Waste, was named the winner of the award worth 3,000 pounds for his work towards achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of Zero Hunger with his innovative system of recovering excess food to distribute to those in need. Every year the Commonwealth Youth Awards for Excellence in Development Work celebrates the achievement of young people aged between 15 years and 29 years, whose projects serve the people and communities in their country and drive the progress to realize the different SDGs.

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Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish environmental activist, has been nominated for 2019 Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts in climate activism and fighting global warming. Ms. Thunberg is the founder of the School Strike for Climate movement, which is a global, growing movement of students demanding more action from authorities regarding global warming and climate change. The movement began last year as a solo protest by Thunberg outside the Swedish Parliament building. She encouraged students to skip school to join protests demanding faster action on climate change. It has since grown, and on 15th March 2019, thousands of students from across continents skipped school and take part in protests. It is said to be the largest such protest. If she won, Thunberg would be the youngest person to become a Nobel peace prize laureate, a title Malala Yousafzai took as a 17-year-old in 2014for her work on the right to education. The winner of the Nobel peace prize will be announced in October 2019.

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The 4th session of United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) was held in Nairobi from 11th to 15th March 2019. In it, UNEA adopted two resolutions piloted by India on single-use plastics and sustainable nitrogen management. The 2019 theme of the UNEA was Innovative Solutions for environmental challenges and sustainable production and consumption. In a significant first, the global nitrogen use efficiency is low, resulting in pollution by reactive nitrogen which threatens human health, eco system services, contributes to climate change and stratospheric ozone depletion. Only a small proportion of the plastics produced globally are recycled with most of it damaging the environment and aquatic bio-diversity.

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IIT Roorkee has signed a pact with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to set up an ISRO-IITR Space Technology Cell (STC). The ISRO – IITR Cell shall pursue advanced research in the areas of relevance to the future technological and programmatic needs of the Indian Space Programme and shall devote its resources including human resources to this effect. The activities of STC shall be directed to maximise the use of the research potential, infrastructure, expertise and experience that already exist in ISRO and IIT Roorkee. Its research facility will consist of faculty members, visiting scientists and experts, research personnel, technical, administrative and support staff. IIT Roorkee will be responsible for overall management of STC by providing required infrastructure, administrative and other support.

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The book titled “The Great Disappointment: How Narendra Modi Squandered a Unique Opportunity to Transform the Indian Economy” has been authored by economic and political commentator Salman Anees Soz. The book claims that Demonetisation was a terrible idea and the government’s own economic surveys have indicated that this move contributed to a slowdown in the economy. According to author, demonetisation was a self-goal by the Modi government. The book attempts to answer the overarching question of whether or not the Modi government transformed India’s economy and what the next government’s agenda should look like. The book is also a critical assessment of five years of the brand of economics Modi has championed, often referred to as ‘Modinomics’.

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The World Sparrow Day (WSD) is observed every year on 20th of March to protect these little birds and conserve their houses. The house sparrow is on the verge of extinction. The 2019 theme “I Love Sparrows” is inspired by hope that more and more will celebrate the relationship between People and Sparrows. The initiative was started by Nature Forever Society (NFS) of India, founded by Mohammed Dilawar, an Indian conservationist. He started his work helping the house sparrow in Nashik. He was also named one of the “Heroes of the Environment” for 2008 by Time for his efforts. The idea of marking WSD came up during an informal discussion at the NFS’s office. The idea was to earmark a day for the house sparrow to convey the message of conservation of the house sparrow and other common birds and also mark a day of celebration to appreciate the beauty of the common biodiversity which is taken so much for granted. The first WSD was celebrated in 2010 in different parts of the world. To encourage efforts made towards this cause and to selflessly conserve the environment, NFS has instituted the first Sparrow Awards in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, on 20 March 2011.

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.

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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.