Current Affairs Quiz - October, 2019

Notes:
The 2019 edition of World Space Week (WSW) is celebrating the 50th anniversary of humankind’s first step on the Moon on 20th July 1969 with theme “The Moon: Gateway to the Stars” from 4th to 10th October. The theme is devoted to our nearest space neighbor to celebrate the incredible achievement of landing on the Moon and to spark consideration of the value of the Moon in humankind’s future space endeavors.

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The World Animal Day (WAD) is celebrated every year on 4th October to educate humans about how their actions impact animals and create awareness about the protection of animals all over the world.

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The Uttarakhand government has launched an awareness campaign – Urjagiri – to stop power theft & saving. Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat  has instructed the officers of UPCL Vigilance Cell to effectively stop the power theft so that honest customers do not have to bear the brunt of the power theft.

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Satyapriya Mohathero (89) was the 2nd highest Buddhist leader of Bangladesh and head of Sima Bihar of Ramu in Cox’s Bazar. He was  passed away in Dhaka on 5th October 2019. He was awarded the second-highest civilian award of Bangladesh Ekushey Padak in 2015 for social work. The Ramu monastery had provided shelter to a large number of people during the Liberation War of Bangladesh 1971 in the face of Pakistani atrocities. However, in September 2012, it suffered massive damage as mobs attacked it, angered by an alleged post on Social Media derogatory to Islam.

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The Union Health Ministry has recently released data on  the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY), which is the tertiary care arm of Ayushman Bharat. According to report, Tamil Nadu (with 40,056 cases) tops the state where the most cancer patients availed treatment under PMJAY, followed by Kerala (22,000), Madhya Pradesh (19,455), Chhattisgarh (15,997) and Gujarat (14,380). The report revealed that there are 11.57 lakh new cancer patients and 7.84 lakh cancer deaths every year in India. At any given point of time, there are 22.5 lakh Indians living with cancer. 

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Ramesh Pandey, the 1996-batch Indian Forest Service (IFS) officer, has been selected for the prestigious UNEP’s Asia Environmental Enforcement Award for his excellent work in combating transboundary environmental crime. He will receive the award on November 13 at the United Nations Conference Centre (UNCC) in Bangkok.  Pandey is posted as Chief Conservator Forests (CCF) in Lucknow and Secretary of UP State Bio-diversity Board.  He is known for his investigation and intelligence gathering on poachers. The purpose of the Asia Environmental Enforcement Awards is to publicly recognise outstanding achievements by public organisations and individuals in Asia to combat transboundary environmental crime. 

Notes:
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2019 was awarded jointly to William G. Kaelin Jr, Sir Peter J. Ratcliffe and Gregg L. Semenza “for their discoveries of how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability”. The discoveries made by these scientists have fundamental importance for physiology and have paved the way for promising new strategies to fight anemia, cancer and many other diseases.

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Indian sprinter Nirmala Sheoran has been banned for four years for doping and stripped of her 400m and 4x400m relay titles from the 2017 Asian Championships. The Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) has stated that she tested positive for steroids drostanolone and metenolone in sample taken at the Inter-State meet in Guwahati in June 2018. Hence, the ban was backdated to June 29, 2018 & her results from August 2016 to November 2018 were disqualified.

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Polish author Olga Tokarczuk has won the 2018 Nobel Prize in literature for a narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life. Her first novel, “The Journey of the People of the Book,” was released in 1993. She has also won the Booker International Prize for her 2007 novel “Flights”. She became the 15th woman to have won the prestigious distinction, out of 116 literature laureates honoured since 1901. It must be noted that the 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature was announced along with the 2018 Prize as the latter was delayed by a year following a scandal that included allegations of sexual misconduct.

Notes:
NASA has recently launched its new Ionospheric Connection Explorer (Icon)  satellite  from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida to explore the mysterious, dynamic region where air meets space. The refrigerator-size Icon satellite will study the airglow formed from gases in the ionosphere and also measure the charged environment right around the 360-mile-high (580-kilometer-high) spacecraft. Apart from this, a NASA satellite ‘Gold’ ( launched in 2018) is also studying the upper atmosphere, but from much higher up.