Current Affairs Quiz - October, 2019

Notes:
The International Snow Leopard Day (ISLD) is celebrated every year on 23rd of October to protect and conserve the snow leopards and preserve the beautiful wildlife of the Himalayas. It is believed to have 400 to 700 snow leopards spread across Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.

Notes:
The Data Security Council of India (DSCI)  in partnership with  National Cyber Security Coordinator’s office has recently launched national repository ‘TechSagar’ to facilitate new opportunities for businesses and academia to collaborate, connect and innovate, in future. The TechSagar provides insights about capabilities of more than 4000 entities from industry, academia and research across 25 technology areas like Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning, blockchain, cloud and virtualization, robotics and Automation and more. The online portal also allows one to sort startups by filtering the technology they work on, their headquarters.

Notes:
Vice President, M. Venkaiah Naidu is leading the Indian delegation at the 18th Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) at Baku, Azerbaijan on 25th to 26th of October. The theme for the Summit is – “Upholding the Bandung Principles to ensure concerted and adequate response to the challenges of the contemporary world”. The theme is significant as it relates to the forthcoming 65th anniversary of Bandung Principles in 2020 and the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the Movement in 2021.The Ten Principles of Bandung is a political statement that encapsulate the need to promote world peace and cooperation were formulated at the Asian-African Conference in 1955. 

Notes:
Pankaj Kumar, a 1987-batch IAS officer, has been appointed as the new CEO of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). The UIDAI is a statutory authority under the provisions of the Aadhaar Act of 2016 under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity) with the mandate to issue UID or Aadhaar to all residents of India to eliminate duplicate and fake id entities. 

Notes:
IIT Bombay has topped the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) India University Rankings 2020. The QS has ranked the higher education institutions in India on the basis eight parameters of academic reputation (30%), employer reputation (20%), faculty-student ratio (20%), staff with PhD (10%), papers per faculty (10%), citation per paper (5%), international faculty (2.5%) and international students (2.5%). The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangaluru has been ranked second followed by the IITs in Delhi, Madras, Kharagpur, Kanpur, Roorkee, and Guwahati.

Notes:
The first-ever “Global Bio-India 2019” Summit is being held in India at New Delhi from 21st to 23rd November 2019. The event is expected to strengthen the indigenous research capabilities, bio-entrepreneurship, investments and last-mile-delivery of technology across rural India and tier-2, 3 cities. The summit is one of the largest biotechnology stakeholders conglomerate.

Notes:
Thakur Anup Singh, CMD of Marg ERP, has won the prestigious Udyog Rattan Award-2019 for his exceptional work in transforming how MSMEs can accelerate their business by using technology. The award is conferred annually to Indian citizens for their outstanding contribution to the economic development of the country. It is conferred by the Institute of Economic Studies (IES) affiliated to Government of India (GoI).

Notes:
The European Union (EU) Parliament awarded the ‘Sakharov Prize for Human Rights’ to Uighur intellectual Ilham Tohti (49), who has been jailed and sentenced to life imprisonment in China for “separatism”. The award was announced by European Parliament head David Sassoli, who also urged China to immediately release Ilham Tohti as well as called for the respect of minority rights in China. Sakharov Prize is awarded by the European Union (EU) Parliament annually for free speech. It was constituted in memory of Soviet physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov.

Notes:
Government of India has accorded ‘Maharatna’ status to public sector undertaking’s (PSU’s) Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) and Power Grid Corporation. Two separate orders to this effect were issued by Department of Public Enterprises, under Union Ministry of Heavy Industry and Public Enterprises.

Notes:
Sadako Ogata (92), a high-profile Japanese diplomat who served as the first female United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) from 1991 to 2000, has passed away on Oct. 22 in Tokyo.