Current Affairs Quiz - February, 2020

Notes:
The Union minister Nitin Gadkari recently launched the unique Khadi wrist watches, which have been manufactured as part of a joint initiative by the Khadi and Village Industries Commission and leading Indian consumer goods firm, Titan. The watches have been launched on the death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, also features the iconic charka.
The Minister also suggested to showcase the watches in international airports to attract buyers. As per the announcement from KVIC, 1 square meter of Khadi fabric is used for manufacturing 10 watches and 1,000 such watches are proposed to be sold.

Notes:
Indian hockey star and the Indian women’s team captain Rani Rampal was recently named as the ‘World Games Athlete of the Year’. She also became the first-ever hockey player worldwide to win the award.
The FIH (International Hockey Federation) has recommended her name for the prestigious award. Rani has topped the 20-day-poll conducted by the World Games with the highest number of votes. She was the player of the tournament in the last year’s FIH Series Finals, in which she led the country to win.

Notes:
Nagoba Jatara is a tribal festival celebrated by the Mesaram clan of Gond tribes in Keslapur village of Telangana. It is the second biggest tribal festival, which is celebrated for ten days.
The idol of their God Nagoba is worshipped by the people during the festival. Tribal people who belong to the Mesram clan and reside in other states such as Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh also come and offer prayers at the festival. The festival has concluded recently, the rituals of which was spread over a month.

Notes:
The Artificial Intelligence (AI) department of the global tech-giant Google has recently developed a new model to protect the endangered species of killer whales.
The whales, which are also known as orcas are seen in very few numbers in the Salish Sea. Google has partnered with Fisheries and Oceans Canada to monitor their condition and alert experts in the event of sickness or accidents caused to the whales. The trained AI model uses underwater audio and labels to listen to the sounds of the whale and to display its location.

Notes:
The National Statistical Office released revised estimates for economic growth of India for the last three years, on January 31,2020. As per the report, it fixed the actual GDP growth 2018-19 at 6.1%, against its previous estimate of 6.8%, estimated in May 2019.
The National Statistical Office also stated that the main reason for the downward revision in the GDP growth rate is deceleration in farming and mining activities in primary sector and manufacturing activities in secondary sector. It also marked the growth rate in 2017-18 as 7%. Recently, NSO estimated the growth rate in 2019-20 to be 5%.

Notes:
The wholly-owned subsidiary of Air India, Alliance Air recently commenced the direct flight operations from Bhubaneswar to Varanasi. The daily flight operation is started under the RCS-UDAN (Regional Connectivity Scheme – Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik).
This route also marks the 250th route which has been made operational under the RCS – UDAN. This is also the 58th route commenced by Alliance Air, under RCS. Recently, the airline started daily flight operations on the Kolkata-Jharsuguda route. The flight is scheduled to depart Bhubaneswar at 12.15 pm and reach Varanasi at 2.05 pm while the flight from Varanasi will leave at 2.30 pm and reach Bhubaneswar at 4.20 pm.

Notes:
The world’s largest solar telescope called The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) has captured its first image of the sun, which has turned out to be the highest-resolution image of the star, till date.
The telescope captured the newly released image of the sun using its Visible Broadband Imager (VBI), which was the only operational instrument in the telescope during the time. The VBI takes extremely high-resolution images of the solar surface and lower atmosphere. The telescope is scheduled to be made fully operational by July 2020, with the remaining instruments being turned on.

Notes:
The Department of Science & Technology (DST), under the Ministry of Science and Technology has launched a scheme called “Sophisticated Analytical & Technical Help Institutes (SATHI)”. It owns high-end analytical testing instruments and reduce the dependency on foreign sources.
DST announced that it has planned to set up five SATHI Centres every year for the next four years. There are already three such institutes in the country at IIT Kharagpur, IIT Delhi and BHU, at a total cost of Rs.375 Cr. The SATHI Centre will run 24×7 throughout the year and external users from other academic institutes and start-ups will be given more time to use the instruments.

Notes:
“Babenco: Tell Me When I Die” won the ‘Golden Conch Award for Best Documentary Film’ at the Mumbai International Film Festival 2020. It is a Brazilian documentary film, directed by the filmmaker Barbara Paz.
The award was presented at the 16th edition of the film festival, which was graced by the Maharashtra governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari. Nagraj Manjule’s “Paavsacha Nibandh” received the Silver Conch award for Best Short Fiction Film. The Silver Conch Award for the Best Animation Film has been shared by the German film “Portrait of Suzanne” and the Indian film “Panangaatu Nari” by Divakar SK.

Notes:
Leading Indian fin-tech start-up company Paytm has recently launched a point-of-sale (POS) device for smaller merchants. The device would accept payments through cash, Paytm wallet, debit and credit cards and Unified Payments Interface (UPI) apps.
It is an android-based all-in-one device, which will help the smaller merchants, road-side shop-keepers in handling digital money. Good and Services Tax (GST) compliant bills can also be generated through the ‘Paytm for Business’ app. The device was launched jointly by the founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma and co-founder Nandan Nilekani.