Current Affairs Quiz - January, 2020

Notes:
The 86-year-old veteran artist and sculptor Sher Singh Kukkal passed away after age-related illness in New Delhi recently.
Sher Singh Kukkal was a noted artist with a great experience in several branches of fine arts including drawing, painting, sculpture, printing and photography. He also taught arts at the Sainik School Satara. The artist had won several national and international awards including the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation Award and the Senior Fellowship in Visual Art Photography by Union Ministry of Culture during 2008-09.

Notes:
Arunachal Pradesh recently hosted the ‘Innovation Festival’ in collaboration with the National Innovation Foundation, India. The State Council for Science & Technology, Department of Science & Technology of the State Government of Arunachal Pradesh organised the two-day long festival.
The two-day programme comprised of interaction session and discussion among the innovators. Nearly 50 innovations are exhibited by students and entrepreneurs of the state and its neighbouring states. The festival was held with an objective of promoting innovation among the people of the state.

Notes:
The Prime Minister of Slovenia, Marjan Sarec was seen in news as he recently submitted his resignation from the post to the country’s parliament. He also called for an early election as his minority government could not pass important legislations. The next regular election is due to be held in the middle of 2022.
The ruling coalition of five parties, which assumed power in Late 2018, had only 43 out of 90 seats in parliament. Before the announcement of the Prime Minister, the Finance Minister Andrej Bertoncelj also submitted his resignation.

Notes:
Veteran theatre personality and the daughter of Bollywood star Shashi Kapoor, artist Sanjna Kapoor is to be presented with the French honour, Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters. The award is conferred on her for the outstanding contribution the artist has made to the theatre arts.
The Culture Minister of France, Franck Riester, who is currently on an official visit to India, is expected to confer the prestigious award on Sanjna Kapoor in a proposed ceremony. Sanjana Kapoor acted in several plays and revived the Prithvi Theatre in Mumbai, which was founded by her parents in tribute to Prithviraj Kapoor. She also co-founded an organisation called Junoon, which increases the reach of theatre and the arts.

Notes:
The Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal recently announced that the Indian Railways is set to run entirely on electricity by the year 2024 and diesel locomotives are gradually been pushed out of service. Once achieved, India will have the first railway network in the world to be run completely on electricity.
He announced this during the India-Brazil Business Forum, which was organised during Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s official visit to India. The Minister also hoped to make the entire railways network a net-zero emission network by 2030, which will use clean energy and clean power.

Notes:
The Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers Welfare has recently released the Final Estimates of 2018-19 of various Horticulture Crops. The first Advance Estimates of 2019-20 of Area and Production of various Horticulture Crops was also released.
As per the release, the total Horticulture Production of the country is estimated to be 310.74 Million Tonne in 2018-19, which is slightly higher than the Horticulture Production in 2017-18. Increase in Fruits, Flowers, Spices and Honey was noted while there was a decrease in Vegetables, Aromatic & Medicinal Plants and Plantation Crops.

Notes:
The Principal advisor to the monetary policy department, Janak Raj has been appointed by the Reserve Bank of India, as the Executive Director of the Monetary Policy Department.
Michael Patra who held the post earlier was elevated as the Deputy Governor in charge of Monetary Policy and a part of the six-member monetary policy committee (MPC). Janak Raj, will be the part of the committee as an internal member of the Reserve Bank of India. With the new appointment, RBI has its full strength of 12 Executive Directors.

Notes:
The Government of United Kingdom has recently launched a 4 million pound – ‘Innovation Challenge Fund’ in India. The fund focusses on two major tech clusters in two Indian states, which are Artificial intelligence and Big data in Karnataka and Future mobility in Maharashtra.
The initiative, which comes under the UK-India Tech Partnership announced in 2018, is aimed to encourage collaborative research by industry and academia for developing technological solutions for various economic, social and environmental challenges in India. The successful bidders with the required proposals can collaborate with international partners.

Notes:
e-Commerce giant, Amazon India recently partnered with Eastern Railways, to set up a pick-up kiosk in Sealdah railway station in Kolkata.
By selecting the railway station as their pick-up location while ordering their products in the company’s website or application, the customers can pick up their packages conveniently at the station. In 2019, Amazon successfully launched pick-up kiosks at four railway stations in Mumbai by partnering with Indian Railways.

Notes:
The Assam Rifles was founded in 1835 and is the oldest paramilitary force of India headquartered in Shillong. They guard the India-Myanmar border at present. It has constructed a combined war memorial in Nagaland for the personnel of Army and Assam Rifles, who were killed while fighting insurgency in the state.
The memorial which is named as ‘Veer Samriti’, has been built at Mokokchung, Nagaland. The names of all the 357 martyrs are inscribed on a single granite stone.