Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - December, 2017

Notes:
The 7th edition of ‘Kathakar – International Storytellers Festival’ has inaugurated by Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju in New Delhi on December 1, 2017. Kathakar is the only oral storytelling festival in India and is a part of Ghummakkad Narain- the Travelling Literature Festival which was started under the aegis of UNESCO in 2010. The Festival is an attempt not only to preserve the art form but also create new audiences for the same. This year festival will be hosted in Delhi, Gurugram, Noida and Mumbai.

Notes:
Indian actor Parvathy Thiruvoth Kottuvatta has won the Best Actor Female Award at the 48th International Film Festival of India (IFFI-2017) for her role in Malayalam film “Take Off”. The movie, directed by Mahesh Narayan, is based on the ordeal of Indian nurses in the city of Tikrit, Iraq, in 2014. It also won the Special Jury Award which included a Silver Peacock, a certificate and cash prize of Rs 15 lakh. Beside this, Marathi film “Kshitiz A Horizon” (directed by Manouj Kadaamh) won the ICFT Unesco Gandhi Medal 2017. The Prestigious Silver Peacock Award for the Best Debut Film of a Director goes to Director Kiro Russo for the film “Dark Skull”. The theme of IFFI 2017 was “Celebrating the Future of Cinema” and Canada was the focus country.

Notes:
The Rollapadu Wildlife Sanctuary (RWS) is located in the Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh and is spread over an area of 6.14 square kilometers. It is home to a varied set of faunal and avifaunal species such as foxes, jackals, bonnet macaques, jungle cats, sloth bears and black bucks. It also houses 132 bird species with the Alganur reservoir near the sanctuary frequented annually by migratory species.

Notes:
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved debt financing and partial risk guarantee of $583 million to develop Reliance Power’s 750MW LNG based combined cycle power plant and LNG terminal project in Bangladesh. ADB’s financing package includes loans and partial risk guarantees for the power generation facility, as well as for the LNG terminal. The total project cost is approximately $1 billion.

Notes:
India’s largest floating solar power plant has become operational at the Banasura Sagar dam in Wayanad, Kerala on December 5, 2017. The solar power plant that floats on the surface of water has a capacity of 500 kilowatts (KW). It consists of 1,938 solar panels with a capacity of 260 watts, a 500 kilo volt ampere (KVA) transformer and 17 inverters. The unique feature of this plant is the anchoring mechanism used by the overwhelming technology to maintain the plant with the alteration of the water level. The total cost of the project is Rs. 9.25 crore.

Notes:
The Jessore Sloth Bear Sanctuary is located in the Banaskantha district of Gujarat at the Gujarat-Rajasthan border and covers an area of about 180 square kilometres. It is home to grey jungle fowl, white-bellied minivet, Indian black ibis, etc. The sanctuary is principally for protection of the sloth bear.

Notes:
India has won the first-ever South Asian Regional Badminton Team Championship. In the title clash played in Guwahati on 6th December 2017, India defeated Nepal, 3-0. The Indian team, which came into the Final without losing a single match, continued their good run with Aryaman Tandon drawing first blood in the boys’ singles competition. He defeated Dipesh Dhami 21-9, 21-15. Ashmita Chaliha continued the Indian juggernaut as she danced her way to a 21-9, 21-6 win over Rashila Maharjan in the Girls’ singles event. In Boys’ Doubles, the pair of Arintap Dasgupta and Krishna Prasad came back from a game behind to beat the duo of Dipesh Dhami and Nabin Shrestha 19-21, 21-14, 21-11 to seal the deal for India.

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has kept the key interest rate “repo rate” unchanged at 6% and reverse repo at 5.75% in its fifth bi-monthly monetary policy review for the year 2017-18 on December 6, 2017, as it feared that inflation may top the central bank’s medium-term target of 4%. It also maintained its neutral policy stance. Consequently, the Marginal Standing Facility (MSF) rate and the Bank Rate remained at 6.25%. The central bank has raised inflation forecast to 4.3-4.7% in third and fourth quarters of current fiscal and kept the economic growth forecast “Gross Value Added (GVA)” unchanged at 6.7%.

Notes:
The Madhya Pradesh Assembly has unanimously passed a Bill awarding death to those found guilty of raping girls aged 12 and below on December 4, 2017. With this, Madhya Pradesh has become the India’s first State where those convicted of such rapes will face the gallows. The Capital punishment would be awarded to convicts under Section 376 (A), which is related to rape, and Section 376 (D, A), pertaining to gang rape. The Bill will now be sent to the President for his assent after which it will become a law.

Notes:
Indian cricketer Yuvraj Singh has launched the UNICEF-ICC’s adolescent campaign “Power of Sports to Shape the Future of Adolescents” in Colombo, Sri Lanka to promote a UNICEF sports initiative for youngsters in South Asia.