Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - February, 2018

Notes:
The 2018 SAARC Business Leaders’ Conclave will be held in Kathmandu, Nepal from March 16 to 18, with an objective to promote investment, innovation and entrepreneurship in the region. The bi-annual event of the SAARC Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SAARC-CCI) is going to be held in Nepal for the second time and the government is going to host the regional event jointly with SAARC-CCI. Former President of India, Pranab Mukherjee, has been invited to deliver a keynote speech in the conclave. Former president of Sri Lanka Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga has also been invited to address the meet. Top-notch business people from the region will be addressing the conclave. India has so far conducted this event three times, and Nepal and Sri Lanka have organised it once so far.

Notes:
Neelabh Mishra (57), the Veteran journalist and editor-in-chief of Delhi-based National Herald, has passed away in Chennai Hospital. In 2016, he steered the re-launch of National Herald, the newspaper founded by India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru in 1938, as a digital news website. In 2017, Mishra relaunched the National Herald as Sunday newspaper, and then National Herald’s sister publications Navjivan and Qaumi Awaz as news websites.

Notes:
The Indian Navy will host the multi-national MILAN series of exercises under the theme of ‘Friendship Across the Seas’ at Port Blair in Andaman and Nicobar islands from March 6 to March 13, 2018. Besides fostering co-operation through naval exercises and professional interactions, MILAN also provides an excellent opportunity to the participating navies to come together in a spirit of collaboration and mutual understanding to nurture stronger ties. It is a congregation of littoral navies conducted biennially by the Indian Navy under the aegis of the Andaman and Nicobar Command. The purpose of Milan 2018 is to showcase the rich heritage and pristine natural beauty of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to the foreign visitors.

Notes:
TSR Subramanian (79), the former Cabinet secretary of India, has passed away in New Delhi on February 26, 2018. He served as the cabinet secretary from 1996 to 1998. Subramanian worked hard to protect the bureaucracy from political interference. He was part of a group of bureaucrats that filed a PIL seeking directions from the Supreme Court for insulating bureaucracy from political interference following which the Supreme Court rolled out key civil services reforms in 2013. He was a 1961 batch IAS officer from Uttar Pradesh Cadre. He also wrote several books on India and governance such as “India at Turning Point: The Road to Good Governance”, “GovernMint In India: An Inside View” and “Journeys Through Babudom and Netaland: Governance in India”.

Notes:
The Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) has signed a MoU with the Regional Center for Science and Technology Transfer (RCSTT) of Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) for designating Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, Lucknow (CSIR-CIMAP) as Coordinating Center on Medicinal Plants. The IORA Center at CSIR-CIMAP will establish a database on the important medicinal plants, their value added products, related experts and industries of the IORA member states and organize meetings and training programmes to promote trade, commerce and scientific exchanges to complement the strength and limitation of the member states. The IORA is an association of 21 countries and 7 dialogue partners which have identified 6 areas of cooperation including medicinal plants.

Notes:
India has been ranked 47th out of 86 countries in the latest Inclusive Internet Index (III-2018) report, which was commissioned by Facebook and conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). The index is topped by the Sweden, followed by Singapore and the US. This year’s index covered 91% of the world’s population and an expanded data set of 86 countries, up from 75 countries in 2017. The index assessed a country’s Internet inclusion across four categories: availability, affordability, relevance and readiness. The EIU is a British business within the Economist Group, providing forecasting and advisory services through research and analysis.

Notes:
Television journalist Rahul Mahajan has been appointed as the new editor-in-chief of the television channel Rajya Sabha TV. He is currently a consulting editor in Prasar Bharati. Mahajan has been a journalist for 26 years, starting off with Hindi daily ‘Jansatta’. He later branched out to television news. He worked with leading Hindi television channels such as Aaj Tak, Zee News and Star News.

Notes:
The Karnataka cricket team has won the 2018 Vijay Hazare trophy after defeating Saurashtra in the final by 41 runs at the Feroz Shah Kotla, Delhi on February 27. With this, It has won the Vijay Hazare trophy 3 times. During the tournament, Karnataka’s Mayank Agarwal scored 723 runs and won the Player of the match award. Beside this, Mohammed Siraj from Hyderabad took 23 wickets in the tournament.

Notes:
The 2nd India-Korea Business Summit 2018 was held in New Delhi on February 28 to strengthen the economic relationship, boost trade relations and increase investments between India and Republic of Korea. The 2018 theme was “India-Korea: Scaling up the Special Strategic Relationship through Trade and Investments”. The summit addressed various issues across industries and was attended by over a 1000 delegates, including 425 South Korean delegates from 90 Korean companies, senior government officials and political leaders. It was organized by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), Ministry of Commerce & Industry, in partnership with ChosunILbo, KOTRA, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Invest India.

Notes:
The 45MW Nimoo Bazgo Power Project (NBPP) is a run-of-the-river power project on the Indus River situated at Leh district of Ladakh region of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K). The project is designed to generate 239 MUs of energy. The Power station comprises of a 57m high concrete gravity dam, 3 intake structures on the power dam portion on right bank for diversion of water through 3.3 m diameter steel penstock of about 55.0 m long, a surface power house located at the toe of the dam on right bank and a short tailrace channel. The power house has an installed capacity of 45 MW (3 x 15 MW). It was inaugurated by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on August 2014.