Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - January, 2018

Notes:
Turkey’s endangered ‘bird language’ has entered the UNESCO list of Intangible Cultural Heritage. It is an unusual and very efficient whistle language used as a means of communication by villagers in remote northern Turkey. UNESCO has accepted the “bird language” of Black Sea villagers as an endangered part of world heritage in need of urgent protection. Around 10,000 people, mostly in the district of Canakci in Giresun province, still use the highly-developed and high pitch system of whistling to communicate in the rugged terrain where most of the times they cannot see each other. This form of communication which dates to some 500 years ago, during the Ottoman Empire, was widespread across the Black Sea regions, but 50 years ago it suffered the impact of the progression of technology and nowadays the ever rapid growing of cellular mobile systems has put this cultural heritage under serious threat.

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The Border Security Force (BSF) has launched Operation Alert along the over 200 km long International Border (IB) in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) to curb the increasing movement of infiltrating terrorists from across the border.

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Ravi Menon, an Indian-origin banker in Singapore has been named as the best central bank governor in Asia-Pacific for 2018 by the leading UK-based magazine ‘The Banker’ for his contribution in the makeover of Singapore’s financial system. He is the managing director of Singapore’s central bank Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

Notes:
The World Sweet Festival (WSF-2018) will be held in Hyderabad from January 13 to showcase the cosmopolitan nature of Hyderabad in a sweet way. The sweets from around 25 states in India and 15 foreign countries, to be prepared locally by members of various associations, will be displayed at the event, being organized by the Telangana government. The 3-day festival would be organised in association with various cultural, language and region-based associations of people, including those from foreign countries living in Hyderabad. The event would be held along with kites festival which the Telangana government organises every year.

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The Central Leather Research Institute (CLRI) is located in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It is the world’s largest leather research institute in terms of research papers and patents. The CLRI was founded on 24 April 1948 as a constituent laboratory under the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).

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According to Union Defence Minister Nirmala Seetharaman, the Defence Innovation Centre (DIC) will be set up in Coimbatore to assist small industries in manufacturing components for the defence sector. The Defence Ministry will release Rs 20 crore as an initial funding to the Coimbatore District Small Industries Association (CODISSIA) to set up the innovation centre. The small and micro units as well as startups that can manufacture components required for the defence production would be identified by the CODISSIA. The Association can design or test their products at the centre.

Notes:
Sunny Verghese, the Singapore-based Indian-origin businessman, has been appointed as the Chairman of the Geneva-based World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). He succeeded Paul Polman, the CEO of Unilever, on January 1 and will serve a two-year term. The WBCSD is a global network of more than 200 CEOs who are responsible for a combined revenue of more than $8.5 trillion and 19 million employees.

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Soon, India’s second Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) will be set up by the Union Government in Arunachal Pradesh as part of tapping the potential of the Northeastern region. The first FTII was set up in Pune, an autonomous institute operating under the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B). Film actor Anupam Kher is the current Chairman of this institute.

Notes:
John Watts Young (87), the legendary astronaut who walked on the Moon and later commanded the first space shuttle flight, has passed away at Houston, United States on January 5, 2018. He became the 9th person to walk on the Moon as Commander of the Apollo 16 mission in 1972. Young enjoyed the longest career of any astronaut, becoming the first person to fly six space missions (with seven launches, counting his lunar liftoff) over the course of 42 years of active NASA service. He was the only spaceman to span NASA’s Gemini, Apollo and shuttle programs and became the first person to rocket away from Earth six times.

Notes:
The Matunga suburban station on the Central Railway (CR) of Mumbai division has figured in the Limca Book of Records 2018 for having an all-woman staff. The achievement comes six months after Matunga became the first railway station in the country to be run by an all-woman staff. A team of 41 women staffers at the station includes personnel from the RPF, commercial and operating departments. These staffers work under the supervision of station manager Mamta Kulkarni. The staff has been handling all operations of the station round-the-clock for the last six months and results are positive and encouraging. The aim of the initiative is to create an environment where women are encouraged to take a decision about their own personal and professional well-being.