Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - July, 2018

Notes:
Recently, President Ram Nath Kovind has nominated 4 Rajya Sabha members viz. Farmer leader and former MP Ram Shakal, sculptor Raghunath Mohapatra, classical dancer Sonal Mansingh and Founder of Delhi-based “India Policy Foundation” Rakesh Sinha.  Raghunath Mohapatra is an internationally renowned sculptur famous for his stone carvings. Practicing since 1959, Mr. Mohapatra has trained over 2000 students. He has contributed to the preservation of traditional sculpture and ancient monuments, and has worked on the beautification of the Sri Jagannath Temple, Puri. Mr. Mohapatra’s famous works include a six-feet high statue of the Sun God carved in grey sandstone in the Central Hall of Parliament, the lotus carving at Vir Bhoomi memorial of Rajiv Gandhi in New Delhi, and the Wooden Buddha in Paris.

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India’s home minister Rajnath Singh has recently inaugurated the world’s largest state-of-the-art visa centre in Dhaka with modern facilities, promising shorter waiting times for applicants. This Integrated centre at Jamuna Future Park (JFP), Dhaka is the largest Indian visa centre in the world with 18,500 square feet commercial area.

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The UN members have unanimously elected Iceland to take a seat on the world body’s 47-member Human Rights Council. US had left the UNHRC in June, 2018 calling it a cesspool of political bias for its criticism of Israeli regime’s crimes against Palestinians.

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Sanskrit is one of the languages in the Eighth Schedule and is also an official language in Uttarakhand.

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On 16 July, India’s supersonic cruise missile BrahMos was test fired from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur, Odisha under extreme conditions. Brahmos is India’s only supersonic cruise missile and it can cruise at speeds of up to Mach 3.0, or three times the speed of sound.

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On July 16, 2018 IIT-Madras unveils “world’s first” remotely operable LEAP (Local Electrode Atom Probe (LEAP) microscope.

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On July 12, the government sharply increased the monetary threshold for filing appeals in tax disputes in various courts and decided to withdraw many pending appeals to cut down litigation and improve ease of doing business. The new monetary threshold for filing appeals in tribunals handling income tax as well as customs, excise and service tax disputes has been doubled from Rs.10 lakh to Rs.20 lakh. In the case of high courts, the monetary threshold is now Rs.50 lakh instead of Rs.20 lakh earlier. In the Supreme Court, the threshold has been increased from Rs25 lakh to Rs 1 crore. This will bring down tax litigation by 37%.

Notes:
The Union Government has constituted a committee under the Chairmanship of Anil Swarup ( former Secretary of School Education) to suggest measures to strengthen National Cadet Corps (NCC) and National Service Scheme (NSS). The Committee will deal with on issues like expansion, strengthening training infrastructure, rationalizing resources, reducing manpower deficiency affecting NCC and NSS. The Committee will also submit recommend for building synergies between these two institutions viz. NCC and NSS and further strengthen them for empowering the youth. At present, there are 13.5 lakh cadets in NCC in the age group of 12 to 26 years with pan India presence in about 703 out of 716 districts.

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Aruna Sairam, the renowned Carnatic vocalist, has been selected for the 2018 Sangita Kalanidhi award of the Music Academy. She will preside over the 92nd annual conference to be held between December 15, 2018 and January 1, 2019. The award will be conferred to her on January 1, the day of Sadas. Beside her, Mridhangist Thanjavur R. Ramadoss and vocalist K. Oman Kutty will receive the Sangita Kala Acharya award. T.T.K. Awards will be given to veena player Kalyani Ganesan and nagaswaram player S.R.G. Rajanna. Dr. Premeela Gurumurthy, the Vice Chancellor of Tamil Nadu University for Fine Arts, will get the musicologist award and dancer Shanta Dhananjayan will get the Nritiya Kalanidhi award, which will be conferred on her January 3

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The French National Football team has clinched the 2018 FIFA World Cup by defeating Croatia 4-2 in a thrilling final match at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow on July 15. Croatia were playing in their first World Cup final. They were the smallest country to reach the Final in the modern era. For France, it was a first World Cup crown since winning on home soil in 1998. England’s Harry Kane won the World Cup Golden Boot Award as top scorer with 6 goals. Croatia captain Luka Modric won the Golden Ball award for the World Cup’s best player despite being on the losing side. Kylian Mbappe of France won the Young Player of the Tournament Award after scoring his 4th goal of the competition in the final. Belgium’s Thibaut Courtois won the Golden Glove award for the best goalkeeper. Now, France joined Uruguay and Argentina in winning the World Cup for a second time, after their 1998 triumph over Brazil when Didier Deschamps — now the coach — was the captain.