Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - June, 2017

Notes:
Ananya Vinay (12), the 6th-grader from California, has won the 90th Scripps National Spelling Bee competition by successfully spelling “marocain” in the final round at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland on June 1, 2017. She won $40,000 in cash among other prizes. Ananya is the 13th consecutive Indian-American to win the bee and the 18th of the past 22 winners with Indian heritage, a run that began in 1999 with Nupur Lala’s victory.

Notes:
The researchers at IIT Kharagpur has developed a wireless technology ‘AmbuSens‘ for remote monitoring of patients’ condition ferried in ambulances. The technology will allow doctors to monitor ECG, heart-rate, temperature and blood-pressure of patients moving in ambulances and fitted with wireless sensors. This will help doctors to advise technicians travelling with the patient to deal with the situation. The web interface of the AmbuSens system provides an easy-to-use graphical interface for doctors and paramedics alike with data visualisation tools such as real-time ECG graph. It can be accessed from internet-enabled laptops, tablets and smartphones.

Notes:
Real Madrid has won the 2017 UEFA Champions League football competition by defeating Juventus 4–1 in the final. This is the first time in UEFA Champions League a team won consecutive seasons. Thus, Real Madrid became the first team in the UEFA Champions League era to successfully defend their title. Real Madrid is a professional football club based in Madrid, Spain.

Notes:
The World Bank (WB) in its latest report “Global Economic Prospects (GEP)” has projected India’s GDP growth rate at 7.5% in 2018 and 7.7% in 2019. As per the report, the World Bank has also projected a strong 7.2% growth rate for India in FY 2017 against 6.8% growth in 2016, as India is recovering from the temporary adverse effects of demonetisation. However, World Bank has maintained its forecast for global growth in 2017 and 2018 unchanged at 2.7% and 2.9% respectively, as manufacturing and trade are picking up and confidence is improving.

Notes:
The United Nations is hosting its first-ever World Oceans Conference at the UN Headquarters in New York, United States from June 5, 2017. The 5-day conference is co-hosted by the Governments of Fiji and Sweden with theme “Our oceans, our future: partnering for the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 14”. The purpose of the conference is to find solutions to some of the toughest problems facing the oceans — that includes coral bleaching, plastic pollution, overfishing and rising sea levels. It also includes measures to protect coastal and blue carbon ecosystems such as mangroves, tidal marshes, seagrass, and coral reefs, and wider interconnected ecosystems, as well as enhancing sustainable fisheries management, including to restore fish stocks in the shortest time feasible at least to levels that can produce maximum sustainable yield.

Notes:
India’s first-ever Rural LED Street Lighting Project will be implemented by the Government of India (GoI) in Andhra Pradesh (AP). The Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) under the Ministry of Power will retrofit10 lakh conventional street lights with LED lights in Gram Panchayats of 7 districts in AP. This is the first project for rural LED street lighting in the country under the GoI’s Street Lighting National Project (SLNP). In the first phase, the replacement will be undertaken in gram panchayats of the districts of Guntur, Prakasham, Nellore, Kurnool, Kadapa, Ananthapur and Chittoor. This replacement drive in rural areas will help the gram panchayats to cumulatively save approximately 147 million units of electricity annually and lead to reduction of 12 crore tonnes of CO2. The entire upfront capital cost of this project is being funded by French Development Agency Agence Française de Développement (AFD).

Notes:
The TATA Projects has launched unique “Green Thumb” initiative in India to promote green cover and to protect the environment on 2017 World Environment Day (WED). The Green Thumb 2017 is in continuation to 2016 TATA Projects’ programme wherein it aimed to get 10,000 people to click (pledge) to plant a sapling on their behalf – the response received was a tremendous 23,000. Encouraged by the response, TATA Projects planted a total of over 42,000 saplings across the country in over 100 locations in the last one year (2016-17). This year, under Green Thumb initiative, the company will plants trees, citizens who wish to do their bit to save the environment, can express their support for the cause. They can do so by clicking on the banner to plant a sapling on the Green Thumb Microsite or on Facebook page, LinkedIn pagea/155507/ or on the company website www.tataprojects.com.

Notes:
The Vijaya Bank will set up 100 digital villages in various States of the country as part of its initiative to promote digital banking among the rural population. It is the only public sector financial institution to develop digital villages with focus on rural areas and it has already developed five villages including the one in Guntur district. In those villages, the bank will provide Internet, free Wi-Fi connectivity, mobile payment facilities, ATM cards, online banking and others besides educating the villagers through door-to-door campaign. The bank will also open bank accounts to all the eligible villagers including children and encourage them to make transactions digitally.

Notes:
The Anshi National Park is located at a distance of 60 km from Karwar in Uttara Kannada district, Karnataka. It is located in an eco-sensitive part of the Western Ghats, at a height between 200 m to 925 m above sea level. The park is a habitat of melanistic leopard, tigers and elephants, among other wildlife. The reptiles like King Cobra, Krait, Python, Rat snake and Viper are found here. It is home to more than 200 species of birds viz. Adjutant Stork, Ashy Black-crested Crested Serpent Eagle, Great Hornbill, Golden-backed Woodpecker, Bulbul, Blue-headed Pitta, Woodswallow, Brahminy Kite, etc.

Notes:
Raj Kamal Jha, the Chief Editor of The Indian Express, has been bestowed with the RedInk Award for the ‘Journalist of the Year’ 2017 for providing exemplary stewardship over the last couple of years to the newspaper; and for pulling it back from an aimless drift to focused reporting and restoring what it has always been known best for—investigative journalism. The award was presented to him by the Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on June 7 in Mumbai. The awards are part of the National RedInk Awards for Excellence in Journalism and instituted by the Mumbai Press Club (MPC) to raise the bar of news and feature writing in India and to encourage fair play and high ethical standards in media.