Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - June, 2017

Notes:
Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a member of the Social Democratic party (SPD), has been elected the new President of Germany by the Federal Assembly meeting in Parliament in Berlin. He won 931 out of 1,260 votes. Steinmeier will succeed Joachim Gauck on March 18, 2017.

Notes:
Jehan Daruvala from India has won the 2017 New Zealand Grand Prix at the Chris Amon Circuit in Manfeild, New Zealand. With this, Daruvala has become the only Indian racer to register a win at a Grand Prix. The New Zealand Grand Prix is an annual motor racing event held in New Zealand. It is one of only two current national Grand Prix events that are not part of the Formula One World Championship, the other being the Macau Grand Prix.

Notes:
The Hungarian drama film “On Body and Soul” has won the Golden Bear Award at the 67th Berlin International Film Festival. At Berlin it also won the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESC) Prize and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury. The film is directed by Hungarian writer-director Ildiko Enyedi.

Notes:
The First Sherpas Meeting of the 9th BRICS Summit was held in Nanjing, the capital of east China’s Jiangsu Province, from February 23-24, 2017. The Sherpas Meeting discussed the priority areas for BRICS cooperation for this year, especially in the areas of political affairs, economy and culture, under the theme “BRICS: Stronger Partnership for a Brighter Future.” The meeting attracted more than 100 participants, including coordinators from all sides, foreign diplomats, and representatives from the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB).

Notes:
The Haryana government has made it mandatory for all private schools to install solar systems in order to make them self-sufficient in managing their energy needs. A special grant at the rate of Rs 20,000 per kilowatt will be given to the schools for installing solar power plants. The electricity generated from the solar power plants at schools during the summer vacations in June and July would be added to the grid, the record of which would be maintained through net metering. The schools would be required to pay only for the electricity consumed in excess of that generated by the solar power plants.

Notes:
Yumnam Yaima Singh (95), the Veteran politician and former Member of Parliament, has recently passed away in Imphal, Manipur. Y Yaima Singh was first elected to the Territorial Council in 1957. He was elected seven times continuously to the Manipur Assembly from Oinam Constituency from 1962 to 1985. He had held various Ministerial posts such as Education, IFCD, and Law & Legislative Affairs. He was the Speaker of Manipur Legislative Assembly form 1980 – 85. He was elected to the 10th Lok Sabha in 1991 on the Manipur People’s Party (MPP) ticket, representing the Inner Manipur Parliamentary Constituency. He was also a brilliant writer, who wrote a book titled “A Piece of Tenth Lok Sabha” in English, amongst many others.

Notes:
Rabi Ray (91), the noted socialist leader and former Lok Sabha speaker, has recently passed away in Cuttack, Odisha. Ray was the Union Minister of health and family welfare in the Morarji Desai ministry from January 1979 to January 1980 and the speaker of 9th Lok Sabha from 1989-1991. In 1991, he was re-elected to the 10th Lok Sabha from Kendrapada in Odisha. He was also a former chairman of Common Wealth Speakers Forum.

Notes:
Donald Tusk from Poland has been re-elected for a second term as the President of the European Council. His reappointment will be until November 30, 2019. The European Council is the institution of the European Union (EU) that charged with defining the EU’s overall political direction and priorities.

Notes:
Prof. Ronald Drever (85), a pioneer in the field of gravitational waves, has recently passed away in Scotland, United Kingdom (UK). He was one of the co-founders of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors that detected the gravitational waves emited by the merger of a binary black hole pair.

Notes:
The book “When Breath Becomes Air” has been authored by Indian-American author Dr. Paul Kalanithi. It is a memoir which chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from medical student to neurosurgeon, patient and father before his sad death from cancer while working on this book. Recently, it is in news because the book has been shortlisted for the 2017 Wellcome Book Prize. It is the first posthumously published title to be in contention for the Wellcome Book Prize.The award celebrates fiction and non-fiction works engaged with the topics of health and medicine. Apart from this, Indian-American author Siddhartha Mukherjee is also on the list of the annual prize for his study of genetics and mental health in his book “The Gene: An Intimate History”. The winner will be announced at a ceremony at Wellcome Collection on April 2017.