Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - June, 2017

Notes:
India will host the first-ever meeting of BIMSTEC National Security Chiefs (NSAs) to discuss action against the spread of terrorism, violent extremism and radicalisation. This was decided at the 17th BIMSTEC Senior Officials Meeting (SOM) which recently concluded at Kathmandu, Nepal. This marked an important step forward to realize the action oriented agenda for BIMSTEC agreed by the leaders at their Retreat hosted by Prime Minister Modi in Goa in October 2016.

Notes:
India’s first inter-disciplinary school on Quality and Reliability (Q&R) will be set up by the IIT Kharagpur. The school will be truly interdisciplinary in which faculty members as well as students will be from various disciplines. The purpose for establishing the school is to improve the quality of life for the people of India as well as develop quality conscious global citizens. The school, in collaboration with other academic units in the Institute, will offer academic courses, research and mission-mode programmes in the area of Quality and Reliability (Q&R), which will bring social transformation. It shall also serve as a hub of Intellectual Property in Quality.

Notes:
The 13th edition of National Agriculture Science Congress (NASC)-2017 has started at the campus of the University of Agricultural Sciences-Bengaluru (UAS-B) in Bengaluru, Karnataka from February 22, 2017. The 4-day congress is jointly organised by the UAS-B, National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS) and Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). The theme of the Congress is ‘Climate-smart Agriculture’. The Congress will provide an intellectually stimulating platform for discussing key issues related to ‘Climate-smart Agriculture’ in all its facets, including socio-economic empowerment of marginal farmers through technology development and policy initiatives for sustainable farming, forestry and natural resource management in tune with global climate change.

Notes:
India’s first dedicated Heliport, built by Pawan Hans Helicopters Ltd (PHHL), will be inaugurated by the Union Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju at Rohini area of New Delhi on February 28, 2017. It consists of terminal building having a capacity of 150 passengers, 4-hangers with parking capacity of 16 helicopters and nine parking bays. The helicopter services shall enable citizens to fly in and out of Delhi to nearby areas in choppers. The heliport will also be used for operating services for disaster management, emergency medical services, law and order surveillance as well as a centre for the skill development of pilots and engineers. Rohini heliport will also promote regional air connectivity through helicopters in the northern region.

Notes:
Kenneth J. Arrow (95), the Nobel-winning economist and mathematician, has recently passed away at Palo Alto in California, United States. To date, he is the youngest person ever to have received Nobel Prize for Economics, at the age of 51. His theories on risk, innovation and the basic mathematics of markets have influenced thinking on everything from voting to health insurance to high finance. His most significant works are his contributions to social choice theory, Arrow’s impossibility theorem and general equilibrium analysis. He has also provided foundational work in many other areas of economics, including endogenous growth theory and the economics of information.

Notes:
On 1 March 2017, Bakri Hassan Saleh has been appointed by President Omar al-Bashir as Sudan’s first Prime Minister since the post was abolished in 1989. The post of Prime Minister was re-established with limited powers, while most power remained in the hands of the President. As Prime Minister, Saleh retained his post as First Vice President of SUdan.

Notes:
The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has won the annual Visitor’s Award for the ‘Best University 2017’. Apart from this, Dr. Deepak Pant from the Central University of Himachal Pradesh won the Visitor’s Award for ‘Innovation’ while the Visitor’s Award for ‘Research’ has been jointly won by Dr. Shyam Sunder from Banaras Hindu University (BHU) and Prof. Niranjan Karak from Tezpur University. President Pranab Mukherjee will present the Visitor’s Awards at a function to be held at Rashtrapati Bhavan on March 6, 2017 as part of the ‘Festival of Innovations’. The ‘Best University’ will receive a Citation and Trophy while winners of Visitor’s Award for ‘Innovation’ and ‘Research’ will
receive a Citation and cash award of Rs 1 lakh. The aim of these awards is to promote healthy competition amongst Central Universities and to motivate them to adopt best practices from around the world in the pursuit of excellence.

Notes:
Narendra Singh Tomar, the Union Ministry of Rural Development, Panchayati Raj and Drinking Water and Sanitation, has recently launched nationwide ‘Swachh Shakti Saptah’ from Gurugram, Haryana on March 1, 2017 to raise awareness on sanitation and cleanliness. Over 1,500 women sarpanches of Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) and all women sarpanches of Gurugram division are participating in this event. The ‘Swachh Shakti Saptah’ will observe across the country from March 1 to 8, 2017. PM Narendra Modi will take part in closing ceremony of the week long programme on 8th of March at Gandhinagar in Gujarat.

Notes:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has recently inaugurated the India’s longest cable-bridge over the Narmada River on the Ahmedabad-Mumbai section of NH-8 (New NH-48) in Bharuch, Guajarat. The four-lane extra-dosed bridge is 20.8m wide, with 14.5m carriageway and 3m footpath. It is supported on 9 Pylons of 36 meter height on pile foundation of 1.5m diameter. The bridge will be lit by more than 400 LED lights. The bridge is built by Larsen and Turbo, as a part of the Rs. 379 crore project of the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI).

Notes:
Dr. Lalji Singh, who served as dDirector of Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) and vice-chancellor of Banaras Hindu University (BHU), has been selected for ‘SERB Distinguished Fellow’ award by the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), a statutory body of Government of India. The SERB has instituted ‘Distinguished SERB Fellowship Award’ to support research of eminent scientists active even after superannuation. The award carries an amount of Rs. 60,000 per month and a research grant of Rs. 5 lakh. The research grant is for three years and is extendable for a further two years. Currently, Lalji Singh runs the ‘Genome Foundation’, a non-profit company in Hyderabad.