Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - May, 2017

Notes:
Sohail Mahmood, one of Pakistan’s senior-most diplomats, will be the Pakistan’s new High Commissioner to India. The new envoy will face a daunting task of handling the ties with India amid strains in relationship over a range of issues including cross-border terror attacks in India and the sentencing of Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav to death for alleged spying. Mahmood will succeed Abdul Basit at the end of May 2017. Currently, he is the Ambassador of Pakistan to Turkey.

Notes:
Taranjeet Singh has been appointed the Country Director for Twitter in India. He will lead the team by driving an integrated business strategy and spearheading cross-functional collaboration. Prior to this appointment, he was leading the charge for sales and marketing support for Twitter’s advertisers in India. Singh was responsible for sales and marketing support for Twitter’s advertisers in India. Before joining Twitter, he was sales director for BBC Advertising in South Asia. Prior to BBC, he held various positions at Outlook Publishing.

Notes:
The 29th edition of India–Indonesia bilateral maritime exercise “Co-Ordinated Patrol (CORPAT)” has started at Port Blair under the aegis of Andaman and Nicobar Command from May 9 and will continue till May 12, 2017. The closing ceremony of the CORPAT is scheduled at Belawan, Indonesia from 22 – 25 May 17. The CORPAT reflects the shared concerns between the two countries for a peaceful Indian Ocean for the benefit of international community. The Andaman and Nicobar Command is the only Tri-service theater command of the Indian Armed Forces, based at Port Blair in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a Union Territory of India.

Notes:
The Indian Army has decided to re-introduce Cordon and Search Operations (CASO) as a “permanent feature” of its campaign against militants after a gap of 15 years. The CASO will be carried out in a major way in militancy-hit areas of Kulgam, Pulwama, Tral, Budgam and Shopian in south Kashmir. The Army had discontinued CASO following stiff opposition from the local population and after 2001 launched CASO only on specific intelligence-based inputs. The security establishment felt that CASO had alienated the local population from the armed forces due to difficulties people faced during such operations. The decision to re-introduce CASO as a major feature of the counter-terror operations comes against the backdrop of anger over the recent killing of young and unarmed Kashmiri Army officer Lieutenant Ummer Fayaz in Shopian by militants.

Notes:
Karan Singh (59), the Ayurveda and Co-Operative Minister of Himachal Pradesh, has recently passed away at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi. He was elected from Banjar assembly constituency in Kullu district in the last assembly elections in 2012. Karan Singh was a scion of the Kullu Royal family and younger brother of BJP stalwart Maheshwar Singh, the former Raja of Kullu.

Notes:
The 2017 Arctic Energy Summit (AES) will be held in Helsinki, Finland from September 18-20, 2017. It will be hosted by Institute of the North and Finland Ministry of Economy and Employment. The AES is a multi-disciplinary event expected to draw several hundred industry officials, scientists, academics, policy makers, energy professionals and community leaders together to collaborate and share leading approaches on Arctic energy issues. The 2017 Summit will address energy in the Arctic as it relates to small and off-grid community energy solutions, oil and gas development, renewable energy, etc.

Notes:
Kerala has topped the 2017 Public Affairs Index (PAI) in governance indicators, followed by Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Karnataka and Maharashtra. The report was based on a wide range of themes such as essential infrastructure, support to human development, social protection, women and children, crime, law and order, delivery of justice, environment, transparency and accountability, fiscal management and economic freedom. The purpose of the PAI is to rank the states of India objectively in the field of governance based on various focus subjects and indicators and is an initiative of the Public Affairs Committee (PAC).

Notes:
India has been ranked 26th in the list of electricity accessibility according to the World Bank in the current year from 99th spot in 2014. It is because of Indian government’s rural electrification programme, over 13,000 villages electrified out of a total of 18,452 and are on track for completion within the targeted 1,000 days. Additionally, a person who applies for electricity connection should be able to get electricity in 24 hours if power infrastructure is available and in areas where there is no power infrastructure a person should expect electricity in a week.

Notes:
S Ramassamy (80), the former Puducherry Chief Minister, has passed away in Puducherry on May 15, 2017id. He was Home Minister in the DMK-CPI coalition ministry from 1969 to 1973. He shifted his allegiance to the AIADMK in 1973. He became chief minister in 1974 heading the AIADMK-CPI coalition ministry for a brief period. He was also the Chief Minister in the AIADMK government in 1977, which lasted in office for a little over one year. He successfully contested as Independent from Karaikal in 1985 and 1990. Ramassamy joined Congress in 1992.

Notes:
Lewis Hamilton, a British Formula One racing driver from England, has won the 2017 Formula One Spanish Grand Prix tournament at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in Barcelona. It is the 71st season of Formula One motor racing.