Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - May, 2018

Notes:
The “2018 Vijay Prahar” exercise of Indian Army’s South Western Command has started near Suratgarh in Rajasthan. Over 20,000 troops of the strike formations of the Army are engaged in the exercise to fine-tune the joint-manship with the Indian Air Force (IAF). During the exercise, the formations are practicing and operationalising certain concepts of operating in the network-centric environment, integrated employment of modern-day sensors with the weapon platforms, employment of attack helicopters in the air cavalry role and a bold offensive of application of the Special Forces. The exercise that began a couple of weeks ago will conclude on May 9 and Army chief General Bipin Rawat and other senior officers are likely to witness the final phase.

Notes:
The World Press Freedom Day is observed every year on May 3 to evaluate press freedom around the world, to defend the media from attacks on their independence and to pay tribute to journalists who have lost their lives while following their profession. The 2018 theme “Keeping Power in Check: Media, Justice and The Rule of Law” highlights the importance of an enabling legal environment for press freedom and gives special attention to the role of an independent judiciary in ensuring legal guarantees for press freedom and the prosecution of crimes against journalists. The day serves as an occasion to encourage and develop initiatives in favour of press freedom and to assess the state of press freedom worldwide.

Notes:
On May 2, Jagdish Mukhi has been sworn in as the acting governor of Manipur by the Acting Chief Justice of Manipur High Court, Justice N Kotiswar Singh. As per official release, Mukhi, who is the governor of Assam and Meghalaya, will hold office in the absence of Governor Najma Heptullah. The swearing-in was attended by Deputy Chief Minister Y Joykumar Singh, Speaker Y Khemchand Singh, Rajya Sabha MP Ksh Bhabananda Singh, the council of ministers, the chief secretary and director general of police and other senior officials.

Notes:
Air Chief Marshal Idris Hassan Latif (94), the former Chief of the Indian Air Force (IAF), has passed away 2018 in Hyderabad on May 1, 2018. He was the IAF chief from September 1978 to August 1981. After his retirement in 1981, Latif held the posts of Maharashtra Governor and Indian Ambassador to France. He had joined the Royal Indian Air Force in 1941 at the age of 18 and was commissioned the next year. On completion of his training at Ambala, he was posted in Karachi, where he flew vintage biplanes like the Wapiti, Audaxes and Harts, on Anti-Submarine flights over the Arabian Sea. During 1943-44, he was one of the few Indian pilots to be seconded to the Royal Air Force in the United Kingdom, where he underwent training on more contemporary aircraft like the Hurricane and Spitfire. He returned to India in 1944 and took part in the Burma campaign. At the time of partition, he chose IAF though he was reportedly urged by some to join the Pakistan Air Force.

Notes:
Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah from Egypt has been named the Football Writers’ Association (FWA) Footballer of the Year for 2017/18. With this, Salah became the first African to be given the accolade after edging out Manchester City midfielder Kevin De Bruyne by less than 20 votes in a ballot of more than 400 FWA members. Beside this, Salah also became the first Egyptian player to won the Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA) player of the year award in April 2018.

Notes:
On May 5, the NITI Aayog and IBM have signed a Statement of Intent (SoI) to develop a crop yield prediction model using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to provide real time advisory to farmers in Aspirational Districts. The purpose of the partnership is to work together towards use of technology to provide insights to farmers to improve crop productivity, soil yield, control agricultural inputs with the overarching goal of improving farmers’ incomes. The first phase of the project will focus on developing the model for 10 Aspirational Districts across the States of Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. The scope of this project is to introduce and make available climate-aware cognitive farming techniques and identifying systems of crop monitoring, early warning on pest/disease outbreak based on advanced AI innovations.

Notes:
The 12th informal meeting of SAARC Finance Ministers was held in Manila, Philippines on May 4, on the sidelines of the 51st Annual Meeting of Asian Development Bank (ADB). The meeting was attended by the Finance Ministers / Heads of Delegations from the SAARC member states. Finance Minister of Nepal Yuba Raj Khatiwada chaired the meeting. The Finance Ministers/Heads of Delegation briefed the meeting about the current status of economic progress achieved by their countries. They also appreciated ADB for its contribution in the economic growth of SAARC countries. An Indian delegation was headed by Subhash Chandra Garg, Secretary of Department of Economic Affairs (DEA).

Notes:
The first organised census of Indus Dolphins will be carried out by the Punjab government along with World Wildlife Fund (WWF) -India for the conservation of Indus dolphins, which are one of the world’s rarest mammals. This is India’s first organized Dolphin Census, which will be completed within a span of five years. The main purpose of this census is to find out the exact population of this species of dolphins. After this, their protection program will be run. The Indus dolphins are found only in India and Pakistan and are confined to only a 185 km stretch between Talwara and Harike Barrage in India’s Beas river in Punjab.

Notes:
India and Guatemala have signed a pact for strengthening diplomatic cooperation through Respective Foreign Service Institutes in the educational field. The agreement was recently inked after a meeting between Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu and his Guatemala counterpart, Jafeth Cabrera Franco in Guatemala City. Beside this, both the countries agreed to support each other’s candidature for Non-Permanent Membership in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Guatemala will support India’s candidature for UNSC membership for 2021-22 while New Delhi will do so for 2031-32 for Guatemala. During the talks, Indian side also agreed to the Guatemala’s request for supplying solar panels to its airports. After discussions and in the presence of both the Vice Presidents, both the sides signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for training of diplomats and a Letter of Intent for training Guatemalan English Teachers in India. These agreements will be valid for three years and will be extended thereafter, if required.

Notes:
Dr Tahir Hussain, an Indian-American professor of Pharmacology at the University of Houston, has received a grant of 1.6 million dollars from the National Institutes of Health to examine a kidney cell that could prevent damage from inflammation caused by obesity. The targeted cells express a protein called the angiotensin type 2 receptor, which recently has been indicated to have anti-inflammatory and renoprotective actions. If activated, the AT2R will protect against chronic and acute kidney injury. Dr Hussain, an alumnus of the Aligarh Muslim University, will study the impact of inflammation in kidneys with active AT2R as well as those with no AT2R. This is the first time the receptor’s role to protect kidney structure and function against injury in obese subjects will be investigated.