Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - October, 2017

Notes:
The United Nations’ (UN) International Day of Non-Violence is observed every year on October 2 to mark the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, leader of the Indian independence movement and pioneer of the philosophy and strategy of non-violence. The day is an occasion to disseminate the message of non-violence, including through education and public awareness. This day is referred to in India as Gandhi Jayanti.

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The International Day of Older Persons is observed every year on October 1, 2017 to raise awareness about issues affecting the elderly, such as senescence and elder abuse. The 2017 theme “Stepping into the Future: Tapping the Talents, Contributions and Participation of Older Persons in Society” will explore effective means of promoting and strengthening the participation of older persons in various aspects of social, cultural, economic and civic and political life.

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The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2017 has awarded jointly to Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young for their discoveries on how plants, animals and humans adapt their biological rhythm so that it is synchronised with the Earth’s revolutions. For many years, we have known that living organisms, including humans, have an internal clock that helps them adapt to the rotation of earth. But how does this clock actually work? It is explained through 2017 Nobel laureates discoveries. Using fruit flies as a model organism, they isolated a gene that controls the daily biological rhythm. They showed that this gene encodes a protein that accumulates in the cell during the night, and is then degraded during the day. The trio will share the prize sum of nine million Swedish kronor (about 1.1 million US Dollars) by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.

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President Ram Nath Kovind has recently appointed a Commission to examine the sub-categorisation of the Other Backward Classes (OBCs). Justice (Retd.) G. Rohini will be the chairperson of the Commission which will present its report to the President within 12 weeks. The Commission will examine the extent of inequitable distribution of benefits of reservation among the castes or communities included in the broad category of OBCs with reference to such classes included in the Central List. It will work out the mechanism, criteria, norms and parameters in a scientific approach for sub-categorisation within such OBCs. On receipt of the report, the Central Government will consider ways and means for equitable distribution of the benefits of the reservation in Central Government jobs and admission in Central Government Institutions amongst all strata of the OBC.

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The Global Wildlife Programme (GWP) conference has started in New Delhi on October 2, 2017. India is hosting the programme jointly with World Bank (WB) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to address illegal wildlife trade across 19 Asian and African countries. In it, Environment Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan unveiled the 3rd National Wildlife Action Plan (NWAP) for 2017-2031 to spell out the future road map for wildlife conservation. The 4-day conference will act as a platform for knowledge exchange and coordination on the action taken on the ground to combat illegal poaching of wildlife and improve governance on wildlife conservation. It will provide an opportunity for India to showcase its conservation efforts through joint forest management, vana sanrakshan samitis, eco-development committees in and around protected areas.

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The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2017 was awarded to Jacques Dubochet, Joachim Frank and Richard Henderson for developing cryo-electron microscopy for the high-resolution structure determination of biomolecules in solution. It’s a method of simplifying and improving the imaging of biomolecules.

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For the first time, Nepal and India will conduct a joint tiger census in their national parks, forests and protected areas adjoining the two countries by using a globally-recognised method – camera tapping procedure from November 2017. By using this method, officials can avoid chances of repeated counting of the same tiger. The Chitwan National Park and Parsa Wildlife Reserve, which are the habitats of tigers in Nepal, are adjacent to the Balmiki Tiger Reserve in Bihar. Similarly, Nepal’s Bardiya National Park is close to India’s Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary while the Shuklaphanta National Park in Nepal adjoins India’s Dudhwa Tiger Reserve. The tiger is regarded as an endangered animal and is listed in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

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Dr Soumya Swaminathan has become the first Indian to hold deputy director general post for Programmes at the World Health Organisation (WHO). Currently, she is the Director General (DG) of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). Dr Swaminathan is a paediatrician and is known for her research in tuberculosis and HIV. She is daughter of MS Swaminathan, the acclaimed geneticist and father of green revolution. Beside her, Jane Ellison from Britain has been appointed as a Deputy Director General for Corporate Operations (DDC).

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The 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics has been jointly awarded to three US scientists – Rainer Weiss, Kip S. Thorne and Barry C. Barish – for the detection of gravitational waves. The ripples were predicted by Albert Einstein and are a fundamental consequence of his General Theory of Relativity. The winners are members of the Ligo-Virgo observatories, which were responsible for the breakthrough. The winners join a prestigious list of 204 other Physics laureates recognised since 1901. The trio will share the prize sum of nine million kronor prize. Prof Weiss gets half of the prize money, while Barish and Thorne will share the other half. Gravitational waves describe the stretching and squeezing of space-time that occurs when massive objects accelerate.

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British writer Kazuo Ishiguro has won the 2017 Nobel Prize for Literature. The novelist was praised by the Swedish Academy as a writer “who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world”.The prize of 9 million Swedish kronor will be awarded to him. The literature prize is given for a lifetime of writing rather than for a single work. Ishiguro has written eight books, which have been translated into over 40 languages. His most famous novels “The Remains of the Day” and “Never Let Me Go” were adapted into highly acclaimed films. He won the Booker Prize in 1989 for The Remains of the Day and made an Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1995.