Current Affairs Practice Questions - August 2013

• The first Britisher to perform a space walk, who retired from NASA in the second week of August 2013- Colin Michael Foale

• Name of the largest blast furnace of India which was operationalised by SAIL on 10 August 2013- Durga

• Female tennis player to win The Rogers Cup 2013 and capture her 54th WTA singles title- Serena Williams

• Technology used by the researchers to find that autism affected the brains of males and females in a different way- Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
• Name the captain of the 18-member hockey squad of India in the Asia Cup hockey tournament 2013- Sardar Singh
• Date on which International Lefthanders Day is celebrated across the world- 13 August

• Name of the First Twitter Hotel opened in Spain by the Melia brand of hotels- Social Wave House
• Name of the oldest Penguin who on 12 August 2013 turned 36 years old- King Penguin Missy

• Body which proposed first season of the Indian Badminton League (IBL)- Badminton Association of India (BAI)

• Name of the host country of 7th Asian Junior Wushu Championships- Philippines

• Name the fossil of the oldest known ancestor of modern rats recently unearthed in China- Rugosodon eurasiaticus

• Name of one of the most endangered bird species of the world that made a comeback in the US- Puerto Rican parrot

• Place at which The Travel & Tourism Fair (TTF) 2013, the biggest travel trade show of India started- Ahmadabad, Gujarat 
• The former Prime Minister of Nepal who died on 15 August 2013 after battling with lung cancer- Marich Man Singh Shrestha

• Name the person who was termed as the Beast of Ukraine. He was the serial killer who recently died in prison- Anatoly Onoprienko

• Name of the US actress who passed away on 25 August 2013 at the age of 87 years and holds the record of most Tony awards win- Julie Harris

• India’s under-23 cricket team won the Asian Cricket Council Emerging Teams Cup in Singapore on 25 August 2013, after defeating- Pakistan

• Indian tennis player who lifted the women’s doubles trophy at the WTA New Haven Open along with her partner Jie Zheng of China- Sania Mirza

• Gujar Mal Modi Award for Science and Technology 2013 awarded to- Vinod Prakash Sharma

• Name the tribal community of Sri Lanka that was felicitated on 9 August 2013 by Mahinda Rajapaksa on the occasion of the World Indigenous Peoples Day- Veddas

• The eminent Indian classical singer and music director known as the vocalist of Jayadeva’s Gita Govind, who passed away in Bhubaneswar- Pandit Raghunath Panigrahi
• Nelson Mandela on 27 August 2013 was honoured with the first Lifetime Campaigner for Peace and Freedom of- the Mahathir award for Global Peace
• Prem Bhatia Award for Best Political Reporting of the Year (2013) was won by- Shalini Singh, a Deputy Editor of The Hindu  
• Indian women's Recurve team defeated this team  to win gold medal in the World Cup Archery Stage- 4 at Wroclaw, Poland- South Korean Team

• Person who coined the term BRIC in 2001. He is the Chief Economist of Goldman Sachs: Jim O’ Neil 
• The soccer team to win UEFA Super Cup 2013 on 30 August 2013:Bayern Munich
• The person to be recommended as next ONGC chief by the Public Enterprises Selection Board: Dinesh K Sarraf

• The Joint Air force exercise to be held by China and Pakistan: Shaheen-2
• The 21st round of Boundary talks between Bhutan and China held in the city: Thimphu

• 5th India-China Strategic Dialogue held in the City: New Delhi

• The person to be sworn in as the new President of Iran: Hassan Rouhani - See more at: http://www.jagranjosh.com/current-affairs/current-affairs-questions-answers-for-august-2013one-liners-1378458169-1#sthash.M4ODfVb5.dpuf

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Deepak Sandhu Became the First Woman Chief Information Commissioner

Deepak Sandhu became the first woman Chief Information Commissioner on 5 September 2013. She was administered the oath of the office by the President of India, Pranab Mukherjee. Deepak Sandhu took over the office from Satyananda Mishra. Mishra served the 5 year term in the office.

The Central Information Commission (CIC):

• The Central Information Commission was established under the Right to Information Act, 2005. 
• CIC was established under the Government of India for acting on complaints of the people.

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India to host 33rd Asian and Pacific Conference of Correctional Administrators

India will be hosting the 33rd Asian and Pacific Conference of Correctional Administrators (APCCA), 2013 in New Delhi from 22 to 27 September. The conference will be inaugurated by Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde. This is a prominent event for the correctional officers to share ideas and learn from others’ experiences and give direction to innovative ideas in correctional administration and welfare. Apart from delegates from 23 member countries, the delegates from States/UTs dealing with correctional administrations will also attend the conference.  The theme of the conference for the year 2013 is Correction-Transformation-Re-integration. The conference is aimed to assist the reintegration of the released inmates back to the society.

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Raghuram Rajan takes over as RBI Governor

Rajan took over the charge as the 23rd Governor of Reserve Bank of India on 4th September as a successor of outgoing Governor of RBI, Dr. Subbarao. Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of India on 4 August 2013 approved the appointment of Raghuram Rajan (50) as the new Governor of Reserve Bank of India for next three years. Raghuram Govind Rajan was born on 3rd February 1963. He has served as the Chief Economist at the International Monetary Fund. He is the second-youngest person to become the Governor of the RBI. He is credited as a person, who predicted the economic crisis of 2008. He is an alumnus of IIT-Delhi and IIM-Ahmedabad. He received his Doctorate degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

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Setting up of Bharat Rural Livelihood Foundation (BRLF) approved

The Union Cabinet has approved the proposal for setting up of the Bharat Rural Livelihood Foundation (BRLF) as an independent charitable society under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 to facilitate and upscale civil society action in partnership with Government for transforming livelihoods and lives of rural households, with an emphasis on women, particularly in the Central Indian Tribal Region.
It will provide financial grants to Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) to meet their human resource and institutional costs for upscaling of proven interventions; invest in institutional strengthening of smaller CSOs and capacity building of professional resources working at the grassroots.
Projects supported by BRLF would be able to reach 10 lakh poor families by the end of the fifth year. BRLF would also have supported the capacity building of 1,000 CSO professionals and institutional strengthening of a significant number of smaller CSOs within the above time frame.
Even though BRLF will have an India wide mandate, the initial focus of the organization will be on the Central Indian Tribal Region, centered on blocks having significant tribal population across 170 districts in the States of Odisha, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Gujarat.
Rs 500 crore will be released for creating the corpus fund of the new Society, in two tranches. The society will be constituted as a partnership between Government on the one hand and private sector philanthropies, private and public sector undertakings (under Corporate Social Responsibility) on the other hand.

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Swarna Jayanti Shahri Rozgar Yojana restructured as the National Urban Livelihoods Mission

With a view to provide gainful employment to the urban unemployed and underemployed through encouraging the setting up of self-employment ventures or provision of wage employment, a new urban poverty alleviation programme, namely, Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana (SJSRY) was launched by the Government of India on 01.12.1997.
This scheme subsumed the earlier three urban poverty alleviation programmes, namely Urban Basic Services for the Poor (UBSP), Nehru RozgarYojana (NRY) and Prime Minister’s Integrated Urban Poverty Eradication Programme (PMIUPEP).
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has approved the proposal for restructuring of the centrally sponsored Scheme of Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana (SJSRY) in the 12th Plan and as the National Urban Livelihoods Mission (NULM) with an allocation of approximately Rs. 6,405 crore.
The Mission of NULM is to reduce poverty and vulnerability of the urban poor households by enabling them to access gainful self-employment and skilled wage employment opportunities, resulting in an appreciable improvement in their livelihoods on a sustainable basis, through building strong grassroots level institutions of the poor. The mission would also aim at providing shelter equipped with essential services to the urban homeless in a phased manner. In addition, the Mission would also address livelihood concerns of the urban street vendors also by facilitating access to suitable spaces, institutional credit, social security and skills to the urban street vendors for accessing emerging market opportunities.
NULM will rest on the foundation of community mobilization and women empowerment. NULM envisages universal mobilisation of urban poor households into thrift and credit-based Self-Help Groups (SHGs) and their federations/collectives. These groups will serve as a" support system for the poor, to meet their financial and social need.
Under the Mission, City Livelihood Centres (CLCs) will be established in Mission cities to provide a platform whereby the urban poor can market their services and access information on self-employment, skill training and other benefits.
NULM will target the urban poor who are occupationally vulnerable for Employment through Skills Training & Placement (EST&P). The Mission will focus on providing assistance for development / upgrading of the skills of the urban poor so as to enhance their capacity for self-employment and salaried employment. It intends to provide training to the urban poor as per the skill demand from the market, so that they can set up self-employment ventures or secure salaried employment.
Through the Self-Employment Programme (SEP), NULM will provide financial assistance to individuals and groups of urban poor to set up gainful self-employment / micro-enterprise ventures.
The Support to Urban Street Vendors (USV) component will cover a socio-economic survey of street vendors, development of pro-vending urban planning and vendors` markets, credit enablement of vendors, skill development and micro-enterprise development and convergence under various schemes of the Government.
NULM would aim at providing shelter for the urban homeless equipped with essential services. The shelters should be permanent all-weather 24 x 7 shelters for the urban homeless. For every one lakh urban population, provisions will be made for permanent community shelters for a minimum of one hundred persons. Depending upon local conditions each shelter could cater to between 50 and 100 persons.
A mission mode approach in the form of the National Urban Livelihoods Mission (NULM) is considered necessary to organize urban poor in Self Help Groups, creating opportunities for skill development leading to market-based employment and helping them to set up self-employment ventures by ensuring easy access to credit. This will result in the empowerment and dignity of life of the urban poor. The approval of the National Urban Livelihoods Mission (NULM) represents a strategic shift in the Government`s commitment to urban poverty alleviation.
The NULM will be implemented in two phases: Phase I (2013-2017) and Phase II (2017-2022). In Phase I, NULM will target all cities with a population of one lakh or more and district headquarter towns with a population of less than one lakh as per Census of India 2011. However, other towns may be allowed in exceptional cases on the request of the States.
Funding will be shared between the Centre and the States in the ratio of 75:25. For North Eastern and Special Category States (Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura, Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand), this ratio will be 90:10.

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Ahimsa Messenger Programme launched

Smt. Sonia Gandhi has launched the 'Ahimsa Messenger' Programme of the Ministry of Women and Child Development.
The Ahimsa Messenger is directly related to the safety and empowerment of women. They will spread awareness and knowledge about for their legal rights and their economic and social growth, their safety and dignity in the society. The Ahimsa ‘doots’ (messengers) will be trained to empower them.
A unique feature of this programme is that adolescent boys have also been made an integral part of this programme.
At the initial phase of the programme some women from the Anganwadis will be trained to become Ahimsa messengers. Ahimsa Messengers would also serve as link workers in case of any violence and also facilitate the women to approach the concerned authorities in case of incidences of violence for suitable redressal and follow up on the case.
the Ahimsa messengers will lead to a significant change in the society by making women aware about their rights and helping to change the mindset of the society.

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Global warming spurs spread of crop pests

The study carried out by researchers at the University of Exeter and the University of Oxford, shows a strong relationship between increased global temperatures over the past 50 years and expansion in the range of crop pests. The study revealed that Crop pests are spreading to colder parts of the world as climate change warms the world. It used published observations of the distribution of 612 crop pests collected over the past 50 years.

It said that the pests are moving onwards at a rate of nearly 3 km a year. If crop pests continue to march polewards as the Earth warms the combined effects of a growing world population and the increased loss of crops to pests will pose a serious threat to global food security.

Currently 10-16% of global crop production is lost to pests. Crop pests include fungi, bacteria, viruses, insects, nematodes, viroids and oomycetes. The diversity of crop pests continues to expand and new strains are continually evolving. Losses of major crops to fungi, and fungi-like microorganisms, amount to enough to feed nearly nine percent of today's global population. The study suggests that these figures will increase further if global temperatures continue to rise as predicted.

The spread of pests is caused by both human activities and natural processes but is thought to be primarily the result of international freight transportation. The study suggests that the warming climate is allowing pests to become established in previously unsuitable regions. For example, warming generally stimulates insect herbivory at higher latitudes as seen in outbreaks of the Mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) that has destroyed large areas of pine forest in the US Pacific Northwest. In addition, the rice blast fungus which is present in over 80 countries, and has a dramatic effect both on the agricultural economy and ecosystem health, has now moved to wheat. Considered a new disease, wheat blast is sharply reducing wheat yields in Brazil.

Thus Renewed efforts are required to monitor the spread of crop pests and to control their movement from region to region.

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