Current Affairs Questions & Answers - Jan 02, 2017

ANSWER: 2016

Explanation:
KITE 2017, Telangana’s second international kite festival on 14–15 January 2017 at the Academy campus.

KITE 2017 aims to promote women’s empowerment, particularly girl child education, and to raise awareness and support for merit-based opportunities to access world class education through collaboration with NGO’s, and corporates and government agencies.

KITE 2017 will also feature an arts and crafts mela.

KITE 2017, Telangana International Kite Festival (TIKF,) is a family fun festival celebrating Sankranthi through the rich regional tapestry of kites, culture and crafts of Hyderabad and the Deccan.

KITE 2017 features an inclusive pre-festival dedicated Schools Program on Friday 13th, followed by 2 days of family fun and kite flying. Surrounded by Telangana

More About KITE 2017

• Held from 12th – 17th January 2017
• Children, students, youth, parents, families, international & national kite flyers will participate.
• KITE 2017 aims to enhance the tourism profile of the rich heritage of Hyderabad as a ‘hidden jewel’ of India.
• Badminton Star PV Sindhu, the festival ambassador, launched Designer Kites on this occasion. Minister said the Kite Festival will be organized in a way to reflect the culture and tradition of Telangana, which will be held from 12^th to 17th January.
• This year the kite festival will be held in Warangal and Yadadri apart from Hyderabad.

ANSWER: BJP

Explanation:
Chief Minister Pema Khandu and 32 other legislators of the People’s Party of Arunachal (PPA) switched loyalties on the last day of the year, gifting the BJP its first full-fledged government in the North East - though there was one for 44 days in 2003 under Gegong Apang - and the tenth in the country.

In the 60-member House, the BJP strength is now 45 and it has the support of two independents.

The PPA count is down to 10 while the Congress has only three members.

In the last twelve months, the state has had four chief ministers.

Khandu said the people of the state wanted a stable government “in line with” that of Narendra Modi at the Centre.

The Chief Minister assured the state that this would be the last change until the 2019 assembly elections.

Arunachal Pradesh becomes 10th BJP ruled state and 14th with BJP alliances.

Mr Khandu now has the support of 46 MLAs in the 60 member state legislative assembly, way ahead of the 31 seats - the magic number.

This is the second time BJP has come to power in Arunachal. Last time was in 2003 when under almost similar circumstances Gegong Apang took away MLAs from Congress and formed a BJP government only to return to the Congress fold.

ANSWER: France

Explanation:
French Government is levying ‘terror tax’ on the property insurance policies of French citizens to help finance a fund for victims of the extremist attacks that have recently hit the country.

The measure comes into force on from 1 January 2017 and requires policy holders to contribute 5.90 euros.

French government earlier in October 2016 had launched scheme that about 90 million insurance policies are floating the fund which currently has reserves of 1.45 billion euros.

More than 200 people have died in France in attacks over the last 20 months.

ANSWER: Ivory

Explanation:
China has announced a ban on all ivory trade and processing activities by the end of 2017.

The move follows a resolution at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in South Africa in October 2016 that was backed by China.

This decision is consider historic and a game-changer for the future of elephants.

China has the biggest ivory market in the world- some estimates suggest 70% of the world’s trade ends up there.

CITES is multilateral treaty between governments to protect endangered animals and plants. Its aim is to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival.

China had previously announced it planned to shut down the commercial trade, which conservationists described as significant because China's vast, increasingly affluent consumer market drives much of the elephant poaching across Africa.

China, which has supported an ivory-carving industry as part of its cultural heritage, said carvers will be encouraged to change their activities and work, for example, in the restoration of artifacts for museums. More efforts will be made to stop the illegal trade, the statement said.

Chinese trade in ivory

• China has allowed trade in ivory acquired before a 1989 ban on the ivory trade by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
• It seeks to regulate the multi-billion-dollar trade in wild animals and plants.
• China also permits trade from a one-time CITES-approved purchase by China and Japan of an ivory stockpile from several African countries in 2008.
• The number of Africa's savannah elephants dropped by about 30 per cent from 2007 to 2014, to 352,000, because of poaching, according to a study published this year.
• Forest elephants, which are more difficult to count, are also under severe threat.

ANSWER: Kush Bhagat

Explanation:
Chess prodigy Kush Bhagat created history by winning all three gold medals on offer in the 1st Western Asia Youth Chess Championships.

The event held at Al Ain Chess Club in UAE.

He won in all the three categories – rapid, blitz and standard.

With this he becomes only Indian to bag all the crowns in the competition.

To win all three events, he overcame the challenges from 158 participants from 20 countries across the world.

Kush Bhagat is second standard student of the NSS Hill Spring International School, Mumbai (Maharashtra).

Know More About FIDE Ratings of Kush Bhagat

• Federation: India
• Rating std.1289,rapid 1141, blitz1237
• Born: 2009

ANSWER: IOA

Explanation:
The Union Sports Ministry has derecognised the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) on the issue of nominating scam tainted duo Suresh Kalmadi and Abhay Chautala as its life presidents.

The deemed recognition of IOA has been suspended until it reverses its decision. Kalmadi was jailed in connection with the Common Wealth Games (CWG) scam while Chautala is facing charges in disproportionate assets case.

Earlier on 27 December 2016, Kalmadi and Chautala were elevated to the honorary position of life

Presidents at the IOA’s Annual General Meeting in Chennai.

The IOA was given time to reply the show-cause notice issued by the Ministry threatening de-recognition if it does not reverse its decision.

ANSWER: Mars

Explanation:
Curiosity Rover from NASA has captured an up-close image of the red planet's mountainous landscape, with purple-coloured rocks littered across the foreground.

Images are from Mast Camera (Mastcam) on Curiosity Mars rover showing purple-hued rocks near the rover's late-2016 location on lower Mount Sharp.

Variations in colour of the rocks hint at the diversity of their composition on lower Mount Sharp, NASA said.

The purple tone of the foreground rocks has been seen in other rocks where Curiosity's Chemical and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument has detected hematite, it said.

Winds and windblown sand in this part of Curiosity's traverse and in this season tend to keep rocks relatively free of dust, which otherwise can cloak rocks' colour.

The three frames combined into a mosaic were acquired by the Mastcam's right-eye camera on November 10, during the 1,516th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's work on Mars.

ANSWER: 2016

Explanation:
To maintain accuracy, NASA said its missions, including the Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, which continuously watches the sun, will join official clocks around the world in adding a leap second to the final minute of 2016.

On December 31, 2016, official clocks around the world will add a leap second at 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

Clocks do this to keep in sync with Earth's rotation, which gradually slows down over time. When the dinosaurs roamed Earth, for example, our globe took only 23 hours to make a complete rotation. In space, millisecond accuracy is crucial to understanding how satellites orbit.

SDO moves about 1.9 miles every second. So does every other object in orbit near SDO. We all have to use the same time to make sure our collision avoidance programs are accurate. So we all add a leap second to the end of 2016, delaying 2017 by one second.

The leap second is also key to making sure that SDO is in sync with the Coordinated Universal Time used to label each of its images.

Designed to help us understand the sun's influence on Earth and Near-Earth space, SDO was launched in 2010.

It has a clock that counts the number of seconds since the beginning of the mission.

To convert that count to UTC requires knowing just how many leap seconds have been added to Earth-bound clocks since the mission started.

When the spacecraft wants to provide a time in UTC, it calls a software module that takes into consideration both the mission's second count and the number of leap seconds and then returns a time in UTC.

UTC - Coordinated Universal Time

• Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the basis for civil time today. This 24-hour time standard is kept using highly precise atomic clocks combined with the Earth's rotation
• UTC is the time standard commonly used across the world. The world's timing centers have agreed to keep their time scales closely synchronized - or coordinated - therefore the name Coordinated Universal Time.
• Universal Time (UT) was created at the Washington Meridian Conference in 1884. This is the basis for the 24-hour time zone system known today.

Two components are used to determine UTC


• International Atomic Time (TAI)
• Universal Time (UT1)