Current Affairs Questions & Answers - Apr 28, 2017

ANSWER: Jimmy Wales

Explanation:
The founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales is going to launch Wikitribune, a news site aimed at tackling the spread of false information.

Fake news is a major issue faced by a majority of other sites such as Facebook.

The site would be jointly run by journalists and a community of volunteers who will verify the stories before publishing them in Wikipedia.

The same was confirmed by Wales through a video posted on the site.

The journalists will research and report the news stories while the volunteers will proofread, do a fact-check and add sources.

The site will ensure that journalists only write articles based on facts that they can verify.

The source of the news will also be mentioned. The site would be 100 per cent advertisement free.

The site would also be accessible to all for free so anybody would be able to read the stories and flag or fix them if required and submit for review.

As far as funding goes, the site would depend on crowdsourcing and the more funds it is able to raise, the more journalists it will employ.

Wikitribune: Know More

• The crowdfunding section was launched on 25 April 2017.
• The supporters would be required to pay $15 per month.
• The advisory group of the site includes American journalist Jeff Jarvis, venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki and British actress Lily Cole.
• The site currently has about 5380 supporters and has been able to hire 3 journalists.

ANSWER: Jubbarhatti

Explanation:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched the UDAN (Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik) scheme from Jubbarhatti, an airport on the outskirts of Shimla.

‘Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik’ means ‘the common man flies’.

He flagged of the first UDAN flight under Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS) on Shimla-Delhi sector. UDAN flights on Kadapa–Hyderabad, and Nanded-Hyderabad sectors were also flagged off.

Around 45 unserved and under-served airports are set to be connected under UDAN scheme to make flying more affordable.

The airports to be connected under UDAN include Bhatinda, Bhavnagar, Durgapur, Jaisalmer, Puducherry, and Shimla.

Under this scheme, five operators will operate flights services on 128 routes that will connect 70 airports through 19-78 seater aircrafts. The operators are Air India subsidiary Airline Allied Services, Air Deccan, Air Odisha, Turbo Megha, and Spice Jet.

As per the modalities of the scheme, airfare for a one-hour journey of 500 km has been capped at an all-inclusive charge of Rs. 2,500.

For longer routes and flight duration, the pricing will vary.

The scheme is expected to have positive effects on the economy in terms of employment and investment.

The scheme will also promote tourism and balanced regional growth.

UDAN: Know More

• The ‘Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik’ RCS (Regional Connectivity Scheme) was launched in October 2016.
  It is considered as a vital component of the National Civil Aviation Policy (NCAP).
• The policy was released on June 15, 2016.
  The scheme has been launched to provide connectivity to un-served and under-served airports of the country through revival of existing air-strips and airports.
• This is first of its kind scheme and will be implemented for a period of 10 years.
• As of now, 128 routes have been identified and declared in the RCS map of India.

ANSWER: May 3

Explanation:
UNESCO to screen Rahul V. Chittella’s short film “Azaad” as a part of World Press Freedom Day event that is scheduled to be held from May 1-4 in Jakarta, Indonesia.

The movie is about the dysfunctional relationship between a father and his son.

World Press Freedom Day is celebrated by UNESCO to celebrate the principle of freedom of the press.

The theme for this year’s edition of World Press Freedom Day is “Critical Minds for Critical Times: Media’s role in advancing peaceful, just and inclusive societies”.

World Press Freedom Day May 3 is celebrated as World Press Freedom Day every year to celebrate the fundamental principles of press freedom as well as to evaluate the freedom of press around the world.

In 1993, World Press Freedom Day was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly. It was proclaimed following the recommendation of UNESCO at its twenty-sixth General Conference in 1991.

ANSWER: Vinu Chakravarthy

Explanation:
Well-known Tamil actor and writer Vinu Chakravarthy, who had starred in over 1,000 films, has passes away at the age of 74.

Chakravarthy had acted in 1002 films, mostly in Tamil. Born in 1945, he began his career as a script writer and worked under Kannada director Puttana Kanagal.

In 1977, he was spotted by producer Tirupur Mani, who gave him his first acting break in Kannada film Parasangada Gendetimma.

He had acted in over 900 Tamil films. Some of his best movies include Gopur.

ANSWER: Jonathan Demme

Explanation:
Jonathan Demme, the Oscar-winning director of The Silence of the Lambs, has died in New York at the age of 73.

His publicist confirmed he died from complications from oesophageal cancer. Born in 1944, Demme’s other features included Philadelphia, Something Wild and the Talking Heads documentary Stop Making Sense.

Demme’s own Oscar was for best director for The Silence of the Lambs in 1992.

The second film to feature serial killer Hannibal Lecter, it is one of only three films to win the so-called “big five” Oscars.

As well as best director, the 1991 film was named best picture, won a screenplay prize and saw both of its lead actors honoured.

ANSWER: Vinod Khanna

Explanation:
Veteran actor and Member of Parliament Mr Vinod Khanna, who was admitted to the Sir HN Reliance Foundation Hospital, breathed his last on 27th April 2017, succumbing to advanced bladder cancer.

Khanna had been hospitalised since Friday, 31 March.

Khanna was the sitting MP from Gurdaspur.

But while he did navigate a fairly successful innings in politics, the success he attained in his film career remained unsurpassed.

From the time he made his debut in 1968, he appeared in over 140 films and even had a supporting role in the 2015 Shah Rukh Khan-Kajol starred Dilwale.

He was known for a wide variety of films be it in commercial capers like Amar Akbar Anthony and Qurbani, or the more critically acclaimed Achanak.

Born on 6 October 1946, Khanna has featured in as many as 146 films.

Some of his famous films are Mere Apne, Insaaf and Amar, Akbar, Anthony.

He made his debut in 1968 with Mann Ka Meet. Khanna has also won numerous awards, including the Filmfare award for best supporting actor and the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999.

In 1982 Khanna decided to quit the film industry at the peak time of his career to follow his spiritual guru Osho Rajneesh

ANSWER: South Africa

Explanation:
Scientists have discovered what maybe the world's oldest fungus in South African rocks dating back 2.4 billion years.

The fossils suggest that fungus may have evolved from under the deep sea rather than land.

Drilled from rocks that were once beneath the seafloor, the fossils resemble living fungi and could push back the date for the oldest fungi by one to two billion years.

If not a fungus, the organism could be from an extinct branch of life that has not been described before.

The deep biosphere where the fossils were found represents a significant portion of the Earth, but we know very little about its biology and even less about its evolutionary history.

The fossils closely resemble those found in similar conditions on land.

They are made up of jumbles of tangled threads some hundredths of a millimetre thick.

There is a "clear possibility" that they are the world's oldest fossil fungi - twice as old as generally accepted in the fossil record.

The fossils were collected by drilling into ancient rock formed from lava that was once beneath the sea bed in what is now South Africa

Known as the Ongeluk Formation, the location was underwater at the time the organisms would have been alive, researchers said. The fungi may have colonised cavities of rock deep beneath the sea floor.

ANSWER: Womb

Explanation:
Researchers have created a fluid-filled transparent container called the Biobag to simulate how foetuses float in amniotic fluid inside the uterus of their mothers.

Researchers tested five lambs with a biological age corresponding to 23-week human premature babies in the artificially created womb like device.

The premature lambs were delivered by C-section and were immediately placed into the womb-like device.

To replicate a womb, researchers created a temperature-controlled bag filled with a substitute for amniotic fluid.

They used an electrolyte solution to mimic amniotic fluid that the lambs swallow and take into their lungs.

The researchers then attached the umbilical cord to the device that exchanges carbon dioxide in blood with oxygen.

After four weeks, the lambs were seen opening their eyes, started growing wool, breathe and swim

This womb can help in development of premature babies in a uterus-like environment.

The womb-like environment will offer them a better chance of healthy survival.

At present, the premature babies are hooked to ventilators and other machines inside incubator and are at risk for serious disabilities such as cerebral palsy.

ANSWER: All of the above

Explanation:
Scientists have discovered a new planet with the mass of Earth, orbiting its star at the same distance that we orbit our sun.

The planet is likely far too cold to be habitable for life as we know it, however, because its star is so faint.

But the discovery adds to scientists' understanding of the types of planetary systems that exist beyond our own.

This 'iceball' planet is the lowest-mass planet ever found through microlensing.

The newly discovered planet, called OGLE-2016-BLG-1195Lb, aids scientists in their quest to figure out the distribution of planets in our galaxy.

An open question is whether there is a difference in the frequency of planets in the Milky Way's central bulge compared to its disk, the pancake-like region surrounding the bulge.

OGLE-2016-BLG-1195Lb is located in the disk, as are two planets previously detected through microlensing by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.

For the new study, researchers were alerted to the initial microlensing event by the ground-based Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) survey, managed by the University of Warsaw in Poland.

KMTNet consists of three wide-field telescopes: one in Chile, one in Australia, and one in South Africa.

Although OGLE-2016-BLG-1195Lb is about the same mass as Earth, and the same distance from its host star as our planet is from our sun, the similarities may end there.

OGLE-2016-BLG-1195Lb is nearly 13,000 light-years away and orbits a star so small, scientists aren't sure if it's a star at all.

Alternatively, it could be a brown dwarf or ultra-cool dwarf star much like TRAPPIST-1, which Spitzer and ground-based telescopes recently revealed to host seven Earth-size planet

Ground-based telescopes available today are not able to find smaller planets than this one using the microlensing method.

A highly sensitive space telescope would be needed to spot smaller bodies in microlensing events.

NASA's upcoming Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), planned for launch in the mid-2020s, will have this capability.


What is Microlensing?

• Microlensing is a technique that encourages the discovery of distant objects by using background stars as flashlights.
• When a star crosses accurately in front of a bright star in the background, the gravity of the foreground star focuses the light of the background star, making it appear brighter.
• A planet orbiting the foreground object may lead to an additional blip in the star’s brightness. In this case, the blip only lasted a few hours.
• This technique has discovered the most distant known exoplanets from Earth, and can detect low-mass planets that are substantially farther from their stars than Earth is from our sun.

ANSWER: Sankha Ghosh

Explanation:
President Pranab Mukherjee conferred the Jnanpith award on eminent Bengali poet Sankha Ghosh here.

Ghosh, a poet and critique par excellence, a teacher of reputation, a Sahitya Akademi (1977) and Padma Bhushan awardee, is professor of Bengali and an authority in his own right on the works of Rabindranath Tagore.

He represents the fluid brilliance that characterises India's multifarious literary genius.

The selection board noted that his poetic idiom and experiments with various poetic forms mark his greatness as a creative talent.

They also observed that Ghosh's poetry, while conveying messages, have remained free from polemics.

His works include Adim Lata-Gulmomay, Murkho Baro Samajik Noy or Baborer Prarthana, to name a few.

The award, by Bharatiya Jnanpith, recognises Indian litterateurs who write in one of the 22 Indian languages listed in schedule eight of the Constitution.

ANSWER: 133

Explanation:
India ranks abysmally low at 133 among 180 countries in the latest annual World Press Freedom Index.

The report holds that Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems “indifferent” to the threats against journalists.

The 2016 ‘World Press Freedom Index’ released by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is led by Finland, which retained its top spot for the sixth consecutive year, followed by Netherlands and Norway.

India jumped three spots from the 136th position it had in 2015.

It is hard to permit journalists to cover regions such as Kashmir that are regarded as sensitive by the government,the report alleged.

Among India’s neighbouring countries, Pakistan ranks 147, Sri Lanka (141), Afghanistan (120), Bangladesh (144), Nepal (105) and Bhutan (94). China is ranked 176.

The United States is ranked 44th and Russia is placed at the 148th place.

The report shows that there has been a deep and disturbing decline in respect for media freedom at both the global and regional levels.

World Press Freedom Index

• The Press Freedom Index is a yearly ranking of countries compiled and published by Reporters Without Borders.
• It is based upon the organisation's assessment of the countries' press freedom records in the previous year.
• It intends to reflect the amount of freedom that journalists, news organisations, and netizens have in each country, and the efforts made by authorities to respect this freedom.
• Reporters Without Borders also notes that the index only deals with press freedom.
• It does not measure the quality of journalism or human rights violations in general.

ANSWER: An entire building

Explanation:
MIT scientists have designed a new robotic system that can 3D print the basic structure of an entire building, an advance that would make building houses a faster, less expensive process.

The building could be completely customised to the needs of a particular site and the desires of its maker. Even the internal structure could be modified in new ways.

Different materials could be incorporated as the process goes along.

The material density could be varied for optimum combinations of strength, insulation, or other properties.

Ultimately, this approach could enable the design and construction of new kinds of buildings that would not be feasible with traditional building methods.

The system consists of a tracked vehicle that carries a large, industrial robotic arm, which has a smaller, precision-motion robotic arm at its end.

This highly controllable arm can then be used to direct any construction nozzle.

ANSWER: Minuteman III

Explanation:
An unarmed intercontinental ballistic missile was launched during an operational test from an air base in the state of California, amid growing tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

The Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile equipped with a single test re-entry vehicle was launched on 26th April 2017 by a combined team of United States Air Force Global Strike Command Airmen.

According to US Air Force, the ICBM’s re-entry vehicle, which contained a telemetry package used for operational testing, travelled to the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, approximately 4,200 miles away from the launch site.

The ICBM test launch program demonstrates the operational credibility of the Minuteman III.

It also ensures the US ability to maintain a strong, credible nuclear deterrent as a key element of national security and the security of allies and partners.

The Minuteman III is one of three legs of the US nuclear triad, which also comprises strategic bombers such as the B-52 Stratofortress and B-2 Spirit, as well as submarine launched ballistic missions, provided by Navy submarines.

Though US Air Force Global Strike Command routinely conducts ICBM test launches from Vandenberg, the latest is still a great concern amid heightened tensions between the United States and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Minuteman III: Know More

• Unit cost : $7,000,000
• Guidance system : Inertial
• Warhead : Nuclear: W62, W78, or (from 2006) W87
• Launch platform : Missile Silo (MLCC)

ANSWER: July 1, 2017

Explanation:
GoI clarified that permanent account number will not be retrospectively invalidated if not linked with Aadhaar.

PAN will be invalidated from July 1, 2017 and not from when one had applied for it, Mukul Rohatgi, government’s top law officer attorney announced.

Earlier this month, the government had made Aadhaar number compulsory for filing income tax returns and also to apply for a new PAN.

According to the new Finance Act, 2017, the PAN number can be considered void if it is not linked with the Aadhaar.

The court was hearing three petitions on the government’s decision to make Aadhaar mandatory for PAN and also for filing returns.

Aadhaar is more a right of the citizen and not a duty. Hence, it can be argued it cannot be made mandatory for any government scheme.

Government has made Aadhaar mandatory for multiple schemes and facilities including filing tax returns and getting a new phone connection.