Current Affairs Questions & Answers - Dec 29, 2016

ANSWER: Debbie Reynolds

Explanation:
A day after her daughter, Star Wars actress Carrie Fisher passed away, actress Debbie Reynolds also passed away at the age of 84.

Reynolds was known for show biz success and a tumultuous personal life, losing one husband to Elizabeth Taylor and two others who plundered her for millions.

Fisher who struggled for most of her life with drug addiction and mental health problems died after falling ill on a plane and being hospitalized.

Reynolds was known for her role in Singin' in the Rain, where she appeared at the age of 19 years alongside stalwarts like Donald O'Connor and Gene Kelly.

Reynolds won the Academy Award nomination for her role in the 1964 Meredith Willson musical, The Unsinkable Molly Brown about a life of a Colorado woman rising from poverty to riches and triumphing over tragedy during the Titanic disaster.

In 1955 Reynolds married pop singer Eddie Fisher with whom she had Carrier and a son Todd.

Reynolds also won the top place on pop charts with Tammy, an Oscar nominated song from the film “Tammy and the Bachelor.”

Reynolds appeared with top names like Glenn Ford, Tony Curtis, Fred Astaire and Any Griffith. She also starred in “How the West Was Won.”

Her memoirs include Unsinkable and Make 'Em Laugh.

She also appeared on TV shows like Rosenanne and Will & Grace.

Reynolds and Fisher were featured together in the HBO documentary “Bright Lights,” scheduled for release in 2017.

About Debbie Reynolds

• Birth name: Mary Frances Reynolds
• Date of birth: April 1, 1932
• American actress, singer, businesswoman, film historian, and humanitarian.
• Her breakout role was the portrayal of Helen Kane in the 1950 film Three Little Words.
• For this, she was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer.

ANSWER: Leia Organa

Explanation:
Carrie Fisher known for her role as Princess Leia Organa in Star Wars, passed away on Dec 27, 2016 following a cardiac arrest. She is survived by her daughter.

She enrolled in Central School of Speech and Drama in 1973 to study acting in London.

She made her film debut in the 1975 Warren Beatty lead movie Shampoo.

She was focused on her writing career too and published Surrender the Pink and Delusions of Grandma.

She created scripts for numerous successful Hollywood movies like The Wedding Singer, Hook and Sister Act.

In 1990, she wrote her memoir Postcards from the Edge which detailed drug addiction and her rehab experiences.

In 2005, she won the Women of Vision Award given by Women in Film & Video DC.

She also appeared in TV shows like Sex and the City, The Big Bang Theory and a recurrent role on British comedy Catastrophe.

She also wrote her own autobiography entitled The Princess Diarist.

ANSWER: India International Centre

Explanation:
Former attorney general Soli J. Sorabjee was on 26^th Dec 2016 re-elected as President of the India International Centre, a prestigious cultural institution.

He was appointed for a period of 5 years effective from Jan 1, 2017.

Board of directors unanimously elected him for the second consecutive term while recognising his services in attaining the IIC objectives.

Sorabjee has been working with IIC for two decades and surrendered cases in Delhi HC and SC to be part of this.

In 1971, he was appointed Senior Advocate of the SC of India.

He was appointed as AG of India in April 1998 and held the post till 2004.

He was honoured with Padma Vibhushan in 2002 for his defence of the freedom of expression and protection of human rights.

Born in March 1930 in Bombay, he is an alumnus of St. Xavier's College, Mumbai and Government Law College, Mumbai.

India International Centre

• Inaugurated in 1962.
• Launched by then Vice President S. Radhakrishnan.
• Aim is to promote amity between different communities of the world.
• Centre is called Triveni.
• It has three streams: intellectual, social and cultural.

ANSWER: Meghalaya

Explanation:
Meghalaya will be hosting the 2022 National Games which will coincide with the state's 50 years of statehood.

The state has pledged INR 5 crores as the bid amount for the game.

Meghalaya is set to become the the third NE state after Manipur and Assam to host the National Games.

The news was announced on 27 December 2016 in the meeting of the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) meeting held in Chennai.

The IOA accepted Meghalaya's bid to host the National Games overshadowing four other bidders, which were Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand.

Following the successful South Asian Game co-hosted by Shillong and Guwhati in 2016, thiis marks the first National Games for the NE state.

Next national games will be hosted in Goa in November 2017.

Know More About National Games

• Comprises various sports disciplines.
• Sportsmen from different states of India participate against each other.
• Country's first few Olympic Games, later called National Games were held in: Delhi, Lahore, Allahabad, Patiala, Madras, Calcutta, Bombay.
• In 1924, the provision Indian Olympic Association came up.
• In Feb 1924, the Indian Olympic Games was held in Delhi.
• The aim was to select the Indian competitors for the upcoming Olympics.
• Now these games are held every two years.
• Called National Games since the 1940 9th Game in 1940, the 2015 Nationla Games were held In Kerala.
• Sachin Tendulkar was goodwill ambassador for the games.

ANSWER: Samit Gohel

Explanation:
Samit Gohel broke a 117 year old record in first class cricket.

A Ranji player from Gujarat, he scored 359 runs not out in the Ranji Trophy quarterfinal in Jaipur, Rajasthan.

He was able to set a world record with 45 boundaries and one six in 723 balls.

Samit remained not out in his team’s score of 641, which was the highest first-class score for team Gujarat.

With this score, Gujarat was able to enter into the semi-final of the Ranji Trophy.

Samit, 26, registered the highest first-class 359 while carrying the bat in a match against Odisha at the Sawai Man Singh Stadium.

With his score, he also broke the first-class record held by an Englishman, Bobby Abel.

Surrey’s Bobby Abel scored 357 against Somerset way back in 1899 at the Oval.

While Hanif Mohammed’s score of 499 remains the highest score by an opener in first-class cricket.

Other Records Set by Samit Gohel

• Highest score carrying the bat in first-class cricket
• Highest second-innings score in first-class cricket
• Longest innings by minutes in first-class cricket
• Joint 4th highest score of the Ranji Trophy

ANSWER: Viral V Acharya

Explanation:
Viral V. Acharya was on 26^th Dec 2016 made the Deputy Governor of Reserve Bank of India (RBI). He is a professor of economics at New York University.

He will be joining the ranks of Vishwanathan, S S Mundra, R Gandhi as one of four Deputy Governors of RBI.

He will be serving under RBI Governor Urjit Patel.

He has served as the CV Starr Professor of Economics at the New York University Stern School of Business since 2008.

He has researched regulation of banks and financial institution, credit risk, corporate debt and asset pricing.

He has a lot of experience in the field of global finance.

In 2015, Acharya co-authored a research paper that analysed the precarious condition of public sector banks in India.

He was also on the International Advisory Board of Securities and Exchange Board of India.

He was the recipient of numerous awards including the Rising Star in Finance Award.

ANSWER: Virat Kohli

Explanation:
India’s Test captain Virat Kohli was on 27 Dec 2016 named Cricket Australia’s ODI team of the year.

He was earlier picked as Captain of the ICC ODI team of the year.

Cricket Australia stated Kohli played 10 ODIs in 2016

He scored back to back centuries against Australia in Jan 2016 and 154 against New Zealand.

Currently, he averages an incredible 90.10 in 59 successful run chases for India.

Cricket Australia’s ODI Team of Year:

• Virat Kohli (India, Captain)
• David Warner (Australia)
• Quinton de Kock (South Africa, Wicket Keeper)
• Steve Smith (Australia)
• Babar Azam (Pakistan)
• Mitchell Marsh (Australia)
• Jos Buttler (England)
• Jasprit Bumrah (India)
• Imran Tahir (South Africa)

Know More About Virat Kohli


• He is a right handed batsman.
• Ranked 8^th in 2016 ESPN list of famous athletes.
• Debuted in 2016.
• Captained the U-19 team to victory in the 2008 World Cup in Malaysia.
• Made ODI debut at age 19 and test debut in 2011.
• Ranked number 1 in ICC ranking for ODI batsmen for the first time in 2013.
• Won the Man of the Tournament in ICC T20 in 2014 and 2016.
• Only batsman in the world to average more than 50 across all game formats.

ANSWER: Tigers

Explanation:
More tigers and leopards were poached in 2016 than in any year of the previous decade, pangolins were killed in the hundreds while thousands of marine animals perished due to the debiliating effect of climate change.

Yet, the good news is that the number of tigers still rose.

The records of the Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI) show that at least 129 tigers and 419 leopards died in 2016 as compared to 91 tigers and 397 leopards in 2015.

Of these, at least 50 tigers and 127 leopards were poached, a record in the last 10 years.

Over 20 elephants, 18 rhinos, multiple bears (sloth, Asiatic brown and black), two snow leopards and several sea-cucumber, which are highly sought-after in Southeast Asia, were either caught being poached or their harvest such as skin and claws was seized till November 2016.

"Fifty leopards, mostly from Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, and at least eight elephants died in road or train accidents alone.

A large number of animals had died not just because of poaching but due to negligence in the absence of proper management plans.

Also, nature's wrath, inspired by man-induced climate change, played its part, killing at least 1,800 endangered aquatic and marine animals in first three months alone.

India recently hosted "Third Asian Ministerial Conference on Tiger Conservation", where Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged to protect the country's feline population.

India is now home to 2,226 tigers, 70 per cent of those in the wild in Asia. Prakash Javadekar, then the environment and forest minister, was quoted at the conference as saying that the number could be as high as 2,500.

"17th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CoP17 CITES)" held in South Africa in September barred tiger farming (or breeding) and listed pangolins in CITES Appendix I for their protection, considering that the species is now threatened with extinction.

The WWF Living Planning report Oct 2016 says that about 41 per cent of mammals, 46 per cent reptiles, 57 per cent amphibians and 70 per cent freshwater fish are "threatened with extinction" in India. Four of the 385 species of mammals are already extinct in India.

The United Nations Environment Programme and Interpol in June reported that the environmental crime industry, worth $258 billion, was the fastest-growing among crime syndicates.

ANSWER: Super View 1 01/02

Explanation:
China on 28^th Dec 2016 successfully launched a pair of high-resolution remote sensing satellites to get commercial images.

The satellites were launched from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre in Shanxi Province.

The satellites, SuperView-1 01/02, blasted off at 11:23 am Beijing time on the back of a Long March 2D rocket.

They are able to provide commercial images at 0.5-meter resolution.

The satellites launch followed release of a white paper on 27^th Dec which said China plans to form a BeiDou network consisting of 35 satellites for global navigation services by 2020.

It is expected to compete with America's Global Positioning system.

China plans to start providing basic services to countries along the Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-century Maritime Silk Road in 2018, it said.

Besides satellite services, the paper said China will launch a lunar probe in 2018 to achieve world's first soft landing on the far side of the moon.

Super View 1 01/02

• GaoJing-1, also known as SuperView-1 is a constellation of Chinese civilian remote sensing satellites.
• It is operated by Beijing Space View Tech Co Ltd.
• Constellation initially consists of two satellites.
• It operates at an altitude of 500 km and provides imagery with 0.5 m panchromatic resolution and 2 m multispectral resolution.
• The swath width is 12 km and the satellites are spaced by 180° on the same orbit.
• The first pair was launched on 28 December 2016 on a CZ-2D (2) rocket. A second group of two satellite of this type is planned for 2017,
• This brings the constellation to four satellites phased 90° from each other on the same orbit.