Current Affairs Questions & Answers - May 22 & 23, 2016

ANSWER: Discovery of Efficient Electricity Price

Explanation:
First e-bidding process through the recently launched DEEP (Discovery of Efficient Electricity Price) e-bidding portal for short term power procurement has been found by Uttarakhand and Kerala and for the State of Bihar. The early adoption of the e-bidding portal has resulted in substantial savings as price discovered through e-bidding are significantly lower than the prices at which power was procured during a similar period in the last year.

ANSWER: e-Tourist visa

Explanation:
Ministry of Tourism and Ministry of Home Affairs as well as MEA have eased the visa regime in the country over a period of time. The initiative has been supported with the implementation of e-Tourist Visa earlier known as Tourist Visa on Arrival enabled with Electronic Travel Authorisation.

• E-tourist visa enables the prospective visitor to apply for Indian Visa from the home country without visiting the Indian Mission or paying the visa fee online. Applicant then receives an email authorising him/her to travel to India and he/she can travel with print out of this authorisation.
• On arrival, visitor has to present authorisation to the immigration authorities who then stamp the entry into the country
• Facility is available to foreigners whose sole objective of visiting India is medical or regular tourism or a business visit.
• e-TV is available for members of 113 nations

ANSWER: Deepak

Explanation:
INS vessels Delhi, Deepak and Tarkash under the command of Flag Office Commanding Western Fleet, Rear Admiral Ravneet Singh are visiting Muscat from 21-24 May 2016.

• VIsit of the INS vessel coincides with that of the Defence Minister of India
• As part of the visit, the IN ships will undertaken professional interactions with Oman’s Royal Navy
• Bilateral relations between India and Oman have been strong based on vibrant economic linkages and the establishment of the 1953 Indo-Oman Treaty of Friendship, Navigation and Commerce marking the first link between India and any Arab country.

ANSWER: All of the above

Explanation:
HP CM Virbhadra Singh launched PEHAL- a vision document of the Shimla District Administration for raising educational standards

• Five areas identified under PEHAL are Primary Education, Forest Rights, Health and Sanitation, Campaign against drugs and skill development and Women Empowerment.
• District authorities have already begun work with a district strategy through this area
• Under PEHAL, empowering people with requisite skills under the livelihood mission will comprise electrical work, basic masonry, home appliance repairing and plumber courses.

ANSWER: Both a and b

Explanation:
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has announced the appointment of Mary Robinson of Ireland and Macharia Kamau of Kenya as his Special Envoys on El Niño and Climate. The El Nino this year is taking place in a world dramatically affected by climate change. Extreme weather events are expected in the future and those least responsible for climate change will be hit the most and hardest.

• Ms. Robinson is currently President of the Mary Robinson Foundation — Climate Justice. She was the Presiden
• Mr. Kamau is the Permanent Representative of Kenya to the United Nations.

ANSWER: All of the above

Explanation:
US Scientists have created a new material called “rewritable magnetic charge ice” that leads to increased control over local magnetic fields paving the way for new computing technologies.

• Potential applications involving data storage, memory and logic devices as well as magnetic charge ice could lead to smaller and more compuerful computers or create rapid advances in quantum computing.
• It will advance our knowledge about artificial spin ices, to discover new physics phenomena and to achieve desired functionalities for applications,
• These artificial spin ices are called so as spins have a lattice structure that follows the proton positioning ordering found in water ice. They consider artificial spin ices to be scientific playgrounds, where the mysteries of magnetism might be explored and revealed.

ANSWER: Both a and b

Explanation:
Google and denim jeans company Levi's have developed a new jacket that lets users interact with their smartphones by swiping at the garment in various ways. Called the 'Commuter Trucker Jacket', the garment is aimed at cyclists who may be too busy riding and concentrating on their surroundings to reach into their pockets and fiddle with their phones.

ANSWER: Angular momentum

Explanation:
In a massive breakthrough, scientists have discovered a new form of light to impact its fundamental nature

• A measurable characteristic of the beam of light is the angular momentum. Until now, it was thought that in all forms of light the angular momentum would be a multiple of Planck's constant, the physical constant that sets the scale of quantum effects
• Researchers from Trinity College Dublin's School of Physics and CRANN Institute have demonstrated a new form of light where the angular momentum of each photon (a particle of visible light) takes only half of this value.
• Areas such as secure optical communications,and physics and science will advance
• In the 1830s, mathematician William Rowan Hamilton and physicist Humphrey Lloyd found that upon passing through certain crystals, a ray of light became a hollow cylinder.
• The team used this phenomenon to generate beams of light with a screw-like structure.

ANSWER: Kiran Bedi

Explanation:
BJP leader and former IPS officer Kiran Bedi was on Sunday appointed as Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry, a post which was under the additional charge of Lt Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Island for nearly two years.

• Bedi is the first woman IPS officer of the country. Narendra Modi Government sacked UPA nominee Virendra Kataria on July 12 barely a year after he had been appointed.
• Lt Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Island Lt Gen Ajay Singh had been given additional charge of Puducherry.

ANSWER: Sarbananda Sonowal

Explanation:
The President of India, as advised by the Prime Minister, has accepted the resignation of Sarbananda Sonowal, Minister of State (Independent Charge) of Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, from the Council of Ministers, with immediate effect.

• Further, as advised by the Prime Minister, the President has directed that Dr. Jitendra Singh, Minister of State, shall be assigned the Independent charge of the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, in addition to his existing portfolios.
• Sonowal was elected BJP legislature party leader at a meeting of the newly-elected MLAs in Guwahati this afternoon and has been invited by Governor P B Acharya to form the government. He began his political career with the All Assam Students Union before moving to AGP and later to BJP in 2011. He was made president of the Assam unit of the BJP in 2012. He was declared BJP’s chief ministerial candidate in January 2016.

ANSWER: Centre for Environment Research

Explanation:
The ‘Centre for Environmental Health‘ to assess the impact of environment-related problems like air pollution, climate change, pesticide use and sanitation on health, was launched by Union Minister JP Nadda.

• A joint initiative of the Public Health Foundation of India and the Tata Institute of Social Science, the centre will conduct research across a range of environmental health issues, including chemical exposure, water and hygiene.
• Its mandate also includes capacity-building, advocacy, outreach and remedial issues.
• With a million species facing extinction and Arctic region experiencing ice free summer by 2040, environment health has become increasingly important