Daily Current Affairs Quiz 5th August 2018

FICCI Ladies Organisation (FLO), the women's wing of Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) has launched WOW (Wellness of Women) mobile application aimed at creating awareness on preventive healthcare for women across the country.

Andhra Pradesh government launched 'Mukhya Mantri Yuva Nestham'.

Himachal Pradesh state launches Shaur Nahin mobile application.

Chinese country researchers ‘create’ world’s first single-chromosome yeast.

Rajasthan has become the first Indian state to implement the National policy on bio fuels, which was launched by the Union Government in May 2018. The desert State will lay emphasis on increasing production of oilseeds and establish a Centre for Excellence in Udaipur to promote research in the fields of alternative fuels and energy resources. The policy on bio fuels seeks to help farmers dispose of their surplus stock in an economic manner and reduce the country’s oil import dependence. It has expanded the scope of raw material for ethanol production by allowing use of sugarcane juice, sugar containing materials, starch containing materials and damaged food grains like wheat, broken rice and rotten potatoes for ethanol production.

Umbayee (68), the noted ghazal singer and composer from Kerala, has passed away at Aluva on August 1, 2018. Born in Mattancherry, he was a disciple of Ustad Munawar Ali Khan and was known his reinvention of several old Malayalam film songs in his own natural style. His birth name was PA Ibrahim.

India has been ranked 96th in the United Nation’s E-Government Development Index (EGDI) 2018. The survey, released by UN every two years, noted that India has scored 100% in the first stage of the E-Participation sub-index, followed by 95.65% in the second stage and 90.91% in the third stage. The overall score of 0.9551 on the E-Participation sub-index has put India among top 15 countries in the list of 193 counties surveyed. In this category, India has emerged as sub-region leader. Denmark is the world leader, both on E-Government index and E-Participation sub-index.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has launched a desktop software ‘e-Aksharayan’ for converting any scanned or printed Indian language documents into a fully editable text format in Unicode encoding. The text can be also saved separately. The application is free of cost and supports editing in 7 Indian languages viz. Hindi, Bangla, Malayalam, Gurmukhi, Tamil, Kannada & Assamese.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has recently launched a landmark 3-month visa amnesty programme which will benefit hundreds of illegal foreign workers, including Indians, overstaying their permits by allowing them to leave the country without penalties and giving them six months to find a job. The UAE is home to 2.8 million Indian expatriates, the largest expatriate community in the country. Professionally qualified personnel constitute about 15 to 20% of the community, followed by 20% white-collar non-professionals and the remainder 65% comprises blue-collar workers. The government did not release specific numbers, but says thousands of people, primarily labourers from countries like India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal and the Philippines, will benefit from the amnesty scheme which will facilitate their smooth return to their home countries. As per Federal Authority for Identity and Citizenship (ICA), the entity responsible for entry and residence of foreigners in the UAE, visa violators before August 1, 2018 will be able to rectify their status legally during the amnesty period, which will end on October 31.

Rajasthan has become the first Indian state to implement the National policy on bio fuels, which was launched by the Union Government in May 2018. The desert State will lay emphasis on increasing production of oilseeds and establish a Centre for Excellence in Udaipur to promote research in the fields of alternative fuels and energy resources. The policy on bio fuels seeks to help farmers dispose of their surplus stock in an economic manner and reduce the country’s oil import dependence. It has expanded the scope of raw material for ethanol production by allowing use of sugarcane juice, sugar containing materials, starch containing materials and damaged food grains like wheat, broken rice and rotten potatoes for ethanol production.