Daily Current Affairs Quiz: July 19, 2023

Former Kerala CM Oommen Chandy passed away at the age of 79 in Bengaluru due to prolonged illness.
He served as the Kerala chief minister twice from 2004-06 and 2011-16.
The veteran leader began his stint as a legislator by winning the 1970 state assembly elections at the age of 27.
He later went on to win 11 consecutive polls.

Kerala CM: Pinarayi Vijayan
Kerala Capital: Thiruvananthapuram
Kerala Governor: Arif Mohammad Khan

Tamil Nadu has pipped Maharashtra and Gujarat to emerge as the top state in the Niti Aayog’s Export Preparedness Index 2022 which assesses the readiness of the states in terms of their export potential and performance.
The index released on Monday showed that Tamil Nadu with an overall score of 80.89 topped the third edition of rankings, Maharashtra with a score of 78.20 was second, and Karnataka (76.36) was third.
Gujarat with a score of 73.22 was fourth, followed by Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, West Bengal and Kerala in that order in the ranking of coastal states.

Maharashtra Capital: Mumbai
Maharashtra CM: Eknath Shinde
Maharashtra Governor: Ramesh Bais

Tamil Nadu Capital: Chennai
Tamil Nadu CM: MK Stalin
Tamil Nadu Governor: RN Ravi

Consumer Affairs Minister Piyush Goyal has launched the sale of subsidized Chana Dal under the brand name ‘Bharat Dal’ at the rate of 60 rupees/Kg for a one-kilogram pack and 55 rupees/Kg for a 30-kilogram pack.
Aim: To make pulses available to consumers at affordable prices Chana dal is being sold in Delhi-NCR through the retail outlets of the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation (NAFED).
The milling and packaging of the Chana Dal has been undertaken by NAFED for distribution through its retail outlets in Delhi-NCR.

A Joint Military Drills ‘Northern Interaction-2023’, between Chinese and Russian naval and air forces would be conducted in the central region of the Sea of Japan.
It is organized by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Northern Theater Command.
Aim: To enhance the level of strategic cooperation between both militaries, as well as strengthen the ability to jointly safeguard regional peace
China Capital: Beijing
China Currency: Yuan
China President: Xi Jinping
Russia Capital: Moscow
Russia President: Vladimir Putin
Russia Currency: Rouble

Australia’s state of Victoria has withdrawn from hosting the 2026 Commonwealth Games (CWG).
Reason: Due to a significant increase in projected costs, reaching around $7 billion, exceeding their budgetary limits Victoria stepped in to bid for the 2026 Games when no other countries showed interest.
The event rotates across different host cities within the Commonwealth. It was first held in 1930.

Australia Capital: Canberra
Australia PM: Anthony Albanese
Australia Currency: Australian Dollar

As part of Meta’s commitment to open science, is publicly releasing LLaMA (Large Language Model Meta AI), a state-of-the-art foundational large language model designed to help researchers advance their work in this subfield of AI.
Foundation models train on a large set of unlabeled data, making them ideal for fine-tuning various tasks. We are making LLaMA available in several sizes (7B, 13B, 33B, and 65B parameters) and also sharing a LLaMA model card that details how we built the model in keeping with our approach to Responsible AI practices.

Meta Platforms, Inc., doing business as Meta, and formerly named Facebook, Inc., and TheFacebook, Inc., is an American multinational technology conglomerate based in Menlo Park, California.
The company owns and operates Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp, among other products and services.

Lessons in relationships and sex education (RSE) are to be compulsory for 15 to 18-year-olds at schools in the Republic of Ireland.

The move is planned as part of changes to senior pupils’ social, personal and health education (SPHE).

Lessons will be “taught in a way that LGBTQ+ identities, relationships and families are fully integrated”, according to the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA).

A major review of RSE in schools in the Republic of Ireland was ordered by the government in 2018.

Ireland Capital: Dublin
Ireland Currency: Pound
Ireland PM: Leo Varadkar

Indian shuttler Satwiksairaj Rankireddy managed to feature in the Guinness World Record by striking the fastest smash in the ongoing Korea Open 2023 on Tuesday.
Satwiksairaj broke a decade-long record which was set in May 2013 by Malaysian Tan Boon Heong, who had produced a speed of 493 km/h with his smash.
Satwiksairaj broke the record by surpassing his speed by 72 mph and registered a record-breaking speed of 565 mph.
The third-seeded Indian men’s doubles team of Satwiksairaj and Chirag Shetty defeated 21-16, 21-14 Supak Jomkoh/Kittinupong Kedren of Thailand to advance into the pre-quarterfinals.

NITI Aayog on Monday said 135 million(13.5 crores) Indians moved out of multidimensional poverty in five years with the proportion of poor in the country down from 24.8% to 14.9% between 2015-16 and 2019-21, on the back of improvements in nutrition, years of schooling, sanitation and subsidised cooking fuel.

Uttar Pradesh registered the highest decline in the number of poor with 34.3 million exiting poverty followed by Bihar and Madhya Pradesh.
The National MPI measures deprivations across three equally weighted dimensions of health, education, and standard of living that are represented by 12 SDG-aligned indicators.

The Tokyo 2020 Olympics silver medalist Mirabai Chanu will lead a five-member Indian contingent at the World Weightlifting Championships in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
The Riyadh event will be a qualifying event for the 2024 Paris Olympics and will be held from September 4 to 17, as per Olympics.com. Chanu will be competing in the women’s 49 kg category.
The two-time world championships medalist will be aiming for a gold. She won gold in the 2017 meet at Anaheim while having to settle for silver last year in Bogota.

India aims for 100 million tonnes (MT) of coal gasification by 2030 with investments worth over Rs. 4 lakh crores, said Shri Pralhad Joshi, Union Minister of Coal and Mines.
Addressing a webinar on Coal Gasification and Liquefaction, Shri Joshi said that Coal Gasification and Liquefaction is no more an aspiration, but a requirement.
He added that for encouraging the use of clean sources of fuel, the government has provided a concession of 20% on the revenue share of coal used for gasification.
He emphasized that this will boost the production of synthetic natural gas, energy fuel, urea for fertilisers and production of other chemicals.

Dr. Kanishka Biswas, the recipient of the Khosla National Award (Sciences) is Professor in the New Chemistry Unit at Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore, with research interests focused on renewable energy and clean environment.
Dr Kanishka Biswas has reported original and significant discoveries in the field of thermoelectric and solid-state inorganic chemistry in the last ten years of his independent career, which is marked by high-quality publications and recognized by several international and national honours.
He also receives the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Chemical Sciences in 2021 and Swarnajayanti Fellowship 2019.

IIT Roorkee Founded: 1847
IIT Roorkee Director: Kamal Kishore

Adani Transmission Limited has received ‘Golden Peacock Environment Management Award 2023 (GPEMA) in the ‘Power Transmission Sector’ from ‘The Institute of Directors.’

Adani Transmission Limited (ATL) has won the ‘Golden Peacock Environment Management Award 2023’ in the Power Transmission Sector from ‘The Institute of Directors.’

In 2023, an Environment, Health and Safety, Energy and Climate Change experts assessment group assesses over 520 applications.

These applications were approved by Justice M.N. The review was done by an eminent jury committee headed by Venkatachaliah.

▪ Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, Professor Ajay Kumar Sood convened the 23rd Prime Minister Science, Technology & Innovation Advisory Council (PM-STIAC) at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi.
▪ The meeting brought together PM-STIAC members, key government officials, and experts to discuss the contemporary priorities of the science and technology ecosystem in India including high-performance Biomanufacturing, the role of Empowered Technology Group (ETG), and the recently introduced National Research Foundation (NRF) Bill.