17th October 2018 Current Affairs Quiz

After 16 individual accounts of sexual harassment, a legal complaint signed by 20 women journalists and 10 days of holding out, minister of state for external affairs MJ Akbar was finally forced to quit.

Online financial services marketplace BankBazaar has appointed former RBI Deputy Governor (DG) S S Mundra as an advisor to the company. Mundra was a deputy governor at the RBI for three years till July 2017. BankBazaar Co-Founder & CEO Adhil Shetty stated that as the digital mode is increasingly becoming the preferred way to transact, there is a greater need for collaboration between fin-tech, regulators, and financial institutions.

Canada has become the second country after Uruguay to legalise possession and use of recreational cannabis. Medical marijuana has been legal in the country since 2001. Canadians can now grow up to four plants in their own home and carry up to 30 grams of dried cannabis for personal use.

Anna Burns won the 2018 Man Booker Prize for her novel “Milkman” during a ceremony at London's Guildhall. She is the first Northern Irish writer to win Britain's most prestigious literary prize. "Milkman" is set during Ireland's "Troubles," as seen through the eyes of an 18-year-old girl.

'Beeg Ani Beegath', a collection of short stories in Konkani by well-known writer, journalist and critic H M Pernal has bagged the prestigious 'Vimala V Pai Vishwa' Konkani best book award for the year 2018. Konkani poet Sharathchandra Shenoy from Kochi won the Vishwa Konkani best poetry award for his book 'Idam Na Mama,' while Vishwanath M Shet from Uttara Kannada bagged the Vishwa Konkani lifetime achievement award.

The United Nations’ (UN) International Day for the Eradication of Poverty is observed on October 17 each year since 1993. It promotes people’s awareness of the need to eradicate poverty and destitution worldwide, particularly in developing countries. The theme for International Day for the Eradication of Poverty 2018 is "Coming together with those furthest behind to build an inclusive world of universal respect for human rights and dignity".

The sixth meeting of the UAE – India High Level Joint Task Force on Investments (‘the Joint Task Force’) was held in Mumbai to review the progress being made in addressing the agreed actions of the previous meeting held in Abu Dhabi in January 2018 and to elaborate a number of new key issues of mutual importance. The two sides noted the positive outcomes achieved by the Joint Task Force to date and agreed upon the need to further explore ways to facilitate investment in key Indian and UAE sectors with the potential for economic growth.

India and Tanzania on Tuesday signed two Memoranda of Understandings (MoUs ) in presence of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Tanzanian Foreign Minister Dr. Augustine Mahiga, in the national capital. The agreements were signed following India-Tanzania 9th Session of Joint Commission on Economic, Technical and Scientific Cooperation in New Delhi. The MoUs are between Foreign Service Institute of India and Centre for Foreign Relation, Tanzania and National Research Development Corporation and Tanzania Industrial Research and Development Corporation.

Kamal Hassan inaugurated a mobile app called Roudram created by a student named Sudha to empower women. Roudram app aims at giving women assistance in times of emergency.

NASA’s Chandra X-ray telescope – which observes galaxies from the Earth’s orbit – is back in action after suffering a technical glitch and going into safe mode last week, the US space agency said. The telescope is named after the Nobel Prize-winning Indian-American astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar.

The Goa Maritime Symposium – 2018, the second edition of the Goa Maritime Symposium (GSM) – a forum towards fostering friendly relations with the maritime neighbours - was inaugurated by the Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Sunil Lanba PVSM, AVSM, ADC, at INS Mandovi at Goa. The main objective is to promote maritime security in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). The theme of the seminar was “Building Stronger Maritime Partnerships in IOR”.