10 PM Current Affairs Quiz #12 October 16, 2019

Explanation: Alarmed by the low percentage of women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), the Centre has planned a programme to help girl students inculcate interest in these areas and also fund them if they get into any top institute for pursuing these underrepresented subjects, officials said on Sunday. The programme ‘Vigyan Jyoti’ aims to tap 100 girl students in 550 districts from 2020-2025, the officials said. The students will be chosen based on their percentile, they added.

Explanation: During the visit of His Majesty King Willem-Alexander and Her Majesty, Queen Maxima of the Kingdom of the Netherlands a joint launch of the second phase of the Local Treatment of Urban Sewage streams for Healthy Reuse (LOTUS-HR) program was done by the Union Minister for Science & Technology, Earth Sciences and Health & Family Welfare Dr. Harsh Vardhan, today. The launch programme was held during the visit of Netherlands King & the Queen to the India-Netherlands water laboratory at the Barapullah drain in Delhi.

Explanation: The National Blindness and Visual Impairment Survey 2019 have been released by the Union Health Minister. The survey was conducted by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) for Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. It was conducted in 31 districts of 24 States. The survey has found that Cataract is the principal cause of blindness for people above 50 years in India. India was the first country to launch the National Programme for Control of Blindness in 1976 to reduce blindness prevalence to 0.3 per cent by 2020. But,the survey has found that the estimated prevalence of blindness still stands at 1.99% as of October,2019.

Explanation: A three day long festival of Baul songs named Indo Bangla Baul Music Festival ended last evening with spell binding performances by Bauls from India and Bangladesh. The program was organised to observe the 129th death anniversary of Baul saint Fakir Lalon Shah. Baul music represents a particular type of folk song, carrying influences of Hindu bhakti movements as well as the shuphi, a form of Sufi song. Bauls live either near a village or travel from place to place and earn their living from singing to the accompaniment of the ektara, the lute dotara, a simple one-stringed instrument and a drum called dubki. Bauls belong to an unorthodox devotional tradition influenced by Hinduism, Buddhism, Bengali, Vasinavism and Sufi Islam yet distinctly different from them.

Explanation: Union Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Shri Ram Vilas Paswan inaugurated the celebrations of ‘World Standard Day’ by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) on the theme “Video Standards create a global stage” in New Delhi today. The theme is highly relevant in the Indian context as India is the fastest growing entertainment and media market globally and is expected to keep up the momentum by growing at a compounded annual growth rate of more than 11%. With this spectacular growth, media and entertainment industry in India will become a Rs. 4,51,373crore industry by 2023. World Standards Day (WSD) is celebrated each year all over the world on 14 October.