Day by Day Current Affairs (August 20, 2018) | MCQs for CSS, PMS, NTS

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August 20, 2018

1. Sardar Usman Buzdar elected 20^th Punjab Chief Minister

• PTI’s Sardar Usman Buzdar was elected as Punjab’s 20th chief minister on August 19, 2018.
• The new chief minister will take oath of his office on August 20, 2018 (today) at the Governor House. With the election of the new chief minister, the PML-N’s 10-year rule in Punjab has come to an end.
• Usman Buzdar got 186 votes as against 159 of Hamza Shehbaz Sharif. PPP abstained from the voting process while two independent MPAs, Syeda Maimnat Mohsin (Jugnu Mohsin) and Ahmad Ali Oulak voted for the PTI candidate. Buzdar also got nine votes from the PML-Q.
• Had the chief minister-elect obtained one vote less than his present count, the house would have been required to repeat the exercise through a second count to get the simple majority of the members present there. The election took place through ‘division of the house’ system, as supporters of the two candidates were directed to gather either on left or right sides of Assembly chambers, and make an exit after recording their name in the member’s roll placed at the doors on either side.
• A controversy shrouds Buzdar’s election as chief minister of the biggest province following reports which surfaced in the social media about his alleged involvement in a murder case registered in 1998. It involved the death of six members in a clash during local body polls held that year. The victims belonged to the Chakrani tribe, a sub-clan of the Buzdar tribe.

2. Table of Contents

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   Jam Kamal Khan takes oath as 16th CM of Balochistan

• Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) president Jam Kamal Khan Alyani took the oath as 16th chief minister of the province at a ceremony here on August 19, 2018.
• Balochistan Governor Muhammad Khan Achakzai administered the oath to the new chief minister at Governor House.

3. 10-member Sindh cabinet takes oath

• Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on August 19, 2018 named his 10-member cabinet, eight of whom were assigned ministries.
• The ministers were administered their oaths in a ceremony held at the Governor’s House here. Acting Governor Agha Siraj Durrani administered the oath to the ministers. PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari approved the 10-member cabinet in consultation with Murad Ali Shah.
• Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho was given Health and Population Welfare ministry, Seth Hariram Kishorilal Minorities Affairs, Social Welfare & Prisons, Saeed Ghani Local Government, Public Health Engineering, Rural Development & Katchi Abadis, Mohammad Ismail Rahu Agriculture, Supply and Prices, Mir Shabbir Ali Bijarani Mines & Mineral Development, Makhdoom Mehboobuz Zaman Revenue & Relief, Syed Sardar Ali Shah Education, Culture, Tourism & Antiquities, and Shehla Raza Women Development. Murtaza Wahab and Mohammad Bux Mahar have also been included in the cabinet as advisers.

4. Pakistan, India take part in SCO’s anti-terror drill

• Militaries of Pakistan and India will be part of a mega anti-terror drill in Russia next week which is being organised by the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) with an aim to expand cooperation among the member countries to deal with terrorism and extremism.
• The exercise is scheduled to take place from August 20-29 at Chelyabinsk city in west-central Russia, official sources said here on Sunday.
• About 300 servicemen from India and also around 100 Pakistani personnel were the first to arrive in the Chelyabinsk Region aboard Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft.
• The exercise will be joined by all SCO member countries including Russia, China, Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
• The drill, “Peace Mission”, will take place nearly three months after the SCO, in its annual summit in Chinese city of Qingdao, resolved to deepen cooperation among their militaries to deal with threats of terrorism, extremism and separatism.
• About 700 troops and over 100 pieces of military hardware of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army will take part in the Peace Mission-2018 international counter-terror drills in the Chelyabinsk Region in the Urals, the Press office of Russia’s Central Military District reported.

5. Rs16m annual grant approved for special players

• The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has approved Rs16 million annual grant-inaid to facilitate and involve persons with disabilities in sports activities and remove the sense of deprivation among them.
• According to the Director General Sports Junaid Khan a grant of Rs16 million was approved initially to hold `paralympic games` for the persons with disabilities on annual basis besides giving grant-inaid to the associations currently working for players with disabilities.
• Rs16 million would be utilised on holding special games and out of that amount Rs0.6 million would be given annually to the blind cricketers, wheelchairs players and players with standing disabilities.

6. Brazil sends troops after clashes at Venezuelan border

• Brazil will send troops to its border with Venezuela fter residents of the Brazilian border town of Pacaraima drove out Venezuelan immigrants from their improvised camps, amid growing regional tensions.
• Tens of thousands of Venezuelans have crossed the border into Brazil over the past three years as they seek to escape the economic, political and social crisis gripping their country.
• The latest show of tensions began, hours after a local merchant was robbed and severely beaten in an incident blamed on Venezuelan suspects, in Pacaraima, where an estimated 1,000 immigrants are living on the street.
• Dozens of locals then attacked the two main immigrant makeshift camps and burned their belongings, leading Venezuelans to cross the border back into their home country. Shots were fired, stores were shuttered and debris littered the streets.

7. Afghan president offers Taliban fresh ceasefire

• Afghan President Ashraf Ghani declared a provisional threemonth ceasefire with the Taliban in a televised broadcast on August 19, 2018, but said the truce would hold only if the insurgents reciprocated.
• The announcement followed a bloody week of fighting across Afghanistan which saw the Taliban launch a massive assault against the provincial capital Ghazni.
• Anticipation had been mounting ahead of Ghani`s speech following mixed signals from the presidential palace over whether the government would offer a fresh truce, following a brief, unprecedented one earlier this year.

8. Pakistan football team beat Nepal 2-1

• Pakistan football team has earned the first victory in the Asian Games after 44 years of waiting, after defeating Nepal 2-1 in the Group D match played at Jakarta.
• Nepal started the match in great style as they netted their first goal in the 11th minutes. Pakistan players then changed their game plan and kept on playing defensive game. It helped them make their rivals tired and then getting benefit of the situation, the green shirts slammed an equalizer in the 54th minute through M Bilal.
• Later, they maintained their possession of the ball and kept on attacking Nepal’s goals. The continuous efforts paid off in the 72nd minute, when captain Saddam converted a beautiful goal to provide Pakistan team 2-1 lead, which remained intact till the final whistle and Pakistan emerged as winners.

9. ‘It’s over’: Australia paceman Mitchell Johnson retires from cricket

• Australian fast bowler Mitchell Johnson said August 19, 2018 he was retiring from all forms of cricket as his body was “starting to shut down”, almost three years after he stepped down from the international game.
• The 36-year-old quit Twenty20 Big Bash League (BBL) team the Perth Scorchers last month, but had not ruled out playing in the Indian Premier League or other domestic T20 competitions.

10. World’s first-ever 4D printing for ceramics developed

• Chinese researchers have developed the world’s first-ever 4D printing for ceramics that are mechanically robust and can have complex shapes, offering broad potential applications in telecommunications, electronics and even space exploration.
• The 3D-printed ceramic precursors printed with this novel ink are soft and can be stretched three times beyond their initial length, according to the study.
• These flexible and stretchable ceramic precursors allow complex shapes, such as origami folding. With proper heat treatment, ceramics with complex shapes can be made, making them the 4D ceramics.
• 4D printing is conventional 3D printing combined with the additional element of time as the fourth dimension, where the printed objects can re-shape or self-assemble themselves over time with external stimuli, such as mechanical force, temperature, or a magnetic field.
• The existing 3D-printed ceramic precursors, which are usually difficult to deform, also hinder the 4D printing of ceramics with complex shapes.