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18 October 2022
By GyanOk

Daily Current Affairs Notes for 18 October 2022

World Green City Award 2022

Hyderabad recently received the prestigious World Green City Award 2022.

Overview

Hyderabad has beaten the cities like Paris, Bogota, Mexico City, Montreal and Fortaleza to receive World Green City Award 2022 – the best across all six categories.
Hyderabad received the award at the International Association of Horticulture Producers (AIPH) 2022.
The announcement of the winners under six categories and the grand winner was made during the special gala dinner at the IUCN Leaders Forum held in Jeju, South Korea.
The six categories of award are Living Green for Biodiversity, Living Green for Climate Change, Living Green for Health and Wellbeing, Living Green for Water, Living Green for Social Cohesion and Living Green for Economic Recovery and Inclusive Growth
Hyderabad won “Living Green for Economic Recovery and Inclusive Growth” during the AIPH event.
“Living Green for Economic Recovery and Inclusive Growth” category focuses on creating systems and solutions that allow all of the city’s residents overcome economic distress and grow.
In this category, the greening of the Outer Ring Road was submitted for Hyderabad’s nomination.
The city was recognized as the global leader in nature-oriented approaches to city design, form and function.

About Outer Ring Road

Outer Ring Road (ORR) in Hyderabad is called the “Green Necklace to the State of Telangana”. It is officially called the Jawaharlal Nehru Outer Ring Road. This 158 km long 8-lane ring road expressway encircles Hyderabad. It caters to the speed of up to 100 km per hour. It eases connectivity between various national highways from Hyderabad to Vijayawada and Warangal along with the state highways. The project was implemented by the state government of Andhra Pradesh through a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) called Hyderabad Growth Corridor Limited (HGCL). The objectives of the project are minimising pollution in the city, reducing congestion and providing quicker access to key parts of Hyderabad and various urban nodes outside the city by connecting national highways and state highways.

Global Hunger Index 2022

The Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2022 was released recently.

Overview

What is Global Hunger Index?

The GHI has been released since 2000 by the European NGOs – Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe.
It aims to track prevalence of global hunger by region and by country.
A low score means the country will be ranked higher, implying a better performance.
Its ultimate aim is to help the world achieve “Zero Hunger by 2030” – one of the SDGs of the United Nations. It does not rank certain high income countries.
It focuses on 4 main parameters – undernourishment (inadequate food), child wasting (acute undernutrition among children), child stunting (chronic undernutrition) and child mortality (inadequate nutrition and unhealthy environment).
Countries scoring less than or equal to 9.9 on a 100-point scale will come under “low” category of hunger.
The “serious” category countries are those that score between 20 and 34.9 and “extremely alarming” category countries are those scoring above 50.

India’s performance

Out of 121 countries, India’s GHI ranking fell from 101 in 2021 to 107 this year.
It is ranked behind its neighbors – Nepal (81), Pakistan (99), Sri Lanka (64) and Bangladesh (84).
Afghanistan, at the 109^th position, is the only Asian country ranked behind India.
India’s score in all four indicators was poor, especially for the prevalence of child wasting.
Child wasting has increased from 15.1 in 2014 to 19.3 and child undernourishment increased from 14.8 in 2014 to 16.3.
India has the highest child wasting rate in the world – higher than it was in 1998-1999.
India improved its performance in other two indicators – child mortality (3.3) and child stunting (35.5).

Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka won Britain’s Booker Prize 2022

Sri Lankan author, Shehan Karunatilaka has won Britain's Booker Prize 2022 for fiction for his work "The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida", about a journalist murdered amid the country's sectarian strife.

Overview

Sri Lankan author, Shehan Karunatilaka has won Britain’s Booker Prize 2022 for fiction for his work “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida”, about a journalist murdered amid the country’s sectarian strife. The judges praised the “ambition of its scope, and the hilarious audacity of its narrative techniques”. Karunatilaka’s second novel, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida comes more than a decade after his debut, Chinaman, which was published in 2011.

Neil MacGregor, chair of the judges for this year’s prize, said the novel was chosen because “it’s a book that takes the reader on a rollercoaster journey through life and death right to what the author describes as the dark heart of the world”.
Notably: Karunatilaka, 47, is the second Sri Lankan to win the award, following Michael Ondaatje’s victory in 1992 for “The English Patient”. Aside from the £50,000 ($56,000) prize, winning the Booker can provide a career-changing boost in sales and public profile.

The essence of the book:

The Booker-winning novel tells the story of the photographer of its title, who in 1990 wakes up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office. With no idea who killed him, Maali has seven moons to contact the people he loves most and lead them to a hidden cache of photos of civil war atrocities that will rock Sri Lanka.
Colombo, 1990. Maali Almeida, war photographer, gambler and closet queen, has woken up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office. His dismembered body is sinking in the serene Beira lake and he has no idea who killed him. At a time where scores are settled by death squads, suicide bombers and hired goons, the list of suspects is depressingly long, as the ghouls and ghosts with grudges who cluster round can attest. But even in the afterlife, time is running out for Maali. He has seven moons to try and contact the man and woman he loves most and lead them to a hidden cache of photos that will rock Sri Lanka.
Ten years after his prizewinning novel Chinaman established him as one of Sri Lanka’s foremost authors, Shehan Karunatilaka is back with a mordantly funny, searing satire. The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida is a state-of-the-nation epic that proves yet again that the best fiction offers the ultimate truth.

Aayan Khan, the youngest player in men’s T20 World Cup 2022

UAE’s Aayan Khan, the 16-year-old all-rounder, is the youngest player to feature in the men’s T20 World Cup.

Overview

UAE’s Aayan Khan, the 16-year-old all-rounder, is the youngest player to feature in the men’s T20 World Cup. He was picked in the UAE XI for the team’s first match of the T20 World Cup against the Netherlands at the Simonds Stadium in Geelong. He impressed in the U19 World Cup earlier this year with 93 and one for 13 in UAE’s 82-run win over West Indies. Aayan was out for a seven-ball five against the Netherlands. He then bowled three overs for 15 runs and picked a wicket.

Aayan broke Pakistan pacer Mohammad Amir’s record. The left-arm quick played his first T20 World Cup when he was 17 years and 55 days old.
Notably: Netherlands’ Stephan Myburgh, at 38 years and 230 days, is the oldest in the 2022 T20 World Cup. Hong Kong’s Ryan Campbell played in the 2016 World Cup when he was 44 years and 33 days old.

India to Host SCO National Coordinators Meet

India is set to host the Shanghai Coordinators Organization national coordinator meeting in Delhi. The SCO National Coordinators meeting will take place from the 17th to the 18th of October.

Overview

India is set to host the Shanghai Coordinators Organization national coordinator meeting in Delhi. The SCO National Coordinators meeting will take place from the 17th to the 18th of October 2022. New Delhi took over the presidency of the nine-member grouping earlier this year at the Samarkand SCO summit.

Key Points related to SCO National Coordinators

India will hold SCO Foreign, defense, and national security advisors and summit-level meetings of the grouping next year.
India also hosted anti-terror SCO drills in Haryana earlier this month.
The grouping was formed in 2001 and includes nine countries as its members, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Iran, and the four central Asian countries, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Krygyzstan, and Kazakhstan.
Iran became the latest member of the grouping this year and it will attend the summit as a full-fledged member next year.
India along with Pakistan became a member of the grouping in 2017.