Current Affairs Quiz - April, 2019

Notes:
Swiss-based NRI scientist Dr Rajendra Joshi, who belongs to Rajasthan, has been conferred with the 2019 Pravasi Bhartiya Samman Award (PBSA) by the President of India Ram Nath Kovind. Dr Joshi is honoured for his outstanding achievement in the field of Science and in recognition of his valuable contribution in promoting the honour and prestige of India and in fostering the interests of Overseas Indians. He is mainly credited with developing path-breaking medicine Tecfidera (BG12) for multiple sclerosis. The theme of 2019 Pravasi Bharatiya Divas convention was ‘Role of Indian Diaspora in building New India.’

Notes:
The Hump-backed Mahseer, also known as ‘Tor remadevii’ in scientific terms, is a critically endangered species as per the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). This iconic and highly-valued freshwater fish, termed as the ‘tiger of the water’, inhabits the Cauvery river basin, including Kerala’s Pambar, Kabini and Bhavani rivers. The fish earns its megafauna status by reaching up to a measurement of 1.5m and a weight of 55 kg. Its endangered title also accompanies five other species, including two wild orchids, the Arabian scad, and two wild coffee species exclusive to a few locales in the Western Ghats.

Notes:
The Government of India (GoI) has constituted a tribunal to adjudicate if there exists sufficient cause to ban the Jamaat-e-Islami Jammu and Kashmir (JeL) and the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front-Yasin Malik (JKLF-Y) faction. The tribunal will be headed by Justice Chander Shekhar of the Delhi High Court. The decision has been taken by the Union Home Ministry exercising the powers conferred under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act of 1967. The JeI and the JKLF-Y were declared as unlawful associations on February 28 and March 22 respectively.

Notes:
J Mahendra (79), the veteran filmmaker, screenwriter and actor, has passed away in Chenai, Tamil Nadu on 2nd April 2019. He was known for infusing realism in Tamil cinema and for giving superstar Rajinikanth his career breakthrough with “Mullum Malarum”. He started his journey in the movies as a screenplay writer and made his directorial debut with 1978 film “Mullum Malarum”. The director’s popularity peaked with his movies “Uthiri Pookkal” (1979) and “Nenjathai Killathey” (1980). In the past few years, Mahendran had switched to acting. He played pivotal parts in “Kamaraj” (2004), “Petta” opposite Rajinikanth and Vijay’s “Theri”. He was last seen in Tamil film “Boomerang”, which released on March 8. Mahendran was also the founding member of Blue Ocean Film and Television Academy here.

Notes:
IIT Kharagpur has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Pullela Gopichand Badminton Academy (PGBA) to develop research and training module for the trainees of the Hyderabad-based sports facility. The thrust area of the collaboration is to promote health and wellbeing of sportspersons and coaches for enhancing the quality of performance and resilience. Players and coaches from PGBA will benefit from these programs. Further, the coaches will also be trained on how to use that knowledge while training players. Under the collaboration, IIT-KGP will also set up a sports academy in collaboration with Gopichand. The academy would promote collaborative research related to happiness in sports in general and badminton in particular, and science and technology in sports training. The scope would also include joint monitoring and use of materials used in general and badminton in particular by IIT Kharagpur and PGBA. A sum of Rs10 crore has been allocated to develop modern sports facilities at IIT-Kgp.

Notes:
According to a new collaborative study by the Queen’s University Belfast and Aberystwyth University in the UK, the sun’s magnetic field is ten times stronger than previously thought. Using the Swedish one-metre Solar Telescope at Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, in the Canary Islands, David Kuridze studied a particularly strong solar flare which erupted near the surface of the Sun on September 10, 2017. A combination of favourable conditions and an element of luck enabled the team to determine the strength of the flare’s magnetic field with unprecedented accuracy. The researchers believe the findings have the potential to change our understanding of the processes that happen in the Sun’s immediate atmosphere. The study found that the sun’s corona extends millions of kilometres above the surface, measuring 1,400,000 kilometres across — 109 times larger than Earth — and 150,000,000 km from Earth. Solar flares appear as bright flashes and occur when magnetic energy that has built up in the solar atmosphere is suddenly released. These solar flares can lead to storms which, if they hit Earth, form the northern lights — the Aurora Borealis. They can also disrupt communications satellites and GPS systems.

Notes:
For the second successive year, Telangana has been ranked first in e-learning training programme of Department of Personal and Training (DoPT) of the Government India. In FY 2018-19, Dr. MCR HRD Institute had enrolled over 20,000 field staff in different districts of the State to impart training on 12 soft skill modules and three domain-specific modules on the RTI, office procedures, and finance and accounts, apart from Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The institute is also mentoring Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, J&K, Odisha, Uttarakhand, and Gujarat to guide trainers for e-learning training programme and develop modules in regional languages to spread the Comprehensive Online Modified Modules on Induction Training (COMMIT) programme as a national mission.

Notes:
UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan has conferred the prestigious Zayed Medal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for giving a “big boost’ to bilateral strategic ties between the two countries. The award comes in appreciation of PM Modi’s role in consolidating the long-standing friendship and joint strategic cooperation between the two countries. The Zayed Medal is the highest decoration awarded to kings, presidents and heads of states.

Notes:
On April 5, Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu inaugurated the National Cardiology Conference 2019 at Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of medical sciences in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. The 3-day conference will be organized by Dept of Cardiology in which leading national and international experts from Europe, USA, Japan, Singapore South Korea, Indonesia and Australia will deliberate on the latest topics of Interventional cardiology and cutting edge technology. The conference being held for the first time in Uttar Pradesh offers an opportunity to showcase newer innovations in Cardiology that can help deliver cost-effective cardiology care to patients.

Notes:
Scientists at the Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology (CCMB) have discovered a new enzyme ‘Murein Endopeptidase’ which helps in breaking cell walls of bacteria. This discovery offers a potential for a new drug delivery route to arrest the anti-bacterial resistance through existing antibiotic drugs. Hence, it opens up fresh ways to target microbes, leading to a new wave of antibiotic drugs. The man behind this discovery is Pavan Kumar Chodisetti, research student and his mentor Dr Manjula Reddy. Antibiotics are medicines used to prevent and treat bacterial infections. The findings have been published in the latest issue of Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences, USA