Current Affairs Quiz - April, 2019

Notes:
C R Anandavally (67), the well-known dubbing artist in the Malayalam film industry, has passed away on April 5, 2019. She began her film career doing small roles in various Malayalam films beginning with “Eanippadikkal” in 1973 and lent her voice to actress Rajasri in the film “Devi Kanyakumari” in 1974. The 1980 movie ‘Manjil Virinja Pookkal’ in which she dubbed for actress Poornima Jayaram became a turning point in her career and she was flooded with offers and had been active since then. Among the leading heroines she has lent her voice are Geetha, ‘Silk’ Smitha, Sumalatha, Madhavi, Menaka, Ambika, Urvasi, Jayapradha, Karthika, Parvathy, Gauthami, Suhasini, Sobhana, Revathi, Nanditha Bose and Khushboo. Anandavally won a Kerala State Award for the Malayalam film ‘Aadharam’ in which she dubbed for actress Geetha. Hailing from Kollam, Anandavally had also acted in Kerala Peoples Arts Club (KPAC) dramas.

Notes:
The World Homeopathy Day (WHD) is observed every year on 10th of April to commemorate the birth anniversary of the founder of Homeopathy, Dr Christian Fredrich Samuel Hahnemann. On the occasion, the Central Council for Research in Homeopathy (CCRH) is organizing a two-day convention in New Delhi. The council will take stock of the challenges faced and formulate future strategies for the development of Homeopathy in the country. The theme of the convention is linking research with education and clinical practice. CCRH is an autonomous research organisation of Ministry of AYUSH.

Notes:
The joint military exercise “African Lion 2019” has conducted between Morocco and the US from March 16 to April 7 in the region of Agadir, Tifnit, Tan-Tan, Tata and Ben Guerir, with the participation of thousands of military personnel. The annual exercise involves various types of training including command, maneuvering, peace-keeping and aerial refueling. The drills also include training on counter-terrorism operations, land and air exercises as well as a tactical simulation.

Notes:
Sydney Brenner (92), a South African-born biologist, has passed away in Singapore on April 5, 2019. He helped decipher the genetic code and his research on a roundworm sparked a new field of human disease research. Brenner shared the Nobel Prize in medicine in 2002 for his contribution to work unraveling how genes control cell division. He and two colleagues, John Sulston and Robert Horvitz, traced a transparent roundworm known as C. elegans to determine how cells divide and create something new. The findings on programmed cell death were key to understanding how cancers develop and laid the groundwork for making C. elegans a major model organism in research.

Notes:
Isaak Hayik has set a new world record as the oldest person to play in a professional soccer match at the age of 73. He broke the record after playing as a goalkeeper for Israeli team Ironi Or Yehuda against Maccabi Ramat Gan on April 5, 2019. Hayik was officially recognised in an award ceremony attended by representatives from the Guinness World Record organisation. The previous record was held by Robert Carmona of Uruguay, who in 2015 played a professional match with Uruguay’s Pan de Azucar at the age of 53.

Notes:
A bench headed by National Green Tribunal (NGT) Chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel has constituted a committee to look into the alleged erosion of Yamuna floodplain due to movement of heavy vehicles in Haryana’s Sonipat district. The directions came when the green panel was hearing a plea which said that the policy of permitting heavy vehicles in the embankments of the river is “destructing the ecology”. The committee will comprise Principal Secretary of the Haryana Irrigation and Water Resources Department, Member Secretary of the Haryana State Pollution Control Board and Director of the Mines and Geology Department. The tribunal said the committee would submit a joint report within one month by e-mail so that matter can be taken up before the monsoon.

Notes:
India’s education technology startup ‘Dost Education’ has bagged a $25,000 Next Billion Edtech Prize 2019 for its ability to empower parents to take charge of their child’s early education by creating short, friendly audio content that is sent to them via their mobile phones. Besides India’s Dost, two other winners also receive $25,000 each included Ubongo from Tanzania and PraxiLabs from Egypt. The prize, which is run by UK-based Varkey Foundation, recognises the most innovative technology destined to have a radical impact on education in low income and emerging world countries.

Notes:
India’s flagship programme, the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) (or Namami Gange) was awarded the distinction of “Public Water Agency of the Year” by Global Water Intelligence at the Global Water Summit (GWS) in London on April 9. The GWS was the major business conference for the water industry worldwide. The coveted awards recognize excellence across the entire international water industry and reward those initiatives in the water, wastewater, and desalination sectors which bring remarkable improvements in the lives of people. The Namami Gange programme an integrated conservation mission with a budget of Rs 20,000 crore to accomplish the objectives of effective abatement of pollution, conservation and rejuvenation of the Ganga. The project covers 8 states and seeks to fully connect all 1,632 Gram Panchayats along the Ganga to a sanitation system by 2022. Its mission aims at providing comprehensive and sustainable solutions for major pollution hot spots along the stretch of 97 towns and 4,465 villages on the Ganga stem.

Notes:
Justice Vikram Nath, seniormost judge of the Allahabad High Court, has been appointed Chief Justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court. He succeeded acting CJ Justice Chagari Praveen Kumar. A collegium of Supreme Court comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi and judges S A Bobde and N V Ramana recommended the name of Justice Nath as the chief justice of the AP High Court. The new high court for Andhra Pradesh was created on 1st January 2019, following the bifurcation of a combined high court for AP and Telangana, which had been operating from Hyderabad since June 2, 2014, when the two Telugu states got separated.

Notes:
On 13th April 2019, the nation paid homage to the martyrs of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre on the centenary of the incident. On this day in 1919, hundreds of innocent Indians were killed by troops under British Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer, during a peaceful meeting on Baisakhi at the park in Amritsar, Punjab. Here, the civilians had assembled for a peaceful protest to condemn the arrest and deportation of two national leaders, Satya Pal and Saifuddin Kitchlew. The massacre is one of the darkest chapters of India’s freedom struggle against the British occupation. The official death toll by the British government was put at 379, but Indian figures put the toll at closer to 1,000. Even after 100 years, the British government has only regretted the massacre but stopped short of apologizing for the killing of so many innocent people.