Current Affairs Quiz - April, 2019

Notes:
As per Article 324 of the constitution, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has recently issued an order prohibiting display in electronic media including cinematograph of any biopic or publicity material in the nature of biography/hagiography sub-serving the purposes of any political entity or any individual entity connected to it. Hence, ECI banned screening of “PM Narendra Modi”, a biopic on the Prime Minister, till the national elections are over. Earlier, on 10th March 2019, ECI announced General Elections to 17th Lok Sabha 2019 and from the date of announcement of the elections, the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) came into operation. The Lok Sabha elections will begin on April 11 and will be held over seven phases followed by counting of votes on May 23.

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:
Astronomers have captured the first-ever image of a black hole, which is located in a distant galaxy known as ‘Messier 87’ (M87), through a network of 8 linked radio telescopes known as the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration. The black hole in the centre of M87 has a mass of more than six billion solar masses. The picture shows an intensely bright ‘ring of fire’ surrounding a perfectly circular dark hole. MIT Computer scientist Dr. Katie Bouman has been credited for developing an algorithm that allowed the world to see what a black hole actually looks like. The EHT is a consortium of more than 200 scientists that has been in the works for about two decades. The EHT telescope achieved the necessary firepower by combining data from 8 of the world’s leading radio observatories, including the Atacama Large Millimetre Array (Alma) in Chile and the South Pole Telescope and created an effective telescope size of the Earth. Black holes were first predicted by Einstein’s theory of relativity and now, the first black hole photo confirms his theory. A black hole is a region of space whose mass is so large and dense that not even light can escape its gravitational attraction.

Notes:
Rio Paralympics silver medallist Deepa Malik has been named the recipient of the New Zealand Prime Minister’s Sir Edmund Hillary Fellowship for 2019 in recognition of her inspiring achievements. She will travel to New Zealand as a Sir Edmund Hillary Prime Minister’s Fellow and meet with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern as well as visit Paralympic sporting organizations. Here, she will work to promote sporting, cultural as well people-to-people relationship between India and New Zealand. Till date, she has won 58 national and 23 international medals and has been honoured with the Padma Shri and Arjuna Award. Deepa won the silver in shot put F53 event in 2016 Rio Paralympics. Athletes in F53 category can do only seated throws and they have full muscle power on their shoulder, elbow and wrist in the throwing arm. She recently joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Notes:
To make Google Pay more useful for Indian customers, Google has partnered with MMTC-PAMP India to introduce buying and selling of gold through the app. Through this partnership with India’s only London Bullion Market Association (LBMA)-accredited gold refinery, Google Pay users will be able to buy 99.99% 24-karat gold. Google Pay users can now purchase gold for any value, which will be stored on behalf of the user in secure vaults by MMTC-PAMP. Users can buy and sell this gold any time at the latest price, refreshed every few minutes on the Google Pay app. Other mobile wallet providers such as Paytm, MobiKwik and PhonePe too provide the facility of buying gold from their wallet apps.

Notes:
The scientists at University of Edinburgh have discovered a new state of physical matter – which allows atoms to exist as both solid and liquid at the same time. Until now, atoms in physical matter were understood to exist typically in one of three states — solid, liquid or gas. An international team of physicists have found that some elements can take on the properties of both solid and liquid states, when subjected to extreme conditions. They used Artificial Intelligence (AI) to simulate what would happen if potassium was subject to huge pressure — between about 200,000 and 400,000 times atmospheric pressure — and heat — between 400 to 800 Kelvin (260 to 980 degrees Fahrenheit). The study found that under these conditions potassium atoms entered what is known as a chain-melted state, where one of the two lattices — the “guest” part — dissolved into liquid, while the “host” part remained solid. They found that more than half a dozen other elements, including sodium and bismuth, were able to reach the state if they were put into the right environments.

Notes:
Ethiopian athletes Gelete Burka (women’s race) and Abrha Milaw (men’s race) won the 43rd edition of the Paris Marathon on 14th April 2019. They led a record 60,000 participants to the finish line through the French capital. Milaw won the men’s race with a time of 2 hours :07 minutes and :50 seconds. Burka was the fastest woman with 2 hours :22 minutes and :48 seconds. In the wheelchair race, Julien Casoli won for a third time. The fastest disabled racer put up a time of 1 hour:36 minutes and :57 seconds. The Paris marathon is one of the world’s most popular running events.

Notes:
Journalists Kyaw Soe Oo and Wa Lone (Myanmar) has been chosen for 2019 UNESCO/Guillermo Cano Press Freedom Prize. Both laureates are serving 7-year prison sentences. At the time of their arrest in Yangon on 12 December 2017, they were working for the Reuters news agency, reporting on alleged human rights violations in Myanmar’s state of Rakhine. The prize will be awarded on 2 May as part of the celebration of 2019 World Press Freedom Day (3 May) which is taking place in Ethiopia. The Prize recognizes outstanding contributions to the defence or promotion of press freedom especially in the face of danger. It is named after Guillermo Cano Isaza, the Colombian journalist who was assassinated in front of the offices of his newspaper El Espectador in Bogotá, Colombia, on 17 December 1986. The $25,000 Prize is funded by the Guillermo Cano Isaza Foundation (Colombia), the Helsingin Sanomat Foundation (Finland), and The Namibia Media Trust.

Notes:
India’s first-of-its-kind ‘Voter Park’ has recently inaugurated in Gurugram, Haryana to increase voter awareness and educating people about the electoral process. At the park, voters will get information about the polling process and the history of elections in the country. The purpose of establishing Voter Park was also to motivate eligible people to vote in the Lok Sabha election so that they can contribute to the progress of the country. A ‘Selfie Point’ has also been set up in the park, where people can click selfies displaying the indelible ink mark on their finger after casting their vote.

Notes:
The 4th Resilient Cities Asia-Pacific (RCAP) Congress 2019 is a platform for discussing the opportunities and mechanisms of executing the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), which is started in New Delhi on April 15, 2019. The three-day event is being hosted by the South Delhi Municipal Corporation in association with UN (ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability). This event is being organised in India for the first time and 31 countries are taking part in this programme that was inaugurated by the vice president. The RCAP Congress 2019 is offering cities and regions from Asia-Pacific a variety of innovative solutions that build resilience to climate change at the sub-national level.