Current Affairs Quiz - April, 2019

Notes:
Meena Kumari Maisnam from Manipur clinched gold in the 54 kg category at the 2019 Boxing World Cup in Cologne, Germany. Reigning youth world champion Sakshi (57 kg) and India Open champion Pwilao Basumatary (64 kg) lost their final bouts and finished with silver medals. Hence, India completed a haul of five medals from this prestigious European tournament following Pinki Rani (51kg) and Parveen (60kg)’s bronze medal wins on 13th April 2019.

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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.

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Bibhu Kalyan Nayak from Bhubaneswar has become the first Indian to be appointed Chair of International Hockey Federation (FIH) Health and Safety Committee by the world governing body. He will serve a two-year term lasting till the first executive board meeting after Congress 2020. He has extensively trained in Sports Traumatology and Sports and Exercise Physiology from National Institute of Sports Medicine at Havana, Cuba & National Sports Centre at Madrid, Spain. Nayak also served as a medical officer for the 2018 Men’s World Cup. He was commissioned in the Army Medical Corps of the Indian Army in 1995 and has worked in the Army Sports Institute, Pune for six years.

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Director General at Life Sciences – DRDO, Dr A K Singh has been conferred with Lifetime Achievement Award-2019 during 4th APJ Abdul Kalam Innovation Conclave at Chandigarh University, Mohali. He is recognized for his rich contribution in the field of life sciences, aerospace and aeronautics. The DST scientist has more than 18 patents and has contributed in more than 57 research publications at an international and national level. The conclave was organised by the university to mark World Creativity and Innovation Day (WCID).

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Forbes has recently compiled a first-ever list of the World’s Best Bank 2019 in terms of customer services and technological advancements. The private lender, HDFC Bank, was ranked at the top of the Forbes list of Indian banks, followed by ICICI Bank, DBS, Kotak Mahindra Bank and IDFC Bank. However, India’s largest public sector bank, the State Bank of India (SBI), did not even make it to top 10 of the list and was ranked 11th by the customers.Forbes had partnered with Statista, a market research company, to measure the best banks in 23 countries. Interestingly, this survey ignored any financial performances like P&L statements and balance sheets in favour of a customer’s opinion. The survey compiled data from around 40,000 customers around the world for their opinions on their banking relationships. The banks were rated on the basis of 5 key attributes – trust, digital services, financial advice and fees.

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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.

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The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has recently successfully test fired the underdevelopment long range subsonic cruise missile ‘Nirbhay’ from launch complex-3 of the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur, Odisha. It has a operational range of 1000 km and can fly very low to the ground to avoid detection by enemy radar called terrain hugging capability. The state-of-the-art missile is the India’s first indigenously designed and developed long-range sub-sonic cruise missile. It is capable of loitering and cruising at 0.7 Mach at altitude as low as 100 metre and covered the designated target range in 42 minutes and 23 seconds.

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UN cultural experts have recently offered to help in rebuilding the iconic structure of the famed Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. The cathedral is a universal symbol and the centre of France and its devastation has left people across nations shocked. UNESCO World Heritage Centre Director Mechtild Rossler said that the Cathedral is part of the World Heritage site officially known as “Paris, Banks of the Seine”, inscribed on the World Heritage List, in 1991’. The Notre Dame represents a historically, architecturally, and spiritually, outstanding universal heritage. It is also a monument of literary heritage. The cathedral, where construction began in the 1160s extending for more than a century, is considered to be the finest example of the French Gothic style of architecture, with its groundbreaking use of rib vaults and buttresses, stained glass rosettes and sculpted ornaments.

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Nepal has successfully launched its first satellite NepaliSat-1 into space from Virginia in the United States. The satellite was developed by the Nepalese scientists. NepaliSat-1 is a low orbit satellite which will be in the 400-km distance from the Earth’s surface. It will be stationed at the International Space Station (ISS) for a month and then it will be sent to orbit the earth. The satellite will take photographs on a regular basis to gather geographical information of the country. It weighs 1.3 kilograms, making it a small satellite with limited capability. The Nepal Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) initiated the launch of the country’s own satellite under the BIRDS project of the Japanese Kyushu Institute of Technology. The BIRDS project has been designed in association with the United Nations (UN) and aims at helping countries launch their first satellite.

Notes:
Ace cricketer Mithali Raj has been named as the goodwill ambassador of the Indian team for the Street Child Cricket World Cup (SCCWC-2019. She joined former captain Saurav Ganguly and IPL franchise Rajasthan Royals in supporting the team. The Street Child Cricket World Cup (SCCWC-2019) is the first cricket world cup for street-connected children. The tournament is being organised by Street Child United (SCU), a UK based organisation, which has a legacy of holding street child tournaments around major sporting festivals like FIFA World Cup in South Africa, Olympics in Brazil, FIFA World Cup Russia and more.