Current Affairs Quiz - April, 2019

Notes:
Indian captain Virat Kohli has been named as the Leading Cricketer of the year for an unprecedented third year in a row by the 2019 edition of Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack. Kohli was picked as one of the Wisden’s Five Cricketers of the Year, along with Tammy Beaumont, Jos Buttler, Sam Curran and Rory Burns. The Indian skipper is only the third cricketer ever to have won the award more than three times after Don Bradman (10 times) and Jack Hobbs (8 times). India’s Smriti Mandhana has been named as the women’s Leading Cricketer in the World for 2018 while Afghanistan spinner Rashid Khan was named the Leading Twenty20 Cricketer for the second consecutive year. Wisden has been listing out Cricketers of the Year since 1889 and it is considered as one of the more prestigious awards in the sport.

Notes:
The National Safe Motherhood Day (NSMD) is observed every year on 11th of April to raise awareness about the proper healthcare of women and maternity facilities to pregnant and lactating women. This day also raise awareness for the prevention of child marriages that may be an indirect cause of maternal deaths. The 2019 theme is “Midwives for Mothers”. India is the first country in the world to have officially declared a National Safe Motherhood Day.

Notes:
Google has introduced a new open platform called Anthos to run and manage apps from anywhere. It is based on the Cloud Services Platform and would let users run applications on existing on-premise hardware investments or in the Public Cloud. Anthos not only allows customers to deploy Google Cloud in their own data centres but also gives them the flexibility to build, run and manage their workloads within their data centre, on Google Cloud, or other cloud providers (Multi-Cloud), without making any changes. Anthos will also let users manage workloads running on third-party clouds like Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure.

Notes:
India and Sweden have recently launched the India-Sweden Collaborative Industrial Research and Development Programme on the occasion of the Sweden-India Innovation Partnership AI for All Summit in New Delhi. The programme will address a range of global challenges through technology and innovation. The Joint programme is co-funded by Indian Department of Science & Technology (DST) and Sweden’s Innovation Agency – Vinnova. The new programme brings together the world class excellence of Sweden and India to address challenges in the area of Smart Cities and Clean Technologies and Digitalization / Internet of Things (IoT). Vinnova will provide funding to Swedish side participants upto 2,500,000 Swedish Krona as grant. On the Indian side, conditional grant of upto 50% with a limit of INR 1.5 crores per project to Indian project partners to be provided. This Programme is technically and administratively managed by the Global Innovation & Technology Alliance (GITA) on behalf of DST in India and Vinnova in Sweden.

Notes:
India will be the Guest of Honour country at the 29th Abu Dhabi International Book Fair (ADIBF 2019), which is scheduled to be held from April 24th to 30th. The fair aims to highlight the UAE’s rich heritage, showcasing its authenticity and modernity, as well as its cultural and literary output. India’s participation in the fair is expected to attract significant increase in the number of visitors with various events and activities which will be held throughout the entire duration of ADIBF. The Indian Pavilion will host Indian writers, authors and literary scholars who will serve as ambassadors for the literature and art of their country.

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:
In Kerala, people are celebrating the Malayalam New Year “Vishu” with traditional gaiety and fervor on 15th April 2019. The word Vishu means ‘equal’ in Sanskrit, and it marks the sun’s transit to the Mesha rashi (the first astrological sign in the zodiac). The day begins with people taking Kani darshanam (or Vishu kani) soon after waking up. The elders or women in the family prepare the Vishu Kani a day before by using edible stuff like rice grains, cucumber, pumpkin, coconut, mangoes, betel leaves, flowers, coins and fruits and a metal vessel called “urali” in front of a mirror that reflects the image of their deity. A special yellow flower named Konna is a must in the Kani. Elders gift money ( kaineettam ) to younger members. They also exchange gifts with their loved ones and wear new clothes. On this day, devotees visit temples and offer their prayer to Lord Krishna, who is worshipped on this day. People also visit Sabarimala Ayyappan Temple, Guruvayur Sree Krishna temple or the Kulathupuzha Sree BaalaShastha Temple to have a ‘Vishukkani Kazhcha’viewing in the early hours of the day. And like all other festivals, Vishu is incomplete without an elaborate meal. There will a delicious meal -the Sadya which consists of different varieties of preparations.

Notes:
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.

Notes:
In a major attempt to build resilience against the impact of climate change, the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) and the Space Applications Centre (SAC) of ISRO have joined together to map, validate and protect smaller wetlands in the coastal region aimed at restoring them through coastal livelihood programmes. Both the organizations will develop a mobile app and a centralised web portal with a complete database of wetlands that are smaller than 2.25 hectares in the country. Such smaller wetlands cover an area of more than five lakh hectares across the country, while Kerala having as many as 2,592 smaller wetlands. As per the MoU, the two scientific institutes aim to identify and demarcate wetlands and restore the degraded wetlands through suitable livelihood options like coastal aquaculture. The app will be used for real-time monitoring of the wetlands and giving advisories to stakeholders and coastal people. The collaborative move is part of a national framework for fisheries and wetlands recently developed by the National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) project of CMFRI.

Notes:
The International Day of Human Space Flight is observed every year on April 12 to mark the beginning of the space era for mankind, reaffirming the important contribution of space science and technology in achieving sustainable development goals and increasing the well-being of States and peoples, as well as ensuring the realization of their aspiration to maintain outer space for peaceful purposes. On 12th April 1961 the first human space flight was carried out by Yuri Gagarin, a Soviet citizen. This historic event opened the way for space exploration for the benefit of all humanity.