Current Affairs Quiz - April, 2019

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.

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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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Dr. Mohammad Shtayyeh has been sworn-in as the new prime minister of the State of Palestine by President Mahmoud Abbas at his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah. The 18th Palestinian government since the establishment of the Palestinian Authrity in 1995 was sworn in according to a presidential decree issued by Abbas. The State of Palestine is a de jure sovereign state in Western Asia claiming the West Bank and Gaza Strip with Jerusalem as the designated capital, although its administrative center is currently located in Ramallah. It is recognized by 136 UN members and since 2012 has a status of a non-member observer state in the United Nations – which implies recognition of statehood. It is a member of the Arab League, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, G77, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and other international bodies.

Notes:
The World Allergy Week (WAW) is an annual initiative of the World Allergy Organization (WAO) to raise awareness of allergic disease and related disorders and advocate for the provision of training and resources in the diagnosis, management, and prevention of these diseases and asthma, which are rising in prevalence around the world. The 2019 theme is “The Global Problem of Food Allergy”. In 2019, the WAW ran from 7th to 13th April and the focus area was food allergy.

Notes:
Pradeep Choubey (70), the renowned Hindi poet, has passed away in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh on April 12, 2019. He was the younger brother of celebrated humorist, satirist and poet Shail Chaturvedi. Born on 26th August 1949 in Maharashtra’s Chandrapur district, Choubey shifted to Gwalior. He quit his job at Dena Bank to pursue his passion of poetry and travelled across the nation enthralling audiences with his punches, several of them targeted at the orthodox elements of society. Besides humour, he was famous for satirical comments on the system.

Notes:
Harsheel Dani from India has clinched the 2019 Dutch International badminton title at Hague in Netherlands. In the final, he defeated Mads Christophersen of Denmark by 15-21, 21-12, 21-13.

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Three Indian student teams won awards in NASA’s 25th edition of Human Exploration Rover Challenge 2019 at the US Space and Rocket Centre in Huntsville, Alabama on April 12-13. The team from KIET Group of Institutions in Ghaziabad won the “AIAA Neil Armstrong Best Design Award” in the college/university division. The Mukesh Patel School of Technology Management and Engineering from Mumbai won the “Frank Joe Sexton Memorial Pit Crew Award” in the college/university division. Lovely Professional University from Phagwara, Punjab, won the STEM Engagement Award. Nearly 100 teams took part in the competition, hailing from 23 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, as well as a record number of countries, including Bangladesh, Germany, India, Mexico, Morocco and Peru. The competition challenges high school and college teams to design, build and test human-powered roving vehicles inspired by the Apollo lunar missions and future exploration missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond.

Notes:
The World Haemophilia Day (WHD) is observed every year on April 17 to increase awareness of haemophilia and other inherited bleeding disorders. The 2019 theme ‘Outreach and Identification’, encourages people to meet and connect with other people who have had similar experiences, and what it is like.It will be observed with the slogan – ‘Reaching Out: The First Step to Care’. Haemophilia is an inherited genetic disorder that impairs the body’s ability to form clots. This condition is dangerous as it can cause excessive loss of blood in case of injuries, easy bruising, and also bleeding between joints and in the brain. Haemophilia can only be managed but does not have a cure.

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Sri Lanka has launched its first satellite ‘Raavana-1’ into space from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia’s East Shore. It weights around 1.05 kg and the lifespan of the satellite is around one and a half years. The launch marks Sri Lanka’s entry into the global space age. Under BIRDS project, the satellite was designed and built at the Kyushu Institute of Technology in Japan by two Sri Lankan research engineers. Its camera mission is to capture images of Sri Lanka and its neighbouring countries.

Notes:
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.