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:
The report on ‘Political Leaders Position and Action on Air Quality in India 2014-2019’ has recently released by a Delhi-based environment body – Climate Trends. As per report, Uttar Pradesh’s Kanpur has been ranked 1st on the WHO’s list of 15 most polluted cities. Faridabad (Haryana) stood at 2nd position, followed by Varanasi (UP), which is the Lok Sabha constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The report claimed that the situation in Varanasi is deteriorating as its MP has focused on beautification and infrastructure. The Air Quality index (AQI) in Varanasi reached an alarming 490 in 2017 and 384 — very poor category — in December 2018. The report also noted that MPs of Lucknow and Kanpur — Home Minister Rajnath Singh and senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi respectively — have mostly been silent on the issue of air pollution in their respective constituencies. Gaya and Patna in Bihar are 4th and 5th on the list, while Delhi is 6th and Uttar Pradesh capital Lucknow is 7th. Cities of Agra, Muzaffarpur, Srinagar, Gurugram, Jaipur, Patiala and Jodhpur are also on the WHO list of most polluted cities.

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:
Scientists have recently discovered new species of ancient human excavations in Philippines. This newly identified species named Humo Luzonensis after Luzon Island, where bones and teeth from individuals of this species were excavated from Callao Cave. The small size of the bones suggests this archaic human would have been shorter than 4ft tall – possibly even shorter than another ancient species – Homo floresiensis. The specimens of H. luzonensis were dated to 50,000 and 67,000 years old (Late Pleistocene period), which suggests that the species was alive at the same time as several other hominins belonging to the genus Homo, including Homo sapiens, Neanderthals, Denisovans and Homo floresiensis. Thus, this discovery claims finding to be the earliest direct evidence human presence in Philippines.

Notes:
Gargi Kaul, a 1984-batch officer of the Indian Audit and Accounts Service (IA&AS), has been appointed as new Secretary of Defence Finance.

Notes:
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 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.