Current Affairs Quiz - April, 2019

Notes:
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) have jointly launched a project called “Learning Coin”. It is a private blockchain-based coin and only accessible within IMF and the World Bank to help both multinational agencies learn about the merits of blockchain. The coin project has been launched in order to conduct research and learn more about the core technologies that have been used to implement cryptographic assets such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH).

Notes:
Jaideep Sarkar, a 1987-batch Indian Foreign Service officer, has been appointed as India’s next High Commissioner to South Africa. He is currently serving as India’s ambassador in Bhutan and is expected to take up the assignment shortly. He served in Indian Missions in Tokyo, Seoul and Bangladesh as well. The Union government also appointed Suhel Ajaz Khan as next Ambassador to Lebanon.

Notes:
A global provider of real-time electronic payment and banking solutions, ACI Worldwide has recently announced that Canara Bank has successfully rolled out major new functionality to support EMV (Europay, MasterCard and Visa) card acquiring across its ATM network and Aadhaar Authentication and leverage ACI’s UP Retail Payments solution to achieve market firsts. With this, Canara Bank has become the first public sector bank in India to meet RBI’s EMV mandate. The EMV shift is aimed at reducing lost and stolen card fraud and making counterfeit card fraud more difficult. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had set a deadline of December 31, 2018 for the switch, mandating use of an embedded chip to replace the traditional magnetic stripe card. ACI’s UP Retail Payments solution is based on the Universal Payments (UP) Framework and built on open service-oriented architecture for robust payments orchestration. It supports core payment processing with 24×7 secure payment capabilities.

Notes:
Russia has recently dismissed the findings of the long-awaited report by US Special Counsel Robert Mueller and said that it failed to present any evidence of Russian meddling in the 2016 US elections. The report titled “Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election” details extensive contacts between Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russian operatives who, it said, sought to tilt the election in Trump’s favor. It is the product of a 22-month investigation by Robert Mueller. He was appointed to probe Russian interference in the 2016 elections and possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. The 448-page report did not find evidence of a criminal conspiracy between Trump’s 2016 election campaign and Russia.

Notes:
Cricket icon Mahendra Singh Dhoni has been appointed brand ambassador of bus ticketing platform ‘redBus’. Dhoni will appear in a hockey player avatar in his first cameo for the brand, slated to be launched soon. According to celebrity managers, Dhoni’s brand endorsement deals can be in the range of Rs 3-10 crore, depending on the size of the company he is associated with and the size and duration of the contract. Currently, the cricketer endorses an array of brands across categories, including fantasy sports firm Dream11, Colgate, MasterCard, Orient Fans, Bharat Matrimony, Indigo Paints, SRMB Steel, and health supplement brand Revital H among others.

Notes:
In Football, the Services lifted the 2019 Santosh Trophy by defeating Punjab 1-nil in the final at the Guru Nanak Stadium in Ludhiana on 21st April. In the first half, both the teams were goal-less. In the second half, Services scored the lone goal and held on till the final whistle. With this victory, the side has ended the campaign without losing a single match.

Notes:
The Indian Navy has launched guided missile destroyer INS Imphal at Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders in Mumbai on April 20. It’s the third state-of-the-art warship built as part of Project 15B, in which ships are built to carry and operate two multiple role helicopters. INS Imphal has a length of 163m and 17.4m at the beam and a displacement of 7.300 tonnes, which are propelled by four gas turbines to achieve speeds in excess of 30 knots. Under Project 15B, the Navy had launched first ship ‘INS Vishakhapatnam’ in April 2015, while the second ship ‘INS Mormugao’ was launched in September 2016.

Notes:
Ravinder Kumar Passi has been appointed to the post of chairman of the Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts (EPCH). He succeeded O P Prahladka. EPCH is a non-profit organisation, with an objective to promote, support, protect, maintain and increase the export of handicrafts.

Notes:
The World Earth Day (WED) is observed every year on 22nd of April to demonstrate support for environmental protection. This is a day which is meant to emphasise the need to protect the planet and preserve its environment. The day also marks the anniversary of the Modern Environmental Movement, started in 1970. The 2019 theme is ‘Protect our species’, which aims to draw attention to the rapid extinction of species across the world.

Notes:
The researchers have finally detected the most ancient type of molecule in our universe in space for the first time ever. They used NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) to detect helium hydride in a planetary nebula NGC 7027 about 3,000 light-years away from Earth. Helium hydride ion (HeH+) was the first molecule that formed when, almost 14 billion years ago, falling temperatures in the young universe allowed recombination of the light elements produced in the Big Bang. At that time, ionised hydrogen and neutral helium atoms reacted to form HeH+. Despite its importance in the history of the early Universe, HeH+ has so far escaped detection in astrophysical nebulae — cloud of gas and dust in outer space. Hence, the detection of this special molecule brings a long search to a happy ending, and eliminates doubts about understanding of the underlying formation and destruction of the early universe. SOFIA is the joint project of NASA and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) to construct and maintain an airborne observatory. Being the world’s largest airborne astronomical observatory, the telescope has the ability to produce a higher resolution image, three times higher in quality than those captured by other observatories.