Current Affairs Quiz - April, 2019

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:
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin has formally nominated Benjamin Netanyahu for a fourth consecutive term as prime minister and officially launched a process that is expected to result in a new government dominated by religious and nationalist parties in the coming weeks. Now, Netanyahu has 28 days to form a government, with a possible extension of a further two weeks. The results from the April 9 election put Netanyahu on course to become Israel’s longest-serving prime minister later this year, surpassing the state’s founding father David Ben-Gurion. If Netanyahu fails to form a coalition within 42 days, Benny Gantz (leader of the rival centrist Blue and White party) would be given a shot at assembling a government.

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:
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:
The first edition of Naval Commanders’ Conference – 2019 is scheduled to begin in New Delhi from April 23. The 3-day conference is the apex forum within the Service for interaction between the Naval Commanders. The Chief of the Naval Staff, with the Commanders-in-Chief, will review major operational, logistics, training and administrative activities undertaken during the previous six months and deliberate upon the course to be steered in the ensuing six months. The Conference assumes greater significance in the backdrop of Pulwama associated events that have brought country’s defence under sharper focus and will provide the higher naval leadership a forum to discuss the emerging challenges in the maritime domain. The conference also serves as a platform for institutionalised interaction of Naval Commanders with senior Government Officials.

Notes:
The International Labour Organization (ILO) has recently released the report titled ‘The Safety and Health at the Heart of the Future of Work – Building on 100 years of experience’. In it, the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy which killed thousands of people is among the world’s “major industrial accidents” of the 20th century (after 1919). In December 1984, at least 30 tons of methyl isocyanate gas was released from the Union Carbide pesticide plant in the Madhya Pradesh capital and it affected more than 600,000 workers and nearby inhabitants. Apart from the Bhopal gas tragedy, its list included the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant explosion in the erstwhile Soviet Union, the 2011 Fukushima disaster and the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 2013, which killed 1,132 people.

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:
Iran and Pakistan have decided to set up a Joint Border Reaction Force (JBRF) following a number of deadly attacks by militant groups on their frontier. The announcement comes following tensions between the two countries who have in recent months accused each other of not doing enough to stamp out militants allegedly sheltering across the border. The The Iran-Pakistan border skirts the volatile southeastern Iranian province of Sistan-Baluchistan which has been the scene of frequent attacks on Iran’s security forces.

Notes:
The world’s tallest 131 ft indoor waterfall has opened for the general public at Singapore’s Jewel Changi Airport.. The waterfall is housed inside a dome-shaped complex which has gardens growing over four storeys, more than 280 retail and food outlets, a hotel and a movie theatre. The structure also has a botanical garden with 120 species of plants. The dome-shaped glass structure was designed by Israeli-Canadian architect Moshe Safdie.

Notes:
The UN English Language Day is observed every year on 23rd of April to celebrate multilingualism and cultural diversity as well as to promote equal use of all six official languages throughout the Organization. These are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish. For the English language, 23 April was chosen because it is the date traditionally observed as both the birthday and date of death of William Shakespeare.