Current Affairs Quiz - April, 2019

Notes:
The World Book and Copyright Day (WBCD) is celebrated worldwide on 23rd April to pay tribute to the veteran literary figures like William Shakespeare, Miguel Cervantes and Inca Garcilaso De La Vega. It is a symbolic date in world literature. On this day, UNESCO and organisations representing publishers, booksellers and libraries select World Book Capital (WBC) for a year to maintain the celebrations of books and reading. For the year 2019, Sharjah, UAE has been declared as the World Book Capital. It will be preceded by Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in the year 2020.

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Dr. Benny Antony, co-founder of Kochi-based Arjuna Natural Ltd, has been conferred with the National Intellectual Property Award for 2019 in the category of Top Individual for Patents and Commercialization. Along with the National IP Award, the Intellectual Property Office India and the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) have jointly conferred the ‘WIPO Medal for Inventors’ also to Antony. The Indian Intellectual Property Office bestows National Intellectual Property (IP) awards to outstanding innovators, organisations and companies in the field of patents, designs, trademarks and geographical indications on the occasion of World IP Day every year. Antony is the inventor of the world’s leading patented turmeric extract formulation “BCM-95” and also has over 80 international patents to his credit.

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The global startup ecosystem map Startupblink has released its latest 2019 Startup Ecosystem Ranking. In it, India has been ranked 17th out of 100 countries, based on the strength of its startup ecosystem. The index is topped by United States, followed by UK, Canada, Israel, and Australia. The ranking is carried out on the basis the impact startups have been able to make in the country. Additionally, it has also considered how many startups and support organisations are there such as accelerators, coworking spaces, startup events along with technology infrastructure, red tape, bureaucracy, etc. It used data from startups, accelerators and co-working spaces registered on its platforms as well as data received from global partners such as Crunchbase and SimilarWeb. StartupBlink also ranked cities globally in its top 25-city ranking that included Bengaluru at 11 and New Delhi at 18 andMumbai at 29.

Notes:
Rajendra Kumar Nayak, the 1983 batch officer of Indian Defence Accounts Service , has been appointed as the new Controller General of Defence Accounts (CGDA). With over 35 years of experience, Nayak has held important assignments in the Defence Accounts Department and on deputation in the Government of India. He has vast and varied experience in handling Finance, Personnel, Pay & Budget matters of Ministry of Defence. The CGDA heads the Defence Accounts Department (DAD) and operates under the Ministry of Defence. It is the cadre controlling authority of the Indian Defence Accounts Service.

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Indonesia has recently released a special commemorative stamp on the theme of Ramayana to mark the 70th anniversary of the establishment of its diplomatic ties with India. The stamp is designed by renowned Indonesian sculptor Padmashri Bapak Nyoman Nuarta. It featured a scene from Ramayana in which Jatayu valiantly fought to save Sita, which symbolises the resolve of two peoples in the face of adversity. A specially signed version of the stamp will be on display at the Philately Museum in Jakarta.

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The unmanned BepiColombo spacecraft is the joint mission of the European-Japanese space agencies. It is named after Italian scientist Giuseppe “Bepi” Colombo. Recently, it has successfully completed its near-Earth commissioning phase and is now ready for the operations that will take place during the cruise and for its scientific investigations at Mercury. The mission comprises two science orbiters: ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and JAXA’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO). The ESA-built Mercury Transfer Module (MTM) will carry the orbiters to Mercury using a combination of solar electric propulsion and gravity assist flybys – one of Earth, two at Venus, and six at Mercury – prior to MPO and MMO orbit insertions. Earlier, on 20th October 2018, BepiColombo started its 7-year long journey to the Solar System’s innermost planet from an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. Since launch, BepiColombo has already covered over 450 million km – just about 4% of the total distance it will have to travel before arriving at Mercury at the end of 2025. The composite spacecraft is now some 50 million km from Earth, and tele-commands take about 3 minutes to reach it.

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Puranik Yogendra (or Yogi) from Pune has become the first ethnic Indian to contest and win an election in Japan. He has been elected to Edogawa Ward assembly of Tokyo. Hence, this is the first-ever victory of a naturalized Japanese of Indian origin in elections in Japan. Yogi went to Japan to pursue higher studies in 1997 and worked with various IT companies there. He lived there for 20 years and has been the resident of Edogawa for 15 years. Puranik believes that his ties with his adopted home were strengthened after Japan went through earthquake and tsunami in 2011 and he came to know more about the country when would visit the affected area on weekends to help the people affected due to two calamities. Soon after, he obtained Japanese citizenship and came to enter politics; he was fielded by the Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP) of Japan in the recent polls.

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The Modern Slavery Innovation Fund (MSIF) supports international projects to trial innovative ways of stopping modern slavery, It is in news recently because Britain has pledged £4 million to support global anti-slavery projects. Six organizations – Anti-Slavery International and the United Nations University, Stronger Together, The Freedom Fund , Retrak and Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) – will share the aid money from MSIF. The funding will also be used to run workshops on modern slavery in South Africa, improve support for survivors in India, and develop an online data hub to boost anti-slavery policies. The MSIF was announced in 2016 and previously gave £6 million to schemes such as awareness-raising campaigns in Nigeria, the Philippines and Vietnam. The Freedom Fund will work in India and Nepal to enhance victim care of frontline workers.

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Bajrang Punia is set to become the first Indian wrestler to fight at iconic Madison Square Garden in New York. Punia, who won the 65kg men’s freestyle gold at the recent 2019 Asian championships, will be among top wrestlers selected by the American governing body for the May 6 tournament. Bajrang will take on two-time US champion Yianni Diakomihalis in the 65kg category in the “Grapple at the Garden” Beat the Streets event, which since 2010 has become a major showcase for international wrestling.

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Alfred Brownell from Liberia, an environmental lawyer and activist, has been awarded the prestigious 2019 Goldman Environmental Prize for exposing alleged abuse by the palm oil company Golden Veroleum Liberia and helping to prevent it from converting about 50 km2 of forest that is home to elephants, pygmy hippopotamuses and chimpanzees into palm oil plantations. The other winners of the top environment prize are: Linda Garcia of Vancouver, Ana Colovic Lesoska of North Macedonia, Bayarjargal Agvaantseren of Mongolia, Jacqueline Evans of the Cook Islands and Alberto Curamil of Chile. The Goldman Environment Prize is awarded annually to six grassroots activists from six different continents who have taken action and risked their lives to protect the planet.