Current Affairs Quiz - April, 2021

Notes:
France is set to conduct the joint naval exercise, La Pérouse, in the Bay of Bengal from April 5 to 7. India is set to join its Quad partners — Australia, Japan, and the United States in the exercise.
Two French Navy ships will be joined by ships from India, Australia, Japan, and the U.S. to promote multilateralism at sea and create free and open Indo-Pacific. India and France will also hold the bilateral naval exercise, Varuna later this month.

Notes:
India’s largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) announced that it has signed a loan agreement of up to USD 1 billion with Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC). JBIC is wholly owned by the Government of Japan.
This loan intends to promote smooth flow of funds for the business operations of Japanese automobile manufacturers in India. SBI had signed a similar deal with JBIC in October last year. The beneficiaries include suppliers, dealers and the end users.

Notes:
The Indian Railways has recorded highest ever electrification in a single year, covering 6,015 Route Kilometre (RKM) in a single year during 2020-21. This was released as a statement by the Railways recently.
It has surpassed its previous year’s achievement of 5,276 RKM in 2019-20 and this fete was achieved amidst COVID pandemic.

Notes:
International Day of Conscience is celebrated all around the world on April 5th. The UN General Assembly declared April 5 as the International Day of Conscience in 2019.
UNGA adopted the draft resolution laid by the Kingdom of Bahrain called ‘Promoting the Culture of Peace with Love and Conscience’ in 2019. UN aims to create conditions of stability, well-being as well as peaceful relations throughout the world.

Notes:
The President of India has Justice NV Ramana as the 48th Chief Justice of India, in accordance with the powers conferred under Article 124 of Indian Constitution. He will assume charge as the Chief Justice of India on 24th April 2021.
He has been a judge of the Supreme Court since the year 2014. He will have a term of 16 months before his retirement.

Notes:
The Union Minister of state for Education – Sanjay Dhotre represented India in the consultation meeting of Education Ministers of E9 countries.
The theme of the meeting was E9 initiative: Scaling up digital learning to accelerate progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 4. E9 countries consist of Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, and Pakistan.

Notes:
The Union Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers organised a “National Dialogue on ‘Manufacturing Excellence & Innovation for Competitiveness & Sustainability of Chemicals Manufacturing’.
The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) promotes industrial development for poverty reduction and environmental sustainability. UNIDO jointly organised this national dialogue as well as a dialogue under ‘Clean Manufacturing in India’ (Swachh Udyog).

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has decided to provide a sum of Rs.50,000 crore to the All-India Financial Institutions (AIFIs) namely NABARD, SIDBI and NHB.
NABARD would receive Rs.25,000 crore, SIDBI would receive Rs.15,000 crore and NHB would receive a sum of Rs.10,000 crore as refinance credit facility.

Notes:
Dr Chintan Vaishnav has been appointed as the Mission director of Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), the flagship initiative under NITI Aayog.
He will take over from Ramanathan Ramanan, who has been leading AIM as its first mission director since June 2017. Chintan Vaishnav is a socio-technologist who is currently serving at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), US.

Notes:
Veteran Japanese scientist Isamu Akasaki, who shared a Nobel Prize in physics for the invention of blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs), passed away recently.
Akasaki was one of three Japanese-born researchers who was awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in physics. He was also a recipient of 2009 Kyoto Prize, Japan’s highest honor, recognizing developments in advanced technology.