Current Affairs Quiz - April 2025

Notes:
President Droupadi Murmu was honoured with the “Key of Honour” and made an honorary citizen of Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, on 7 April 2025. The award was presented by Carlos Moedas, Mayor of Lisbon, at the historic Câmara Municipal de Lisboa. This honour marks deepening ties between India and Portugal and acknowledges her role in promoting global friendship. President Murmu is on a two-nation official visit to Portugal and Slovakia from 7 to 10 April 2025.

Notes:
The Registrar General of India (RGI) has warned government and private hospitals for not reporting births and deaths on time, which is legally required. The Registrar General of India (RGI) is a permanent body under the Ministry of Home Affairs, created in 1949 by the Government of India. It is headed by the Registrar General and Ex-Officio Census Commissioner, usually a Joint Secretary-rank officer. The RGI manages the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969, to ensure accurate civil registration. It also conducts the Census of India, providing data on population size, growth, and characteristics. Along with the Census, the RGI handles demographic and language surveys across the country.

Notes:
The Investor Education and Protection Fund Authority (IEPFA) under the Ministry of Corporate Affairs and India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) under the Department of Posts signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) to launch Phase 2 of the “Niveshak Didi” initiative. “Niveshak Didi” trains women postal workers and community leaders as financial educators to improve financial literacy in rural and underserved areas. In Phase 1, over 55,000 people benefited from IPPB Financial Literacy Camps, with around 60% being women, mostly young and economically active from deep rural areas. Phase 2 will include 4,000 new camps led by 40,000 trained women promoting responsible investing, savings, digital banking, and fraud awareness.

Notes:
The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved the Modernization of Command Area Development and Water Management (M-CADWM) as a sub-scheme of Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY) for 2025–2026 with ₹1600 crore outlay. The scheme aims to modernize irrigation water supply from canals or other sources to farm gates using underground pressurized piped systems for up to 1 hectare. It will use technologies like Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) and Internet of Things (IoT) for water management and improve Water Use Efficiency (WUE). It will boost farm productivity and income. Irrigation Management Transfer (IMT) to Water User Societies (WUS) will ensure sustainability. These societies will be supported and linked to Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) or Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) for five years. The scheme aims to attract youth to modern irrigation methods.

Notes:
To promote tourism in Ladakh, the Department of Tourism, Union Territory of Ladakh is organizing events under the Apricot Blossom Festival 2025 in various apricot-growing regions of Leh and Kargil. Inspired by Meghalaya’s Cherry Blossom Festival, Ladakh started this festival two years ago to support ecotourism. The festival celebrates the month-long apricot blossom season, enhancing spring tourism in lesser-known areas.

Notes:
The Telangana government launched the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Rising Grand Challenge to solve public sector problems using AI technologies. Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy inaugurated the initiative, which will act as a unified data exchange platform with high-quality datasets from government and partner agencies. The platform enables real-world development, testing, and scaling of AI solutions with secure access to structured data. It encourages collaboration between the government, startups, industries, and academic institutions. The initiative is led by the IT Electronics and Communication Department with support from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). It focuses on sectors like education, healthcare, and transport to enhance governance and services. Each winning team for a use case will receive ₹15 lakh to run pilot projects in Telangana.

Notes:
Industrial output grew by only 2.9% in February 2025, the slowest in six months and below the market expectation of 4%. The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) measures short-term changes in industrial production and is published by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI). The current base year is 2011–12 to reflect the modern industrial structure.

Notes:
India, along with 62 countries, supported the world’s first global carbon tax on the shipping sector, approved by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) in London. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) is the global body that adopted the first global carbon tax on the shipping industry. A Carbon Tax is a type of environmental tax charged on the carbon content in fossil fuels like coal, oil, and gas. It aims to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by making pollution more expensive and promoting clean energy alternatives. The tax is calculated based on the amount of carbon dioxide (CO₂) or other GHGs released. It encourages a market-based climate solution, making industries shift to greener practices.

Notes:
Forest fires recently broke out in Phawngpui National Park in Mizoram, damaging nearly one-ninth of its total area, according to state forest officials. Phawngpui National Park, also called the Blue Mountain National Park, is in the southeastern corner of Mizoram, close to the India-Myanmar border. It is the highest peak in Mizoram, with an altitude of 2,157 meters above sea level. The park covers 50 square kilometres, overlooks the Chhimtuipui River, and offers views of Myanmar’s hill ranges.

Notes:
BatEchoMon stands for Bat Echolocation Monitoring, India’s first real-time automated bat monitoring system. It was developed by Kadambari Deshpande and Vedant Barje under Jagdish Krishnaswamy at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS), Bengaluru. It is part of the Long-Term Urban Ecological Observatory at IIHS’s School of Environment and Sustainability. BatEchoMon detects, records, analyses, and classifies bat sounds using echolocation. It uses an ultrasonic microphone, a Raspberry Pi microprocessor, solar-powered battery, and Wi-Fi unit. It activates at sunset and works through the night using a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) to identify bat calls.