Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - April, 2017

Notes:
Sunaina Singh has been appointed the new vice chancellor of Nalanda University (NU). She is expected to take up the new assignment soon. Currently, she is vice chancellor of the English and Foreign Language University (EFLU), Hyderabad. The headquarters of NU is at Rajgir, Bihar. Dr.Vijay Pandurang Bhatka, who is the father of India’s first supercomputer and acclaimed scientist, is the Chancellor of the university.

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Gilbert Baker, who created the rainbow flag as a symbol for the gay community, has recently passed away in Kansas, United States. Baker’s flag was widely associated with LGBT rights causes.

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Rio Olympics silver medallist P V Sindhu from India has won the 2017 Women’s singles India Super Series tournament by defeating reigning Olympic champion Carolina Marin of Spain in the final by 21-19, 21-16 at Siri Fort Sports Complex in New Delhi. Beside this, Viktor Axelsen of Denmark clinched the men’s singles title of the tournament by defeating Chinese Taipei’s Tien Chen Chou in straight games.

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The Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore has topped the 2017 National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) rankings for higher educational institutions in overall ranking. IIT Madras stood at 2nd position, followed by IIT Bombay, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Delhi and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). The institutes are ranked by the National Bureau of Accreditation (NBA) based on their teaching and learning resources, graduation outcome, perception, outreach and inclusivity and research productivity. This year, the project has more than 800 new participants and some new categories has also been introduced in medicine and law. Apart from this, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras has topped the list in India Rankings 2017 in engineering category, followed by IIT Bombay and Kharagpur. Whereas, Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad bagged the first rank in management category while Miranda House, Delhi was ranked the top college. The 2017 India Rankings for higher educational institutions has been released by Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Prakash Javadekar in New Delhi on April 3, 2017.

Notes:
The World Autism Awareness Day (AWWD) is an internationally recognised day observed every year on April 2 to highlight the need to help improve the quality of life of those with autism so they can lead full and meaningful lives as an integral part of society. The 2017 theme is “Toward Autonomy and Self-Determination”.

Notes:
Dawit Isaak, an imprisoned Eritrean-Swedish journalist who was arrested in a crackdown on the media in September 2001 and was known for his critical and insightful reporting, has been chosen for the 2017 UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize. His present location is unknown. The $25,000 Prize is named in honour of Guillermo Cano Isaza, a Colombian journalist who was assassinated in 1986 in front of the offices of his El Espectador newspaper in Bogotá. It is awarded each year to an individual or organization that has persevered to protect press freedoms under adversity. The Prize will be awarded during the celebration of 2017 World Press Freedom Day (WPFD) on May 3, which will be hosted in Jakarta, Indonesia.

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The South Asia Sub-regional Economic Cooperation (SASEC) Finance Ministers’ meeting has been chaired by the Union Minister of Finance Arun Jaitley in New Delhi on April 3, 2017 to discuss the imperatives of a new way forward for sub-regional economic cooperation among countries under the SASEC program. The meeting has attended by the 7-Finance Ministers from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal and Sri Lanka apart from officials from these countries and the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The event is a unique opportunity for the member countries to discuss and exchange ideas and strive to foster better cooperation in the sub-region. Recently, Myanmar has also joined the SASEC programme as its 7th member.

Notes:
BP Kanungo has recently taken charge as the new Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for a period of three years in Mumbai, Maharashtra. He succeeded R Gandhi. Prior to this appointment, Kanungo was holding the position of Executive Director of RBI. He has worked in several functional areas of the banks such as foreign exchange management, banking and non-banking supervision, currency management, government and bank accounts and public debt. Kanungo has also served as the head of regional offices of RBI at Jaipur and Kolkata besides holding the position of the Banking Ombudsman for Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

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Japan has officially recognized bitcoin and digital currencies as legal money with effect from April 1, 2017, which will help the integration of digital currency into the legacy banking system through regulation. Thus, as per new law’s implementation, Bitcoin exchanges will also come under additional regulatory scrutiny. The recognition of cryptocurrency as a legal tender also means the applicability of regulations governing banks and financial institutions to crypto-currency exchange platforms. They will be required to comply with strict Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements, along with annual audits. Other requirements include meeting the stated capital and cyber security requirements to ensure consumer protection.

Notes:
K Prithika Yashini has become the India’s first-ever transgender person to become a police official, when she took charge as sub-inspector in Dharmapuri district in Tamil Nadu. In terms of judgement of the Madras High Court delivered in November 2015, directions were given to the Tamil Nadu Uniformed Services Recruitment Board (TNUSRB) to appoint K Prithika Yashini as a sub-inspector of police as she is entitled to get the job. The judgement further directed the TNUSRB to include transgender people as a “third category”, apart from the usual category of “male” and “female”.