Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - April, 2018

Notes:
In a bid to ease the cash crunch, the State Bank of India (SBI) has decided to allow depositors to withdraw cash from its Point of Sale (PoS) devices available with merchants. This “Cash@POS” facility will be available for customers of all banks and can be used in about 80% of SBI’s PoS devices across the country. According to guidelines issued by the Reserve Bank of India, Customer can use SBI & any other bank debit card to withdraw cash up to Rs 1,000 in Tier 3 to 6 & up to Rs 1,000 in Tier 1 & 2 cities per card per day. Presently, the bank will not be charging any fees for these withdrawals.

Notes:
On April 19, Lt Governor Anil Baijal has approved the Kejriwal government’s proposal mandating an hourly compensation of Rs 100 to consumers in case of unscheduled power cuts. As per the proposed policy, power discoms will have to pay their consumers for unscheduled power cuts, after first hour, at an hourly rate of Rs 100. With the LG’s approval, Delhi will become the first city in the country to have a policy to compensate consumers for unscheduled outages. There are three private power discoms including the BSES companies BYPL and BRPL, and the Tata Power Delhi Distribution Limited (TPDDL) that supply power to the city, barring areas under the New Delhi Municipal Council and the Delhi Cantonment. The compensation earned by the consumers will be adjusted against their monthly power bill. In case, the compensation is not paid by the discoms, the consumers can lodge a complaint with the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Authority (DERC). The amount of compensation in such cases will be Rs 5,000 or five times of the compensation payable, whichever is higher.

Notes:
Two 12-year-old football enthusiasts — Surya Varikuti and Rudresh Gaudnour — have been selected as India’s representatives at the global Football For Friendship (F4F) social programme in Russia. The F4F programme, supported by Gazprom and FIFA aims at developing youth football and a healthy lifestyle, as well as promoting tolerance, open-mindedness and respect for different cultures and nationalities between children from across the globe. This year, the F4F programme has expanded to 211 countries and regions. This is the second time that Surya will join young footballers from around the world in Moscow in June. The children will be part of the 32 International Teams of Friendship and play against each other in the Gazprom F4F International Championship. Rudresh will act as the young journalist and report on all the local and global activities of the F4F programme as part of the International Children’s Press Center. Surya and Rudresh will also participate in the Football for Friendship International Children’s Forum in Russia, where the youngsters will get a chance to meet their peers from other countries and share their experiences.

Notes:
The World Book and Copyright Day is observed every year on April 23 to raise public awareness of books and reading and pay tribute to authors in the book industry, professionals or volunteers. The day is being organized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) to promote reading, publishing and copyright. It is a symbolic date for world literature. In 1616, on this date, Miguel de Cervantes, William Shakespeare and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega died. The day is also known as International Day of the Book or World Book Days. Athens, the capital of Greece, has been designated as the UNESCO World Book Capital 2018 for the quality of its activities, supported by the entire book industry. Athens is the 18th city to become World Book Capital..

Notes:
Suresh Prabhu, Minister of Commerce & Industry and Civil Aviation, chaired the first meeting of the think tank on the Framework for National Policy on E-commerce in New Delhi on April 24th, 2018. The think tank on the Framework for National Policy on E-commerce has been established recently by the Department of Commerce. It will provide a credible forum for an inclusive and fact-based dialogue leading to recommendations for informed policy making, so that the country is adequately prepared to take advantage of the opportunities, and meet the challenges, that would arise from the next wave of advancements in digital economy. Approx representatives of 50 organizations participated in the meeting. The think tank will explore options for providing a fillip to entrepreneurship in digital economy. It will identify specific policy interventions for nurturing domestic firms and create jobs in e-commerce.

Notes:
As per World Bank (WB)’s latest report “Migration and Development Brief”, India is the highest recipient of remittances globally in 2017 with 69 billion, followed by China (64 billion), the Philippines (33 billion), Mexico (31 billion), Nigeria (22 billion), and Egypt (20 billion). In its report, the World Bank estimated that officially recorded remittances to low-and middle-income countries reached USD 466 billion in 2017. This was an increase of 8.5% over USD 429 billion in 2016. Remittances are expected to continue to increase in 2018, by 4.1% to reach 485 billion. Global remittances are expected to grow 4.6% to 642 billion in 2018. As per report, the longer-term risks to growth of remittances include stricter immigration policies in many remittance-source countries. Also, de-risking by banks and increased regulation of money transfer operators, both aimed at reducing financial crime, continue to constrain the growth of formal remittances.

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Diu Smart City has become the first city in India that runs on 100% renewable energy during daytime setting a new benchmark for other cities to become clean and green. Diu had been importing 73% of its power from Gujarat until last year. It has now adopted a two-pronged approach whereby a 9 MW solar park spread over 50 hectares rocky barren land has been developed besides installing solar panels on the roof tops on 79 government buildings thereby generating 1.3 MW annually. To further enhance its solar capacity, Diu also offers its residents a subsidy of Rs 10, 000-50,000 for installing 1-5 -KW rooftop solar panels. The city is saving about 13,000 tonnes of carbon emissions every year and due to low-cost solar energy, power tariffs have been cut in residential category by 10% last year and 15% this year.

Notes:
The Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) is tying up with the United States and Finland to develop a pollution-forecast system that will help anticipate particulate matter (PM) levels at least two days in advance and at a greater resolution than what is possible now. Currently, the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR), run out of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune, serves as the apex forecaster of pollution trends in Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and Ahmedabad. It generates a likely air quality profile, a day in advance, for these cities. IITM is an organisation under the MoES. The new system, to be jointly developed with expertise from the Finnish Meteorological Institute and the U.S.’ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, will use a different modelling approach as well as computational techniques from that employed in the SAFAR model.

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The World Malaria Day (WMD) is observed every year on April 25 to recognize global efforts to control malaria, which affects and claims millions of lives annually. Malaria is caused by parasites that are transmitted to people through the bites of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes. According to the World Malaria Report 2017 released by World Health Organisation (WHO), there were an estimated 216 million cases of malaria in 91 countries in 2016, an increase of 5 million cases over 2015. Also, deaths caused by the vector-borne disease were estimated around 445 000 in 2016, a similar number (446 000) to 2015. The 2018 theme “Ready to beat malaria” mark the importance of collective responsibility and commitment of global community in bringing together people on working towards making world free of malaria.

Notes:
World record holder Shahzar Rizvi claimed India’s first medal at the 2018 World Cup organised by the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) at Changwon, South Korea. He won the silver in the 10 meter air pistol event. Rizvi missed the gold by 0.2 points to Russia’s Artem Chernousov. Samuil Donkov of Bulgaria won the Bronze. With Rizvi’s silver, India gets eight more finals left to play over the next five competition days.