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Current Affairs for TNPSC Exams - April 2017 Tamilnadu The second unit of Kudankulam Nuclear Power plant (KNPP) in Tamil Nadu has started commercial generation of power. It had attained its full power generation capacity of 1000 Megawatt in January 2017. It had attained criticality in July 2016 and was synchronized with southern grid in August 2016. From the first unit of KNPP, Tamil Nadu is getting 562 MW, Telangana 50 MW, Karnataka 221 MW and Kerala 133 MW Puduchery 33 MW. Tamil Nadu is expected to get 562MW from second unit also. The nuclear power generation has gone up to 6,780MW in the country with power generation in the second unit. The 1000MW KNPP is built with Russian expertise. K Prithika Yashini became India’s first-ever transgender person to become a police official, after she took charge as sub-inspector in Dharmapuri district in Tamil Nadu. Her appointment was made as per the Madras High Court order delivered in November 2015. The court had directed 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 country also further had directed the TNUSRB to include transgender people as a “third category”, apart from the usual category of “male” and “female”. India India’s first International research centre for Foot and Mouth disease of cattle and buffalos was inaugurated at Argul (Bhubaneswar), Odisha. The research centre has been constructed in joint collaboration of UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAT). It will conduct research on viral disease of cattle and buffaloes. It has the facility for safe handling and storage of live Foot and Mouth disease virus that essentially is required for control of the disease. It will collect samples from all over the country to find a cure of the disease. Notably, India is suffering a loss of Rs. 23,000 annually due to Foot and Mouth disease of cattle and buffalos. The Union Defence Ministry has allowed Arunachal Pradesh government to use the functional Advance Landing Grounds (ALGs) in the state for civilian purpose. The Ziro, Mechuka, Walong, Aalo, Pasighat and Tuting ALGs across the state have been developed by the Defence Ministry and are under the direct control of the Indian Air Force (IAF). State government can approach the Union Ministry of Civil Aviation for construction of civil terminal at these ALGs and for scheduled civil operations. State-run NTPC (National Thermal Power Corporation Limited) has crossed the milestone of 50 Gigawatts power generation capacity. It achieved this feat after commissioning of 500 Megawatts unit at Unchahar in Uttar Pradesh, increasing the total installed capacity of NTPC
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to 50,498. NTPC limited is CPSU operational under Ministry of Power. It is India’s largest power generator. It was established in 1975. Government holds 70% of its equity shares as of May 2015. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has decided to set up a separate enforcement department to oversee possible breaches of rules and take punitive actions against those who violate them. The department will develop a broad policy for enforcement and initiate action against the regulated entities for violation consistent with such policy. It will serve as a centralised wing to deal with banks only for enforcement action. Growth of the country’s eight core sectors slipped to an over one-year low of 1% in February 2017. This was mainly due to a fall in output of crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertiliser and cement. The eight core sectors had expanded 9.4% in February 2016, and 3.4% in January 2016. In February 2016, crude oil output contracted 3.4%, natural gas output by 1.7%, refinery products output fell 2.3%, fertiliser output declined 5.3%, and cement output dropped 15.8%. But coal and steel production recorded positive growth during the month. The eight core industries comprise close to 37.9% of the weight of items included in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP). The electricity has the maximum weight (of 10.32%) among the eight sectors followed by Steel (6.68%), Petroleum Refinery (5.94%), Crude Oil production (5.22 %), Coal production (4.38 %), Cement (2.41%), Natural Gas production (1.71 %) and Fertilizer production (1.25%). Japan has committed an official development assistance (ODA) of 371 billion yen (about Rs 21,590 crore) for various infrastructure projects, including the dedicated freight corridor, in India for the FY 2016-2017. The total commitment of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) ODA during two financial years 2015-16 and 2016-17 is 761.40 billion yen, which is 43.50% of the total target for five years. In the last few years, the economic partnership between India and Japan has steadily progressed. It has further consolidated and strengthened the Strategic and Global Partnership between India and Japan. Israel’s Government has approved the first West Bank settlement in two decades. Decision in this regard was taken in Security Cabinet meeting presided by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The new settlement will be built near the existing settlement of Shilo, which is nearby to the Amona site, an illegal settler outpost that was demolished in February 2017 under the orders of Israel’s Supreme Court. West Bank and east Jerusalem are disputed territories claimed by the Palestinians which were captured by Israel in 1967, as parts of a future state. Mizoram became 27th state to join Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana (UDAY) scheme meant for revival of debt-stressed discoms. In this regard, Union Government and Mizoram Government signed a MOU for improving operational efficiency of the Power Distribution department of the State. The scheme would also allow speedy availability of cheaper power to more than 22 thousand households in the state that are still without electricity. The availability
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of 24X7 power to households will boost the economy, provide more employment opportunities and improve the standard of living of the people of Mizoram. Government has formally launched Bharat Stage-IV (BS-IV) grade transportation fuel across the country to keep carbon emission in check. The launch came days after the Supreme Court banned sale and registration of BS-III vehicles from 1 April, 2017. It sets target of ushering in BS-VI fuel by April 2020 by skipping BS-V fuel. All state-run oil marketing companies will provide BS-IV-compliant fuel at their 53,500 retail fuel stations across the country. Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated Chenani-Nashri Tunnel, country’s longest road tunnel that links Kashmir Valley with Jammu by an all-weather route. The 9-km-long tunnel passes through the lower Himalayan mountain range on Jammu-Srinagar National Highway 44. It cuts the distance between Jammu and Srinagar to around 250 km from the current 350 km. The 9-km long ‘Chenani-Nashri Tunnel has been built at an altitude of 1,200 meters. It is also Asia’s longest bi-directional highway tunnel. It has been built at the cost of Rs. 2,500 crore. Myanmar became the 7th member of South Asia Sub-regional Economic Cooperation (SASEC) program of Asian Development Bank (ADB). It was officially made member at the SASEC Finance Ministers’ meeting held in New Delhi and chaired by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley The Union Ministry of Textiles has launched PowerTex India, a three-year comprehensive scheme for Powerloom Sector Development. The PowerTex India scheme aims to boost common infrastructure and modernisation of the powerloom sector in the country. The two new schemes are Pradhan Mantri Credit Scheme (PMCS) for powerloom weavers and solar energy scheme (SEC) for powerlooms. PMCS for powerlooms: Under it, financial assistance, including margin money subsidy and interest reimbursement, will be given as against the credit facility under Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana to the decentralised power loom units. SEC for powerlooms: Under it, financial subsidy for the installation of the Solar Photo Voltaic Plants will be provided to alleviate the problems of power cuts. Government will provide subsidy of 50% to power loom units having maximum eight looms for adopting solar energy for captive use either in grid or off grid system. Other components of the scheme: In-situ Upgradation of Plain Powerlooms; Group Workshed Scheme (GWS); Yarn Bank Scheme; Common Facility Centre (CFC); Facilitation, IT, Awareness, Market Development and Publicity for Powerloom Schemes, Tex Venture Capital Fund and Grant-in-Aid and Modernisation & Upgradation of Powerloom Service Centres (PSCs). Five associates and the Bharatiya Mahila Bank have officially merged with country’s largest lender State Bank of India (SBI). With this merger, SBI joins the league of top 50 banks globally in terms of assets. The five associate banks are: State Bank of Bikaner and
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Jaipur, State Bank of Hyderabad, State Bank of Mysore, State Bank of Patiala and State Bank of Travancore. The Union Cabinet approved signing of an agreement between the Union Ministry of Rural Development and Centre on Integrated Rural Development for Asia and the Pacific (CIRDAP) for establishment of CIRDAP Centre at National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj (NIRD&PR), Hyderabad. CIRDAP Centre will give NIRD&PR advantage to have first-hand knowledge of networking with organizations specialized in rural development programmes and to build a repository of institutional knowledge for NIRD&PR. This Centre will also help NIRD&PR to enhance its status in the region through linkages with other ministries and institutes in the CIRDAP Member Countries (CMCs). It will also work on the implementation of integrated rural development, particularly poverty alleviation programmes within CMC member countries. Under the Central GST (CGST) Act, tax evasion of over Rs 5 crore under the GST regime will be cognizable and non-bailable offence with the police having authority to make an arrest without a warrant. If a person is arrested for a non-cognizable and bailable offence, the Deputy/ Assistant Commissioner of CGST/SGST can release him on bail and he will be subject to the same provisions as an officer in-charge of a police station under section 436 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. The government has set ambitious target date of July 1, 2017 for roll out of the GST, which will subsume indirect taxes such as central excise, service tax, VAT and other local levies. India and the United Kingdom have decided to set up a 240 million pound Green Growth Equity Fund to finance clean energy projects in India. Decision in this regard was taken at the 9th India-UK Economic and Financial Dialogue in Delhi. Both India and UK are going to make a contribution of 120 million pounds each in the fund which will focus initial investments in India’s rapidly growing energy and renewables market. The Fund will be a sub-fund of National Infrastructure and Investment Fund (NIIF) which was set up by India in 2015 to finance greenfield as well as brownfield projects and stalled projects. Tripura Government has signed two agreements with the Union Ministry of Power to enhance power supply in distribution network. The agreements will enable state to get the benefits under the Central government scheme. As per the agreements, state has accepted the provision of Ujjwal Distribution Assurance Yojana (UDAY) and Transmission Service Agreement of Union Power Ministry to upgrade the existing transmission network to reduce Aggregate Technical and Commercial Loss. Renowned Hindustani classical vocalist Kishori Amonkar passed away(84)She was recognised as one of the foremost singers in the Hindustani tradition and as an innovative exponent of the Jaipur gharana. She was born on April 10, 1932. She had learned classical music from her mother Mogubai Kurdikar who was the well-known vocalist. She also had developed her own personal style, which reflected the influence of other gharanas and was
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generally regarded as an individual variant of the Jaipur tradition. She was primarily known for her skillful singing of classical khayals set in the traditional ragas of Hindustani music, but also performed the lighter classical genres of thumri, bhajans and film music. She was awarded the Padma Bhushan (1987) and Padma Vibhushan (2002) and became fellow of Sangeet Natak Akademi (2010). The 19th Commonwealth Forestry Conference was held at Forest Research Institute, Dehradun, Uttarakhand. This is for the second time India hosted the conference after it was hosted for first time in 1968. Scientists and experts from 49 member countries of the Commonwealth had participated in it. They focused issues on biodiversity conservation and management, livelihood and economic security from forests, diversification, multiple uses and sustainable harvest, forest and climate change. They also shared their ideas and researches on ‘Forests for Prosperity and Posterity’ in consonance with Aichi targets of the UN Convention on Conservation of Biological Diversity (UNC-CBD) and Sustainable Development Goals. The number of beneficiaries of Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana for providing free of cost LPG (cooking gas) connections to BPL households has crossed 2 crore mark since its launch in May 2016. The success of the scheme shows that how it is serving as a novel means of women empowerment and achieving the goals of providing clean fuel and a better life to the people. The Ujjwala Yojana was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May 2016 from Maldepur Morh, Ballia in Uttar Pradesh. Tagline for the scheme: Swachh Indhan, Behtar Jeevan. Purpose of the scheme: Empower women and protect their health by shifting them from traditional cooking based on unclean cooking fuels or on fossil fuels to clean cooking gas. Beneficiary: Under the scheme, an adult woman member of a BPL will be given deposit-free LPG connection with financial assistance of Rs 1,600 per connection by the Centre. Identification of beneficiaries: It will be through the Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) in consultation with state governments and Union territories. Implementing Ministry: The scheme is being implemented by the Union Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.Targets: 8,000 crore has been earmarked for providing 5 crore LPG connections to poor households within 3 years by 2019. The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) of the Union Defence Ministry has approved proposal to procure fresh batch of Barak surface-to-air missiles (SAM) for the Indian Navy’s warships from Israel. The procurement of the missiles will enhance India’s maritime capability in view of the changing security dynamics in the Indian Ocean region (IOR). The Indian Institute of Sciences (IISc), Bengaluru was adjudged as the best Indian university in the 2017 National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) released by Union Human Resource Development Ministry. This year it is second edition NIRF survey and was released as part of the India Rankings 2017 for the Educational Institutions. List of Top 5 indian Rankings: In Over All Category : Indian Institute of Science, Banglore. Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. Indian
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Institute of Technology, Kharagpur Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi In Engineering : Indian Institute of Technology, Madras Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. In Management: Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad Indian Institute of Management, Banglore Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode In University : Indian Institute of Science, Banglore Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi Banaras Hindu University Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Banglore Jadavpur University, Kolkata, West Bengal. In Colleges : Miranda House, Delhi Loyola College, District Chennai Shri Ram College of Commerce, New Delhi Bishop Heber College, District Tiruchirapalli Atma Ram Sanatan Dharma College,New Delhi In Pharmacy : Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research, Mohali, S.A.S. Nagar (Mohali), Punjab University Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chandigarh Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research, Hyderabad. India and Malaysia have inked seven agreements to foster deeper relationship between the two countries. The agreements were exchanged in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Malaysian counterpart Najib Abdul Razak in New Delhi who was on six day state visit to India. Air Services Agreement: It is revised ASA with Malaysia signed by both countries in 1974. MoU on Cooperation Fertilizers sector: It deals with development of proposed Urea and Ammonia Manufacturing Plant in Malaysia and offtake of exisiting surplus urea from Malaysia to India. MoU on cooperation in Sports: It envisages cooperation through exchange of sportspersons, instructors, information on sports regimen and training curricula, etc. MoU for cooperation in training: It was signed between Malaysian Human Resource Fund (HRDF and EDII, Ahmedabad. It envisages EDII, Ahmedabad to carry out training and other capacity building programmes, as necessary on behalf of the Human Resource Development, Malaysia. MoU on Mutual Recognition of the Educational Qualifications: It was singed between Association of Indian Universities (AIU) and Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA). It establishes recognition of equivalence of various degrees awarded by educational institutions in both countries and envisages eventual signing of mutual recognition agreement. MoU on collaboration in technology development in the field of Palm Oil: It was signed between Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) and India’s Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT). MoU on implementation of 4th Generation Technology Park in Andhra Pradesh: It was signed between MIGHT Technology Malaysia and AP Economic Development Board. The Malaysian industry-government group for high power technology (MIGHT) will act as facilitator to develop cluster in AP. As part of park, packing material will be made from recycled agricultural materials.
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The Union Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment has launched Rashtriya Vayoshri Yojana in Nellore District of Andhra Pradesh. The Scheme aims at providing physical aids and assisted-living devices for senior citizens belonging to Below Poverty Line (BPL) category. The scheme will be distribute free of cost physical aids and assisted-living devices for senior citizens belonging to BPL category in Camp mode. It is the first-of-its-kind Central Sector Scheme (CCS) in India, to be fully funded by the Union Government. It is expected to benefit 5,20,000 Senior Citizens and its expenditure implementation will be met from the “Senior Citizens’ Welfare Fund“. The Union Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises has withdrawn subsidy given to mild hybrid vehicles under FAME India (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric vehicles in India) scheme. Earlier, mild hybrid, strong hybrid, plug-in hybrid and pure electric vehicles were given incentives under the FAME India scheme. India and six other South Asian countries of South Asia Subregional Economic Cooperation (SASEC) have pledged to improve intra-regional connectivity to boost trade and tourism. Decision in this regard was taken at the Finance ministers of India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Myanmar meeting held in New Delhi to reshape SASEC. They also came out with the SASEC Vision for 2025 and adopted operational plan 2016-25. SASEC Vision: It is a new strategic road map to guide the sub-region’s development through 2025. It reflects member nations’ commitment to tap into latent industrial demand and promote sub-regional industry-to-industry links Operational plan 2016- 25: It defines the strategic objectives and operational priorities in transport, trade facilitation and energy as well as for the development of economic corridor. The members are eying for $70 billion incremental GDP and 20 million jobs by 2025 so that SASEC become better, stronger and faster to make South Asia one of the fastest growing sub-regions in the world. Jammu & Kashmir Government has banned the usage of polythene bags below 50 microns in the state. It also made mandatory to have name, registration number of the manufacturer and thickness of the material printed on bag in English. Violator will be liable for punishment up to one month in jail or fine of Rs 5000 or both. The new guidelines and regulations will facilitate proper recycling of plastic waste, reducing its impact on ecology. The Uttar Pradesh government has constituted six-member committee to implement its decision of waving off farmers’ agricultural loan. It will be headed by Chief Secretary Rahul Bhatnagar. The committee has been asked to coordinate with Nationalized Banks, Government, Cooperative, and Rural Banks from where farmers have taken agro loans till March 2016 and formulate the strategy to implement the government’s decision. It also has been asked to prepare a working plan to arrange financial support to the banks. Earlier in its first cabinet meeting, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath cabinet had decided to wave off farmer’s agricultural loan up to Rs. 1 lakh. It will benefit about 86 lakhs small and marginalized farmers of the state.
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Haryana Government has decided to provide one-time grant of Rs 21,000 to all those families whose third girl child was born on or after August 24, 2015 under the ‘Aapki Beti, Hamari Beti’ scheme. Under the scheme, the eligible families will receive the amount irrespective of their caste, creed, religion, income and number of sons. Its purpose is to combat the problem of declining child sex ratio and promote girls’ education in the state. Madhya Pradesh government has launched ‘MP e-nagarpalika’ mobile application to provide various municipal services online. The app will offer 378 services like online payment of property tax, birth/ marriage/death certificates, building permission etc. It will also register complaints related to water, garbage, streetlights etc. It also has online payment gateway. The mobile app was launched as part of Rs 225-crore ‘e-nagarpalika’ project, under which all municipal services will be made available online on a unified web platform. India was ranked third for the third year in a row in a doping violation report published by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) for 2015. In 2015, 117 Indian athletes were punished after testing positive for banned substances. India followed the Russian Federation (176) and Italy (129), the same position as in the reports of 2013 and 2014. Namami Brahmaputra the river festival is being organized by Assam Government in 21 districts of Assam. The board of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has cleared a proposal to introduce banknotes of Rs200 denomination. The decision was taken at the RBI board meeting held in Mumbai in March 2017. The process of printing the new Rs 200 notes is likely to begin after June 2017 once the government officially approves the new denomination. Earlier in November 2016, RBI had announced the withdrawal of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes, amounting to around 86% of currency in circulation of Rs 17.9 trillion. Since then, it has replaced these denominations with the new Rs 2,000 and redesigned Rs 500 bank notes.
The Child rights campaign launched by Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi in Dhaka recently is 100 Million for 100 Million
The Union Cabinet has approved the signing of the Air Services Agreement (ASA) between India and Georgia. The Agreement is based on latest International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) template keeping in view of developments in Civil Aviation sector. Its objective is to improve the air connectivity between the two countries. Presently there is no ASA between both countries. ASA is the basic legal framework for any air operation between the two countries. The Union Cabinet has approved MoU between India and Bangladesh for fairway development on two stretches. They are Ashuganj-Zakiganj stretch of Kushiyara river and Sirajganj-Daikhawa stretch of Jamuna river. It will be implemented mainly in the Indo- Bangladesh protocol route by undertaking necessary dredging jointly by the two countries. The MoU will considerably help to reduce the logistics cost of cargo movement to North
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Eastern states of India. It will also reduce the dependence and congestion through the narrow Siliguri Chicken’s Neck corridor. The Union Cabinet has approved MoU between India and France to implement Technical Cooperation Program in civil aviation sector. It was signed between the Airports Authority of India (AAI) and its French counterpart, Civil Aviation Authority (DGAC), France. The Technical Cooperation Program will be beneficial for enhancement of skills and expertise of AAI’s officers. It will be also beneficial for imparting training of engineers, technicians, managers etc. The Union Cabinet has approved MoU between India and Bangladesh in the field of judicial sector cooperation. It aims at developing, promoting and strengthening mutual cooperation between judiciaries of the two countries. It will also facilitate promoting mutual interaction among judges and officials at various levels of judiciary through exchange visits, training and academic programmes. It will also encourage mutual exchange of information on latest developments in field of law and justice. It will enable exchange of knowledge in infrastructure and information technology (IT) in this field. The Union Cabinet has approved MoU on passenger cruise services on the coastal and protocol routes between India and Bangladesh. It will facilitate starting a regular movement of passengers and tourists in water crafts between the two countries. The MoU will promote people to people (P2P) contact and cooperation between the both countries in respect of economic, social and cultural advancement. It will also generate employment opportunities for the people of both neighbouring countries. The Union Cabinet has approved closure of the Mahatma Gandhi Pravasi Suraksha Yojana (MGPSY). The scheme was launched in 2012 to address the social security-related issues of the Emigration Check Required (ECR)-category workers going abroad for employment to ECR countries. The scheme was closed because subscription under it was very low and no new subscription was received for more than a year. The closure of the scheme will obviate the avoidable recurring administrative and record-keeping expenditure. The India- United Arab Emirates (UAE) cultural celebrations festival was launched at Abu Dhabi with a tribute video featuring both Mahatma Gandhi and late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. The programme supported by the Ministry of Culture and Knowledge Development, UAE and the Indian Business and Professional Group. India-UAE Cultural Celebrations celebrates the long-standing relationship between the two countries and looks to strengthen existing cultural and economic ties.The initiative proposes to bring some of the diversity of India to the UAE by bringing artists from both the countries on the same platform to work and collaborate. The 2017 National conference on Communicating India was held in New Delhi. It was organized by the Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF) in collaboration with the India Media Centre, University of Westminster, London, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library and Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) with the association of Prasar Bharati. The three main themes of the conference were ‘Telling India’s story to the world’, ‘Communicating via Journalism’ and ‘Dialogue with Diaspora’. The Union Cabinet has cleared approved setting up an independent rail regulator, named Rail Development Authority (RDA). It will be based in Delhi and will be set up through an executive order. It will be responsible for recommending passenger fares, setting
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performance standards for rail operations and creating level playing policy for private sector participation. Primary functions: (i) Tariff determination: (ii) Ensuring fair play: (iii) Setting standards: The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has approved extension of the implementation phase of the Crime and Criminals Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) Project for another year beyond 31 March 2017. The proposal in this regard was forwarded by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs. The extension will help in achieving the remaining objectives of the project comprehensively. CCTNS is a mission mode project under the National e-Governance Plan of Central Government that aims at creating a comprehensive and integrated system for enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of policing by adopting of principle of e-Governance. The Union Cabinet has given its approval for signing of the Collaborative Agreement with French National Research Agency (ANR), France. The MoU will be signed for supporting the Belmont Forum Secretariat from January, 2015 to December, 2017 at a total estimated expenditure of 40,000 Euros. The Cabinet also approved continued financial support to Belmont Forum Secretariat beyond 2017. Belmont Forum is a high level group of the world’s major and emerging funders of global environmental change research and international science councils. It was established in 2009. Members: India, Australia, Brazil, Canada, European Commission, France, Germany, Japan, Netherland, South Africa, UK and US etc. India is represented by the Union Ministry of Earth Science (MoES) since 2012. The Union Cabinet has approved the MoU between India and Australia on cooperation in the field of Health and Medicine. The MoU will involve cooperation through joint initiatives in the Health Sector and strengthen bilateral ties between both countries. The main areas of Co- operation are Communicable diseases such as Tuberculosis and Malaria. Non- Communicable Diseases and Mental Health,Anti-Microbial Resistance and responding to public health emergencies. Regulation of vaccines, pharmaceuticals and medical devices. Digital Health,Tobacco Control Any other area of cooperation decided mutually by both countries. The Union Cabinet has approved the agreement on Audio Visual Co-Production India and Bangladesh. Decision in this regard was taken at the Union Cabinet Meeting chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi. It will cover co-production of films, animations and documentary films. An audio-visual co-production made under it, will be entitled to all the benefits which may be accorded to any national audio-visual work by both countries in accordance with their respective laws and regulations. The Union Cabinet has approved the MoU on Cooperation in the field of Mass Media between India and Bangladesh. Decision in this regard was taken at the Union Cabinet Meeting chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi. Both countries will facilitate training and study tour of personnel in the field of mass media and public relations. They will encourage the exchange of experts in the field of Mass Media
Uttar Pradesh government is planned to set up 6 AIIMS like institutes and 25 medical colleges in next 5 years
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Noted author and filmmaker Ajey Jhankar(67) passed away. He was known for his novels such as Sarkarnama and Drohpar. The movie ‘Singularity’ by film makar Roland Joffe was based on his novel ‘Drohparv’. He was the co-screenwriter for the film. He was also known for his marketing venture ‘Market Missionaries. Union govt has announced additional 50 working days under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural employment Programme ( MNREGA) scheme in 8 drought hit states includes Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh . Gunotsav programme to improve quality of school education in the state was conducted for four days in Assam. Gunotsav was actually an initiative of Gujarat Government. A three day National Children’s Film festival was inaugurated in Vishakapatnam by Mr. M. Venkaiah Naidu. This is hosted by Children’s Film society of India and Govt of Andhra Pradesh Madhya Pradesh Govt has launched Deendayal Antodaya Rasoi Yojana to provide food for the poor in urban areas at subsidized rate. In its first phase it will be implemented in 51 districts of the State . In this scheme full meals will be provide for Rs. 5. RBI cut downs NEFT( National Electronic Fund Transfer) clearance time for faster transfers from one hourly batches to half hourly batches . This will enhance the efficiency of NEFT service and add to customer convenience. TRAI has ordered Reliance Jio to withdraw its Summer Surpise Offer. The World Economic Forum has announced 2017 Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index. India was placed at 40th Position among 136 countries. Spain. France and Germany placed at 1st , 2nd and 3rdplace respectively. Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana ( RKVY) under the Union ministry of Agriculture and a wing of ISRO , National Remote Sensing Centre (MRSC) have signed an MOU for geo tagging agricultural assets such as crops area, ponds, ware houses and laboratories, etc. Geo tagging is nothing but the process of adding geographical identification like latitudinal or longitudinal to photos or videos. India ranked 9th position in bribery and corruption practices in businesses among 41 countries as per EMEIA survey. (EMEIA is Europe , Middle East, India and Africa ) India inked a deal with Israel for advanced medium -range and surface – air missile systems ( MRSAM) systems Sex ratio in Haryana has improved a lot after launching “ Beti Bachao , Beti padho “ Programme. For the first time in the State’s history it marked 950 as said by CM Manohar Lal Khattar. “Purohityam “ a one year diploma course on Hindu priesthood will be launched from July 2017 in Madhya Pradesh by the state run Maharishi Patanjali Sanskrit Sansthan . Basic Qualification for enrolling in it is class X irrespective of religion, caste or sex. The foundation stone for multi modal terminal and four lane bridge on the river Ganga was laid by PM Narendra Modi in Sahibganj district of Jharkhand. This multi modal terminal is the important component for the development of National Waterways (NW1) from Varnasi (UP) to Haldia (WB) and the four lane bridge on the Ganga river will be connecting Sahibganj to Manihari inKathihar district of Bihar.
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US President Donald Trump has nominated Indian-American Vishal Amin as Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator in the Executive Office of the President (IP czar). US President Donald Trump has nominated prominent Indian-American law expert Neomi Rao as Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) (regulatory czar). RBI has changed the reverse repo rate from 5.75 to 6% for the first bimonthly monitory policy review of the financial year 2017-18 and the repo rate was kept unchanged at 6.25% The Central Board of Direct Taxes ( CBDT) has clarified that the ban on transactions of Rs. 2 lakhs more is not applicable for withdrawal in banks and post offices. Bharat ke veer”- a mobile app was launched by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs to make people to contribute for the family of Martyrs from central para military forces .This was launched during the function held on April 9th on the occasion of Valour day of CRPF. “Swachhagraha – Bapu Ko Karyanjali – Ek Abhiyan, Ek Pradarshani” an exhibition was held in New Delhi to celebrate the Centenary year (100 years) of Champaran Satyagraha Nomadic Elephant 2017, two week Indo-Mongolian Joint Military Exercise of its 12th edition was inaugurated in Vairengte in Mizoram. The Lok sabha has passed the Motor Vehicles( Amendment bill ) 2016 by a voice vote to give importance on road safety , controlling pollution and to prevent accidents . Parliament has passed the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order (Amendment) Bill 2017 after it was passed by Rajya Sabha. It was already passed by Lok Sabha in March 2017. The Bill seeks to amends the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950 and the Constitution (Pondicherry) Scheduled Castes Order, 1964. Indian national and alleged RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) agent Kulbhushan Jadhav who was sentenced to death by Pakistan’s Field General Court Martial Sudharshan Patnaik , renowned sand artist has been selected to represent India in the Moscow sand art chamiponship2017
The Supreme Court sought responses from 6 states namely Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh on a plea seeking a ban on cow vigilante ( “ Gau Raksha”) groups there. This is due to an incident at Alwar ( Rajasthan) where a man was killed allegedly by a mob of cow vigilante group. The Union government decided to revive 40 year old North Koel irrigation project to address the water requirements in Bihar and Jharkhand. The Union Ministry of food processing is going to introduce SAMPADA scheme for food processing sector . SAMPADA ( Scheme for Agro-Marine Produce Processing and Development of Agro-Processing Cluster). This scheme aimed at reducing the food wastage and doubling farmer’s income by 2022.The Ministry also planned to launch three new schemes namely ‘Creation/ Expansion of Food Processing and Preservation Capacities’, ‘New Agro-Processing Clusters‘ and ‘Backward and Forward Linkages’.
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The Union Ministry of Power has launched URJA MITRA app for state power Distribution utilities to disseminate power outage information to rural/ urban power consumers through SMS/ push/email notifications across the country. It is to provide the real time information. This can be availed through web platform www.urjamitra.com Parliament has passed the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) (Prevention and Control) Bill, 2017. It is the first national HIV law in South Asia. The Union Government has set up an ‘Inter- Ministerial Monitoring-cum-Coordination Committee’ to monitor the UDAN (Ude Desh Ka Aam Naagrik) scheme.UDAN is a regional air connectivity scheme connecting unserved and under-served airports. In order to further promote economic, trade and investment relations between the two countries for creating favourable conditions for more comprehensive economic cooperation. India and Georgia have signed a joint statement to launch joint feasibility study on the free trade agreement between the two countries. The statement was signed by Union Commerce & Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Georgia’s Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development Giorgi Gakharia. Based on the recommendation of the sub-group of Chief Ministers on rationalisation of centrally sponsored schemes , the Union Government has reduced the number of centrally sponsored schemes (CSS) from 66 to 28 umbrella schemes, effective from the financial year 2016-17. Under the core scheme( total 20), the funds shared will be in the ratio of 60:40 for general category states and for the 8 north eastern states and 3 Himalayan states the ratio will be 90:10.Under the core of core schemes (total 6) the fund is fully shared by Centre. Some of the schemes included in this are MGRNEA, National Social Assistance Plan and the National Programme for Persons with Disabilities. Under the Optional Scheme ( total 2) The fund- sharing pattern between the Centre and states is 50:50 for general category states and 80:20 for Northeastern and hilly states. These schemes are for social protection and social inclusion. Lok Sabha has passed Constitution 123rd Amendment Bill, 2017 which seeks to give constitutional status to National Commission for Backward Classes. It seeks to insert a new article 338B in the constitution which provides for NCBC, its composition, mandate, functions and various officers. Insert a new article 342-A which empowers the president to notify the list of socially and educationally backward classes of that state / union territory. In case of a state, president will make such notification after consultation with the Governor. Under the same article, it is proposed that parliament by making a law can include or exclude the classes from the central list of backward classes The Bank Board Bureau (BBB) has recommended that Government should bring in reforms in the compensation process in public sector banks (PSBs) on the lines of Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs).
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India and Australia have singed six agreements, these agreements were signed in presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his visiting Australian counterpart Malcolm Turnbull after delegation level talks in various fields such as terrorism, sports, health, environment, aviation sector to boost bilateral cooperation. The G20 Digital Ministerial Meeting on Digital Economy was held in Dusseldorf, Germany. Concerned Ministers for the digital economy from G20 countries had participated in it. It was concluded with adaptation of declaration on ‘Shaping Digitalisation for an Interconnected World’. Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh Govenment has announced that they are going to impose liquor ban in the states in near future UP government has srapped of Samajwadi Pension Scheme which was initiated by previous Akhilesh Yadav Government. Indian Railways entered into an agreement with Bharat Heavy Electricals (PSU) for installing roof top SPV systems recently . India’s first ever micro- drama festival named Thepsis was held in New Delhi Haryana Government has decided to increase the number of Science Club in its Schools Anuja Ravindra Dhir ( Indian origin) became the first non white judge at the Old Bailey Court Of London Himachal Pradesh celebrates its 70th Himachal function in Chamba, HP on April 15, 2017 The Uttar Pradesh government has signed “Power for All” pact with the Centre to provide 24×7 power supply to all the households in the State.Power for All is a joint initiative of Central and state government. Punjab government has prohibited VIP names (including MP’s, MLA’s) on plaques and foundation stones. Further, the order has clarified that henceforth all projects and programmes, including those inaugurated by the CM, would be “dedicated to the people of Punjab”. India Licensing Expo is scheduled to be held in Mumbai on August 20-21. The expo will be organised by License India, India’s first licensing media Services Company and supported by Franchise India. The expo aims to encourage and enable Indian licensing industry to take advantage and network, capitalise on opportunities and grow bigger and faster in the given peripheries. Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilizers and Chemicals Ltd (GNFC) township at Bharuch (Gujarat) had become India’s first 100% cashless township after demonetization. Prime Minister has launched 81 cashless/less cash townships in Nagpur across 12 states The chosen 81 townships belonged to that of central public sector companies such as ONGC, Indian Oil, NTPC, SAIL, BHEL, NMDC, CRPF, BSF and Police Lines and also to private sector townships like Reliance, Essar, Adani, Birla Aditya, Welspun etc. The 81 townships
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included 56 in Gujarat and 25 in 11 states including Delhi, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar and Chhatisgarh. RBI issues “Revised Prompt Corrective Action (PCA) framework for NPA ( Non performance assets )in banks.” Former Governor of Jammu and Kashmir Girish Chandra Saxena has passed away Prime Minister of India has launched new BHIM-Aadhaar platform from Nagpur. This App will help people to pay digitally using their biometric data like thumb imprint on a merchant’s biometric enabled device like a smart phone or a biometric reader. It is to be noted here BHIM App was launched in December 2016 to provide a one-stop solution for all digital payments. Prime Minister of India has also launched two new offers rewarding BHIM users. BHIM - Referral bonus Scheme and BHIM – Cash Back Scheme Under BHIM Cash back scheme - The merchants can get cash back of up to Rs 300 per month, with each merchant eligible to win up to Rs 1800 in 6 months. Under BHIM -Referral bonus Scheme – the existing users refers new users and Upon completion of minimum 3 unique successful transactions amounting to Rs 50 to any 3 unique users, the bonus will be paid to both the referrer and the referee. Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) issued a set of guidelines for celebrities endorsing products. ASCI have barred celebrities to endorse product/treatment/remedy that is prohibited under The Drugs & Magic Remedies Act (Objectionable Advertisements) and the Drugs & Cosmetic Act. The Income Tax department has launched the second phase of the ‘Operation Clean Money’ to investigate over 60,000 individuals with an aim to detect black money generation post demonetisation. The first phase of ‘Operation Clean Money’ was launched on January 31, 2017. This operation will help in eliminating the black money and will widen the tax base. Loans disbursed under the Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY) have crossed its target of Rs 1.8 lakh crore in the financial year 2016-17. The objective of this scheme to launch a Micro Units Development and Refinance Agency (MUDRA) Bank to support the entrepreneurs of Scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other backward classes entrepreneurs in the MSME sector. The scheme was launched on April 8, 2015. The scheme provides loans to micro units in three categories ranging from Rs. 50,000 to Rs. 10 lakh. Shishu: Loan up to Rs 50,000 Kishore: Loan ranging from Rs 50,000 to Rs 5 lakh Tarun: Loan ranging from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 10 lakh. Haryana government has launched ‘Operation Durga’ to ensure women safety in the state. ‘Operation Durga’ was launched so that flying squads patrol those areas where such anti- social elements committed crimes against women. Similar to this, earlier in UP they have launchedz anti-romeo squad.
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The new pin code given to Central Processing Centre CPC is 560500.This unique pincode was given by the department of posts to the Income tax department’s Central Processing Centre (CPC) based in Bengaluru so as to ensure that the letters and mails sent by taxpayers to the CPC are not lost or reach the centre late. Jharkhand Police has initiated Tare Zameen Par programme to enlighten children in Naxal-affected areas in the Palamau district of Jharkhand. As per the as recommendation of the Ministry of Women and Child Development to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and Shipping (MoRTH) Cab safety measures for women commuters have been included in the new Taxi Policy guidelines. For efficient service delivery and widening the reach of Employees Provident Fund (EPF) benefits the Union Ministry of Labour & Employment has launched Aadhaar Seeding Application at the 217th special meeting of the Central Board of Employees Provident Fund (CBEPF/EPFO) in New Delhi . President Pranab Mukherjee has given assent to four supporting legislations on Goods and Services Tax (GST). The four legislations are: The Central GST Act, 2017, The Integrated GST Act, 2017, The GST (Compensation to States) Act, 2017, and The Union Territory GST Act, 2017. The Union government has constituted a time-bound inter-disciplinary committee to come up with an action plan for dealing with virtual currencies so as to fix the regulatory gaps in the existing framework governing virtual currencies( digital/crypto currencies ) The Union Cabinet has approved signing of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for Establishment of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) Grid Interconnection”. The MoU will be signed among member states of BIMSTEC at the upcoming third BIMSTEC Energy Ministers’ Meeting to be held in Nepal. The Union Cabinet has approved setting up of Government e-Marketplace for procurement of goods & services required by Central & State Government organizations. The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has approved increase in the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for raw Jute for 2017-18 season in order to protect the economic interests of the farmers. The MSP was increased to Rs. 3500/- per quintal for 2017- 18 season, an increase of Rs. 300/- (9.4%) over the previous year. The Government of India has announced 14 scholarship schemes for Scheduled Castes and Other Backward Classes (OBCs) / Denotified, Nomadic and Semi-nomadic Tribes (DNTs) students come under Digital Payments Initiatives. All scholarship amount will be deposited in the bank accounts of the students. IIT Kharagpur has planned to introduce Vastu Shashtra to the architecture students from this year August 2017.
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The Telangana legislature has passed the Telangana Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes (Reservation of Seats in Educational Institutions and of Appointments or Posts in the Services under the State) Bill, 2017, that seeks to raise substantially the reservation for backward Muslims and scheduled tribes. The Union government has planned to allow Cash and ATM management companies to attract 100% foreign direct investment and exempted them from compliance to the Private Security Agencies (Regulation) Act (PSARA). The Maharashtra Government has introduced a scheme for framers which was known to be “Enriched Farmer Scheme” to help farmers in increasing their income by cutting production cost and to increase their output in advanced farming.
The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has been permitted to borrow directly from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Official Development Assistance (ODA) loan for implementation of Mumbai Trans Harbor Link (MTHL) project as per the policy guidelines approved by the Union government to permit financially strong State Government entities to borrow directly from official development partners for implementing vital infrastructure projects. Use of red beacon at cars of VIP’s were banned as per the decision taken by the Union Cabinet and it will come into effect from 1st Amy,2017. Only three personalities were exempted from this, The President, The Vice-president and The Chief Justice of India. This ban is applicable to the prime minister, union ministers, chief ministers, state cabinet ministers, bureaucrats and judges of the High Court and Supreme Court. Accordingly police vehicles, ambulance and fire brigade will be allowed to use blue beacon. The Centre has chosen Bengaluru-based Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) and Hyderabad- based Electronics Corporation of India Ltd (ECIL) to manufacture the VVPAT units to be used in 2019 General elections as demanded by Election Commission to the Union government to sanction funds for procuring VVPAT (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trial)
The India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) has predicted that South West monsoon would be normal this year with average rainfall. The Andhra Pradesh state government has formulated guidelines for a market intervention exercise to help red chilli farmers in the state who are in a great distress due to the price crash in the market yard. As per World bank report India’s GDP will grow by 7.2% for the year 2017- 18 compared to previous financial year 6.8% in 2016-17 Prime Minister felicitated the descendants of 16 families associated with Paika Rebellion of 1817 and other freedom struggles of Odisha in Bhubaneswar. The main cause of the revolution was the takeover of the rent-free land that had been given to the Paika for their military service to the Kingdom of Khurda. INS Chennai, a Kolkata-class stealth Guided missile destroyer ship was commissioned into Indian Navy’s combat fleet on 21 November 2016 in Mumbai. ‘INS Chennai’, was dedicated to Chennai in the presence of the chief minister of Tamil Nadu and the Flag Officer
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Commanding-in-Chief, Eastern Naval Command. It is a ‘P15A Guided Missile Destroyer’, the class comprises of three ships. INS Kolkata, the first ship of the class got commissioned on August, 2014. The second ship, INS Kochi, got commissioned on September, 2015. The third ship, INS Chennai, got commissioned on November, 2016 A nationwide programme for capacity building of Elected Women Representatives (EWRs) of Panchayats and a training program for Trainers of women panchayat leaders at Ranchi, Jharkhand was launched by the Ministry of Women and Child Development in collaboration with the Ministry of Panchayati Raj Prime Minister has inaugurated phase-I (Link-2) pipeline canal of the ambitious Saurashtra Narmada Avtaran Irrigation (SAUNI) Yojana in Botad district of Gujarat. He laid foundation stone for the Phase-II (Link-2) of the SAUNI Yojana in Saurashtra. President has inaugurated Global Exhibition on Services (GES-2017) at India Expo Mart, Greater Noida which highlight India’s potential to boost its services exports across sectors. Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has set up a National Anti-Microbial Resistance Research and Surveillance Network (AMRRSN) to enable compilation of data of AMR at the national level. ‘Inter-Ministerial Consultation on AMR containment’ held at New Delhi. The Ministers signed a ‘Delhi Declaration’ to contain Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) The Union Government and the insurgent group NSCN had entered into a ceasefire accord in 1997. The Union Government has extended the ceasefire with the two Naga armed factions, namely, National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Reformation (NSCN-R) and National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Neakpao-Kithovi (GPRN/NSCN) till April 27, 2018 Assam Chief Minister (Sarbananda Sonowal )has mooted an idea of developing the birthplace of Srimanta Sankardev Batadrava as an international tourist spot. Sankaradev is credited for inspiring the Bhakti Movement in Assam. India has contributed USD 2,50,000 to the UN Election Assistance Division to help other countries to hold elections and develop their electoral systems. Earlier it was made in 2012. This is for the second time ,India has contributed towards electoral assistance and capacity building. ISRO planned to launch GSLV-Mk III-D1 Launcher in May 2017. GSAT-19 would be the payload for the first developmental flight has a mass of 3200 kg and would carry Ka and Ku band payload along with a Geostationary Radiation Spectrometer Payload (GRASP)
The Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) at Shamshabad has bagged the carbon neutrality status( level 3) by Airports Council International (ACI). The level 3+ status which it has achieved now is the fourth and highest accreditation under ACI’s Carbon Accreditation programme. The Vistadome air-conditioned coach is a first-of-its-kind on Indian Railways that has been introduced to promote tourism. The coach has been built by the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) in Chennai with features like glass roof, LED lights, rotating seats, GPS-based information system, large glass windows and observation lounge among others. It also has a glass-domed ceiling, automatic sliding doors and a multi-tier luggage rack. The coach will have panoramic view of the sites along the 128-km rail route from Visakhapatnam to Araku valley hill station. Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu has flagged off Visakhapatnam-Kirandul passenger train with see-through, vistadome coaches through a video link from Bhubaneswar.
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On November 30, 2016, the Supreme Court has made it mandatory for all the cinema halls across the nation to play the national anthem with the image of the national flag displayed before screening of a movie, and the audience must stand and show respect. When playing it. Now the Supreme Court has exempted 6 categories of disabled persons from standing during it. The six categories include people suffering from cerebral palsy, Parkinson disease, muscular dystrophy and other categories of disability. India’s first ‘conceptualized, designed and manufactured articulated industrial robot’ called “BRABO”( “Bravo Robot”) which was fully owned by TAL Manufacturing Solutions( subsidiary of Tata Motors). The robot has been developed for MSME’s in India. Myntra has acquired logistics start- up In log to smooth its delivery processes. The National Green Tribunal has ordered for the immediate closure of industries around the Bellandur Lake in Bangalore. The city of Lucknow is going to host the International day of Yoga June 2017. The first herbal garden of the Uttar Pradesh near the Government national Homeopathic college and hospital, Lucknow will be set up soon to encourage the farmers to cultivate herbal plants across the state.
UP government planned to set up 40 Yoga wellness centres in 40 districts across the state in the present financial year 2017-18 India has nominated Hindustan Shipyard Ltd (HSL), Visakhapatnam for the collaboration with South Korea. A MoU was signed between India and South Korea for defence industry cooperation in shipbuilding. The assets created under MGNREGA includes water harvesting structures, plantations, rural infrastructure, flood control measures, individual assets for sustainable livelihood, community infrastructure etc has reached a major milestone by geo tagging one crore assets created under it. The Supreme court has ruled out that alimony to be paid for the Women who are separated should be 25% of his net salary as maintenance . Also to be noted in case if he possessed of properties, then his wife will be entitled to a right to be maintained out of such properties. Bar Council of India (BCI) has called for a nationwide agitation against the undemocratic provisions of the Advocates (Amendment) Bill, 2017. It has stated that all the proposed amendments will take away the freedom of lawyers to practice fearlessly in the court proceedings. Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM), Ministry of Finance, has set a record target of Rs. 72,500 crore to be realized through disinvestment in this fiscal year . The Union government has raised Rs. 1,200 crore by divesting 9.2% of paid-up capital in National Aluminum Company Ltd. (NALCO). With this disinvestment, Government’s shareholding in NALCO has become 65.37%. For the capacity augmentation of National Waterway-1 (NW-1) between Haldia in West Bengal and Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh on the river Ganga under the Jal Marg Vikas Project (JMVP), the World Bank has approved a loan of $375 million. The Government has approved some guidelines on service charges proposed by the Ministry of Food and Consumer Affairs to protect the rights of consumers, the government has said that Service charge on hotel and restaurant bills is “totally voluntary”.
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China has unilaterally announced ‘standardised’ names for six places in Arunachal Pradesh with Roman alphabet as Wo’gyainling, Mila Ri, Qoidêngarbo Ri, Mainquka, Bümo La and Namkapub Ri. The Union minister of state for home Affairs Kiren Rijiju, asserted that Arunachal Pradesh is an inseparable and integral part of India. This is the first time in India, that the drones are used to monitor forest fires by the Uttarakhand Forest Department. Uttarakhand has about 71% of the total geographical area under forest cover
1st India –Indonesia forum was held at Jakarta. A MOU was signed between these two countries to establish a co operative institutional frame work to enhance and facilitate bilateral co operation in the field of oil and gas on the basis of equity and mutual benefit.
Maharashtra became the India’s first state to open “ Village of books” to promote tourism. INS Dharshak ( Indian Navy Ship) has undertaking a hydrographic survey of Weligama Bay along with the Srilankan Navy Google pays tribute to Kannada acting legend Rajkumar through a special doodle to commemorate his 88th birthday. India has become world’s fifth-largest military spender spending at $55.9 billion in 2016 according to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri), The US remains the world’s largest military followed by China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. India has become world’s second largest LPG importer, and China remains at top. India has set an ambitious target of increasing LPG usage to cover 80% of the households by March 2019. Indian Railways planned to launch a special rail service, Utkrisht double – decker AC Yatri ( UDAY) Express in July 2017 which would be less than 3AC in regular trains The India post on 23rd April 2017 has released a commemorative postage stamp of denomination Rs. 100 on Coffee as a fragrance stamp in Bengaluru. These will be available for sale at Bengaluru GPO, Mysuru, Mangaluru and Belgaum . Union Minister of State Nirmala seetharaman has expressed her happiness over coffee growing extending to non- traditional areas like Araku in Andhra Pradesh, parts of hilly Odisha and other places in North India. India’s first and longest sea ropeway to link Mumbai with the famous Elephanta Island in the Arabian Sea is going to constructed by the Mumbai Port Trust. The 8-km long ropeway will start from Sewri in Mumbai’s east coast and end at Elephanta Island at Raigad district. In order to boost employment and e-governance besides export of software technology, IT hub has been set up at a cost of Rs 50 crore at Tripura ( Agartala) . It is considered to be Northeast’s sixth and largest hub for information technology. The central government has informed the Supreme Court that it intends to provide unique identification number for cows as suggested by an expert committee to track cattle and prevent their trafficking. The unique ID will have the details like cattle’s age, breed, sex, Facebook.com/tnpscportal www.tnpscportal.in Page 20
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height, body colour, horn type, tail switch, lactation profile (in case of milch cattles) and other special marks. Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilisers and Chemicals Ltd (GNFC) has won the prestigious Golden Globe Tigers Award for Excellence and Leadership in CSR for the year 2017 in the category of ‘E-Payment Leadership’. GNFC has been awarded for the implementation of digital transactions in its township at Bharuch (Gujarat). “The State/UT Agricultural Produce and Livestocks Marketing (promotion and facilitation) Act, 2017” has been unveiled by the agriculture ministry In order to provide more freedom to farmers to sell their products. Kaapi Soil Health Management and Monitoring (Kshemam) app has been launched by Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management-Kerala (IIITM-K) to provide soil nutrient information and fertiliser recommendation for coffee plantation owners. The Peshawar high court recently allowed Pakistani Hindus to worship at a Shiva temple in Abbottabad Indo –French Naval Maritime Exercise “ Varuna “ ( 24t April to 20th April ) is taking place at the Mediterranean Sea. Guided Missile destroyer INS Mumbai,Stealth frigate INS Trishuland fleet tanker INS Aditya are taking part in it. Belgium has become the first country to open an honorary consulate office in Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City), Gandhinagar, Gujarat.
The International Road federation (IRF) has named India to be the host of the 18th World Road Meeting (WRM 2017). WRM 2017 will be held on November 13, 2017. The theme of this year’s WRM is ‘Safe Roads and Smart Mobility: The Engines of Economic Growth’. The conference is expected to be attended by over 4,000 delegates across the world.
The international conference on “Dara Shikoh: Reclaiming Spiritual Legacy of India” will be held on April 27 and 28 in New Delhi. The conference will be organised by the Indian Council Of Cultural Relations (ICCR). Eminent scholars from the US, Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Indi are participating in this conference. It aims to highlight Dara Shikoh’s( eldest son of fifth Mughal emeror Shah Jahan) contributions to bring about spiritual homogenisation of Hinduism and Islam and his initiatives in building a cohesive social and cultural edifice in India.
Joint operational doctrine aimed at providing deeper operational synergies among the tri- services was unveiled by the chairman of the chiefs of staff committee (COSC) and Navy Chief Admiral Sunil Lanba in presence of Army Chief Gen Bipin Rawat and IAF Chief B S Dhanoa. The doctrine is aimed at coherently dealing with all possible security threats faced by India such as conventional and proxy wars. This document is the second edition of the joint doctrine. The first edition of the document was released around eight years ago.
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Following Indian Vice president’s ( Hamid Ansari’s ) visit to Armenia, three agreements were signed between the two countries to boost co-operation among them.
Sukma Naxal attack at Chhatisgarh by 300 maoists took away the lives of 25 CRPF Indian Jawans on 24th April 2017which was the largest ambush after 2010.
Haryana’s Ballabgarh town in Faridabad was renamed as Balramgarh, it is to be noted that earlier Gurgaon was renamed as Gurugram in the same Haryana state.
The government has announced the names of ten new Iconic places under the Phase II of Swachh Iconic Places initiative. Swachh Iconic Places (SIP) is an initiative of Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation under Swachh Bharat Mission. The ten new iconic places that will be undertaken in Phase II of Swachh Iconic Places initiative are: Gangotri, Yamunotri. Mahakaleshwar Temple (Ujjain), Char Minar (Hyderabad), Church and Convent of St. Francis of Assissi (Goa), Adi Shankaracharya’s abode Kaladi in Ernakulam, Gomateshwar in Shravanbelgola, Baijnath Dham (Devghar), Gaya Tirth (Bihar) and Somnath temple in Gujarat. The Swachh Bharat Mission was launched on 2 October 2014 to make India clean and open defecation free by 2019 to mark Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary. Union Ministry of water resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation launched “Jal Sanrakshan Karyakaram –Bundelkhand” an extensive water conservation program on 28th April at Bandri, Sagar in Madhya Pradesh. This program aims at drought- prone areas of Bundelkhand,Kalahandi,Bolangir, Marathwada and Koraput in Odisha The Delhi High Court on 26th April stated that hospitals cannot hold the patients hostage to extract money on unpaid bills.
The RBI ion 26th April 2017 issued draft guidelines on Cross border merger transactions . This draft guidelines will be known as “ Foreign Exchange Management ( Cross Border Merger ) Regulations”. These guidelines aimed at addressing the issue that may arise when an Indian Company and Foreign Company enter into scheme of merger, demerger, amalgamation or rearrangement. Uttar Pradesh Government has cancelled almost 15 public holidays that marked the birth and death anniversaries of eminent personalities. India notifies conformity to UN resolution which prohibits the sale of luxury goods including jewellery,gems, yacht and luxury automobiles like racing cars that could directly contribute to the development of North Korea. The Niti Aayog has envisaged a new India in which all citizens by 2032 will have houses with toilets,vehicles,power,air conditioner and digital connectivity. PM Narendra Modi launches air regional connectivity scheme “ UDAN( Ude Desh Ka Har Nagrik ) scheme”, flag off its first UDAN flight on Simla-Delhi route . Prior to this King fisher was the only airlines that operated regular flights between Delhi and Shimla till September 2012. , simultaneously he also launched the inaugural UDAN flights on Kadapa – Hyderabad and Nanded-Hyderabad route.
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India successfully test fired AGNI –III Ballistic Missile(3000 km range ) from Abdul Kalam Island off Odisha coast. It was developed by DRDO . The Puducherry Govt has decide to give free electricity supply to small and other farmers. This has been adopted for this fiscal year 2017-18 The Indian Culture centre in Egypt organized a seminar to strengthen and deepen ties between the two nations. Using paytm mobile wallets , Consumer can purchase 24 K 999.99 purity gold online and store it in MMTC-PAMP’s secure vaults free of charge. The Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) has planned to build a new oil terminal at Motihari in Bihar to supply fuel to Nepal via the planned pipeline up to Amlekganj in Nepal since its terminal functioning at Raxaul in Bihar is going to be closed as it does not meet the current safety guidelines of OISD (Oil Industry Safety Directorate). The Home Ministry has planned to raise an all-woman India Reserve Battalion (IRB) in Jammu and Kashmir.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades have signed four agreements following delegation-level talks in New Delhi. Cyprus reiterated its support to India’s bid for inclusion a permanent member in the UNSC. The Grand Collar of the Order of Makarios III,( highest civilian honour, of Cyprus) will be given to President Pranab Mukherjee. Kerala has conducted the country’s first-ever transgender one-day athletic meet in Thiruvananthapuram. The event was jointly organised by Kerala sports council and Sexual Gender Minority Federation of Kerala. 132 participants belonging to 12 districts of the state.took part in it. A tripartite MoU has been signed between BBNL, Department of Posts and BSNL to provide broadband connectivity of BharatNet to Post Offices in rural areas. BSNL would provide broadband services. The infrastructure expenses and the operational expenses would be paid by the Department of Posts. BBNL would facilitate and coordinate the entire project. Union Ministry of Health has launched centrally sponsored scheme “the Test and Treat policy for Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) patients”. As per this new policy, anyone who is tested and found positive will get the necessary treatment free of cost. Anyone found positive will be provided with ART (Anti- Retroviral Therapy) irrespective of his CD count.
“Digi Yatra” initiative is looking forward to make boarding pass and security check-ins digital at airports using Aadhaar and mobile phones. The move is aimed to ease the security and boarding procedure by the Ministry of Civil Aviation . Poland supports India for getting permanent membership in United Nations Security Council and to become a member in Nuclear Suppliers Group.. United States have placed India on the ‘Priority Watch List’ for decades now and is likely to remain in the ‘Priority Watch List’ category for having inadequate IPR laws and patent protection Kazakhstan has opened its honorary consulate in Chennai on its 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between India and Kazakhstan.
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International James Rosenquist, a leading pioneer of Pop Art passed away in New York. He was 83. He was known for appropriating industrial painting methods to cultivate his bold, graphic style. He had transitioned from a commercial sign-painter to a fine artist. Pop art is an art movement that emerged in 1950s in the United States and Britain. In it, material is visually removed from its known context, isolated, and combined with unrelated material. It had presented a challenge to traditions of fine art by including imagery from popular culture such as advertising and news.
Gilbert Baker, creator of the rainbow flag as a symbol for the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) community passed away in Kansas, US. He was 65. He had created the eight-colour flag in 1978 for New York’s gay freedom day, which is now the modern pride parade. Since then his flag has been associated with LGBT rights causes across the world. The eights colours in the flag are Pink (represented sexuality), red (symbolised life, orange symbolised healing), yellow (signified sunlight), green (represented nature), turquoise (symbolised art), indigo (represented harmony) and violent (represented human spirit).
A global alliance of tech industries and academic organisations have unveiled $14-million The News Integrity Initiative to combat the spread of “fake news”, improve public understanding of journalism, promote news literacy and build trust in journalism. The founding funders of the initiative include Facebook, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark’s philanthropic fund, Ford` Foundation, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Tow Foundation, AppNexus, Mozilla and Betaworks. City University of New York’s journalism school will coordinate research, projects and events. Fake news has become a serious issue in the U.S. election campaign, when clearly fraudulent stories circulated on social media, potentially swaying some voters. Concerns also have been raised since then about hoaxes and misinformation affecting elections in Europe and rise of click farms to generate revenue from online advertising using made-up news stories. North Korea has fired a ballistic missile from its east coast into the sea off the Peninsula from Sinpo, a port city and submarine base. The missile was launched at a high angle and reached an altitude of 189 km and flew about 60 kilometres. Its launch comes ahead of a summit between US and Chinese leaders who are set to discuss North Korea’s arms program. Earlier in March 2017, North Korea had fired four missiles towards Japan, some of which came as close as 300 km to the Japanese coast. Germany became the first North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member country to launch a self-contained cyber command unit dubbed as Cyber and Information Space Command (Kdo CIR). It has been designed to shield IT and weapons systems from growing attacks. The Kdo CIR will be the youngest branch of Germany’s military “Bundeswehr”. It
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will operate and protect German military’s own IT infrastructure and computer-assisted weapons systems, and tackle online threats. It will also focus on war-game offensive skills and capabilities. Japan has officially recognized bitcoin and digital currencies as legal money along the lines of other fiat currencies with effect from April 1, 2017. The recognition comes after implementation of a new law amending Banking Act in Japan for legalizing these currencies. It will help in integration of digital currency into legal banking system through regulatory scrutiny. Bitcoin is a form of digital currency or virtual currency created and held electronically. No one controls it that is not regulated by any central bank or government. They aren’t printed, like dollars or euros – they’re produced by people, and increasingly businesses, running computers all around the world, using software that solves mathematical problems. It is also called a “cryptocurrency” since it is decentralized and uses cryptography to prevent double-spending, a significant challenge inherent to digital currencies. Ecuadorean leftist Lenin Moreno has won 2017 Presidential election after a tight contest with his right-wing opponent. Moreno won 51.16% of valid votes versus 48.84% for conservative challenger Guillermo Lasso, with 99.65% of votes counted. The US have ruled that being a simple computer programmer would no longer qualify as a specialist profession which is a must for the issue of H-1B work visa Malala yousofzai will become the youngest person to address Canadian Parliament
South Korea successfully test fired a home developed ballistic missile recently that can hit any part of North Korea Ice land ranks no : 1 in Global Gender Gap Index according to World Economic Forum 2015 followed by Norway, Finland and Sweden and also it is the first country to neutralize gender pay gap. A suspected Chemicals weapon attack on a rebel held town of Khan Sheikhun in northwestern Syria. Nearly 86 people were killed in this attack. On behalf of this the United States has carried out a missile attack over Syria in order to stop chemical weapon attack by Bashar al –Assad’s regime Nepal President Bindhya Devi Bhandari honoured General Bipin Rawat ( Chief of Army Staff) to the honorary rank of Nepal Army General in a special function held at President’s office.Since 1950’s this is the long year tradition to give honorary titles to both the army chiefs to have their close tie up with theit militaries. As a part of China’s ambitious One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative a train service was launched from United Kingdom to China which was the first rail freight service departed from Essex. The train will pass through seven countries – France, Germany, Belgium, Poland, Russia, and Kazakhstan before reaching final destination in China. Uruguay was named the first country in the world to legalize the production, consumption and sale of Marijuana.
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Nepal Government has presented a new constitution amendment bill in a bid to take agitating Madhesi parties on board before their local election which is going to held on May 14th 2017 Britain was found to be only G7 nation to call for sanctions on Russia for its support towards its war torn ally Syria British DJ Paul Oakenfold who has reached Mt Everest’s base camp has planned to host highest party on earth. Nepal and China is going to conduct first ever joint military exercise named ‘Sagarmatha Friendship-2017’ from April 17 to April 26. Sagarmatha is the Nepali name for Mt Everest. The United States of America has dropped GBU-43 bomb over an ISIS complex in Afghanistan. GBU-43 is one of the largest non-nuclear bomb ever used in the battlefield. GBU-43 is known as Mother of All bombs”. The official name used by the US Air Force for GBU-43 is the ‘Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb (MOAB)
The High Energy Accelerator Research Organisation (KEK) completed the ‘rolling-in’ of the Belle-II experiment in Tsukuba, Japan.
A deep depression in Bay of Bengal has turned into a tropical Cyclone and it was named as “Maarutha” which is expected to hit Myanmar on 17th April 2017. And will bring heavy rain to the parts of the country Maarutha is the first named storm of 2017 Northern Hemisphere tropical cyclone season. World’s oldest Woman “ Emma Morano (117) in Italy has passed away. China is planned to launch its first cargo space craft into space.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has announced a restructure of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) with an aim to make it as a leaner fighting force with enhanced joint operations capability. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won the referendum on granting him sweeping new powers by a clear majority. Australia wants to adopt ‘Australians first’ approach to skilled migration so it has abolished the 457 Visa Programme used by temporary foreign workers, a majority of them Indians to address growing unemployment in that country. Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has made sweeping changes to Citizenship laws , As per the new requirement, applicants for obtaining citizenship must be permanent residents for at least four years, the applicants have to pass a standalone English test . The IMF has predicted that the global economy would grow at 3.5% in 2017, up from 3.1 % in 2016 , and 3.6% in 2018. IMF ( International Monetary Fund )came into existence on December 27, 1945. Its headquarters is in Washington, D.C. Trump has ordered the country’s federal agencies to tighten the H-1B visa programme, widely used to bring high-skilled foreign workers to the US. This order is aimed at fulfilling his campaign pledges to put “America First”.
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Cuba and Morocco has signed an agreement to re-establish diplomatic ties after a time period of 37 years.
The five parties ( Madhesi)of Nepal namely Mahantha Thakur‘s Tarai Madhes Loktantrik Party, Rajendra Mahato‘s Sadbhawana Party, Sharat Singh Bhandari‘s Rastriya Madhes Samajbadi Party, Mahendra Yadav‘s Tarai Madhes Sadbhawana Party and Rajkishor Yadav‘s Madhesi Janadhikar Forum- Ganatantrik joined together to form a new united party in the name of “Rastriya Janata Party”, which is going to be Nepal’s fifth largest party in the Parliament. Athens was designated as UNESCO’s World Book Capital 2018 A freight train connecting Russia with China arrived in Ganzhou an inland city in Jiangxi province, carrying goods from Moscow. This freight train is expected to bring resources from Europe and boost local development.The freight train travelled more than 7,000 km, before reaching Ganzhou in eastern China. Astronaut Peggy Whitson has broken the previous record set by Jeff Williams .She has set a new space record for most days ( 534 days in total ) in space by a US astronaut. The World Health Organization has announced that it is going to test the first malaria vaccine (The vaccine, RTS,S, also known as Mosquirix)in Kenya, Ghana and Malawi by 2018. The RTS, S vaccine works by targeting the liver phase of the malaria parasite’s life cycle. World Book Capital 2017- Conarky, Guinea
China has banned its citizens by naming their babies Muhammad, Medina and Quran , mainly targeting the minority muslim group living in the western region of Xinjiang.
The White house had named Randolph Alles ( retired military general ) as the new director of Secret Service.
Jonathan Demme Oscar Winning Director of” The Silence of the lamb “has passed away.
The Emirates National Oil Company (ENOC) has opened United Arab Emirates first solar powered gas station in Dubai. El Salvador became the first country to ban metals mining. US President Donald Trump has introduced biggest tax reform plan in the history of United States, the income tax rates have been slashed from 39.6% to 35%.
Important Days
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The World autism Awareness Day is observed every year on 2 April across the world to raise awareness about autism and problems faced by people suffering from it. The theme for year 2017 is ‘Toward Autonomy and Self-Determination’. In India, the National Trust, a statutory body under Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, had organised a National Conference on Autism in New Delhi. The day was designated by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) by passing resolution “62/139 in 2007. It is also one of only four official health-specific UN Days.
The International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action is observed every year on April 4 to highlight the deadly threat that mines pose to civilians’ lives and nations’ development. The theme of this year was “Needs driven. People Centred”. The day was constituted by United Nation General Assembly (UNGA) by passing resolution in December 2005.
International Day of Sport for Development and Peace ( IDSDP) was observed across the world on 6th April 2017 April 5 is celebrated as National Maritime day every year to commemorate the maiden voyage of our first owned ship “ SS Loyalty “ to London from Bombay in 5th April 1919.this is our 54th edition and theme is “ Connecting India through Shipping “. First it is celebrated in the year 1964 April 7- World Health Day, celebrated every year to mark the anniversary of WHO foundation day. 2017 Theme: “ Depression: Let’s talk” April 6 – International day of Sports for Development and Peace is celebrated every year to recognise the power of sports in promoting peace . April 10- World Homeopathy Day is celebrated every year to pay the tribute to Father of Homeopathy medicine Dr. Christian Friedrich Samuel Hanhemann . Theme of 2017 is “Enhancing Quality Research in Homoeopathy through scientific evidence and rich clinical experiences”.
Manipur government has decided to celebrate People’s day on 15th of every month April 12- International Day of Human Space Flight is observed annually to celebrate the anniversary of the first human space flight undertaken by Yuri Gagarin. 126th birth anniversary of Bharat Ratna Dr. B.R.Ambedkar( the father of the Indian Constitution)was celebrated at the Parliament House complex on April 14,2017
Srilanka Day of Vesak was celebrated annually on 12th May. This year PM Modi will inaugurate the celebration. April 22 – World Earth Day. Earth Day 2017’s Campaign is Environmental & Climate Literacy.
April 21- Civil Services Day. This year it was the 11th edition. In this celebration awards will be given to five priority schemes, namely, “Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana”,
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“Deendayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana”, “Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana”, “Start Up India/Stand Up India” and “e-National Agriculture Market (e-NAM)”. Totally, 10 districts would be awarded this year under the five priority schemes.
April 23- World Book and Copyright Day . To mark the occasion UNESCO released three books namely Reshaping Cultural policies , Rethinking education in a changing world and Reading in a mobile era. This day is marked to celebrate the memories of Cervantes, William Shakespeare Inca Garcil aso de vega who were died on 1616. April 23- United Nation’s English Language day. This day was celebrated to mark the remembrance of both birth and date of death of Willaim Shakespeare. It was celebrated since April 23, 2010 April 24 – National Panchayat Raj Diwas.It was celebrated every year to mark the passing of Constitution (73rd Amendment) Act, 1992, that came into force with effect from 24 April 1993. The 73rd Amendment 1992 added a new Part IX to the constitution titled “The Panchayats” covering provisions from Article 243 to 243(O); and a new Eleventh Schedule covering 29 subjects within the functions of the Panchayats. This is celebrated since 2010. April 25 – World Malaria Day with the theme Malaria Prevention : let’s close the gap
April 26- International; Chernobyl Disaster Rememberance Day, which is marked to commemorate the explosion at Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986. Nearly 8.4 million people were exposed to radiation.
April 26 – World Intellectual Property day with the theme : Innovation: Improving lives
World Immunization Week 2017 – ( 24th April -30th April 2017) with the theme “ Vaccines work” April 29 – Day of remembrance for all victims of chemical warfare was observed by United Nations every year to pay tribute to the victims and to reaffirm the commitment of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical weapons to the elimination of threat of Chemical weapons. Appointments Justice Pradeep Nandrajog was sworn in as Chief Justice of Rajasthan High Court. He was administered oath of Office today by Governor Kalyan Singh at Raj Bhawan in Jaipur. Prior to this appointment, Justice Nandrajog was the Delhi High Court judge. Vanaja N. Sarna was appointed the new chairman of the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC). She succeeded Najib Shah. She is 1980 batch officer of Indian Revenue Service (IRS). CBEC is the nodal government agency on Indirect Taxes responsible for administering Customs, Central Excise, Service Tax and Narcotics in India. Currently it
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operates and functions under the aegis of the Department of Revenue of Union Ministry of Finance. Sunaina Singh was appointed the new vice chancellor of Nalanda University (NU). Currently, she is vice chancellor of the English and Foreign Language University (EFLU), Hyderabad. Nalanda University revived version of ancient Nalanda University located at Rajgir in Nalanda District in Bihar. It is a non-state, non-profit, secular and self-governing international institution functioning under Ministry of External Affairs. Its idea was mooted by former President APJ Abdul Kalam in 2006. It was established through Nalanda University Act, 2010. Dr.Vijay Bhatka, father of India’s first supercomputer and acclaimed scientist, is the Chancellor of the university. Senior IPS Officer Geeta Johari was appointed as new Director General of Police (DGP) of Gujarat. With this, she became first woman IPS officer to be appointed as DGP of the state. She will replace P.P. Pandey – acting DGP of the state. Mrs. Johari is IPS officer of 1982 batch. Prior this appointment, she was working as Head of Gujarat Police Housing Corporation. She will retire in November 2017. Prof. David R. Syiemlieh took the Oath of Office and Secrecy as Chairman of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC). He was administered oath by Vinay Mittal, the senior most Member of the Commission as per clause (1) of Article 316 of the Constitution. Prof. Syiemlieh had joined the Commission as member in June 2012. Later he was appointed Chairman in January 2017. Prior to joining UPSC, he was Vice Chancellor, Rajiv Gandhi University, Itanagar. He has held many important positions in various policy making, academic and administrative bodies. He has also has authored several books and publications. He was awarded Senior Fulbright Fellowship in 1999. BP Kanungo took over as the Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in Mumbai. He was appointed by Government in March 2017 for a period of three years. Prior to this appointment, he was holding the position of Executive Director of RBI. Earlier he had 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. He also had 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. Ram Bilas Sharma was nominated as the chairman of the Amateur Circle Kabaddi federation of India for the next four years. Rajiv Kumar Chander was appointed as India’s new Ambassador and permanent representative of India to the United Nations (UN) Offices in Geneva. He will succeed Ajit Kumar. At present, Chander is the consul general of India in Vancouver. He is 1983 batch Indian Foreign Services (IFS) officer.
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The Union Government has appointed Girish Shankar, Secretary of the Department of Heavy Industry as chairman of newly constituted National Board of Electric Mobility (NBEM). NBEM aims to promote electric mobility and manufacturing of electric (& hybrid) vehicles and their components. It examines, formulates and proposes short- as well as long- term plans and contours of the mission programme on electric mobility, its objectives and roles and responsibilities of the various stakeholders. The NBEM will propose and recommend policy guidelines, interventions and possible strategies needed for promoting electric mobility and for encouraging manufacture of electric vehicles in the country. Raman Roy, the CMD of Quattro recently appointed as the Chairman of National Association of Software and Services Company
Mahesh Kumar Jain assumed the charge of Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of IDBI Bank Malvika Sinha was appointed as the new ExectiveDirector ( ED) of RBI ( Reserve Bank of India )
Two foreign coaches Dave smith and Galina P. Bukharina and two support staffs namely Dmitry Kislev and Elmira Kislev for athletics till 2020 Olympics. They were appointed by Union Sports Minister Vijay Goel . Indira Baneerjee was appointed as the 47th Chief Justice of Madras High Court. Justice Gita Mittal, the senior-most judge of Delhi High Court, has been appointed as the acting Chief justice of Delhi High Court with effect from April 14,2017. Trupti Jain ( Indian Environmental Engineer ) had won 2017 Cartier Women’s initiative award for providing women working on farms with water management solutions and protecting small farmers against droughts and flash floods
Nita Ambani has been made member of Olympic channel and Olympic education Commission.
Haryana Government appoints BS Sandhu as the New Director General of Police. Rajiv Rai Bhatnagar was appointed as the Director General of Central Reserve Police Force . On the other hand , Union Government also appointed R.K.Pachnanda as the Director General of Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP)
Awards & Honours Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu was selected for the US India Business Council Award of ‘Transformative Chief Minister’. He will receive the award at the second annual West Coast Summit to be held in Menlo Park, California in May 2017. Electronics and IT Secretary Aruna Sundararajan was also selected Transformative Leadership Award.
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Dawit Isaak, an imprisoned Eritrean-Swedish journalist was awarded the 2017 UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize. He will be bestowed with this prestigious award in recognition of his courage, resistance and commitment to freedom of expression. He will be awarded on World Press Freedom Day (3 May 2017).
American singer and song writer Bob Dylan has finally accepted 2016 Nobel Prize for literature since December 2016 awards ceremony. He is the first song writer to win this prestigious award. He was awarded for creating new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition. He is first American to win the prize since novelist Toni Morrison in 1993.
“Avyakta” the short film made by 26 year old Omkar Modgi has made it to the much acclaimed Cannes film festival 2017
Renowned playback singer, actor and music director S.P. Bala Subramanyam was awarded the NTR National Film Award for 2012. Besides, Hindi film actress Hema Malini was awarded the same award for the year 2013. The NTR National Award is an annual award that recognizes individuals for their lifetime achievements and contributions to the Cinema of India. It is an honorary Nandi Award in the honour of film Actor, director, producer, and politician (late) N.T. Rama Rao who also had served as the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh. It carries a cash prize of Rs. 5 lakh and a citation. Indian cricket team captain Virat Kohli was honoured as the Wisden’s Leading Cricketer in the World for the year 2016. Besides, he already has been declared Wisden India Almanack’s Cricketer of the Year for the second time in its 2017 edition. Apart from him, Ellyse Perry from Australia was named for Wisden Leading Woman Cricketer in the World for 2016. The Wisden Leading Cricketer in the World is an annual cricket award selected by Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack. The second highest peace time gallantry award “ Kirti Chakra “ was posthumously conferred to Lance Havildar Prem Bahadur Resmi Mahar of Gorkha rifles who eliminated 4 terrorists in the operation held at Jammu and Kashmir in june2016 which was presented by President of India. He also presented 13 Shaurya chakra Award, 15 Param Vishisht Seva Medals, 2 Uttam Yudh Seva Medals and 28 Ati Vishisht Seva Medals. 64th National Film fare awards for the year 2016 was announced Kasaav ( Marathi film ) won the award in Best feature film category. “ Joker “ was chosen as the Best Film in Tamil . Best Lyricist : Kavignar Vairamuthu for the film Dharmadurai “. Best production Design : 24. Best Actor : Akshay Kumar ( Rustom ), Best actress : Surabhi Lakshmi (Minnaminungu),Best Play back Singer : Sundar Iyer ( Tamil Nadu ); Best Direction : Rajesh ( Ventilation ) Pakistani education activist and Noble peace prize winner Malala Yousafzai become the youngest messenger of peace announced by Un Secretary General Antonio Guterres . “The Underground Railroad “ novel by Colson Whitehead has won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Earlier in November 2016, the novel had received the National Book Award of US.
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List of 2017 Pulitzer Prize Winners Letters, Drama & Music Fiction: The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. Drama: Sweat by Lynn Nottage. History: Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy, by Heather Ann Thompson. Biography or Autobiography: The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between, by Hisham Matar. Poetry: Olio, by Tyehimba Jess (Wave Books) General Nonfiction: Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, by Matthew Desmond. Music: Angel’s Bone, by Du Yun. Journalism : Public Service: New York Daily News and ProPublica Breaking News Reporting: Staff of East Bay Times, Oakland. Investigative Reporting: Eric Eyre of Charleston Gazette-Mail, Charleston/. Explanatory Reporting: International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, McClatchy and Miami Herald Local Reporting: The Salt Lake Tribune Staff National Reporting: David A. Fahrenthold of The Washington Post International Reporting: The New York Times Staff Feature Writing: C. J. Chivers of The New York Times Commentary: Peggy Noonan of The Wall Street Journal Criticism: Hilton Als of The New Yorker Editorial Writing: Art Cullen of The Storm Lake Times, Storm Lake. Editorial Cartooning: Jim Morin of Miami Herald Breaking News Photography: Daniel Berehulak, freelance photographer Feature Photography: Jason Wambsgans of Chicago Tribune The President of India Pranab Mukherjee presented the SCOPE Award (Standing Conference of Public enterprises) at the 8th Public Sector Day function held in New Delhi Krishi Karman awards for their record performance in the production of food grains during 2015-16 was bagged by Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh and Tripura. In addition to these states , Meghalaya received commendation prize for total food grain production. Prof. A.V. Narasimha Murthy, Chairman, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan (BVB), Mysuru and former Head, Department of Ancient History and Archaeology, University of Mysore was selected for the Dr. Gururaja Bhat award in consideration of his contribution to Indian Archaeology, Ancient History and Numismatics. For the first time, UNESCO’s Felix Houphouet-Boigny Peace Prize 2017 the award goes to a mayor. Mayor of Lampedusa (Italy) Giuseppina Nicolini ( 56) She has been selected for the award for “her boundless humanity and unwavering commitment to refugee crisis management” and the another winner is SOS Méditerranée (France) an NGO founded in 2015 to rescue the refugees each week from dinghies and boats in the Mediterranean. Aniruddhan Vasudevan was choosen for Sahitya Akademi’s award for his book “ one part woman that in recent pass” for translated in English Jackie shroff was choosen for Raj Kapoor Special contribution Award 2017 Saira Banu was choosen for the prestigious Raj Kapoor Lifetime achievement Award . NSCI Safety Awards 2016 was given to 70 Organisations at a function held in New Delhi by the Minister of State (IC) for Labour & Employment Bandaru Dattatreya. Indian Oil’s Digboi refinery, National Fertilizers, Panipat, and NPCIL, Kaiga Generating Station 3 and 4, Karnataka, are the winners in the manufacturing sector category. Godrej & Boyce Mfg.
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Co. Ltd. And L&T Ltd., Rawatbhata, Chittorgarh has been selected for its works on NPCIL Atomic Power Project, Rajasthan in construction sector category. Electricals & Electronics, Thane, has won SarvaShreshtha Suraksha Puraskar for the year 2016 in MSME sector. The Child rights activist and the Noble Peace prize winner (2014) “Kailash Satyarthi “ was honoured with PC Chandra purashkar 2017 for his global crusade against child Slavery and exploitative child labour. He was given a trophy, a citation and a chequer of Rs. 10 lakhs at this award ceremony held at Kolkatta. He is the founder of Bachpan Bachao Andolan. Prestigious “Lelte Award “ was given to All India Radio (AIR) station “ AIR Aizwal “ Dadasaheb Phalke award for 2016 was given to K.Viswanath ( Actor and film maker ) by the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting. This award was conferred with Swarn Kamal (Golden Lotus), a cash prize of Rs. 10 lakhs and a shawl. Dadasaheb Phalke award was given to celebrate the rememberance of Father of Indian Cinema “Dadasaheb Phalke” since 1969 for outstanding contribution to the growth and development of Indian Cinema. Hindi film“ Newton” wins jury prize for Best film at Hong Kong International film festival. Social activist Prafulla Samantra was announced one among six winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize ( also called Green Nobel ) for his “historic 12-year legal battle that affirmed the indigenous Dongria Kondh’s land rights and protected the Niyamgiri Hills from a massive, open-pit aluminum ore mine.” This award was instituted since 1990 and it was received earlier by Medha Patkar, M.C. Mehta, Rasheeda Bi, Champaran Shukla and Ramesh Agrawal Yes bank has won the Golden Peacock innovative product/ service award for the year 2017 Vani Jayaram ( Play back singer ) was presented the Ghantasala National Award which is instituted in the name of Telugu singing legend Ghantasala Venkateswara Rao Aamir Khan was awarded with 75th Master Dinanath Mangeshkar Award for his film “Dangal”
Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan became the first Indian Actor to deliver TED ( Technology, Entertainment, Design) in Vancouver, Canada India’s Shrishti Kaur Crowned as Miss Teen Universe 2017 which is helad at the Ruben Dario National Theatre in Managua, Nicaragua. President Pranab Mukherjee conferred 52nd Jnanpith Award to renowned Bengali poet Sankha Ghosh for his contribution to Bengali literature. UNESCO is going to screen Short film “ Azaad”as a part of World Press Freedom day Celebrations which is going to held from May 1-May 4 ,2017 at Jakrata, Indonesia. The theme for 2017 is “ Crtical minds for critical times: Media role in advancing peaceful, just and inclusive societies “ Bhubaneswar becomes first Indian City to win Pierre L’Enfant Planning Excellence and Achievement Awards 2017” for good and advanced town planning and engaging its residents in planning process. This award was instituted by American Planning Association. Facebook.com/tnpscportal www.tnpscportal.in Page 34
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Sports Tamil Nadu won the Deodhar Trophy by defeating Parthiv Patel-led India ‘B’ by 42 runs in the match held at Vizag. With this win, Tamil Nadu became the first state side to win the three-team one-day tournament. It makes Tamil Nadu first to win all major domestic crowns such as Ranji Trophy, Vijay Hazare, Irani and Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. The Deodhar Trophy is a List A cricket competition in Indian domestic cricket. It is named after Prof. D. B. Deodhar (known as the Grand Old Man of Indian cricket). It is a 50-over knockout competition played on an annual basis among the 5 zonal teams – North Zone, South Zone, East Zone, West Zone and Central Zone.
Rio Olympics silver medallist P V Sindhu won the India Open Super Series title in women’s single category. In the final match, she defeated Rio Olympic champion Carolina Marin of Spain by 21-19, 21-16 score. Denmark’s Viktor Axelsen had won men’s singles title of the tournament after defeating Chinese Taipei’s Tien Chen Chou by 21-13, 21-10 score.
PV Sindhu ranks World No: 2 in her career -best in the latest World Badminton Federation rankings and she is the second woman to be placed in top 5 of world rankings after Saina Nehwal. Saina Nehwal is placed at 9th position. No one from Men’s category of India is placed at top 10 position. The Indian Olympic association ( IOA) has granted affiliation to the Boxing federation of India ( BFI) 13. Indian Boxer Shyam Kumar K won gold in ( 49 kg category) in Thailand International Tournament which is held at Bangkok . This is his second medal after his 2015 edition. First basket ball school in India has been launched by US based National Basket Ball Association ( NBA) in Mumbai ( Maharashtra. The school was opened to train young basket ball players both male and female under age 6-18. The 2017 Chinese Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race that took place on 9 April 2017 at the Shanghai International Circuit in Shanghai, China. Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes won the championship. India-Australia Sports Partnership (IASP) was launched jointly by the visiting Australian Prime Minister Mr Malcolm Turnbull and the Union Minister for Youth Affairs & Sports Mr Vijay Goel in the presence of Sachin Tendulkar with a vision of increasing cooperation in sports. Sai Praneeth had won Singapore Open Super series badminton title by defeating Srikanth. India become the fourth country to have its national in Men’s single super series after China, Denmark and Indonesia. Gayathri Gopichand( daughter of National Badminton Coach Gopichand ) had won both singles and doubles title at Pembangunan Jaya Raya Junior Grand Prix held in Jakarta.
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Pankaj Advani defeated Sourav Kothari and won the Asian Billiards Championship title 2017 held in Chandigarh ( April 14 , 2017)
e-sports would be introduced as a medal sport to the official program of the Asian Games at Hangzhou, China. It will be included as a demonstration sport at the 2018 Asian Games in Palembang, Indonesia. The Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) will feature Video gaming as a full sport at the 2022 Asian Game. The decision to include e-sports was taken to reflect “the rapid development and popularity of this new form of sports participation among the youth. Asian Games is also known as Asiad. It is held every 4 years. It is considered next to Olympics. An young Champ from Bangalore ,Sagar Baheti(31) has become the first visually impaired Indian runner to complete the historic Boston Marathon. Baheti completed a distance of 42.16 km distance in four hours. Ace Shuttler PV Sindhu has been ranked World No. 3 in the latest BWF ranking. Rafael Nadal wins Monte Carlo Master’s Men’s Singles title which held at Monte Carlo ground at France. With this he became the first man in the Open era to win the same event for 10 times . Earlier, he won 8 Monte Carlo titles from 2005 to 2012. He again won in 2016. Rohan Bopanna and Pablo Cuevas won Monte Carlo Master’s Men’s doubles title Haryana beat Kerala to win team championship at National Athletics meet. Kerala girls retained the crown. 101 year old man Kaur bagged gold in 100 m event at World Master Games. The Chandigarh- based Sprinter will also compete in the 200 m race
Kaur had become the first Indian woman to qualify for the shot put event at the Rio Olympics. But she managed to finish only 23rd in Rio.Indian Shot putter Manpreet Kaur broke her own 2015 national record at the Asian Grand Prix in Jinhua, China by clinching a gold medal . She is qualified for the World Championships to be held in London in August 2017. With this win she became the World no: 1.
The 101 year athlete Mann Kaur becomes the oldest person to sky walk around Auckland’s famous landmark sky tower which is held on 27th April 2017. She broke the Guiness World record for Javelin throw at the Trusts stadium in Waitakere, west Auckland on 26th April 2017. This Indian woman already clinched 100 m Sprint at the World Masters games held in Auckland, New Zealand on 24th April 2017 BCCI loses both revenue and governance vote at ICC meet.The satnd off between BCCI and ICC could have a deep impact on the game, as a bulk of ICC’s revenue comes from the cricketing body. Science & Technology Elon Musk-led space exploration startup SpaceX has successfully launched its pre-used first stage of Falcon 9 rocket in its bid to drive down costs and speed up flights. It marks the first
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time relaunch of an orbital class rocket. The Falcon 9 took off from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center hoisting a broadcasting satellite. The reused first stage was earlier used in March 2016 and had successfully landed on drone platform. Hyderabad became first ‘Giga-enabled’ city in India after The Atria Convergence Technologies (ACT) Fibrenet launched 1 Gigabit per second (Gbps) wired broadband internet service in the city. The ACT Fibrenet uses fiber optic technology and its 1 Gbps offers 400 times faster internet speed than the average speed of 2.5 megabits per second (mbps) in India. Hyderabad, city of pearls has highest internet penetration in India.
A team of scientists from Raman Research Institute, Bengaluru and University of Delhi for the first time have seen indications of a massive planet orbiting a low mass X-ray binary star system. The system MXB 1658-298 is an X-ray binary and a part of the constellation Ophiuchus (serpent bearer). It is nearly 30,000 light years away and the planet is expected to be nearly 8,000 times as massive as the earth.
Scientists from Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) have identified a soil fungus Aspergillus tubingensis that uses enzymes to rapidly break down plastic materials. The plastic-eating fungus was found Islamabad, Pakistan. The new discovery in an advance can help to deal with plastic waste problem that threatens our environment in safer and more effective way.
Scientists from the University of Kerala have discovered a new species of long-legged, tree- dwelling crabs named Kani maranjandu in Western Ghats of Kerala. It has been named after the Kani tribe in Kerala and are substantially different from other congeners (organisms within the same genus). NASA announced a three month extension to the space term of this international space station crew member “Peggy Whitson “ Google has introduced an application for viewing videos on a slower networks in You tube and it can be downloaded from the Google play store in India as “You Tube Go “application Twitter introduced “ Twitter Lite “ a data friendly platform its users in India. It will provide the same key features of Twitter such as time line, tweets, direct messages, notification, profiles, media upload, etc IVRI ( Bareilly, UP) are in the process of collecting DNA samples of all types of wild animals to help in wild life research and also to reduce poaching of animals. It is found that North India will be first to get its recognition to have DNA bank .IVRI( Indian Veterinary Research Institute ) Department of science and technology ( DST) has launched Cyber Physical Systems Programme ( CPS) which deals with self driven cars, autonomous unmanned vehicles and aircraft navigation systems.It is a mechanism controlled or monitored by computer based algorithms.
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Scientists from Boston University School of Medicine(US) have discovered a protein that increases effectiveness of vaccines against cancer .The scientists have purified a bacteria “neisseria meningitis” on its exterior side to provide a better vaccination response. A venus like planet is orbiting a dim star which is about one fifth diameter of our Sun and is slightly larger than earth is named as Kepler -1649 was discovered by the astronomers using Kepler Space Telescope. Paytm has announced a new feature named QR code on its Paytm Mall application to enable customers to place their online orders at physical stores. The Union Minister for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences, Harsh Vardhan on the occasion of 250th anniversary of SOI ( The Survey of India)has launched a new web portal called Nakshe to make open series maps available to Indians for free. Nokia signed an MOU with BSNL and Airtel to bring its 5G services in India Scientists at CSIR-National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) have developed a robotic platform, Seabed Resident Event Profiler (SREP) which has been designed to regularly record the water column information at every 10 to 25 cm during every profile four times a day. SREP is capable of being stationed at any water depth from 0-200 metres to track the oceanic processes. Robert Taylor who was responsible for the word processing program Microsoft Word and development of Ethernet was passed away. NASA has announced that Saturn’s sixth-largest moon Enceladus and Jupiter’s fourth- largest moon Europa may be habitable as they have the necessary ingredients required to sustain life. The Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre under ISRO has developed indigenous technology to manufacture high-power batteries for use in two- and three-wheelers. Their feasibility was tested by ARAI (Automotive Research Association of India ) was found to be successful. So the Governmnent of India has directed ISRO to share battery technology for mass production of Lithium-Ion batteries for electric vehicles. Scientists have found second Great Cold spot in Jupiter which was found to be 24000 km across and 12000 km wide.Earlier the Great Red Spot was found in 1830. ISRO is going to launch its South Asia Satellite in May 2017. It is a proposed geosynchronous communications and meteorology satellite for the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAS) region. During the 18th SAARC summit held in Nepal in 2014, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi mooted the idea of a satellite serving the needs of SAARC member nations, part of his Neighbourhood first policy.
Astronomers have discovered yet another planet, called LHS1140b, The planet is found to be rocky, like the Earth but is over six-times as massive as Earth and about 1.5-times larger and falls under the category of ‘Super Earth’.
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China’s first cargo spacecraft Tianzhou-1 with the Tiangong-2 space lab has successfully docked . China has an ambitious plan of building a permanent space station by 2022, that will be in the orbit for at least 10 years. Galleria mellonella (The wax worm) has possessing the ability to biodegrade polyethylene plastic waste faster . The bacteria was found to biodegrade plastics at a rate of just 0.13mg a day. Donald Trump is planning to send American Astronauts to Mars during his first term as the President of United States.
NASA launches super pressure balloon from Wanaka ,New Zealand which will detect ultra high energy cosmic particles beyond the galaxy as they penetrate the earth’s atmosphere.
China launched its first domestically built air craft carrier on 26th April, 2017 , which can transfer the ship from a dry dock into open water in Dalian, the carrier was temporarily named Type 001A. It was China’s second carrier after Liaoning which was made by Soviet Union.It is slightly larger than Liaoning.
Jimmy Wales(Founder of Wikipedia) is going to launch a new crowd funded website Wikitribune that aims to curb the spread of false information by providing verified news.
NASA’s Cassini Spacecraft has made its first dive into the never –before explored region between Saturn and its rings on 26th April 2017. No space craft has entered in this region before. NASA Scientist discovered a new planet and named it as “Iceball” through microlensing.The new planet is likely far too cold to be habitable for life because its star is so faint. ISRO has launched a solar calculator app that has been created by the Space Application Center (SAC) facility of ISRO to calculate the benefits of installing solar panels in different regions of the country.as per the request of Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE)’s request. The app comes handy for installation of Photovoltaic (PV) for tapping of solar energy.
Researchers have developed artificial wombs that can facilitate development of premature babies in a uterus-like environment. They have created a fluid-filled transparent container called the Biobag to simulate how foetuses float in amniotic fluid inside the uterus of their mothers.
India’s first electric taxi trial would be launched in Nagpur from May 24. The first project of its kind will be undertaken by Nagpur Municipal Corporation. Mahindra and Mahindra is set to provide 200 taxis for the initiative. Books
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The book titled “ Gandhi in Champaran “ was authored by DG Tendulkar The book titled “ Hope in a challenged Democracy – An Indian Narrative “ is written by Ashwani Kumar
Prepared by D.Sarala for www.tnpscportal.in Visit www.tnpscportal.in website for Daily / Monthly Current Affairs Notes and Online Tests Convey your valuable suggestions via email : [email protected]
All the best!
Current Affairs Practice Tests – April 2017
1 Which state Chief minister was selected for the US India Business Council Award of ‘Transformative Chief Minister’.
a) Arunachal Pradesh
b) Telangana
c) Kerala
d) Andhra Pradesh
Answer : d
2 Growth of the country’s eight core sectors slipped to an over one-year low of ----- in February 2017
a) 2%
b) 0.50%
c) 1%
d) 0.10%
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Answer : c
3 Which Government has approved the first West Bank settlement in two decades.
a) Iraq
b) Iran
c) Israel
d) North Korea
Answer : b
4 Who has decided to set up a separate enforcement department to oversee possible breaches of rules and take punitive actions against those who violate them.
a) The Reserve Bank of India (RBI)
b) The World Bank
c) The Asian Development Bank
d) State Bank of India
Answer : a
5 State-run NTPC (National Thermal Power Corporation Limited) has crossed the milestone of ----Gigawatts power generation capacity
a) 25
b) 50
c) 100
d) 1000
Answer : b
6 The Union Defence Ministry has allowed which state government to use the functional Advance Landing Grounds (ALGs) in the state for civilian purpose
a) Mizoram
b) Assam
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c) Manipur
d) Arunachal Pradesh
Answer : d
7 Which foreign giant has committed an official development assistance (ODA) of 371 billion yen (about Rs 21,590 crore) for various infrastructure projects, including the dedicated freight corridor, in India for the FY 2016-2017.
a) Japan
b) Russia
c) China
d) USA
Answer : a
8 India’s first International research centre for Foot and Mouth disease of cattle and buffalos was inaugurated at
a) Nagaland
b) Jharkhand
c) Chattisgarh
d) Odisha
Answer : d
9 From the first unit of KNPP, Tamil Nadu is getting ------MW of electricity
a) 50 MW
b) 221Mw
c) 562 MW
d) 133 MW
Answer : c
10 Which state became the first state side to win the three-team one-day tournament.
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a) Tamil Nadu
b) Kerala
c) Andhra
d) Telengana
Answer : a
------
1 Which two countries have decided to set up a 240 million pound Green Growth Equity Fund to finance clean energy projects in India.
a) "India and USA
"
b) "India and UK
"
c) "India and USSR
"
d) "India and China
"
Answer : b
2 Decision in this regard was taken at the 9th India-UK Economic and Financial Dialogue in
a) Delhi
b) Mumbai
c) Vizag
d) Cochin
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Answer : a
3 Senior IPS Officer Geeta Johari was appointed as new Director General of Police (DGP) of
a) Gujarat
b) Rajasthan
c) Tamil Nadu
d) Kerala
Answer : a
4 Which state has signed two agreements with the Union Ministry of Power to enhance power supply in distribution network.
a) Mizoram
b) Manipur
c) Tripura
d) Assam
Answer : c
5 Prof. David R. Syiemlieh took the Oath of Office and Secrecy as Chairman of the
a) Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission ( TNPSC)
b) Union Public Service Commission (UPSC)
c) Staff Selection Commission ( SSC)
d) Teachers Recruitment Board
Answer : b
6 BP Kanungo took over as the Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in
a) Mumbai
b) New Delhi
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c) Chennai
d) Secundrabad
Answer : a
7 The 19th Commonwealth Forestry Conference was held at Forest Research Institute,
a) Jharkhad
b) Chattisgarh
c) Mussorie
d) Uttarakhand
Answer : d
8 Which University was adjudged as the best Indian university in the 2017 National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) released by Union Human Resource Development Ministry
a) The Indian Institute of Sciences (IISc), Bengaluru
b) Indian Institute of Technology,Madras
c) Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.
d) Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur
Answer : a
9 Scientists from Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) have identified Aspergillus tubingensis that uses enzymes to rapidly break down plastic materials which is a
a) Soil Fungus
b) Soil bacteria
c) Soil decomposer
d) None of the above
Answer : a
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10 The Union Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment has launched Rashtriya Vayoshri Yojana in Nellore District of
a) Telangana
b) Tamil Nadu
c) Andhra Pradesh
d) Karnataka
Answer : c
------
1 Which country has fired a ballistic missile from its east coast into the sea off the Peninsula from Sinpo, a port city and submarine base
a) South Korea
b) North Korea
c) Ecuador
d) Israel
Answer : a
2 Name t the first North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member country to launch a self- contained cyber command unit dubbed as Cyber and Information Space Command (Kdo CIR)
a) Greece
b) turkey
c) Denmark
d) Germany
Answer : d
3 Ram Bilas Sharma was nominated as the chairman of the Amateur Circle Kabaddi federation of India for the next
a) four years.
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b) five years
c) three years
d) two years
Answer : a
4 Which country has officially recognized bitcoin and digital currencies as legal money along the lines of other fiat currencies with effect from April 1, 2017
a) Japan
b) China
c) India
d) Russia
Answer : a
5 Which state government has constituted six-member committee to implement its decision of waving off farmers’ agricultural loan.
a) Maharashtra
b) Andhra Pradesh
c) Uttar Pradesh
d) Tamil Nadu
Answer : c
6 Which State Government has banned the usage of polythene bags below 50 microns in the state.
a) Tamil Nadu
b) Jammu & Kashmir
c) Kerala
d) New Delhi
Answer : b
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7 Which State Government has decided to provide one-time grant of Rs 21,000 to all those families whose third girl child was born on or after August 24, 2015 under the ‘Aapki Beti, Hamari Beti’ scheme.
a) Punjab
b) Haryana
c) Bihar
d) Manipur
Answer : b
8 Which state government has launched ‘MP e-nagarpalika’ mobile application to provide various municipal services online.
a) Himachal Pradesh
b) Mizoram
c) Madhya Pradesh
d) Manipur
Answer : c
9 The International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action is observed every year on
a) April 4
b) April14
c) April24
d) April2
Answer : a
10 Who became India’s first-ever transgender person to become a police official
a) Priyadharshini
b) Prithika Yamini
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c) Prithika Yashini
d) Pavithra Yashini
Answer : c
------
1 "The Union Cabinet has approved the signing of the Air Services Agreement (ASA) between
"
a) India and France
b) "India and Australia
"
c) " India and Georgia
"
d) India and Bangladesh
Answer : c
2 The Union Cabinet has approved MoU between India and------for fairway development on two stretches.
a) "Austria
"
b) "Georgia
"
c) "Australia
"
d) "Bangladesh
"
Answer : d
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3 "The Union Cabinet has approved MoU between India and------in the field of judicial sector cooperation.
"
a) "Myanmar
"
b) Pakistan
c) "Nepal
"
d) "Bangladesh
"
Answer : d
4 "The Union Cabinet has approved closure of the Mahatma Gandhi Pravasi Suraksha Yojana (MGPSY). The scheme was launched in
"
a) 2012
b) 2014
c) 2010
d) 2013
Answer : a
5 "The 2017 National conference on Communicating India was held in
"
a) "Hyderabad
"
b) Mumbai
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c) New Delhi
d) Bangalore
Answer : c
6 Renowned playback singer, actor and music director S.P. Bala Subramanyam was awarded the NTR National Film Award for
a) 2017
b) 2012
c) 2016
d) 2015
Answer : b
7 "Indian cricket team captain Virat Kohli was honoured as the Wisden’s Leading Cricketer in the World for the year
"
a) 2016
b) 2017
c) 2015
d) 2014
Answer : a
8 The India- United Arab Emirates (UAE) cultural celebrations festival was launched at Abu Dhabi with a tribute video featuring
a) "Mahatma Gandhi
"
b) Both Mahatma Gandhi and late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan
c) "Late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan
"
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d) "None of the above
"
Answer : b
9 "The Union Government has appointed ------Secretary of the Department of Heavy Industry as chairman of newly constituted National Board of Electric Mobility (NBEM).
"
a) Mukesh Kumar Jain
b) "Raman Roy
"
c) "Girish Shankar
"
d) Urjit Patel
Answer : c
10 "The Union Cabinet has approved MoU between ------to implement Technical Cooperation Program in civil aviation sector.
"
a) India and Bangladesh
b) "India and China
"
c) "India and France
"
d) " India and Japan
"
Answer : c
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1 Which Country’s President honoured General Bipin Rawat ( Chief of Army Staff) to the honorary rank in a special function held at President’s office
a) Burma
b) "Bhutan
"
c) Thailand
d) "Nepal
"
Answer : d
2 "Two foreign coaches Dave smith and Galina P. Bukharina were appointed by Union Sports Minister Vijay Goel till 2020 Olympics for
"
a) Athletics
b) "Wrestling
"
c) "Shooting
"
d) "Boxing
"
Answer : a
3 World Health Day is celebrated every year to mark the anniversary of WHO foundation day on
a) 5th April
b) 6th April
c) 7th April
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d) 8th April
Answer : c
4 The second highest peace time gallantry award which was posthumously conferred to Lance Havildar Prem Bahadur Resmi Mahar of Gorkha rifles
a) Shaurya chakra
b) Kirti Chakra
c) "Param Vishisht Seva Medals
"
d) Uttam Yudh Seva Medals
Answer : b
5 "------is celebrated as National Maritime day every year
"
a) April 5
b) April 6
c) April 7
d) April 11
Answer : a
6 IVRI( Indian Veterinary Research Institute ) is situated at
a) Madhya Pradesh
b) Delhi
c) Lucknow
d) Uttar Pradesh
Answer : d
7 TRAI has ordered which telephone network giant to withdraw its Summer Surpise Offer.
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a) "Airtel
"
b) BSNL
c) Reliance Jio
d) "Vodafone
"
Answer : c
8 A three day National Children’s Film festival was inaugurated in
a) "Delhi
"
b) Vishakapatnam
c) Cochin
d) Bangalore
Answer : b
9 Gunotsav programme to improve quality of school education in the state was conducted for four days in
a) Assam
b) Gujarat
c) Rajasthan
d) Mumbai
Answer : a
10 Which Country ranks no : 1 in Global Gender Gap Index according to World Economic Forum 2015
a) Norway
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b) Ice Land
c) Finland
d) "Sweden
"
Answer : b
1 "Which department has launched Cyber Physical Systems Programme ( CPS) which deals with self driven cars, autonomous unmanned vehicles and aircraft navigation systems
"
a) Department of Human resources
b) Department of Science and Technology
c) "Department of Space Technology
"
d) Department of Communication technology
Answer : b
2 "India was placed at which Position in the World Economic Forum 2017 Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index
"
a) 100
b) 52
c) 40
d) 67
Answer : c
3 "India ranked at which position in bribery and corruption practices in businesses among 41 countries as per EMEIA survey
"
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a) "9th
"
b) 11t
c) "6th
"
d) 1st
Answer : a
4 World Health Day is celebrated every year on
a) April 5
b) April 6
c) April 7
d) April 8
Answer : c
5 International day of Sports for Development and Peace is celebrated every year to recognise the power of sports in promoting peace on
a) April 5
b) April 6
c) April 7
d) April 8
Answer : b
6 "India inked a deal with which country for advanced medium -range and surface – air missile systems ( MRSAM) systems
"
a) "Iran
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"
b) Iraq
c) "Israel
"
d) Qatar
Answer : c
7 "“Purohityam “ a one year diploma course on Hindu priesthood will be launched from July 2017 in the state of
"
a) "Madhya Pradesh
"
b) "Gujarat
"
c) "Rajasthan
"
d) Odisha
Answer : a
8 "RBI has changed the reverse repo rate from 5.75 to-----% for the first bimonthly monitory policy review of the financial year 2017-18
"
a) 5%
b) 6%
c) 6.50%
d) 7%
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Answer : b
9 "Sex ratio in which state has improved a lot after launching “ Beti Bachao , Beti padho “ Programme for the first time in the State’s history it marked 950
"
a) Haryana
b) Punjab
c) Assam
d) Meghalaya
Answer : a
10 "Theme of World health day 2017
"
a) Stress: just break it
b) "Stress : Let’s play
"
c) Depression : Let’s avoid
d) "Depression :Let’s talk
"
Answer : d
1 Indira Baneerjee was appointed as the------Chief Justice of Madras High Court.
a) 45th
b) "46th
"
c) "47th
"
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d) "48th
"
Answer : c
2 The 2017 Chinese Grand Prix was won by
a) Lewis Hamilton
b) Sebastian Vetel
c) Max Verstappen
d) Valterri Bottas
Answer : a
3 Sudharshan Patnaik , renowned sand artist has been selected to represent India in the ------sand art chamiponship2017
a) Newyork
b) " Moscow
"
c) "Dubai
"
d) "Thailand
"
Answer : b
4 The first rail freight service from china to ------departed from Essex is
a) "India
"
b) "France
"
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c) United Kingdom
d) "Russia
"
Answer : c
5 Name the first country in the world to legalize the production, consumption and sale of Marijuana.
a) Spain
b) france
c) Norway
d) Uruguay
Answer : d
6 “Bharat ke veer”- a mobile app was launched by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs to make people to contribute for the family of Martyrs from
a) Central reserve police force
b) "Central para military force
"
c) Both A and B
d) "None
"
Answer : b
7 A venus like planet is orbiting a dim star which is about one fifth diameter of our Sun and is slightly larger than earth is named as
a) Kepler 1469
b) Venus 1469
c) Venus 1649
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d) kepler 1649
Answer : d
8 Nomadic Elephant 2017, two week Indo-Mongolian Joint Military Exercise of its 12th edition was inaugurated in Vairengte in
a) Manipur
b) "Mizoram
"
c) "Myanmar
"
d) Mongolia
Answer : b
9 "World Homeopathy day was celebrated on
"
a) April 11
b) April 9
c) April 10
d) April 8
Answer : c
10 “Swachhagraha – Bapu Ko Karyanjali – Ek Abhiyan, Ek Pradarshani” an exhibition was held in New Delhi to celebrate the Centenary year (100 years) of
a) "Champaran Satyagraha
"
b) Jallian wallahbagh Massacre
c) Minto morley reforms
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d) Dandi salt satyagraha
Answer : a
1 The Union government decided to revive 40 year old North Koel irrigation project to address the water requirements in
a) "Bihar and Jharkhand
"
b) Bihar and UP
c) Bihar And Rajasthan
d) Jharkhnad and MP
Answer : a
2 Which State Government has decided to increase the number of Science Club in its Schools?
a) Punjab
b) Haryana
c) Gujarat
d) "New Delhi
"
Answer : b
3 "Which telecommunication giant signed an MOU with BSNL and Airtel to bring its 5G services in India
"
a) "Apple
"
b) LG
c) " Samsung
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"
d) "Nokia
"
Answer : d
4 "India’s first ever micro- drama festival named Thepsis was held in
"
a) "New Delhi
"
b) "Goa
"
c) " Mumbai
"
d) " Vizag
"
Answer : a
5 Indian Railways entered into an agreement with ------(PSU) for installing roof top SPV systems recently .
a) "Bharat Electronics Limited
"
b) Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd
c) "Tata steel
"
d) Vedanta
Answer : b
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6 "Which was found to be only G7 nation to call for sanctions on Russia for its support towards its war torn ally Syria
"
a) Britain
b) "Canada
"
c) "Germany
"
d) France
Answer : a
7 The President of India Pranab Mukherjee presented the SCOPE Award (Standing Conference of Public enterprises) at the 8th Public Sector Day function held in
a) "Hyderabad
"
b) New Delhi
c) Bangalore
d) Cochin
Answer : b
8 The G20 Digital Ministerial Meeting on Digital Economy was held in
a) "Germany"
b) "Canada"
c) France
d) Japan
Answer : a
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9 Lok Sabha has passed Constitution ------Amendment Bill, 2017 which seeks to give constitutional status to National Commission for Backward Classes.
a) 122
b) 123
c) 124
d) 125
Answer : b
10 “The Underground Railroad “ novel by Colson Whitehead has won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for
a) "fiction
"
b) Drama
c) Non fiction
d) Journalism
Answer : a
1 Himachal Pradesh celebrates its------Himachal foundation day in Chamba, HP on April 15, 2017
a) 60
b) 70
c) 69
d) 71
Answer : b
2 Which state government has signed “Power for All” pact with the Centre to provide 24×7 power supply to all the households in the State.Power for All is a joint initiative of Central and state government.
a) Telangana Facebook.com/tnpscportal www.tnpscportal.in Page 66
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b) Himachal Pradesh
c) Uttar Pradesh
d) Andhra Pradesh
Answer : c
3 Which government has prohibited VIP names (including MP’s, MLA’s) on plaques and foundation stones
a) Haryana
b) Punjab
c) Bihar
d) Kerala
Answer : b
4 India Licensing Expo is scheduled to be held in------on August 20-21.2017
a) Delhi
b) Mumbai
c) Kolkata
d) Chennai
Answer : b
5 Which State’s township had become India’s first 100% cashless township after demonetization
a) Gujarat
b) Rajasthan
c) Maharashtra
d) Karnataka
Answer : a
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6 ------is going to conduct first ever joint military exercise named ‘Sagarmatha Friendship-2017’
a) India and Nepal
b) India and China
c) Nepal and China
d) "Nepal and Pakistan
"
Answer : c
7 Prime Minister of India has launched new BHIM-Aadhaar platform from
a) Nagpur
b) Manipur
c) New Delhi
d) Gujarat
Answer : a
8 Which state government has launched ‘Operation Durga’ to ensure women safety in the state?
a) Punjab
b) Haryana
c) New Delhi
d) Tamil Nadu
Answer : b
9 Union Ministry of Labour & Employment has launched Aadhaar Seeding Application at the 217th special meeting of the Central Board of Employees Provident Fund (CBEPF/EPFO) in
a) New Delhi
b) Mumbai
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c) Bangalore
d) Kolkata
Answer : a
10 The High Energy Accelerator Research Organisation (KEK) completed the ‘rolling-in’ of the Belle-II experiment in
a) Japan
b) China
c) Russia
d) North Korea
Answer : a
1 "The Government of India has announced ------scholarship schemes for Scheduled Castes and Other Backward Classes (OBCs) / Denotified, Nomadic and Semi-nomadic Tribes (DNTs) students come under Digital Payments Initiatives
"
a) 13
b) 14
c) 15
d) 16
Answer : b
2 "Which IIT has planned to introduce Vastu Shashtra to the architecture students from this year August 2017.
"
a) "IIT, Kanpur
"
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b) "IIT, Madras
"
c) IIT,Mumbai
d) IIT , Kharagpur
Answer : d
3 "India become the ----- country to have its national in Men’s single super series after China, Denmark and Indonesia.
"
a) Fourth
b) "Third
"
c) Second
d) First
Answer : a
4 A deep depression in Bay of Bengal has turned into a tropical Cyclone and it was named as “Maarutha” which is expected to hit
a) "West Bengal
"
b) Andhra Pradesh
c) Myanmar
d) Odisha
Answer : c
5 Name the Country the World’s oldest Woman “ Emma Morano “(117) has passed away
a) Italy
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b) China
c) France
d) Denmark
Answer : a
6 Scientists have found second Great Cold spot in
a) "Saturn
"
b) Venus
c) Jupiter
d) Mars
Answer : c
7 The Union government has planned to allow Cash and ATM management companies to attract ------foreign direct investment
a) 98%
b) 99%
c) 100%
d) 90%
Answer : c
8 ISRO is going to launch its South Asia Satellite in
a) May 2018
b) May 2017
c) June 2018
d) June 2017
Answer : b
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9 "Which State Government has introduced a scheme for framers which was known to be “Enriched Farmer Scheme”
"
a) Bihar
b) Tamil Nadu
c) Andhra
d) Maharashtra
Answer : d
10 Which Country is planned to launch its first cargo space craft into space.
a) China
b) France
c) Japan
d) Russia
Answer : a
1 Krishi Karman awards for their record performance in the production of food grains during 2015-16 was bagged by
a) Tamil Nadu
b) Tripura
c) Himachal Pradesh
d) All the above
Answer : d
2 The National Green Tribunal has ordered for the immediate closure of industries around the Bellandur Lake in
a) Bangalore
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b) Trivandrum
c) Kodaikanal
d) Odisha
Answer : a
3 Sri lanka Day of Vesak was celebrated annually on
a) 21st May
b) 12th May
c) 12th June
d) 21st June
Answer : b
4 Which City of India is going to host the International day of Yoga June 2017.
a) Kanpur
b) Chandigarh
c) Lucknow
d) Udaipur
Answer : c
5 The IMF has predicted that the global economy would grow at 3.5% in 2017, up from ----- in 2016
a) 3.40%
b) 3.00%
c) 3.20%
d) "3.1 %
"
Answer : d
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6 Which International Airport has bagged the carbon neutrality status( level 3) by Airports Council International (ACI)
a) Rajiv Gandhi International Airport( Shamshabad)
b) Sardar Vallabhai Patel International Airport ( Ahmedabad)
c) Chattrapathi Shivaji International Airport ( Mumbai)
d) Indra Gandhi International; Airport ( Delhi)
Answer : a
7 2018 Asian Games is going to held in
a) Incheon, South Korea
b) Palembang, Indonesia
c) Hangzhou, China
d) Doha, Qatar
Answer : b
8 Who planned to launch GSLV-Mk III-D1 Launcher in May 2017
a) "NASA
"
b) DRDO
c) "ISRO
"
d) "Both B& C
"
Answer : c
9 India has contributed ------to the UN Election Assistance Division to help other countries to hold elections and develop their electoral systems.
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a) USD 2,50,000
b) USD 2,00,000
c) USD 1,50,000
d) USD 2,25,000
Answer : a
10 A nationwide programme for capacity building of Elected Women Representatives (EWRs) of Panchayats and a training program for Trainers of women panchayat leaders at
a) "Chattisgarh
"
b) Jharkhand
c) Bihar
d) Assam
Answer : b
1 "The first herbal garden of the ------near the Government national Homeopathic college and hospital, Lucknow will be set up soon to encourage the farmers to cultivate herbal plants across the state
"
a) Uttar Pradesh
b) Madhya Pradesh
c) Himachal Pradesh
d) Andhra Pradesh
Answer : a
2 Which state government planned to set up 40 Yoga wellness centres in 40 districts across the state in the present financial year 2017-18
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a) Arunachal
b) Telangana
c) Uttar Pradesh
d) Jharkhand
Answer : c
3 World Earth Day is celebrated on
a) April 21
b) April 22
c) April 20
d) April 24
Answer : b
4 National Civil services is celebrated on
a) April 27
b) April 16
c) April 22
d) April 21
Answer : d
5 Which Country has unilaterally announced ‘standardised’ names for six places in Arunachal Pradesh with Roman alphabet
a) Pakistan
b) China
c) India
d) None of the above
Answer : b
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6 India has nominated Hindustan Shipyard Ltd (HSL), Visakhapatnam for the collaboration with
a) South Korea
b) North Korea
c) Iran
d) Iraq
Answer : a
7 Which two countries has signed an agreement to re-establish diplomatic ties after a time period of 37 years.
a) Cuba and Monaco
b) Monaco and Morocco
c) Cuba and Morocco
d) None of the above
Answer : c
8 The Supreme court has ruled out that alimony to be paid for the Women who are separated should be ------of his net salary as maintenance
a) 15%
b) 20%
c) 25%
d) 50%
Answer : c
9 NSCI Safety Awards 2016 was given to 70 Organisations by the Minister of State (IC) for Labour & Employment Bandaru Dattatreya at a function held in
a) New Delhi
b) Mumbai
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c) Kolkatta
d) Chennai
Answer : a
10 China’s first cargo spacecraft Tianzhou-1 with the ------has successfully docked
a) Tiangong-1 space lab
b) Tiangong-2 space lab
c) Tianzhou-1 space lab
d) Tianzhou-2 space lab
Answer : b
1 PC Chandra purashkar 2017 was given to
a) Malala Yousafzai
b) Medha Padkar
c) Kailash satyarthi
d) M.C.Mehta
Answer : c
2 United Nation’s English Language day is commemorated every year on
a) April 19
b) April 22
c) April 23
d) April 24
Answer : c
3 Which state became India’s first state to open “ Village of books” to promote tourism.
a) Haryana Facebook.com/tnpscportal www.tnpscportal.in Page 78
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b) Maharashtra
c) Punjab
d) Gujarat
Answer : b
4 World Book and Copyright Day is celebrated every year on
a) April 21
b) April 28
c) April 27
d) April 23
Answer : d
5 1st India –Indonesia forum was held at
a) Jakarta
b) New Delhi
c) Bangalore
d) Malang
Answer : a
6 Monte Carlo Master’s Men’s Singles title was won by
a) "Rogan Bopanna
"
b) Rafael Nadal
c) Pablo Cuevas
d) "None
"
Answer : b
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7 Goldman Environmental Prize ( also called Green Nobel ) for this year was bagged by
a) "Medha padkar
"
b) Champaran Shukla
c) Ramesh Agrawal
d) Prafulla Samantra
Answer : d
8 India has become world’s ------largest LPG importer,
a) First
b) Second
c) Third
d) Fourth
Answer : b
9 India post on 23rd April 2017 has released a commemorative postage stamp of denomination Rs. 100 on Coffee as a fragrance stamp in
a) Chennai
b) Trivandrum
c) "Bengaluru
"
d) Pune
Answer : c
10 National Panchayat Raj Diwas is celebrated every year on
a) April 21
b) April 28
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c) April 27
d) April 24
Answer : d
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