Current Affairs - April 2020 Month April 2020 Type All 290 Current Affairs were found in Month - April 2020 for Type - All Appointments 1. AU Small Finance Bank appointed R V Verma as part-time chairman and Sanjay Agarwal has been re-appointed as MD and CEO. 2. Anamika Roy Rashtrawar has been appointed by IFFCO Tokio General Insurance as its new MD & CEO. 3. Former Karnataka cricketer J. Arunkumar has been appointed the head coach of USA Cricket team. 4. Government announced new appointments at Secretary level - Ministeries - Sanjeev Ranjan - Ministry of Shipping. Arvind Kumar Sharma - MSME Ministry. Aramane Girdhar - Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. Ajay Tirkey - Ministry of Women & Child Development Rajesh Verma - Ministry of Corporate Affairs. Tarun Kapoor - Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas. Indu Shekhar Chaturvedi - Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. Rameshwar Prasad Gupta - Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. Pradip Kumar - Ministry of Steel. Anand Kumar - Ministry of Culture. Amit Khare - Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. Notable Departments under Ministeries - Ravi Mittal - Department of Sports (Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports). Tarun Bajaj - Department of Economic Affairs (Ministry of Finance). Rajesh Kr. Chaturvedi - Deptt of Chemicals and Petrochemicals (Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers). Leena Nandan - Department of Consumer Affairs (Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution). Sudhanshu Panday -Department of Food and Public Distribution (Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution). Nagendra Nath Sinha - Department of Rural Development (Ministry of Rural Development). Anita Karwal - Department of Education and Literacy (Ministry of Human Resource Development). 5. Government reconstituted 16 member National Shipping Board (NSB), which is highest advisory body on matters related to Indian shipping. Its board will now be headed by former Director General of Shipping Malini Shankar. 6. Govt appointed Kapil Dev Tripathi as new secretary to President Ram Nath Kovind. 7. Indian Chess legend Viswanathan Anand has been named ambassador of World Wide Fund India. WWF is an international NGO, founded in 1961. 8. Infosys COO UB Pravin Rao is appointed as chairman of National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) for 2020-21. 9. International Monetary Fund (IMF) named several individuals to serve as IMF MD Kristalina Georgieva's External Advisory Group. It Includes former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan. 10. Misc. Appointments (April 2020) - Lakshminarayanan Duraiswamy appointed as MD of Sundaram Home Finance. Government extended term of Madhabi Puri Buch as a Whole Time Member (WTM) at Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) by 6 months. She is the first woman Whole Time Member (WTM) of SEBI. Parag Raja has been appointed by Bharti AXA Life Insurance as its MD & CEO. Supreme Court extended tenure of Shiva Kirti Singh as Chairman of Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT), for 3 months. Govt.approved extension of tenure of members and current part-time chairman of Bank Board Bureau(BBB) by 2 years. Karnataka Bank received RBI nod for reappointment of Mahabaleshwara M S as MD and CEO for 3 years. Birupaksha Mishra became Executive Director of Union Bank of India, after its amalgamation with Corporation Bank and Andhra Bank. Vineet Arora has been appointed MD and CEO of New Paytm Group Entity Paytm General Insurance Ltd. Ajay Mahajan appointed as MD & CEO of credit rating agency CARE Ratings. Rajnesh Oswal has been appointed as First permanent Judge of common High Court of UTs of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh. Anurag Srivastava has been appointment as spokesperson for ministry of external affairs, replacing Raveesh Kumar. V Kanagaraj appointed as new State Election Commissioner of Andhra Pradesh. Tata Capital appointed Sarosh Amaria as Managing Director. US President Donald Trump appointed Indian-American Sudarsanam Babu to US National Science Board. Shiv Das Meena is appointed as CMD of PSU HUDCO. David Li has been appointed as CEO of Chinese Telecommunications Giant Huawei's India Operations. RBI approved re-appointment of N Kamakodi as MD & CEO of City Union Bank. International Motorcycle Manufacturers Association (IMMA) elected Rakesh Sharma (Bajaj Auto Executive Director) as its President for 2 years. London Based Financial Firm HSBC appointed Noel Quinn as Group chief executive officer. Neeraj Vyas has been appointed as interim MD & CEO of PNB Housing Finance for 8 months. RBI extended Madhavan Menon’s term as part-time Chairman of CSB Bank (Formerly Catholic Syrian Bank). 11. New Chief Justices for the Bombay, Orissa and Meghalaya High Courts (HC) have been recommended by Supreme Court Collegium - Bombay High Court - Dipankar Datta Meghalaya High Court - Biswanath Somadder Orissa High Court - Mohammad Rafiq 12. P. K. Purwar (BSNL CMD) has been given additional charge as CMD of Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL). 13. Rajiv Kumar (Former finance secretary) has been appointed as Chairperson of Public Enterprises Selection Board(PESB). 14. Sanjay Kothari has been appointed as Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC). He earlier served as secretary to President of India, replaced by Kapil Dev Tripathi recently. Also, Suresh N. Patel appointed as Vigilance Commissioner. Central Vigiliance Commission Consists of A Chief Vigilance Commissioner (Sanjay Kothari) and 2 Vigilance Commissioners (Suresh N. Patel AND Sharad Kumar). 15. T S Tirumurti will be appointed as India''s Permanent Representative to United Nations, replacing Syed Akbaruddin. Several Other Ambassadors Appointed - Namrata S Kumar - Slovenia Jaideep Mazumdar - Austria Deepak Mittal - Qatar Piyush Srivastava - Bahrain Top Awards 1. 4 Indian-Americans have been awarded with Guggenheim fellowships 2020 for their exceptional creative ability in arts - Pradeep Sharma (University of Houston) Kavita Ramanan (Brown University) Dilip Da Cunha (Harvard University and Columbia University) Mukul Sharma (Dartmouth College) About 175 such fellowships are awarded each year, established in 1925. 2. Abdelouahab Aissaoui became 1st Algerian Novelist to win International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) 2020 (13th edition) for his novel ‘The Spartan Court’. He will receive grant of USD 50000, for English translation. The novel relates power struggle between Ottoman and French colonial powers in Algeria. It is shortlisted from 6 novels, where the other 5 authors will each receive USD 10,000. 3. Adam Higginbotham's Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster, won William E. Colby Award. It includes $5,000 monetary prize. 4. Industrial Awards (April 2020) - Animal rights body People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India has conferred Chief Minister of Odisha, Naveen Patnaik with ‘Hero to Animals Award’ for allocating funds to feed community animals in Odisha during lockdown. India-based non-profit organization (NPO) ARMMAN has been awarded Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship 2020 in recognition of its exceptional work in the maternal and child health space in India, along with 4 other awardees. Tata Power company’s Club Enerji #Switchoff2SwitchOn’ campaign, which is India’s 1st, energy & resource conservation club has won silver in Edison Award 2020 under Social innovation’s subcategory, social energy solution. Top Books 1. Memoirs and Misinformation Novel by Dana Vachon and Jim Carrey has been released. 2. Book How the Onion Got Its Layers authored by Sudha Murty has been released. 3. Book Sayajirao Gaekwad III: The Maharaja of Baroda, written by Uma Balasubramaniam has been published. 4. Book Shuttling to the Top: The Story of P.V. Sindhu, authored by Sports journalist V. Krishnaswamy has been released. 5. Book Sridevi: The Eternal Screen Goddess written by Satyarth Nayak has been released. 6. Book The Wizenard Series: Season One created by Late American Basket baller Kobe Bryant and Wesley King has been released. 7. Book titled Backstage: The Story Behind India’s High Growth Years, authored by Montek Singh Ahluwalia has been launched. 8. Book titled The Enlightenment of The Greengage Tree written by Shokoofeh Azar has been released. 9. Pulitzer Prize-winning American reporter Mary Jordan wrote a book The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump, based on US First Lady Melania Trump. 10. To provide better understanding and prevention of novel coronavirus (COVID-19), 2 new books to release in May 2020 - How Contagion Works: Science, Awareness and Community in Times of Global Crisis - Italian physicist Paolo Giordano. Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs - Michael Osterholm and Mark Olshaker. Top Committees 1. A Government appointed panel headed by IBBI Chairperson M S Sahoo has submitted a report on “valuation professionals” and proposed an institutional framework for valuers by setting up National Institute of Valuers (NIV). A valuer is a professional who carries out inspections in order to help determine the current market value of property and/or land. 2. Committee headed by Ravindra H Dholakia, which was tasked with reviewing methodology of estimation of sub-national accounts and giving recommendations for the same, has suggested a complete revamp of how states collect and compile data for state-level gross domestic product (GDP) and other estimates. It suggested that GST must be used for estimating incomes and other statistics at the state level. It also said that states should compile their