Test : April 2019 Weekly Current Affair - 4" - Current Affairs MCQ

Nirbhay’, long range sub sonic cruise missile indigenously designed and developed by Bengaluru – based Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE), a lab under Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) was test fired from launch complex-3 of the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur, Odisha. This all-weather missile can be launched from multiple platforms. It is India’s first indigenously designed and developed long-range cruise missile. The missile is nuclear capable, can be equipped with 300kg warhead.It can strike land targets at a distance up to 1000 km at an altitude as low as 100 metre so that missile can avoid detection by enemy radar.It has an ability to reach speed of 0.6-0.7 Mach and can be deployed from multiple platforms.The missile weighs 1,500 kg, width of 0.52 meters and has a wingspan of 2.7 metre.

On 11th April 2019, India’s first exotic Bird Park ‘EsselWorld Bird Park’ was launched by EsselWorld Leisure Pvt. Ltd., the family entertainment arm of the $6-billion Essel Group in Mumbai. The Park is spread over 1.4 acres of land and surrounded by flora and fauna.It is home to over 500 exotic birds from more than 60 species of flying, terrestrial and aquatic birds and has 200 species of special plants and trees for the birds. EsselWorld is the largest amusement park in the country and Water Kingdom is one of the largest Theme Water Parks in Asia.

UAE is set to host the world’s foremost Artificial Intelligence,AI Summit to empower global dialogue on the future of government, business and society. The inaugural ‘AI Everything’, AIE will take place at the Dubai World Trade Centre, between 30th of this month and 1st of next month. Emirates News Agency reported that the two-day event will bring together world leaders to define the underlying pillars of governance, business and society – augmenting the world’s happiness.

The world’s first armed amphibious drone boat named “Marine Lizard”, which is guided by China’s BeiDou Navigation Satellite System has been successfully tested by China. With a capability of forming a combat triad with aerial drones and other drone ships, it could be used in land and sea assault operations. The drone ship has been built by Wuchang Shipbuilding Industry Group under China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (CSIC).It has a maximum operation range of 1,200 kms and can be remotely controlled with the help of satellites. iii. Marine Lizard, 12-metres-long, is shaped in the form of a ship. It is a trimaran and is driven by a diesel-powered hydrojet that can reach a maximum speed of 50 knots while maintaining its furtiveness.

IDBI Bank has launched ‘NRI-Insta Online’ account opening process for NRIs residing in Financial Action Task Force (FATF)member countries to open an account in the Bank without visiting the branch or submitting paper documents such as physical documents as well as KYC proofs. This online facility is available in IDBI Bank’s website.

On 16th April 2019, Asian Development Bank (ADB) agreed to provide a total of USD 3.88 billion in sovereign loans to India in 2018, which is the highest ever loan amount since sovereign operations began in the country in 1986. ADB.With this total USD 21.6 billion in loans, granted from ADB’s own resources, which exceeded the target of USD 19.71 billion and up 10 percent from 2017.ADB committed several projects like a USD 100-million loan to Ostro Kutch Wind, which is a renewable energy company for constructing and operating a 250-megawatt wind power project in Gujarat, also provided USD 30 million in equity and USD 20 million in debt security to Annapurna Finance, a microfinance company.

The Pulitzer Prize is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine and online journalism, literature, and musical composition in the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of American (Hungarian-born) Joseph Pulitzer who had made his fortune as a newspaper publisher and is administered by Columbia University in New York City.

On 12th April 2019, Fincare Small Finance Bank (SFB) has been honoured with the prestigious Celent Model Bank 2019 Award in Financial Inclusion category, for ‘Redesigning Lending to Reach Small Businesses’. Fincare Small Finance Bank.The award recognizes LAP (Loans against Property) D.Lite, which is a tab-based solution designed and developed in-house by Fincare SFB for instant underwriting of loans against property targeted at micro and small enterprises.The Award was announced at the Innovation & Insight Day organized by Celent in New York.

Indian Coast Guard vessel Veera has been commissioned by General Bipin Rawat, Chief of Army Staff in the presence of Director General of Indian Coast Guard Rajendra Singh, Chief of Eastern Naval Command Vice Admiral Karambir Singh and other senior dignitaries of the central and state government in a ceremony organised at Eastern Naval Command in Vishakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh.Veera, the third in the series of the new generation Offshore Patrol Vessel (OPV) is indigenously designed and built by Larsen & Toubro Ltd. at its shipbuilding facility at Kattupali in Chennai.It is commanded by Commandant Girish Datt Raturi and managed by 12 officers and 94 men.

India has set up an Indo-Pacific division in Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). This division is the brainchild of current foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale. This new division is intended to give a coherent architecture to the policy, which was articulated by the PM Modi at the Shangri-La Dialogue in 2018. Currently, this division will be headed by join secretary Vikram Doraiswami, for whom it will be an additional charge apart from Bangladesh and Myanmar. The territorial divisions of External Affairs ministry are crucial for policy making, so the creation of an Indo-Pacific division is a mammoth step by the government.

The Indian Navy held the 2nd edition of the bilateral maritime exercise between the Indian Navy and Vietnam Peoples’ Navy, (IN – VPN BILAT EX) at Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam during 13th to 16th April, 2019.The exercise was undertaken as a part of the ongoing Overseas Deployment of Eastern Fleet ships to South East Asian countries.INS Kolkata under the command of Captain Aditya Hara and INS Shakti under the command of Captain Sriram Amur participated in the exercise.

Global provider of real-time electronic payment and banking solutions, ACI Worldwide, notified that India’s public sector bank, Canara Bank has successfully rolled out new functionality that supports EMV (Europay, MasterCard and Visa) card acquiring across its ATM (Automated Teller Machine) network and Aadhaar Authentication, thus becoming the 1st in the market to leverage ACI’s UP Retail Payments solution and the 1st public sector bank to shift to EMV chip and PIN for card based transactions across the country’s vast ATM network.The functionality developed by ACI and Canara Bank also fastens the process of Aadhaar number linking, which in turn eases KYC (Know Your Customer) compliance at the bank’s branches.

On 13th April 2019, Two international financial institutions the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have launched a private blockchain and quasi-crypto currency called as “Learning Coin” for better understanding of blockchain technology and the function of crypto assets. This news was published via a Financial Times report.The asset will only be available for use within the IMF and the World Bank. It has no monetary value, means it is not a true cryptocurrency.

The US Department of Interior inducted its very first Indian, Delhi-based Sanjay Kumar, CEO of Geospatial Media and Communications and Secretary General of World Geospatial Industry Council (WGIC), to its prestigious National Geospatial Advisory Committee (NGAC).In November, 2018, Sanjay Kumar was honoured with the Global Geospatial Industry Ambassador award by the United Nations Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM). Kumar first joined the committee as a representative of the WGIC.

Saudi Arabia will host G20 summit in November 2020 in Riyadh. This will be the first G20 meeting in the Arab world and the 15th meeting of the G20 (Group of Twenty).The G20 summit 2018 was held in Buenos Aires, Argentina where Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud represented his kingdom. The G20 summit of 2019 will be held in Osaka, Japan in June 28-29.For the very 1st time, the G20 summit was held in 2008 in Washington, D.C. with the prime objective of reviving the world economy from the worst financial crisis in more than 70 years. The G20 Summit is formally known as the ‘Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy’.

Recently, Reporters Without Borders released World Press Freedom Index 2019 in which Norway topped the index in third consecutive year.Top 5 countries in World Press Freedom Index 2019India drops down by two positions (138th rank in 2018) to be ranked 140th out of 180 countries in 2019.

The concept of Regulatory Sandbox (RS) was proposed by a committee headed by RBI Executive Director Sudarshan Sen. RBI issues guidelines to prevent market. According to bank regulator RBI, a Regulatory Sandbox (RS) refers to live-testing of new products or services in a secure and test regulatory environment for which regulators may or may not allow certain regulatory relaxations for the limited purpose of the testing.

On 16th April 2019, Gagandeep Kang, 56 year old, executive director of Translational Health Science and technology Institute at Faridabad, has become the first Indian female scientist to be elected as a Fellow of the royal Society (FRS) in the UK in the 359 year history of the prestigious scientific academy. Gagandeep Kangi. Dr. Kang, called India’s vaccine “God Mother”,developed a vaccine against Rota Virus and was first identified by AIIMS, New Delhi in 1985.

On 19th April 2019, the retail arm of the Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries became India’s first retail company to cross the Rs.1 lakh crore annual revenue.The revenue for 2018-19 is Rs. 1.3 lakh crore, which is 89% more from the previous fiscal.The company added 2,829 stores during the financial year, taking the total to 10,415 stores and the profit of pre-tax business jumped 77.1 percent to record Rs 1,923 crore.

Indigenously designed and constructed third ship under Project 15B, ‘INS Imphal’ a guided missile destroyer launched by Navy Chief at Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited (MDL) in Mumbai. This ship is designed by the Indian Navy’s Directorate of Naval Designs, New Delhi. INS Imphal.Each ship weight 3,037 tonnes, spans 163 metres in length, 17.4 metres at beam and can displace 7,300 tonnes. The ships will be propelled by four gas turbines which can achieve speed of more than 30 knots.The guided missile destroyer has incorporated several modern concept of new design which helped in improved survivability, see keeping, stealth and manoeuvrability. The ships use radar transparent deck fittings due to which enemy can’t detect this ship easily.