Current Affairs Update – 22nd April, 2016

Hello and welcome to ExamPundit. Here are the Important Current Affairs of 22nd April, 2016. These are important for the upcoming NABARD Assistant Manager and SBI Clerk 2016.

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi on
  May 1 will launch Rs. 8,000 crore scheme to provide 5 crore free LPG
  connections to Below Poverty Line (BPL) families using the money saved from
  1.13 crore cooking gas users voluntarily giving up their subsidies.
• The scheme is called Pradhan
  Mantri Ujjwala Yojana and Mr. Modi will be launching it on May 1 at Ballia in
  Uttar Pradesh and Dahod in Gujarat on May 15.
• The ‘Give-it-Up’ campaign seeking
  the well-heeled to voluntarily surrender cooking gas subsidies for one year was
  launched in January, 2015.
• Maharashtra tops the list with
  16.44 lakh consumers giving up subsidies, then Uttar Pradesh where nearly 13
  lakh users gave up subsidies, followed by Delhi with 7.26 lakh people giving up
  subsidies. Prime Minister’s home state Gujarat was way down the list with just
  4.2 lakh giving up subsidies. In Odisha around 1.3 lakh people gave up
  subsidies.

• Owing to poor performance of
  developers, the Union Road Transport and Highways Ministry has taken a decision
  to terminate three highway projects worth over Rs. 3,000 crore.
• The projects are
  Rargaon-Jamshedpur (Rs. 1,650 crore) in Jharkhand, Rohtak-Jind (Rs. 410 crore)
  in Haryana and Haridwar-Dehradun (Rs. 1,021 crore) in Uttarakhand.
• While in the first two projects,
  which were started in December 2012 and October 2013 respectively, the NHAI had
  suspected diversion of funds, the concessionaire failed to bring in promised
  funds in the Uttarakhand project which had begun construction in November 2011.
  None of these projects had even completed half the work.
• Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and
  Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari had met bankers and road
  developers to break the stalemate over 19 pending road projects in January. The
  government will soon hold another meeting to review the fate of the remaining
  16 stuck highway projects.

• The Commerce and Industry
  Ministry on 21 April 2016 launched a service named Twitter Seva to address
  issues and grievances of startups, exporters and importers, and other
  stakeholders.
• For this, an institutionalised
  mechanism with a special Twitter cell has been created in the ministry manned
  by a set of dedicated officers of the ministry.

• Queries on matters relating to
  Department of Commerce and Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP)
  will be answered through this service.
• The ministry will try to respond to
  the queries within 48 to 72 working hours.
• In particular, queries regarding
  the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), Directorate General of
  supplies and Disposals, SEZs, tea, coffee, rubber, spices, Agricultural and
  Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) will be addressed
  by the ministry.
• Issues related to manufacturing
  policy, industrial corridors, investment promotion, Make in India, Start up
  India, FDI, intellectual property rights will be addressed by the DIPP.

• Full service airline Vistara has
  entered into a strategic partnership with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) for a
  broad range of information technology (IT) services, including application
  maintenance services and airport infrastructure support.
• Vistara is a joint venture between
  Tatas and Singapore Airlines.
• The carrier and TCS have entered
  into an agreement for a “long term strategic partnership”.
• According to the agreement, TCS
  would manage the operational aspects of the airline’s IT, including application
  maintenance services, network maintenance, end-user computing and airport
  infrastructure support.

• It is the foreign brands like
  Google and Facebook that rank on top in terms of their influence, while
  domestic ones are placed lower, as per the new list of ten most influential
  brands in the country.
• According to the study by global
  research firm Ipsos, Google ranks on the top and is followed by Facebook,
  Gmail, Microsoft and Samsung in the top five — all of which are foreign
  brands.
• While another foreign brand
  WhatsApp is sixth on the India’s top 10 most influential brands, Flipkart is
  the top ranked Indian brand at seventh place.
• The other two Indian brands on
  the list – SBI and Airtel- are ninth and tenth, US based Amazon is placed at
  number eight.
• The Most Influential Brands study
  that ranks brands according to their influence in 21 countries including
  Australia, Belgium, Brazil, China, the US and UK, was conducted in December
  2015.
• Ipsos study has measured the
  biggest, most well-known and/ or highest spending brands only. As a result, the
  study did not look at the entire market.            

• Scientists at the Vikram Sarabhai
  Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram indigenously manufactured the world’s lightest
  synthetic material called ‘silica aerogel’ or ‘blue air’ or ‘frozen smoke’. It
  was in news in the third week of April 2016.
• Silica Aerogel is the lightest
  synthetic material ever made by man.

• The material is so light weight
  that it can be delicately placed on a flower head.
• It has an excellent thermal
  resistance and if it is used as filler in soldiers’ uniforms it can save many
  lives at the Siachen glacier.
• The material can be used both in
  space and on Earth. Scientists also hope it can be used to insulate rocket
  engines.
• Frozen smoke can be also used to
  make light weight clothing, if painted on windows it can keep buildings cool or
  warm.

• The Uttarakhand High Court on 21
  April 2016 quashed the imposition of President’ Rule in the state and revived
  the term of Congress Government headed by Harish Rawat. The court also asked
  Harish Rawat to prove his majority on 29 April 2016.
• The decision in this regard was
  passed by the two-judge bench of the Uttarakhand High Court comprising Chief
  Justice KM Joseph and Chief Justice BN Bisht.
• The court stated that there was
  no reason for the Centre to impose President’s Rule in the state. It also said
  that the disqualification of the nine rebel MLAs by the Speaker under the
  Anti-defection Law was no material for imposition of President’s rule.
• The court said that the President
  of India is not infallible and he, too, can go wrong. Therefore, the
  President’s decision is open to judicial scrutiny.

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi on
  21 April 2016 inaugurated the 10th Civil Services Day in New Delhi.
• During the inauguration ceremony,
  PM Modi called for experiments to bring change in society and creating an
  atmosphere where everyone can contribute.
• Besides, PM Modi also conferred
  awards to civil servants for excellence in implementation of Priority
  Programmes of the Government of India namely Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojna
  (PMJDY), Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin), Swachh Vidyalaya and Soil Health Card
  Scheme. 
• This is for the first time that a new category of Excellence in
  implementing a Priority Programme has been added to the Prime Minister’s Awards
  for Excellence in Public Administration.

• Raj Kishore Prasad, LDM of
  Allahabad Bank of India, 24 North Paraganas
• Surendra Chandra Das, West Bengal
  LDM of Union bank of India, Navgaon, Assam
• Pramod Narayan, LDM of Punjab
  National Bank, Chandigarh

• Dr Savita Anand, Principal Resident
  Commissioner of Rajasthan, Bikaner
• Aishwariya Singh, District
  Collector of West Sikkim, West Sikkim

• Anantpur district in Andhra
  Pradesh
• Anantnag district of Jammu and
  Kashmir

• The International Mother Earth
  Day was on 22 April 2016 observed across the world with the theme ‘Trees for
  the Earth’. This year’s theme sets the goal of planting 7.8 billion trees over
  the next five years.
• The Day recognises that the Earth
  and its ecosystems provide its inhabitants with life and sustenance.
• It also aims to raise awareness
  that humans have a collective responsibility to promote harmony with nature and
  to balance the economic, social and environmental needs of present and future
  generations.

• Japan’s first stealth fighter jet
  successfully took to the skies on Friday as the country joins a select group of
  world military powers wielding the radar-dodging technology.
• Japan, despite strict
  constitutional constraints on the use of military force imposed after World War
  II, has one of the world’s most advanced defence forces and the development of
  the stealth fighter comes as it faces new security challenges in the form of China’s
  expanding force posture.
• The domestically developed
  Mitsubishi X-2 Shinshin jet took off from Nagoya airport in central Japan on
  its maiden test flight as dozens of aviation enthusiasts, watching the event,
  erupted in applause as it lifted off into the clear morning sky.

• The World Health Organization
  (WHO) on 20 April 2016 announced that the European Region became the first in
  the world to have achieved interruption of indigenous malaria transmission. The
  number of indigenous malaria cases in the region dropped from 90712 in 1995 to
  zero cases in 2015.
• WHO released the figures in World
  Malaria Report 2015.
• Besides, WHO announced that the
  European Region hit its 2015 target to wipe out malaria, thus contributing to
  the global goal to End malaria for good.

• The number of malaria cases
  globally fell from an estimated 262 million in 2000 to 214 million in 2015, a
  decline of 18%.
• The number of malaria deaths
  globally fell from an estimated 839000 in 2000 to 438 000 in 2015, a decline of
  48%.
• The number of malaria deaths in
  children aged under 5 years is estimated to have decreased from 723000 globally
  in 2000.

• Funding for malaria control is
  lowest in countries with the largest populations at risk, including India and
  Indonesia.
• In 2014, all countries, except
  India, Indonesia and Nepal, reported delivering sufficient quantities of
  antimalarial medicines (including ACT) to treat all reported cases in public
  health facilities.

• Pakistan and China on 20 April
  2016 signed an agreement for the launch of a special satellite to monitor the
  development of the 46 billion US dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)
  projects.
• Pakistan Minister for Planning,
  Development and Reform, Ahsan Iqbal on behalf of Pakistan Space and Upper
  Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) and China Great Wall Industry
  Cooperation (CGWIC) President Yin Limping signed the agreement in Islamabad,
  Pakistan.
• This bilateral cooperation
  between the two nations in space domain would open new arena of socio-economic
  and scientific cooperation. It would give boost to the historic bilateral
  cordial relations in other fields.

• The World Anti-Doping Agency
  (WADA) on 21 April 2016 suspended the accreditation of the National Anti-Doping
  Laboratory of Beijing. It prohibits the Chinese laboratory from carrying out
  any WADA-related anti-doping activities including all analyses of urine and
  blood samples.
• The suspension was for up to four
  months with immediate effect, although the laboratory has 21 days to appeal the
  decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

• Pop music superstar Prince Rogers
  Nelson, popularly known as Prince, died on 21 April 2016 at his home in Paisley
  Park in Chanhassen, Minneapolis. He was 57. He was found dead at his home,
  however, the cause of his death was not identified.
• In a career that lasted from the
  late 1970s until his solo Piano & a Microphone tour in 2016, he was
  acclaimed as a musical prodigy and an artist who shaped his career his way.

• Famous comedian, singer and
  writer Victoria Wood died on 20 April 2016 due to cancer. She was 62.
• Born on 19 May 1953, Wood was an
  English comedian, actress, singer and songwriter, screenwriter and director.
  She wrote and starred in sketches, plays, films and sitcoms, and her live
  comedy act was interspersed with her own compositions, which she performed on
  piano.
• Wood also composed and performed
  the theme music for her BBC sitcom Dinnerladies. She was noted for her skills
  in observing culture, and in satirising social classes.

Regards

Team ExamPundit