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AWARDS AND HONOURS

NAME OF THE AWARD	AWARD WINNER	KEY POINTS TO NOTE
Miss Congo UK 2017	Horcelie Sinda Wa Mbongo	She is 22-year-old HIV positive model
Raj Kapoor awards	Saira Banu, Jackie Shroff	Lifetime achievement award’ of the Maharashtra
FICCI’s gender parity award	Mahavir Phogat	Father of wrestler Geeta Phoghat
M.S. Swaminathan Award	R.R. Hanchinal	Chairperson of Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers Rights Authority
Cartier Women’s Initiative award’	Trupti Jain	Indian engineer
UNESCO Peace Prize	Giuseppina (Giusi) Nicolini	He is mayor of the Italian island of Lampedusa
Krishi Karman Awards, 2015-16	Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh and Tripura	For commendable increase in food grain production in small category states
Golf Industry Association Awards 2017	Aditi Ashok SSP Chawrasia  Ali Sher	Award for Outstanding Achievement.

APPOINTMENTS

NAME	DEPT/FIELD
Vinay Shah	MD & CEO of LIC Housing Finance

 INDIAN AFFAIRS

• The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi inaugurated several Government projects at Silvassa, Dadra and Nagar Haveli.
• The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi has inaugurated the SUMUL cattle feed plant at Bajipura in southern Gujarat.
• The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) will conduct its first-ever mock exercise on forest fire in Uttarakhand on April 20, 2017 to help improve the preparedness and response mechanism in the event of a forest fire.
• Manipur Chief Minister Nongthombam Biren Singh has launched two web applications to check corruption and keep track of government activities. The two web applications were Anti-Corruption Cell and Digital Application for Review by Public And Nation (DARPAN).
• Himachal Pradesh is celebrating 70th “Himachal Day” function. The hill state came into existence after the merger of 30 odd princely states in 1948.
• The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has given its approval for procurement of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) Units for use in the General Elections, 2019.
• India has climbed one spot to the eighth rank in the 2017 A.T. Kearney Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) Confidence Index as investors turned bullish on the Asia-Pacific.
• Government of India, in consultation with the Reserve Bank of India, has decided to issue Sovereign Gold Bonds 2017-18 – Series I. Applications for the bond will be accepted from April 24, 2017 to April 28, 2017.
• The Union Home Minister Shri Rajnath Singh inaugurated the two-day 11th Civil Services Day programme. The theme of the Conference was ‘Transforming India – Reform to Transform’.
• The Government of India has extended the ceasefire with two Naga armed groups, National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Reformation (NSCN-R) and National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Neakpao-Kithovi (GPRN/NSCN) till April 27, 2018.
• India has made a quarter-million-dollar contribution to the UN programme for helping countries to hold elections and develop their electoral systems.
• The Thiruvananthapuram Municipal Corporation in Kerala, has launched a project to promote sustainable menstruation. Project ‘Cloth pads’ is an initiative taken by the municipal corporation to make access to sanitary napkins easy.
• The Union Cabinet has approved new rules to allow financially sound state government entities to borrow directly from other countries which give Official Development Assistance for major infrastructure projects.
• Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been featured in Time’s magazine’s 100 most influential people list.

BANKING AND FINANCE

• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has inked a supervisory cooperation pact with the Royal Monetary Authority of Bhutan for information sharing.
• State Bank of India (SBI) has surpassed ONGC to become the country’s most valuable public sector unit (PSU), in terms of market valuation.
• The Reserve Bank has opened a new ombudsman office in Jammu as part of its efforts to expand banking grievances complaint cells across the country.
• Fashion e-tailer Myntra has said it has acquired Bengaluru-based InLogg for an undisclosed amount, a move that will further strengthen the supply chain capabilities of the Flipkart-owned company.
• The World Bank has approved $37.5 crore loan for capacity augmentation of National Waterway-1 (NW-1) on the river Ganga under the Jal Marg Vikas Project (JMVP).

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

• Controversial Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has won Time magazine’s readers’ poll of the 100 most influential people in the world
• The Union Cabinet has approved signing of the protocol amending the convention between India and Portugal for avoidance of double taxation.
• Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has announced sweeping changes to Australia’s citizenship laws, introducing tighter requirements for new applicants, a move that follows the scrapping of the 457 visa schemes for foreign workers.
• India has won elections to two subsidiary bodies of a UN organ focussed on social and economic issues. India along with 12 other members was elected to the Committee for Programme and Coordination (CPC), a subsidiary body of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
• The National Grid has announced Britain’s first full day without coal power “since the Industrial Revolution”.
• The Government has pledged to phase out coal – the most polluting fossil fuel – from the system by 2025 as part of efforts to cut carbon emissions in the UK.
• Indian-American Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, appointed by the previous Obama regime, has been asked to step down by the Trump administration to put its own leadership in place.
• India and South Korea signed an agreement to firm up bilateral cooperation in defence shipbuilding.

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

• China’s first cargo spacecraft Tianzhou-1 is to be launched into space between April 20 and 24 to dock with the orbiting experimental space station.
• The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) which is finalising a memorandum of understanding with BHEL to help develop low-cost lithium ion batteries for electric vehicles also envisages a buyback commitment for such batteries.
• Naval ship ‘INS Chennai’ was formally dedicated to the city in the presence of Chief Minister K Palaniswami and Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Eastern Naval Command, Vice-Admiral HCS Bisht.
• Microsoft has announced new Azure migration tools and resources to help organisations utilise the power of the hybrid cloud.
• Mongolia launched its first satellite part of its efforts to make use of new technology to diversify its resource-dependent economy.
• Researchers have uncovered molecular details of how pathogenic bacteria fight back against the human immune response to infection.
• The Indian Navy has successfully test fired a land attack version of the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile from its frigate in the Bay of Bengal.

SPORTS

WINNER	TITLE	SPORT/ VENUE
Rafael Nadal	Monte Carlo Masters Tennis tournament 2017	Monaca
Rohan Bopanna and Pablo Cuevas	Men’s doubles crown	Monaca
Sagar Baheti	Boston Marathon	First visually impaired Indian runner

•  International captains Sourav Ganguly (India) and Ricky Ponting (Australia) are a part of a stellar line-up of commentators named by the ICC for the upcoming Champions Trophy.
• Video gaming will be featured as a full sport at the 2022 Asian Games, with competitors in electronic sports set to receive medals for their digital prowess.

OBITUARY

NAME OF THE PERSON	FIELD
Robert Taylor	Internet pioneer
Ali Mohammad Naik	Senior National Conference (NC) leader (J&K)
Devineni Rajashekhar	Andra Pradesh Politician
Allan Holdsworth	British rock and jazz fusion guitar pioneer

OBSERVED DAYS IN FEBRUARY

DATE OBSERVED	DAY OBSERVED	Theme / Purpose
April 17	World Hemophilia Day	Hear their voices
April 18	World Heritage Day	Cultural Heritage & Sustainable Tourism
April 21	National Civil Service day	Transforming India – Reform to Transform
April  22	World Water Day	Waste water
April 23	World Earth day	Environmental and Climate Literacy
April 23	UNESCO World Book and Copyright Day	World Book Capital for 2017: Conakry