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AWARDS AND HONOURS

NAME OF THE AWARD	AWARD WINNER	KEY POINTS TO NOTE
Best Film at Hong Kong Film Festival	Newton Film	Actor Rajkummar Rao-starred the Movie
Dadasaheb Phalke award for 2016	K. Viswanath	He is a  Veteran filmmaker and actor
Goldman Environmental Prize	Prafulla Samantara	Odisha activist
Golden Globe Tigers award	Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilisers and Chemicals Ltd (GNFC)	For Excellence and Leadership in CSR in the category of ‘E-Payment Leadership’ for the implementation of digital transactions in its township at Bharuch, Gujarat.
Dinanath Mangeshkar Award 2017	Aamir Khan Vishesh Puraskar
Miss Teen Universe pageant	Srishti Kaur	She is from Noida. The event was held at Managua, the capital of Central American country Nicaragua.
Jnanpith Award	Poet Sankha Ghosh	He is  a Eminent Bengali poet and literary critic
Pierre L’enfant Awards-2017	Bhubaneswar, Odisha	First Indian city to win the elusive Award

APPOINTMENTS

NAME	DEPT/FIELD
Rajiv Rai Bhatnaga	Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF)  Chief
Yusra Mardini	UNHCR ambassador

INDIAN AFFAIRS

• India’s first and longest ropeway to connect Mumbai with the famous Elephanta Island in the Arabian Sea is planned to be constructed by the Mumbai Port Trust.
• To give farmers more freedom to sell their produce, the agriculture ministry has unveiled a model Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) Act which defines each state/UT as a single unified market area.
• The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) conducted a first-of-its-kind State-level mock exercise on forest fire in Uttarakhand.
• The Union sports ministry will soon launch a web portal for identifying and selecting promising sportspersons in the country and help them financially to excel in their fields.
• A government committee has recommended unique identification numbers for cows as one way to prevent their trafficking, according to documents filed by the central government with the Supreme Court.
• Northeast India’s sixth and largest Information Technology (IT) hub was inaugurated to boost employment and e-governance besides to export software technology.
• India is set to host the 18th World Road Meeting (WRM 2017) on November 13, the International Road Federation (IRF) announced recently.
• Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar announced the renaming of Ballabgarh town in Faridabad as Balramgarh.
• In its annual World Press Freedom Index, Reporters Without Borders has ranked India at 136 of 180 countries. The country’s ranking has slipped by three spots from last year’s 133rd ranking.
• Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched UDAN, a scheme to help people to fly cheap to small towns. PM Modi flagged off three flights – on the Shimla-Delhi sector, the Kadapa-Hyderabad and the Nanded-Hyderabad sectors.
• India successfully test-fired its intermediate-range ballistic missile Agni-III from Abdul Kalam Island off the Odisha coast.
• The Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) plans to build a new oil terminal at Motihari in Bihar to supply fuel to neighbour Nepal through the planned pipeline up to Amlekganj in Nepal.
• A tripartite Memorandum of Understanding has been signed among BBNL, Department of Posts and BSNL for providing broadband connectivity of BharatNet to Post Offices in rural areas.
• In a first, a village of books in Maharashtra, called ‘Pustakanche Gaon’ in Marathi, is set to open on May 2017.
• The Tamil Nadu government has initiated a process to enact a policy on the laundry of ‘infectious’ hospital linen.
• Union Health Minister JP Nadda has launched the Test and Treat policy for Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) patients.
• Prime Minister Narendra Modi dedicated the holy Vachanas of Basavanna, translated into 23 languages, and addressed an event to mark the inauguration of Basava Jayanthi 2017, and Golden Jubilee Celebration of Basava Samithi, at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi.
• A ward in the district became India’s first digitalised panchayat ward. Union minister of state for social justice and empowerment Krishan Pal Gurjar inaugurated the website of the first digitalised panchayat ward number 15 of Aymanam grama panchayat.
• At least 132 people participated in the first-ever athletics meet for transgender persons organised by the Kerala government at Thiruvananthapuram’s Central Stadium.
• In a bid to counter the women who throw stones at security forces in Jammu and Kashmir, the Union government plans to raise an all-woman India Reserve Battalion (IRB) in the State.
• The Ministry of Civil Aviation under the proposed “Digi Yatra” initiative is looking forward to make boarding pass and security check-ins digital at airports using Aadhaar and mobile phones.
• The Bihar Legislative Assembly has unanimously adopted the Goods and Services Tax (GST) bill along with the Bihar taxation (Amendment) Bill.
• Indian mangoes will be imported to Australia for the first time after protocols were revised to allow the Asian-grown fruit into the local economy.
• The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) is India’s first public hospital to start plaque brachytherapy facility for the treatment of eye tumours.
• Uttar Pradesh Cabinet Minister Om Prakash Rajbhar on Sunday said the state government is going to waive loans of up to ₹1 lakh of ‘Divyangs’ (differently-abled).
• Starting May 1, prospective parents going for adoption would not be allowed to “pick and choose” but would only be given one option by the national adoption body.
• Assam got its first Shatabdi Express with Minister of State for Railways Rajen Gohain flagging off the train from Dibrugarh.

BANKING AND FINANCE

• Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries (RIL) has surpassed Tata group’s Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to become most valuable company in terms of market capitalisation (m-cap) after a gap of more than four years.
• Fintech firm Paytm, which is backed by Chinese major Alibaba, said it plans to invest ₹10,000 crore over the next three years in its banking and financial services business.
• The RBI has directed banks to accept notes, including new ₹500 and ₹2,000 notes, with colour and writings on them. RBI said these should be kept in the category of soiled notes and banks shouldn’t refuse them.
• The ambitious Goods and Services Tax to be implemented from July 1 would help raise India’s medium-term growth to above eight per cent, the International Monetary Fund has said adding that the reforms being done is expected to pay off in terms of higher growth in the future.
• India’s foreign exchange (Forex) reserves rose by $1.25 billion as on April 21, 2017. According to the Reserve Bank of India’s weekly statistical supplement, the overall Forex reserves increased to $371.13 billion from $369.88 billion reported for the week ended April 14.

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

• India and South Korea has signed an MoU for defence industry cooperation in shipbuilding.
• The International conference on “Dara Shikoh: Reclaiming Spiritual Legacy of India“, organised by the Indian Council Of Cultural Relations (ICCR), will be held on April 27 and 28 at ICCR’s Azad Bhavan, New Delhi.
• Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is launching a crowd-funded news service to help combat fake news.
• The leaders of Indonesia and the Philippines have pledged to boost bilateral ties and launch maritime patrols of their sea border to prevent kidnappings.
• Nepal is set to sign an agreement with China to be part of the ‘One Belt One Road Conference’, a pet initiative of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
• The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has reported that India and China relation is important for the world as the partnership between India and China, which is currently responsible for half of the global growth, is important for the world.
• The first freight train to link China directly to the UK reached in the eastern Chinese city of Yiwu. The freight train covered 12,000 km which makes the journey the second-longest route in the world.
• 2017 will be among the hottest years on record, say scientists who have developed a new method for predicting global mean temperature.
• India and Cyprus signed four agreements, including on air services and merchant shipping, following delegation-level talks headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades in New Delhi.

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

• NASA successfully launched its football-stadium-sized, heavy-lift super pressure balloon (SPB) from Wanaka, New Zealand, on a mission designed to run 100 or more days floating at 110,000 feet (33.5 km) about the globe in the southern hemisphere’s mid-latitude band.
• NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, launched in 1997, became the first man-made object to go beyond Saturn’s innermost rings towards the planet.
• NASA has discovered a planet the same size as Earth, and the same distance from its star as our planet is from the sun.
• Scientists have discovered what may be the world’s oldest fungus in South African rocks dating back 2.4 billion years. The fossils suggest that fungus may have evolved from under the deep sea rather than land.
• An artificial womb resembling a plastic bag has been used to keep premature lambs alive for four weeks outside of their own mothers’ wombs and could one day be applied to premature babies.
• ISRO has launched a Solar Calculator application, that allows for accurate calculation of the benefit of installing solar panels at any location in the country.
• The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will launch five communication satellites by the year-end. The satellites, proposed to be launched, are aimed at improving the communication system within the country.

SPORTS

WINNER	TITLE	SPORT/ VENUE
Rafael Nadal	Monte Carlo Masters Men’s Singles title	This is his 70th career trophy
Sudarsan Pattnaik	World Sand Sculptures Championship	Internationally renowned sand artist
Pankaj Advani	Asian Snooker Championship	Wins Silver Medal
Rafael Nadal	Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell title
Valtteri Bottas	Russian Grand Prix	He Claims maiden Grand Prix

OBITUARY

NAME OF THE PERSON	FIELD
Vinod Khanna	Veteran Bollywood actor
Jonathan Demme	Oscar-winning director
Vinu Chakravarthy	Well-known Tamil actor and writer

OBSERVED DAYS 

DATE OBSERVED	DAY OBSERVED	Theme / Purpose
April 24	National Women’s Political Empowerment Day	Panchayats, Women and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
April 25	World Malaria Day	A Push For Prevention
April 25	World Penguin Day	The day was timed to coincide with the annual northward march to the sea of Antarctic penguins.
April 26	World Intellectual Property Day	Visionary Innovators
April 29	Day of Remembrance for all Victims of Chemical Warfare	To reaffirm the commitment of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to the elimination of the threat of chemical weapons.
April 29	International Dance Day	The birthday of Jean-Georges Noverre, a French dancer and balletmaster