Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - April, 2017

Notes:
Sagar Baheti from Bangaluru has become the India’s first visually impaired runner to compete and finish the historic Boston Marathon, which is the world’s oldest, most competitive and the hardest marathon. He covered the 42.195 km distance in 4 hours, 14 minutes and 7 seconds and finished the race at the 18th spot in the visually impaired category. Presently, Baheti cannot identify objects beyond one metre. He was supported by the Massachusetts Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired (MABVI) to compete in the marathon.

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Civil Services Day is celebrated on April 21 every year in India. This day is celebrated to commemorate the day when the first home minister of Independent India, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, addressed administrative services officers in 1947.

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Vinay Sah has become the new MD and CEO of LIC Housing Finance. He succeeded Sunita Sharma, who has been promoted as Managing Director of Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC). Prior to joining LIC Housing Finance, Sah was Executive Director–Marketing/Product Development with LIC of India.

Notes:
The Punjab government will launch an innovative scheme “Book Banks” in all schools of the state so that needy students will get the books for their academic year free of cost. These book banks will request students to deposit their old books so that the needy students in the next batch can use them free of cost. The scheme will help the needy save money and it will also reduce costs and environmental damage associated with printing new books. Though, this unique initiative will be purely on voluntary basis and no student would be bound to give away their old books. NGOs that have been running similar schemes will help the government in the implementation process.

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B.N. Mohapatra, an officer of Indian Railway Accounts Service (IRAS) of 1980 batch, has been appointed the new Financial Commissioner (FC) of Indian Railways. Prior to this posting, he served as Additional Member (Finance) since November 2016,

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The All India Radio (AIR) Aizawl has been honoured with the prestigious Lelte Award at an impressive 26th Award Ceremony held at Chanmari YMA Hall in Aizawl. The award is given in recognition of the role played by AIR Aizawl for the overall progress & development of Mizoram and for promotion of Mizo language & literature and for its contribution in the field of healthcare & education and in promotion of brotherhood. The Lelte Special Award was received by D R Lalropuia, Director (E) & Head of Office. Lelte is a popular Weekly Magazine in Mizoram which hit the stand since 1983. The Magazine is instituting “Lelte Awards” aims at recognizing talents and skills of the young and budding Mizo artists for the past 26 years. Besides, the Magazine strives for honouring, promoting and recognizing what’s matter in Mizoram.

Notes:
The International Mother Earth Day (IMED) is observed every year all over the world on April 22 with the message to protect environment. The day is celebrated worldwide to raise awareness among people that they have a collective responsibility to promote harmony with nature and to balance the economic, social and environmental needs of present and future generations. The campaign theme for 2017 is “Environmental and Climate Literacy”. The day was proposed at the UNESCO conference in 1969 and the first Earth Day celebrations took place in 1970.

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India’s first-ever ‘village of books’ will open at Bhilar village in Maharashtra on May 4, 2017 to promote tourism and Marathi language. The village is roughly 8 km away from the hill station of Panchgani. As of now, all the books provided by the Maharashtra government are in Marathi. Soon, the books written in Hindi and English will be added to this collection. Author interactions, literary events and book-reading sessions will also be conducted in the village. The idea for this book village is inspired by Hay-on-Wye, a Welsh town known for its book stores and literature festivals.

Notes:
Yes Bank has won the prestigious 2017 Golden Peacock Innovative Product / Service Award (GPIPSA) at the 27th World Congress at the Dubai Global Convention in Dubai, UAE. Apart from this, Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilizers & Chemicals Ltd (GNFC) also won the award in this category for pioneering a cashless township transformation model. The Golden Peacock Awards are acknowledged as a benchmark of corporate excellence worldwide. The awards seek to raise the overall standards of developing and implementing transformative business models, and to recognize the achievements of the best performing organizations.

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As per latest annual update of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) military expenditure database, the United States is the largest military spender in the world with an expenditure of $611 billion, followed by China, Russia and Saudi Arabia. India has acquired the 5th position as largest military spender in 2016 with expenditure of $55.9 billion for 2016-17.