DAILY GK 20 APRIL 2019

DAILY GK 20 APRIL 2019

1. CABINET APPROVED THE FUNDS FOR IMPLEMENTING 10% EWS QUOTA

✔Rs. 4315.15 crores budget has been approved by Union Cabinet headed by PM Narendra Modi, to create over 2 lakhs additional seats in 158 central education institutions.

✔The step is taken in the backdrop of the 103rd Constitutional Amendment Act, which provides 10 percent reservations to Economic Weaker Sections in government jobs and educational institutions.

✔To implement this 10 percent EWS quota, the government has asked all educational institutions to increase their intake by 25 percent so that it would not result in the reduction of seats available to SC, ST, OBC and general category.

2. LOC TRADE BETWEEN J&K AND POJK HAS BEEN SUSPENDED AFTER MHA ORDERS

✔Ministry of Home Affairs issued an order to suspend the LOC trade between Jammu & Kashmir and Pakistan occupied Jammu & Kashmir due to an increase in terror funding, drug trade and fake currencies among other illegal activities by misusing trade routes.

✔The trade between J&K and POJK is allowed through two Trade Facilitation centers. First, one located at Salamabad, Uri, district Baramulla and the second one located at Chakkan-da-Bagh, district Poonch.

✔LOC trade is misused by unscrupulous and anti-national as a channel for hawala money, drugs and weapons.

3. 150 INDIAN PEACEKEEPERS HONOURED WITH UN MEDAL FOR THEIR SERVICE IN UN MISSION IN SOUTH SUDAN

✔The UN Mission in South Sudan awarded 150 Indian peacekeepers with Medals of Honour for serving the mission with extreme dedication and sacrifice.

✔Colonel Amit Gupta who commands a battalion of 850 soldiers in the Upper Nile region, South Sudan was 1 among the recipients of the Medal of Honour.

✔India is at present, the 2nd largest contributor of peacekeepers to UNMISS with more than 2,400 military and police personnel deployed as peacekeepers under the UNMISS.

4. YUSUF HAMIE, THE CHAIRMAN OF CIPLA, RECEIVED UK ROYAL SOCIETY HONOUR

✔Padma Bhushan awardee Yusuf Hamied who is the chairman of Cipla pharmaceutical company was honoured in the 2019 list of new fellows of the UK’s Royal Society.

✔It is an independent scientific academy of the UK and the Commonwealth, for promoting excellence in science.

5. GAGANDEEP KANG IS FIRST INDIAN WOMEN IN 359 YEARS TO JOIN ROYAL SOCIETY

✔Gagandeep Kang, 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 in the UK in the 359 year history of the prestigious scientific academy.

✔Dr. Kang,Called India’s vaccine “God Mother”,developed a vaccine against Rota Virus and was first identified by AIIMS, New Delhi in 1985.

6. SHRI N. KASHINATH AND V.P. PATHAK DESIGNATED AS MEMBERS OF RAILWAY BOARD

✔Shri N. Kashinath took over as Member (Signal & Telecom) of Railway Board. He was associated with Train Describer Project, Survey for the Mobile Train Radio Communication in Northeast Frontier Railway, etc.

✔V.P. Pathak took over as Member (Materials Management) of Railway Board

✔Previously, he had been working as Director General (RS), Railway Board since June 2018, and General Manager of Chittaranjan Locomotive Works since December 2016.

7. MALI’S PRIME MINISTER, SOUMEYLOU BOUBEYE MAIGA RESIGNED ALONG WITH HIS ENTIRE GOVERNMENT AFTER OGOSSAGOU MASSACRE, INSECURITY

✔The Mali government resigned after pressure over the handling of the rising violence in the country and Ogossagou massacre that resulted in the deaths of 160 people on March 2019.

✔Mali’s Prime Minister,Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga‘s Goverment came to power in December 31, 2017.

8. A BOOK OF POEM ‘KHOONI VAISAKHI’ ON JALLIANWALA BAGH MASSACRE, RELEASED IN UAE

✔A Book of poem containing English translation of the 100 year old classic Punjabi poem about Jallianwala Bagh massacre, ‘Khooni Vaisakhi’ has been released in Abu Dhabi.

✔It was written by revolutionary poet and novelist Nanak Singh, who was a Jallianwala Bagh survivor, wrote it after witnessing the Jallianwala Bagh massacre on 13th April 1919.

✔Nanak Singh had published a long poem in 1920 to commemorate that tragic event and the memory of those who sacrificed their lives but it was banned by the British government.

9. NGT SETS UP CENTRAL MONITORING PANEL IN A BID TO REDUCE POLLUTION STRETCHES

✔NGT Chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel has constituted a Central Monitoring Committee to ensure the implementation of action plan meant for reducing pollution stretches across the country.

Central Monitoring Committee will undertake a national initiative by way of preparation and enforcement ✔of a national plan to make river stretches pollution-free.

✔Senior representatives of NITI Aayog, Secretaries of the Ministry of Water Resources, Ministry of Urban Development, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change will be a part of the committee, apart from the Chairman, Central Pollution Control Board and Director General, National Mission for Clean Ganga.

10. PRASAR BHARATI CHAIRMAN RELEASES BOOKLET OF ‘SELECTED SPEECHES OF DR BHIMRAO AMBEDKAR IN THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY

✔Prasar Bharati Chairman  Surya Prakash released a booklet of the ‘Selected speeches of Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar in the Constituent Assembly’ , in New Delhi.

✔Mr Surya Prakash in this book has highlighted thekind of research done by Baba Saheb in drafting the Indian Constitution in the pre-internet era, is truly extraordinary and Baba Saheb’s contribution towards social justice and National unity is truly phenomenal.

11. MEENA KUMARI WINS GOLD MEDAL AT BOXING WORLD CUP

✔Meena Kumari Maisnam, finished at the top of the platform at the Cologne Boxing World Cup 2019 in Cologne, Germany

✔Sakshi (57kg) and Pwilao Basumatary (64 kg) won silver medals followed by the winning of bronze medals by Pinki Rani (51kg) and Parveen (60kg).

✔India won five medals at the respectable European tournament Boxing World Cup at Cologne, Germany.

12. GOOGLE LAUNCHES NEW CLOUD PLATFORM ANTHOS

✔Google launched Anthos, a new open platform from Google Cloud, that lets users run applications from anywhere.

✔Anthos allows users to run applications, unmodified, on existing on-premise hardware or on the public cloud and is based on the Cloud Services Platform that Google announced in 2018