13th April 2017 Important Daily Current Affairs

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Dear Great Ambitionists, here are today's (13th April 2017) Important Current Affairs updates. Happy Reading :)

Daily Current Affairs of 13th April 2017

International Current Affairs

• US President Donald Trump today signed the US instrument of ratification for Montenegro's membership to NATO. 
• This comes after the Senate last month backed the expansion of NATO to allow the small Balkan state to join the alliance.
• The G20 Digital Ministerial Meeting on Digital Economy was held in Dusseldorf, Germany. 
• Ministers responsible for the digital economy from G20 countries had participated in it. 
• It concluded with adaptation of declaration on ‘Shaping Digitalisation for an Interconnected World’.
  

National Current Affairs

• The Jallianwala Bagh massacre took place in Amritsar on this day (13th April) in the year 1919, wherein thousands of people in a public protest meeting were fired upon under the command of Brigadier-General Dyer. 
• While British officials declared 379 deaths in the massacre, the Indian National Congress estimated over 1,000 deaths. 
• With a motive to enlighten children in Naxal-affected areas of Jharkhand's Palamu district, the state police have initiated a 'Tare Zameen Par' programme to encourage children to lead a happy life. 
• Police appealed the locals to donate bags, shoes, books and clothes that would be distributed among poor children. 
• The BJP government in Uttar Pradesh today announced that the quota based reservation for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes in private medical colleges will be ended in the state. 
• The state government is also planning to make one foreign language compulsory in schools and introduce English subject from nursery instead of Class 6 in government schools.
• The Supreme Court today directed the Centre to include Urdu as a medium in National Eligibility cum Entrance Test from academic session 2018-19 onwards. 
• The Students Islamic Organisation had filed a plea requesting the court for the inclusion of Urdu in NEET.
• Various domestic airlines in India are reportedly preparing to roll out in-flight Wi-Fi with 5Mbps speed by the end of 2017. 
• The DGCA and the Civil Aviation Ministry have given their approval to the project.
• The HIV and AIDS (Prevention and Control) Bill, 2017, passed by the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, promises equal rights to the people affected by HIV and AIDS in getting treatment, admissions in educational institutions and jobs. The bill also ensures that no HIV test, medical treatment or research will be conducted on an infected person without his informed consent.
• The Union Ministry of Food Processing is going to launch Scheme for Agro-Marine Produce Processing and Development of Agro-Processing Clusters (SAMPADA) for food processing sector. 
• The scheme will integrate current and new schemes aimed at reducing food wastage and doubling farmers’ income by 2022. 
• It will help to create infrastructure for linkage of entire supply chain.
• On the lines of the anti-Romeo squads in Uttar Pradesh, the Haryana government on Wednesday launched 'Operation Durga'. 
• The police teams nabbed 72 people from across the state on the very first day. 
• The Union Ministry of Power has launched URJA MITRA app for empowering citizens by real time information sharing on power supply. 
• The app is a first of its kind which provides a central platform, web-portal (www.urjamitra.com) as well as mobile app for state power Distribution utilities to disseminate power outage information to rural/ urban power consumers through SMS/ push/email notifications across the country.

New Appointments

• Infosys today named Ravi Venkatesan, former chairman of Microsoft India, as Co-chairman of its board, where he was already an independent director.
• Actress Priyanka Chopra has been appointed as a jury member for the upcoming Tribeca Film Festival. 
• She will judge the Documentary and Student Visionary Competitions of the festival's 16th edition, scheduled to be held from April 19 to 30. 
• The festival was founded in 2002 by Oscar-winning actor Robert De Niro, producer Jane Rosenthal and real-estate investor Craig Hatkoff.
• UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has named Achim Steiner as the new administrator of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
• Steiner belongs to Germany who previously served at the UN Environment Programme and headed the UN office in Kenya.
• Justice Gita Mittal, the senior-most judge of Delhi High Court, has been appointed as the acting Chief justice of Delhi High Court with effect from April 14. 
• She will replace the retiring Chief justice Gorla Rohini.

Banking, Business & Economic Affairs

• Amazon India has announced that it has received RBI approval to launch its own digital wallet. 
• The Prepaid Payment Instrument licence will allow Amazon to take on established e-wallets such as Paytm and Freecharge.
• President Pranab Mukherjee today cleared the four legislations related to the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill. 
• These are the Central GST Bill, the Integrated GST Bill, the UT GST Bill and the Compensation to states GST Bill. 
• With the clearance, it can be expected that the new tax regime will be rolled out from July 1 as planned.

Awards & Honors

• Abdulqadir Rashik, an Indian software engineer, has won the top prize at a global challenge for an open-source tool that enables users to interactively view UN General Assembly resolutions and understand voting patterns of member states.
• President Pranab Mukherjee today conferred India's fourth highest civilian award, the Padma Shri, to chef Sanjeev Kapoor and singer Kailash Kher. 
• Gymnast Dipa Karmakar, wrestler Sakshi Malik, Rio Paralympics gold medalist Mariyappan Thangavelu and discus thrower Vikas Gowda were also honored with the Padma Shri.
• Indian Carnatic musician Dr KJ Yesudas was honoured with the Padma Vibhushan award while instrumentalist Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt was awarded the Padma Bhushan. 
• Further, Indian film journalist and historian Bhawana Somaaya received the Padma Shri.
• Actress Alia Bhatt has featured in Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list. 
• She is the only Bollywood actress who has made it to this year's list. 
• Other celebrities who have featured on the list include actress Margot Robbie and singer Lorde.
• Prime Minister Narendra Modi has emerged as the most followed world leader on photo-sharing app Instagram with a whopping 6.9 million followers, surpassing US President Donald Trump.

Deaths

• Malayalam actor Munshi Venu (63) passed away today due to kidney failure.
• He is known for his performance in films like 'Pachakuthira' (2006), 'Salt 'n' Pepper' (2011), 'Kanyaka Talkies' (2013), among others.

Sports Current Affairs

• The Indian cricket team lifted the inaugural edition of the Asia Cup at the Sharjah Cricket Association Stadium on this day (13th April) in the year 1984. 
  • The tournament was played between India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, in a round-robin format.
    
• Japanese Volleyball Association is using robot volleyball players to help out the national team players with training and drills. 
• The robots, which simulate the opponent team's blockers, consist of three pairs of hands fixed to mobile torsos, which can move back and forth on a fixed track behind the net. 
• Sachin Tendulkar and Aussie PM Malcolm Turnbull attended the launch of a joint India-Australia sports partnership in Mumbai today.
• Under IASP, India and Australia will cooperate in four areas : 
• Athlete and coach training and development, 
• Sport science, 
• Sport governance and integrity
• Grassroots participation.

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