18th April 2017 Important Daily Current Affairs

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Dear Great Ambitionists, here are today's (18th April 2017) Important Current Affairs updates. Happy Reading :)

Daily Current Affairs of 18th April 2017

International Current Affairs

• Today (18th April) is International Day for Monuments and Sites.
  • This day also commonly known as World Heritage Day.
  • This day was established by UNESCO in the year 1983.
  • The main aim of this day is to  to raise public awareness about the diversity and vulnerability of the world’s built monuments and heritage sites and the efforts required to protect and conserve them.
    
  • Theme of World Heritage Day 2017 : "Cultural Heritage & Sustainable Tourism"
    
• South Korean prosecutors today formally charged ousted President Park Geun-hye in a corruption scandal that led to her impeachment in December last year. 
• She was accused of allowing friend Choi Soon-sil to extort money from companies in return for political favours.
• The United States today reaffirmed India's designation as a Major Defence Partner and emphasised the importance of its strategic relationship as its National Security Adviser HR McMaster met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and held talks with his counterpart Ajit Doval.
• Mr McMaster, whose trip to New Delhi marks the first visit by a top official of the Trump Administration, also met Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar.
• Nepal and China began their first-ever joint military exercise, dubbed as 'Sagarmatha Friendship 2017', at Nepal Army's Para Training School Maharajgunj in Kathmandu. 
• The 10-day exercise will focus on counter-terrorism and disaster response and will conclude on April 25. 
• Australia has abolished the 457 Visa Programme used by thousands of temporary foreign workers, a majority of them Indians to address growing unemployment in that country. 
• Instead, Australia wants to adopt ‘Australians first’ approach to skilled migration.

National Current Affairs

• The Supreme Court today exempted several categories of disabled persons from standing during the national anthem before movie screenings. 
• Notably, in an earlier order, the court had made it mandatory for every person to stand during the anthem before movie screenings. 
• Meanwhile, the court also sent a notice to the Centre over making Vande Mataram mandatory in educational institutes.
• A government report has predicted India's sex ratio will dip to 898 girls for 1,000 boys in 2031 from 939 in 2011.
• Note : The share of youth in total population, however, increased in 2011.
• The Union Home Ministry has issued Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) for security agencies in Kashmir, directing them to use plastic bullets and chilli-filled shells to control violent protests.
• The ministry has directed the agencies to use pellet guns as the last resort.
• The food regulators of Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, and Assam have found 9 products of major companies as "substandard" after they failed quality tests. 
• These products reportedly include PepsiCo's Mirinda, Nestle's Cerelac Wheat, Parle Agro's Frooti and Marico's Saffola Gold oil. 
• The Government has stated that 14 scholarship schemes for Scheduled Castes and Other Backward Classes (OBCs) / Denotified, Nomadic and Semi-nomadic Tribes (DNTs) students come under Digital Payments Initiatives. 
• This is expected to benefit 3.54 crore students across the country. As per the modalities of this initiative, all scholarship amount will be deposited in the bank accounts of the students.

Awards & Honors

• A 117-year-old Jamaican woman named Violet Brown has become the world's oldest person, revealed US-based Gerontology Research Group.
• Dr. Paduru Gururaja Bhat Award 2017 has been conferred upon Prof. A.V. Narasimha Murthy, Chairman, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan (BVB), Mysuru.
• Murthy was selected for the award in consideration of his contribution to Indian Archaeology, Ancient History and Numismatics. 

Banking, Business & Economic Affairs

• Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries surpassed IT giant Tata Consultancy Services in intraday trade today to reclaim its tag of India's most valued company.
• In a new World Bank report titled Globalization Backlash, the agency expects India’s gross domestic product to spike to 7.2% in the financial year 2017-18 from 6.8% the previous fiscal. 

Science & Technology

• Naval Ship ‘INS Chennai’, a ‘P15A Guided Missile Destroyer’, was dedicated to Chennai in the presence of the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu K. Palaniswami and the Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Eastern Naval Command Vice Admiral HCS Bisht.

People in News

• Liquor baron and loan defaulter Vijay Mallya was arrested by London police today.
• The beleaguered businessman is wanted in India for defaulting on loans worth around ₹9,000 crore related to Kingfisher Airlines that was grounded in 2012.

Sports Current Affairs

• Sunrisers Hyderabad captain David Warner today became the batsman with the most number of fifties in IPL after he smashed his 34th against Kings XI Punjab. 

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