24th April 2016 - Important Current Affairs updates

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International Affairs

• Today is World Day for Laboratory Animals.
• Theme of 2016 : Funeral
• Today is Pinhole Photography day.
• Nepal has observed the first anniversary of the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that claimed the lives of around 9,000 people last year. 
• Several people gathered at the Durbar Square in Nepal's capital Kathmandu and released around 9,000 balloons, the same number as the earthquake victims, to remember them. 
• The balloons were released at the exact time the earthquake had struck.
• US Air Force (USAF) invites the Indian Air Force to take part in the Air Exercise, “Ex-Red Flag-16-1” which is scheduled from 28th April 2016 to 13th May 2016 at Eielson AFB Alaska. 
• The Exercise Red Flag is a multinational air exercise, originally conceived in 1975 by USAF to provide operational exposure and mutual exchange of Op capability of friendly Air Forces. 
• US President Barack Obama is on a visit to Hanover, Germany today.
• During this visit, he will hold talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, one of his closest allies.

National Affairs

• The conference of Chief Ministers and Chief Justices of High Courts today adopted a resolution to appoint retired judicial officers as ad hoc judges to reduce the pendency of cases. 
  
• Chief Justice of India TS Thakur announced that Article 224A of the Constitution will be invoked to accomplish this. 
• Note : Nearly 3 crore cases are pending before the judiciary.
• Delhi-based researcher Sudha Gopalakrishnan today launched a free online encyclopedia on Indian culture called Sahapedia. 
• The website, supported by information technology company TCS, features 5,000 pages on topics like heritage monuments, dance forms, poetry, philosophy, film and theatre, religious festivals and wildlife parks. 
• The portal also provides access to digital books and pictures.

Awards & Honors

• Lieutenant Colonel Niranjan, who was martyred in the counter-terror operations during the Pathankot attack, has been recommended for military gallantry award 'Shaurya Chakra'. 
• Note : Expert assault dog Rocket has been recommended for the 'Sena medal’.
• Three eminent Odiya artists Prafulla Kar, Aloka Kanungo and Sadasiv Pradhan have been selected for the prestigious Kendra Sangeet Natak Akademi Samman from Odisha.   

New Appointments

• Bishwadip Dey was appointed as the High Commissioner of India to the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.
• Bhupendra Kainthola, an Indian Information Service (IIS) officer of 1989 batch, has been appointed as the new Director of Film and Television Institute of India (FTII).
• Nagaland Chief Secretary Pankaj Kumar has become the first Ambassador for Girl Child (AFGC) under Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP) Project.

Science & Technology

• ISRO Chairman AS Kiran Kumar has said that the space agency will test its reusable launch vehicle in May. 
• Called RLV-TD, the vehicle will be released from a height of over 70 kilometre for its re-entry into the atmosphere.
• It will act as a flying test bed to evaluate technologies like hypersonic flight and autonomous landing.
• The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN, has released 300 TB of data of its Large Hadron Collider – world's largest and most powerful particle collider. 
• CERN is also providing a Linux-based virtual machine to access the datasets and tools to simplify the data.
• Note :  Particle colliders are generally used to study the nature of particles that constitute matter.

Business & Economy

• The Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) has cleared the insurance policy for all 21 nuclear reactors in India. 
• China's proportion of global exports rose to 13.8% in 2015 from 12.3% in 2014, the highest share by a country since the US's quota in 1968, data from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Employment showed. 
• Bottled water brand 'Bisleri' registered a Guinness World Record as well as a record in the Limca Book of Records by collecting 1.1 million bottles, the maximum number of plastic bottles collected for recycling. 
• The initiative was in collaboration with 150 schools in Mumbai to contribute towards the 'Swachh Bharat Abhiyan'.
• India and France have launched a programme with $1 trillion Potential Solar Programme under the International Solar Alliance (ISA). 
• It is a solar Finance Programme that aims at helping developing countries to fully harness their solar resources for a clean energy future. 

Sports

• A street in Switzerland has been named after tennis star Roger Federer, which the 17-time Grand Slam champion inaugurated himself. 
• Note : The street leads to the national centre for Swiss Tennis at the Tissot Arena sports complex where Federer trained as a junior.
• British astronaut Tim Peake today ran the 36th London Marathon from Space. 
• He ran the distance of the marathon (about 42 kilometers) on a treadmill aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and wore a harness to counteract weightlessness. 
• Note : Peake had also run the London Marathon in 1999, finishing it in three hours, 18 minutes and 50 seconds.
• Indian wrestler, Sandeep Tomar has qualified for the 2016 Rio Olympics in the men's 57 kg freestyle wrestling category. 
• Tomar became the fourth Indian wrestler to qualify for the Olympics. 
• Remaining wrestlers who qualified for the tournament are,
• Hardeep Singh in 49 kg Greco-Roman, 
• Yogeshwar Dutt in 65 kg freestyle,
• Narsingh Pancham Yadav in 74 kg freestyle

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