• Current Affairs 29th April 2019

    Updated : 29-Apr-2019

    Current Affairs 29th April 2019 - Important Points

    • Who bestowed Fellowship of the Royal Society, UK ? - Gagandeep Kang 
    • Who recommended names of Gurpreet Singh Sandhu and Jeje Lalpekhlua for Arjuna award 2019 ? - AIFF
    • India finishes Asian Wrestling Championships 2019 with - 16 medals
    • Ban on Personality Quiz Applications announced by - Facebook
    • Real Time Voice Banking Platform Launched by - IT Service

    Current Affairs 29th April 2019 - Details

    Who bestowed Fellowship of the Royal Society, UK ? - Gagandeep Kang 

    Gagandeep Kang becomes 1st Indian female researcher to be bestowed Fellowship of the Royal Society, United Kingdom. Gagandeep Kang She is a clinician researcher, who is well known for her important role in development of Rotavac. She presently designated as executive director of Translational Health Science and Technology Institute, Faridabad, which is an independent institute of Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and  Technology.
    In 2016, she was bestowed prestigious Infosys Prize in Life Sciences for her contributions in
    understanding natural history of rotavirus and other infectious diseases.
    She is also 1st Indian and 1st female to edit Manson’s Textbook of Tropical Medicine.
    Rotavac
    It is India’s 1st indigenously produced vaccine for rotavirus infections, which causes childhood
    diarrhea. The Rotavac vaccine was produced by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech Limited and Pune-based Serum International also developed a rotavirus vaccine known as Rabishield. Both of them are included in India’s Immunisation Program.
    In January 2018, WHO “pre-qualified” the Rotavac vaccine, its sale internationally to other nation in
    Africa and South America.

    Fellowship of the Royal Society

    It is the oldest scientific academy in continuous reality since 1663. It is an award funded by Royal Society of London and also known as Fellowship of the Royal Society, ForMemRS and HonFRS. It is approved to individuals who made substantial contribution to development of natural knowledge in fields of natural knowledge, including mathematics, engineering science, and medical science.

    Who recommended names of Gurpreet Singh Sandhu and Jeje Lalpekhlua for Arjuna award 2019 ? - AIFF

    All India Football Federation suggested names of National team footballers Gurpreet Singh Sandhu and  Jeje Lalpekhlua for the admired Arjuna Award 2019. All India Football Federation has been pushing Sandhu and Jeje cases since 2017 but Arjuna Award committee didn’t sanction their claims in last 2 years.
    Arjuna Award
    Arjuna Award is India’s 2nd highest sporting award after Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award. It is bestowed
    upon sportsperson for steadily outstanding performance for 4 years. It is bestowed upon sportsperson in gratitude of their consistently outstanding performance for 4 years in National sports.
    In 2017 All India Football Federation suggested Sandhu and Jeje names along with then Indian women’s
    team captain Bembem Devi, but Arjuna Award committee didn’t sanction their claims in last 2 years and
    only Devi was conferred with the award. Again, in2018 they did not get the approval.
    After Sunil Chhetri, Sandhu and Jeje are Indian national team’s longest serving footballers. Sunil has
    acknowledged both Arjuna and Padma Shri. Also, Sandhu is only 2nd footballer after Sunil Chhetri, in India to play Asian Cup final rounds twice in 2011 and 2019.

    About Gurpreet Singh Sandhu and Jeje Lalpekhlua

    Gurpreet Singh Sandhu at the moment plays for Bengaluru FC and had earlier played for Norwegian side Stabaek. He set a unique record in 2016, by becoming f1st Indian footballer to play competitive match in European top division league.
    Jeje Laloekhlua presently plays for Chennaiyin FC in Indian Super League. The 28 years old from
    Mizoram has 23 international goals to his credit and is a remarkably talented striker. He was inducted in
    national team in 2011 by then coach Bob Houghton.

    India finishes Asian Wrestling Championships 2019 with - 16 medals


    India concluded Asian Wrestling Championships tournament organised in Xian, China with a sum of 16
    medals which included 8 (1 Gold, 3 silver and 4 bronze) secured by men’s freestyle wrestlers, 4 bronze by women and 3 silver and 1 bronze by Greco-Roman wrestlers.
    Important Highlights

    • India bagged 2 silver medals in Asian Wrestling Championships in Xian, China in men’s Greco-Roman category.
    • Wrestler Gurpreet Singh ended with 2nd place and secured India a silver medal in Greco-Roman 77 kgs category after facing a 0-8 defeat by Hyeonwoo Kim of Korea in the finale.
    • Sunil Kumar in men’s 87 kgs category, registered victory in semi finale bout against Azamat Kustubayev of Kazakhstan with 6-6 but defeated by Hossein Ahmad Nouri of Iran in final match.
    • India’s Greco-Roman wrestlers played better than last edition where they finalized only a couple of
      bronze medals by Rajender Kumar in 55 kgs and Harpreet Singh in 82 kgs categories.
    • Harpreet Singh secured silver in 82kgs after defeating Iran’s Saeid Morad Abdvali.
    • while Gyanender secured bronze in 60 kgs after beating Jui Chi Huang of Taipeion final day.
    • Only Bajrang Punia secured Gold medal after defeating Kazakhstan’s Sayatbek Okassov by 12-7 in 65 kgs men’s free style.
      Asian Wrestling Championships
    • It is Wrestling Asian Championship prearranged by Asian Associated Wrestling Committee. In 1979 men’s tournament started and in 1996 women’s tournament was 1st staged, after that it is organised every year.

    Ban on Personality Quiz Applications announced by - Facebook

    Facebook declared restriction on personality quiz applications on its platform. The decision is granted
    following last year’s Cambridge Analytica Scandal, which assisted researchers to access personal data of about 87 million Facebook subscribers by using quiz app “thisisyourdigitallife”. Such initiative is part of broader crackdown by Facebook on dubious developers.
    Important Highlights

    • Facebook is updating its platform policies to have provisions that applications with minimal utility, such as personality quizzes, may not be allowed on the platform.
    • The applications may not ask for information that doesn’t enrich the in-app, subscriber experience on the social media platform.
    • It consists removing access to number of Application Programming Interfaces, updating platform
      policies, regularly evaluating application’s access to subscriber permissions. It will also lock down older APIs from accessing subscriber data.
    • If subscriber has formerly sanctioned permissions which app has not accessed in past 90 days may be considered expired and admission to such expired permissions will be revoked.
    • It will also periodically review, audit and eliminate permissions that older applications have not utilised.

    5th ABU Media Summit on Climate Action and  Disaster Preparedness Organised in Nepal

    5th Asia Pacific Broadcasting Union Media Summit on Climate Action and Disaster Preparedness started  from 25th-26th April 2019 in Kathmandu, Nepal. It was appeared by above 200 participants including political leaders, United Nations agencies representatives, Non-Governmental Organisations, Experts of climate change and disaster management, researchers and media persons.
    Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union
    It is a non-profit, non-governmental, non- political, professional association of broadcasting groups,
    which contribute development of broadcasting in region. It was recognized in 1964, and has Secretariat in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. With more than 272 members in 76 nations on 4 continents, Asia Pacific
    Broadcasting Union is biggest broadcasting union in the world.
    More about Summit

    • Its aim was to address issue of fully using media’s potential of accelerating climate action and disaster preparedness and link shareholders to media professionals for partnership and joint practical projects.
    • The theme was ‘Media Solutions for Sustainable Future: Saving Lives, Building Resilient Communities’.
    • Kathmandu Media Action Plan for Media Integration in Climate Action and Disaster Risk Reduction was accepted at summit.
    • It also comprised a comprehensive session on Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.

    Real Time Voice Banking Platform Launched by - IT Service

    IT service management company Financial Software Services has released real time voice banking
    platform called Financial Software Services voice commerce. It utilises machine-learning language
    processing techniques and suggests meaningful, contextual, and personalized banking interactions to
    clienteles.
    Benefits of FSS Voice Commerce
    It delivers secure financial transactions to avoid fraud and maintain integrity of transaction ecosystem it
    cares out-of-band multi-factor authentication like One-Time Passcodes and biometrics.
    It also provides conversation-led banking by enabling patrons to block cards, check rate of interest for
    personal loan, real-time data of account and balance and make payment using Alexa/Google Assistant.