General Knowledge and Current Affairs - 08-04-2014

1. Ram Navami being celebrated today with religious fervor & gaiety
 

i. Ram Navami, the birth of Lord Ram is being celebrated today with religious fervor and gaiety.
ii. President Pranab Mukherjee, Vice President Hamid Ansari and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have greeted the people on the occasion.

2. Saradha scam: ED seizes assets worth Rs 140 cr; issues notices

i. Widening its probe into the multi-crore Saradha chitfund scam, the Enforcement Directorate has issued summons to numerous entities even as it has attached assets worth Rs 140 crore of individuals and firms on money laundering charges.

ii. The central probe agency has also issued a notice asking general public “to furnish information and particulars of properties, both movable and immovable as well as bank accounts, in West Bengal and other places, if any, related to Saradha group known to them, with specific details” to it.

iii. The agency’s zonal office in Kolkata recently issued summons to close to 15 people involved in the funds transactions of the scam that was being perpetrated largely in West Bengal, Odisha and Assam and came to the fore early last year after duped investors raised their voice of grievance.

iv. The agency has till now issued attachment orders on all equity shares of all 224 companies of the Saradha group, insurance policies in the name of Sen and his wife, numerous land properties and plots, 390 bank accounts and equity shares of a TV channel run by the beleaguered group.

3. Lok Sabha elections in Meghalaya tomorrow

i. Elections will be held for two Lok Sabha seats in Meghalaya tomorrow which will decide the fate of 10 candidates, including NPP chief P A Sangma, sitting Congress MP Vincent Pala, former student leader Paul Lyngdoh and church leader P B M Basaiawmoit.

ii. The Shillong seat will witness a multi-cornered contest among the ruling Congress, the United Democratic Party and an independent candidate supported by two smaller regional parties,while the ruling Congress will contest against the P A Sangma-led National People’s Party for the Tura seat.

iii. P A Sangma held the Tura seat eight out of 10 times, while the Congress won the Shillong seat seven times between 1977 and 2009. Since 1996, the Congress candidate consistently won the Shillong seat.

iv. Of the electorate of 15,53,028, women voters numbering 13,512 are in the majority. There are 343 sensitive polling booths out of 2,562, of which 85 per cent were in the militant-hit Garo Hills region and classified as hyper sensitive.

    4. Arunachal Pradesh now on India's railway map

i. The Arunachal capital was on Monday put on the country's railway map with the first passenger train of about 400 commuters arriving at Naharlagun near Itanagar. 

ii. The train with 10 passengers and two goods compartments, towed by a diesel engine, left Dekargaon at 7am and arrived here at 12.30pm, covering a distance of 181 km. 

iii. "It is a great day for Arunachal Pradesh," C D Sharma, who had bought the first ticket for Naharlagun at Dekargaon railway station for Rs 35 said

iv. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had announced introducing train service in his package for the state on January 31, 2008. 

v. The engine made its maiden trial run from Harmutty to Naharlagun terminus on January 14 last while a high level team led by the Planning Commission member (North East and Power) B K Chaturvedi had inspected the Harmutty-Naharlagun on January 17 last.

     5.    Google to help small businesses set up virtual presence

i. Ravi Kotian, a clothes seller in mid-40s, whose shop is located in the crowded KR market area in Bangalore, is a disgruntled man. Traffic congestion and lack of parking space are key factors discouraging people from coming to his shop.

ii. However, Google Inc, with its new Maps technology, is offering traders like Kotian a solution. The search engine giant’s Indoor Google Maps will help them set up virtual stores, which will allow consumers to search online for products in their physical stores. The map will also give exact directions to the consumer to reach shops.

iii. Small businesses have to move beyond just setting up their websites and hoping that shoppers walk in, which is passé,” according to Suren Ruhela, Director and Product Manager, India Google Maps. Once a business has signed up, Google’s partners will help it to integrate its software with that of Google’s.

     6.    Jhumpa Lahiri's "Lowland" shortlisted for 2014 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction

i. Indian American novelist, Jhumpa Lahiri’s Lowland has been shortlisted for the 2014 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction on 8 April 2014. Five other books have also been shortlisted for the prize.

ii. This is the UK’s only annual book award for fiction written by a woman and this year’s prize winner will be announced on 4 June 2014 in London.

iii. Lowland published in 2013 is a book set in Kolkata and Rhode Island in the US and narrates a story about the lives of two brothers (Subhash and Udayan), their choices and their fate. Earlier, the book was also shortlisted for Man Booker Prize.

About Jhumpa Lahiri 
 

• She is a Pulitzer Prize-winning Indian American novelist
• Her novel Namesake (2003) was adapted under the same title for the popular film
• Lahiri is a member of the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, appointed by U.S. President Barack Obama
• Her short story collection entitled Interpreter of Maldives (1999) won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 

      7.    India lose number one spot to Lanka in ICC T-20 rankings

i. India have lost their number one status to Sri Lanka in the latest ICC Twenty-20 rankings. Sri Lanka replaced India from the top spot, after it defeated MS Dhoni and Co. in the World T-20 final to become the new Champions.

ii. However, India's wonder boy Virat Kohli and spinner R. Ashwin have attained their career-high positions. In the rankings for batsmen, Kohli, who was highest run scorer of the World Cup, rose to the second spot. In the bowlers' rankings, Ashwin rose to the third spot.

     8.    India's Heena Sidhu clinched World's No. 1 spot in 10 mts air pistol event

i. Heena Sindhu, the Indian shooter on 7 April 2014 clinched the World’s Number One spot in 10 meters air pistol event. By achieving this fete, she became the first Indian pistol shooter to be ranked at the top position in the list.

ii. Sindhu clinched the first spot in the rankings list by replacing the world champion Zorana Arunovic of Serbia with total pf 1699 rating points. Zorana is now placed at the second position in the list with 1514 points. China’s Wenjun Guo with 1190 points is placed at the third position. 

iii. The rankings was released by International Shooting Sport Federation claimed that Sindhu was successful in achieving the World Number 1 spot through her performances in the recent events. 

     9.    Ashish Bose foremost demographer died at 83

i. Ashish Bose, veteran demographer, 83, died in New Delhi due to illness on 7 April 2014.

ii. Asish Bose was best known for coining the term BIMARU in one page of research paper to then Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi.

iii. BIMARU refer to the four grossly under-developed states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh in the 1980s. Later it was expanded to BIMAROU which included the Orissa. Bose argument was to control the population of country the government should focus on these states as they accounted for more than 40 percent of country’s population.

     10.  SAP appointed Ravi Chauhan as MD for India

i. Ravi Chauhan on 7 April 2014 was appointed as Managing Director for SAP India. He will take the charge immediately. He will report directly to Adaire Fox-Martin, President of SAP Asia Pacific Japan. 

ii. He had joined SAP after four years at Juniper Networks, where he had last served as Managing Director for India and South Asia. Before Juniper, Chauhan held leadership roles at Nortel Networks. 

iii. SAP innovations in cloud, mobile and social platforms are increasingly catered to the workplace of the future and the global networked economy with applications and solutions across all industries. 

About SAP 
 

SAP was founded in Walldorf, Germany in 1972 by five ex-IBM engineers. SAP stands  for Systeme, Andwendungen, Produkte in der Datenverarbeitung which translated to English means Systems, Applications, Products in Data Processing. 

     11.  UK legalised sale of self-testing kits for HIV

i. A new law legalizing sale of self-testing kits for HIV came into force in United Kingdom (UK) on 6 April 2014.

ii. The new law allows individuals to buy the self-testing kits available on shops and self-diagnose for HIV at home itself. The new law was approved by the UK Government in September 2013.

iii. Testing could involve taking a small drop of blood from a finger, or a swab from the inside of the mouth which can be easily read by people with no medical knowledge or training.

iv. Currently, people can take HIV tests at home but they have to send a saliva, or blood, sample to a lab which will give them their results after the sample has been analysed.

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