Current Affairs - April 26, 2017 Current Affairs

Haryana Chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar announced to give free laptops to 500 meritorious students who secure a minimum of 95 per cent marks in Class X Board examination this year. It will be provided under State Merit Scholarship scheme.

Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) has introduced two endowment assurance plans for individuals having Aadhaar card. Aadhaar Shila is a plan exclusively designed for women, Aadhaar Stambh is meant for men. It offer a combination of protection and savings and also provide a lump sum amount in case of death of the policyholder to the person's family.

The World Intellectual Property Day was celebrated on 26 April 2017 across the world with the theme Innovation - Improving Lives.

NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson has set a new record for the most time spend in space 536 days. Peggy Whitson is the world's oldest and most experienced spacewoman. She has previously broken the record for the most spacewalks taken by a woman and she has overtaken astronaut Jeff Williams, who spent 534 days in space.

The White House has named a retired Marine major general Randolph Ailes as the new Director of the Secret Service. He has been the acting deputy commissioner of Customs and Border Protection and previously oversaw the agency's air and marine division. Ailes is replacing Joseph Clancy, who retired from the agency.

Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilisers and Chemicals Ltd (GNFC) has won the prestigious Golden Globe Tigers Award for Excellence and Leadership in CSR in the category of 'E-Payment Leadership' for the implementation of digital transactions in its township at Bharuch, Gujarat.

All cows their calves, oxen and bulls in the country will be tagged with a tamper-proof Unique Identification Number (UIN) to stop their smuggling, the Centre told the Supreme Court. Identification details includes age, breed, sex, lactation, height, body colour, horn type, tail switch and special marks.

A gigantic Tunnel Boring Machine is being used to build a underwater tunnel in the river Hooghly which connect Howrah with Kolkata. The tunnels are being dug at a depth of 30 metres below the earth's surface and 13 metres below the riverbed. The 520-metre tunnels under the river are part of the 10.8 km underground stretch.

Private sector lender Yes Bank today announced alliance with Paisabazaar.com to make the process of availing a loan easy through its advanced analytics and data mining capabilities to offer customers of the financial marketplace with customised and conditionally approved offers across retail lending products.

Microsoft Co-founder and the world's richest person, Bill Gates has praised PM Narendra Modi for the Swachh Bharat Mission. He mentioned the mission's aim of building 75 million toilets across India, and at present 30% of India's villages are now open defecation free.

India became the world's fifth-largest military spender, as per the figures released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). India spent around USD 55.9 billion for its military in the year 2016. It is followed by US, China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia.

Google Translate use a new 'Neural Machine Translation Technology' to translate between English and nine widely-used Indian languages. These include Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam and Telugu. Other languages are Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali, Marathi and Gujarati.

The Chinese government prohibited parents from choosing baby names like Islam, Medina, Jihad and Quran for their children, thereby strengthening its hold on Muslims living in western China. The list titled "List of Banned Ethnic Minority Names" includes over two dozen names including Mujahid, Arafat, Muhammad, Quran, Mecca, Jihad, Imam, Saddam, Hajj and Medina.

The Indian Railways will be launching a special rail service, Utkrisht Double Decker AC Yatri (Uday) Express in July 2017. The aim of the double-decker service is to provide better amenities to passengers in a lesser fare. It would ply only on high-demand routes like Delhi-Lucknow.

India's first and longest ropeway connect Mumbai with the famous Elephanta Island in the Arabian Sea is planned to be constructed by the Mumbai Port Trust. The 8-km ropeway will begin from Sewri in Mumbai's east coast and end at Raigad district's Elephanta Island, globally renowned for Elephanta Caves.

Vani Jairam called as Meera of modern India was born in Vellore, Tamil Nadu. She started her singing career in 1971 and has completed over four decades in the industry. She has done playback singing for over 1000 movies and recorded over 10000 songs. She has won the National Film award for Best Female Playback singer thrice and also honoured with the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement award in 2012.

India and Armenia have signed three agreements in a bilateral meeting. The three agreements are; 1. The two countries signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on peaceful uses of outer space. 2. Another MoU on cooperation in youth matters 3. Program of cultural cooperation for the years 2017-2020.

India aims to produce 273 MT of foodgrains in the crop year 2017-2018 commencing July and maintaining 4 percent farm growth in anticipation of a good monsoon. It may be noted that 50 percent of the foodgrain output comes from both kharif (summer) and rabi (winter) seasons.

The international conference on "Dara Shikoh: Reclaiming Spiritual Legacy of India" will be held on April 27 and 28. The conference will be organised by the Indian Council Of Cultural Relations (ICCR). The conference will see the participation of eminent scholars from the US, Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and India. The objective of the conference is to highlight Dara Shikoh's contributions to bring about spiritual homogenisation of Hinduism and Islam.

NASA successfully launched its football-stadium-sized, heavy-lift super pressure balloon (SPB) from Wanaka, New Zealand. It flying on a national day of remembrance in New Zealand and Australia similar in spirit to the U.S. observance of Memorial Day.