GK and Current Affairs Updates

The Judo Federation of India (JFI) on 25 April 2016 announced that India has been allotted the Commonwealth Judo Championships 2018.
The Commonwealth Judo Championships was allotted to India, by the Commonwealth Judo Congress held on 23 April 2016 at Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
This will be the first time that Commonwealth Judo Championships will be held in India. The Championships will be held in Jaipur. However, the dates are yet to be finalized.
Besides, India will also play host to the 10th Asian Cadet Judo Championships & 17th Asian Juniors Judo Championships from 6 September to 12 September 2016 at the Rajiv Gandhi Indoor Stadium, Kadvanthaa, Kerala.
• The Commonwealth Judo Championships are an international judo competition, open to countries of the Commonwealth of Nations.
• It is the official event of the Commonwealth Judo Associations and is organised every 2 years for Cadets, Junior, Seniors, Masters and visually impaired Judo Players.
• The Commonwealth Judo Championships 2016 will be held in South Africa.
A widely played sport in India, the first written record about Judo in India was found in Kodokan. Kodokan is about demonstrations and coaching of Judo by Shinzo Tagaki arranged at Shantiniketan in 1929 by Rabindranath Tagore.
To govern the sport, the Judo Federation of India was formed in 1965.

The former prime minister of Thailand, BanharnSilpa-archa was died on 23 April 2016 in Bangkok. He was 83.
His scandal-ridden tenure a Prime Minister preceded the Thailand’s economic collapse in the 1990s.
• He was born on 19 August 1932 in Suphanburi, Siam to a Chinese merchant family. His Chinese name was Ma Dexiang.
• He was elected 11 times to Parliament and gained the nickname Banharnburi for his home province with Thai Nation Party.
• He was regional power broker and a master of money politics in his home province, Suphanburi.
• His tenure as 21st Prime Minister of Thailand was lasted from 13 July 1995 to 24 November 1996 for about 16 months with Thai Nation Party.
• His government was marked by allegations of corruption and economic mismanagement which led to Economic Collapse in the country, touching off the Asian financial crisis.
• He was a familiar presence in national politics, serving as a minister in various governments over the years, and became known as Mr ATM for his methods of winning support and securing allies.
• He was also known as the eel for his ability to wriggle his party into coalitions, including the tenuous grouping of small parties that briefly kept him in power as prime minister.

Japan on 22 April 2016 successfully tested the first stealth fighter jet.  With this, the country joins a select group of world military powers wielding the radar-dodging technology.
The domestically developed single-pilot prototype X-2 jet took off from Nagoya airport in central Japan on its maiden test flight. It safely landed at Gifu air base, north of Nagoya airport, after a 25-minute flight with no particular problems.
Even though the use of military force have a strict constitutional constraints after World War II, Japan still has one of the world's most advanced defence forces and the development of the stealth fighter comes as it faces new security challenges in the form of China's expanding force posture.
At present, only the USA, Russia and China have been internationally recognised as having successfully developed and flown manned stealth jets.
• It was developed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and 200 other firms, measures 14.2 metres (47 feet) long and 9.1 metres wide and was built as a successor to F-2 fighter jets developed jointly with the United States of America (USA).
• Its delivery to the defence ministry is expected as early as May 2016 and the acquisition agency will continue analysing data and check its stealth technology capability.
• Japan began the project in 2009 and has reportedly spent about 39.4 billion yen (332 million US dollars) to develop the aircraft.
• The country was barred from developing aircraft for a number of years after its defeat in World War II but eventually produced the YS-11, a propeller passenger plane that began flying in the early 1960s.
• In another aviation milestone in November 2015, Japan's first domestically produced passenger jet, also developed by Mitsubishi Heavy, made its maiden test flight.

Mouamba Clement, the former Congolese Finance Minister, was on 24 April 2016 appointed as the Prime Minister of Congo. He was appointed to the post by Congo's President Denis Sassou Nguesso.
Clement will be responsible for forming a government in consultation with the president in accordance with the 25 October 2015 constitution.
Further, the appointment comes a month after Sassou Nguesso was elected to a five-year term that extends his long rule over the oil producing country. Sassou Nguesso led Congo between 1979 and 1992 and returned to power after a civil war in 1997.
The central African country has been gripped by political violence since the election.
• Earlier between 1992 and 1993, Clement has served as finance minister under the country's first elected president Pascal Lissouba, who was ousted from power by Sassou Nguesso in 1997.
• He has also served the country as one-time opposition leader into the government.
• The economist and former officer of the Bank of Central African States (BEAC) led several financial institutions in the country in the 1980s.
• He was a senior member of the opposition Pan-African Union for Social Democracy before being expelled in 2015 for taking part in the talks that paved the way for a constitutional referendum allowing Sassou Nguesso to extend his rule.
• The referendum scrapped a two-term limit on presidential mandates, allowing Sassou Nguesso to bid to stay in office in March elections, which he won with more than 60 percent of the vote.

The finance ministry has approved 8.7 per cent interest on PF deposits for over 5 crore subscribers of retirement body EPFO, lower than 8.8 per cent decided by the Central Board of Trustees (CBT).

•    "The (EPFO's apex decision-making body) CBT, at its meeting held in February 2016, has proposed an interim rate of interest at 8.8 per cent to be credited to the accounts of Employees' Provident Fund subscribers for 2015-16. 
•    The ministry of finance has, however, ratified an interest rate of 8.7 per cent," labour minister Bandaru Dattatreya said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha on Monday.
•    This is probably the first time that the finance ministry has not given concurrence to the rate of interest on EPF as decided by CBT, which is headed by the labour minister.
•    Despite the employees’ representatives' demand for 9 per cent rate of interest for the fiscal, the CBT at its meeting held on February 16 decided to provide an interim interest rate of 8.8 per cent for 2015-16.

Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh launched in Shillong, capital of Meghalaya, today, the first of its kind, weeklong Cancer Care campaign in Northeast under the auspices of “North Eastern Council (NEC) - Pink Chain Cancer Conclave 2016”. 
•    The campaign is being attended by Cancer specialists from All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi and other parts of the country, and the weeklong programmes will include public education camps, academic discussions by medical experts and visits to educational institutions. 
•    The entire expenditure for this will be borne by the Ministry of DoNER and Adyar Cancer Institute, he said. 
•    Barooah Cancer Institute in Guwahati will shortly start super speciality DM Medical Oncology and MCh Surgical Oncology courses in Cancer, in collaboration with the Tata Memorial Institute, Mumbai and Department of Atomic Energy, Government of India. 

The Union Government on 23 April 2016 launched Sahapedia.org, India's first online interactive portal on the cultural heritage of the country.
Sahapedia is a collection of resources on the diverse heritage of India. It is non-profit society, led by former TCS chairman S. Ramadorai, who is the head of the National Skill Development Agency.
The online portal aims at educating the people of India about its various traditions, visual arts, performing arts, literature and languages. The portal is accessible to all and is a strong initiative towards the digitisation and research on the traditional art forms of India and their importance in the modern era.
• Sahapedia is an open online resource on the arts, cultures and heritage of India.
• Saha, Sanskrit for together with, is an invitation to explore together the richness of India’s cultural landscapes.
• The portal consists of information ranging from visual arts, music, literature, cinema, dance, architecture, ecological systems, cuisine, percussion and oral histories among others.
• The portal gives users access to various articles, videos, interviews and image galleries.
• Most of the articles on the portal are curated in the form of multimedia modules, articles, interviews, photographs, videos of performances, timelines, walkthroughs and bibliographies.

World Malaria Day (WMD) is being observed annually on 25 April across the world to recognize the global efforts to control preventable vector borne disease malaria. 
•    It also seeks to highlight the need for continued investment and sustained political commitment for elimination and control of malaria. 2016 Theme: “End Malaria For Good”. 
•    It reflects the vision of a malaria-free world set out in the Global technical strategy for malaria 2016-2030. The strategy was adopted by the World Health Assembly in May 2015. 
•    It aims to dramatically lower the global malaria burden over the next 15 years and is aligned with the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. 
•    Goals of the strategy are: (i) Reduce rate of new malaria cases by at least 90% (ii) Reduce malaria death rates by at least 90% (iii) Eliminate malaria in at least 35 countries (iv) Prevent a resurgence of malaria in all countries that are malaria-free. 
•    The World Malaria Day was established by the 60th session of the World Health Assembly, a decision-making body of World Health Organization (WHO) in May 2007. 
•    It was established to provide understanding and education of malaria and also spread information on year-long intensified implementation of national malaria-control strategies. It is one of eight official global public health campaigns currently marked by the WHO.

Every year April 24 is being observed as National Panchayati Raj (PR) Diwas across India. 
•    Amendment) Act, 1992 that came into force with effect from 24 April 1993. 
•    It had led a defining moment in the history of India which helped in decentralization of political power to the grassroots level. 
•    In turn it had led to institutionalization of Panchayati Raj (PR) through the village, Intermediate and District level Panchayats. 
•    Every year on this day Union Ministry of Panchayati Raj organises National Conference to commemorate the National Panchayati Raj Diwas. 
•    Best performing Gram Panchayats are conferred with Rashtriya Gaurav Gram Sabha Purskar by the Union Ministry of Panchayati Raj. 
•    The Panchayati Raj in India generally refers to the system introduced by constitutional amendment in 1992, although it is based upon the traditional panchayat system of South Asia. 
•    The modern panchayati raj and its gram panchayats are not to be confused with the extra-constitutional khap panchayats (or caste panchayats) found in northern India. 
•    While the panchayati raj system was formalized in 1992, leading up to that change, a number of Indian committees studied various ways of implementing more decentralized administration.

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. 
•    It was announced by Minister of State for Power Piyush Goyal and French Environment Minister Segolene Royal at the ministerial side event on ISA at the United Nations. 
•    Solar finance programme aims at lowering the cost of finance and facilitates the flow of more than 1 trillion dollars investment to members of the ISA. 
•    Both countries also launched a second programme at the ISA meeting which aims to make available solar technology for farmers. The meeting was attended by representatives of over 25 countries including the US, Bangladesh, Brazil and Nigeria.
•    The ISA was launched at the 2015 Paris Climate Change Summit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Francois Hollande. 
•    It seeks to empower solar-rich countries located between the tropic of Cancer and the tropic of Capricorn to make collaborative efforts to harness solar energy to generate the electricity. Under this alliance, 121 countries that fall within the tropics have been invited.