GK and Current Affairs Updates

Rafael Nadal on 17 April 2016 defeated Frenchman Gael Monfils to grab the 2016 Monte Carlo Masters title.
Nadal, appearing in his 100th Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Tour final, won 7-5 5-7 6-0 in 2 hours 46 minutes to claim his ninth title, but his first since 2012.
• Nadal is a Spanish professional tennis player currently ranked world No. 5.
• He has won 14 Grand Slam singles titles, the 2008 Olympic gold medal in singles, record equalling 28 titles in ATP World Tour Masters 1000 events, and 16 ATP World Tour 500 tournaments.
• In 2010, he became the seventh player in history and youngest of four in the Open Era to achieve the Career Grand Slam at age 24.
• He is the second male player, after Andre Agassi, to complete the singles Career Golden Slam.
• By winning the 2014 French Open, he became the only male player to win a single Grand Slam tournament nine times and the first to win at least one Grand Slam tournament for ten consecutive years.
• He is the only male player in tennis history to win one Grand Slam and Masters 1000 title for ten consecutive years from 2005 to 2014.
• The Monte-Carlo Masters is an annual tennis tournament for male professional players held in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France, a commune that borders on Monaco.
• The event is part of the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 on ATP Tour.
• The tournament is played on clay courts and is held every year in the April–May period.
• The Monte Carlo tennis championship was first held in 1897. It became an Open event in 1969.
• In 1990, it became an ATP Championship Series Single Week tennis event.
• Beginning in 2009, Monte Carlo became the only ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament not to have a mandatory player commitment.
• Rafael Nadal won the title eight consecutive times between 2005 and 2012, making him the only player in the open era to win eight consecutive titles at the same tournament.

Rangana Herath, the veteran Sri Lankan spinner, retired from T20 and One Day International Cricket on 17 April 2016. However, the left-arm spinner will continue to play in Test matches.
•    Sri Lankan Cricket Board in a press statement informed that Herath would like to concentrate on Test cricket which has always been his personal passion.
•    Quoting from the letter received from Herath, the Board said that the decision was taken to make room for fresh talent to be groomed with the 2019 World Cup.
•    Herath had a career best in Tests of 9 for 127 against Pakistan in 2014, 4 for 20 in ODIs against India in 2013 and 5 for 3 inT20s against New Zealand at the WT20 in 2014.
•    ODIs – Matches 71 – 74 wickets - 25 April 2004 at Harare against Zimbabwe
•    T20Is – 17 Matches – 18 Wickets - 6 August 2011 at Pallekele against Australia

World Hemophilia Day was observed on 17 April 2016 across the world. The day is observed to advocate for the global efforts to ensure appropriate care and treatment of diseases, which are the oldest known genetic bleeding disorders caused by Genetic Deficiency. 
•    50 Years of Advancing Treatment for All has been decided as the theme for the year 2013. The World Federation of Hemophilia (WFH) and the global community have worked together, for over a period of past 50 years, to improve care and treatment for inherited bleeding disorders.
•    17 April is observed as the World Hemophilia Day every year across the world. Hemophilia generally is a blood disorder that effects a huge population across the world. The disease is generally transmitted to the daughter from his father at the time of birth, who further becomes the carrier of hemophilia cells of the defected gene to her children. 
•    This is a non-curable disease but can be handled, if treated finely. World Hemophilia Day aims to increase awareness of this disease and other bleeding disorders as well as where we have been, where we want to go, and that together, we can close the gap in care. Hemophilia B is the second most common kind of bleeding disorder, also termed as factor IX deficiency.
•    75 percent of the people suffering from the disease across the world receive inadequate treatment or no treatment at all. The percentage of the people suffering from the disorder is higher than the Von Willebrand disorder and rare factor deficiencies.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 14 April 2016 launched the pilot of e-NAM, the e-trading platform for the National Agriculture Market, for the farmers. It was launched on 125th birth anniversary of Baba Saheb Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar.
The initiative will usher in transparency which will greatly benefit the farmers. In the initial stage 21 mandis in 8 states have been linked to e-NAM and by September 2016 two hundred mandis will be included and by March 2018 five hundred eighty five mandis.
With this, the farmers can sell or buy the agricultural products online using this portal.
• This project will operate through an online portal which is being linked to the mandis of the States.
• Its software will be provided to all the willing states without cost.
• A knowledgeable person will be deployed for one year in every sharing mandi to facilitate the smooth functioning of the portal.
• Under this Project, Union Government is providing a grant of 30 lakh rupees to the proposed agriculture mandis of the states.
• The farmers will be provided farmer helpline services 24X7 for obtaining information related to this portal.

Indian cricket team captain M S Dhoni has resigned as brand ambassador of realty firm Amrapali, days after the unhappy residents of a housing project in Noida launched a social media campaign asking the cricketer to dis-associate himself from the builder.
•    Dhoni was the brand ambassador of the company for the last 6-7 years.
•    The complaints from the residents of Amrapali’s Saphhire project in Noida had gone viral on Twitter over the past few days after they tagged Dhoni in their tweets asking the cricketer to dis-associate himself from the builder or force the company to ensure completion of pending work.
•    After Dhoni, the residents of an Amrapali housing society have now started a new campaign on social media appealing Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav to intervene in the matter and address their grievances, a residents' association said in a statement.
•    Meanwhile, a parliamentary panel is likely to recommend a hefty penalty and a jail term of up to five years to celebrities endorsing misleading advertisements.
•    For a first-time offence, the panel is planning to propose a Rs 10 lakh fine or imprisonment up to two years or both. A second offence could attract Rs 50 lakh fine and imprisonment for five years, sources had said.

Malick Sidibé, the Malian photographer who chronicled his country’s burgeoning pop culture in the years after independence, died at the age of 80 on 15th April 2016.

•    Sidibé’s dynamic black-and-white shots captured the energy, hope and nightlife of a generation of young ­Africans across two decades of social, cultural and political change.
•    Born in what was then French Sudan in 1936 (or 1935; in interviews he could never remember which), Sidibé only started school at 10, when he could be spared from shepherding duties by his father. 
•    He became known among his classmates and teachers as an accomplished artist, and in 1952 won a place at the École des Artisans Soudanais in Bamako.
•    He got his photographic break working in the studio of Bamako’s leading society ­photo­grapher, Gérard Guillat. Sidibé spent his nights cycling between nightclubs, photographing party-goers into the small hours with his Brownie camera. His portraits proved so popular that he set up his own studio in 1962 and became known as “the Eye of Bamako”.
•    Sidibé’s archive from those years totals tens of thousands of negatives, and his photographs are now held in collections across the world, including New York’s Museum of Modern Art and the Getty Museum in California.
•    In 2007, he became the first photographer – and the first African – to be awarded the Golden Lion lifetime achievement award at the Venice Biennale.

Google in collaboration with RailTel, the telecom arm of the Indian Railways, rolled out free Wi-Fi service at Bhubaneswar railway station on 17 April 2016. 
•    With this, Bhubaneswar railway station became the second station to be covered under the Google-RailTel Wi-Fi project. Free Wi-Fi by Google-RailTel took off at Mumbai Central in January 2016.
•    This facility will enable passengers to stream high definition videos while waiting for their respective trains at the railway station.
•    Besides Bhubaneswar, trials are going on at about 10 more stations which include Jaipur, Patna, Ranchi, Ernakulum, Allahabad, Lucknow and Guwahati. Wi-Fi services will be available on these stations in a short time.
•    Under the Digital India initiative, Google and RailTel have collaborated to make Wi-Fi network available across 100 stations to deliver high-speed Internet to 10 million Indians a day by the end 2016.
•    Digital India is a campaign launched by the Government of India to ensure that Government services are made available to citizens electronically by improving online infrastructure and by increasing Internet connectivity or by making the country digitally empowered in the field of technology.
•    It was launched on 1 July 2015 by Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi.[1] The initiative includes plans to connect rural areas with high-speed internet networks. Digital India has three core components. These include:
•    The creation of digital infrastructure
•    Delivering services digitally
•    Digital literacy

The Ministry of Railways and the Ministry of Enterprise and Innovation of the Kingdom of Sweden on 15 February 2016 inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on technical cooperation in rail sector.
•    The MoU aims at developing cooperation activities in the railway area to promote efficiency and sustainability and achieve concrete results with regard to bilateral trade, investment, research and technology transfer.
•    The MoU was signed by Girish Pillai, Adviser / Infrastructure on behalf of Ministry of Railways, and Oscar Stenstrom, State Secretary on behalf of Swedish Government.
•    Benchmark railways policy development, regulations, organization and specific characteristics for each country.
•    Exchange of knowledge, technical expertise, innovation, technology, sustainable solutions and research.
•    Other cooperation projects agreed between the participants, such as, tilting coaches/trains, capacity allocation (time tabling) and optimisation of maintenance and improved freight/combination traffic.
•    Training and continuing education program in reliability and maintenance of rail transport system for railway engineers and managers.
•    The MoU will remain in force for 5 years from the date of signing. However, it can be extended for a further period of 5 years with the written consent of both sides.

Iconic Pepsi-Cola sign on the banks of East River of New York on 13 April 2016 was declared as a historic landmark after 25 years of discussion.
•    The sign of 60 feet high and 120 feet long was built in 1936 and installed atop a Pepsi bottling plant in an industrial area bordering the East River in Long Island City.
•    Its steel and porcelain letters and giant Pepsi bottle have long been part of the view from the East Side of Manhattan.
•    The sign was restored in 1993 after being damaged in a winter storm.
•    New York City's landmark commission with a unanimous vote declared it as historic land mark after having discussions for around 25 years which began in 1988 and concluded on 13 April 2016.
•    In 1999, the bottling plant was closed and then sold and demolished in 2001. But the sign was preserved and reinstalled a short distance away in a park that opened in 1998, Gantry Plaza State Park.
•    It has appeared in several films, including Munich and The Interpreter in 2005.

Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das on 14 April 2016 launched the Bhimrao Ambedkar Awas Yojana for widows.
Its objective of the scheme is to create equality and harmony in society, ensuring all round development.
• The programme is with a budget allocation of 80 crore rupees and a target of 11000 units (houses) for widows was set in 2016-17 financial year.
• An amount of 75000 rupees would be granted to build a house in districts in hilly terrains and 70000 rupees in plains and the amount would be distributed among the beneficiaries in three installments in their bank accounts.
• The widows would also get pension.
Das said the Commission for Schedule Caste would be set up soon. Ambedkar had drafted the Constitution and its specialty is that even a common man could hold the highest post as it inspires to work rising above class, caste and creed, he said, adding its objective is to create equality and harmony in society, ensuring all round development.
Das appealed to the people to ensure cleanliness and asked parents to send their children to schools