Current Affairs 12th & 13th April 2019
Current affairs from PIB, The Hindu and Indian Express.
Current Affairs 12th & 13th April 2019
PM Modi Awarded Russia’s Highest State Honour
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was decorated with Order of St Andrew the Apostle – the highest state decoration of Russia, for exceptional services in promoting the special and privileged strategic partnership between the two countries.
This is the seventh international award that PM Modi has been honoured with.
About Order of St Andrew the Apostle :
The Order of St. Andrew the Apostle the First-Called is the highest order of the Russian Federation. Established as the first and highest order of chivalry of the Russian Empire in 1698, it was abolished under the USSR before being re-established as the top Russian order in 1998.
The Order was established in 1698 by Tsar Peter the Great, in honour of Saint Andrew, the first apostle of Jesus and patron saint of Russia. It was bestowed in a single class and was only awarded for the most outstanding civilian or military merit.
Namami Gange Gets Global Recognition At World Summit
The National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) was awarded the distinction of “Public Water Agency of the Year” by Global Water Intelligence at the Global Water Summit in London.
Global Water Summit:
- Global Water Summit is the annual business conference for the water industry worldwide. The summit attracts high-level executives from industry, municipalities and international water companies and provides the opportunity to connect with hard-to-reach industry insiders that will not attend any other water event.
- The summit provides a platform for connecting the public and private sector and for accelerating change and innovation within the sector, it attracts the most influential industry representatives and also becomes a forum for business development and expanding your network.
About Namami Gange Programme:
Namami Gange Programme – is an umbrella programme which integrates previous and currently ongoing initiatives by enhancing efficiency, extracting synergies and supplementing them with more comprehensive & better coordinated interventions. Government of India is supplementing the efforts of the state governments in addressing the pollution of river Ganga by providing financial assistance to the states.
Need: Each day, more than 500 million liters of wastewater from industrial sources are dumped directly into Ganga. In many places, this wastewater entering the rivers is completely raw, completely untreated.
Main Pillars of the Namami Gange Programme are:
- Sewerage Treatment Infrastructure
- River-Surface Cleaning
- Afforestation
- Industrial Effluent Monitoring
- River-Front Development
- Bio-Diversity
- Public Awareness
- Ganga Gram
Cyclone Idai's death toll now above 1,000 in southern Africa
Intense Tropical Cyclone Idai was one of the worst tropical cyclones on record to affect Africa and the Southern Hemisphere.The death toll from the cyclone that ripped into southern Africa last month is now above 1,000.
Mozambique reported 602 deaths and Malawi at least 59.
United Nations described Cyclone Idai as one of the deadliest storms on record in the southern hemisphere.
New species of ancient human discovered in Philippines cave
Homo luzonensis fossils found in Luzon island cave, dating back up to 67,000 years
- Site of discovery: The researchers from France, the Philippines and Australia found the remains in the Callo Cave, where a bone dating back 67,000 years was discovered in 2007. Thus it was initially named Callao Man.
- Timeline: It lived on the island of Luzon in Philippines at least 50,000 to 67,000 years ago.
- Features:
- The hominin has been identified from a total of seven teeth and six small bones.
- The fossils unearthed suggests that the small-bodied hominin were less than 4 feet tall and most likely walked upright
- It is not a direct ancestor of modern day humans, but rather a distant ancient relative.
- Luzonensis also has curved finger and toe bones, suggesting climbing may have been an important part of its behaviour.
- The hominin has been identified from a total of seven teeth and six small bones.
The most famous black hole now has a name
Black hole at centre of galaxy M87 named Powehi, which means 'adorned fathomless dark creation'
A language professor, Larry Kimura has given a Hawaiian name — Powehi — to the black hole depicted in an image produced in a landmark experiment.
Powehi means "the adorned fathomless dark creation" or "embellished dark source of unending creation" and comes from the Kumulipo, an 18th century Hawaiian creation chant. Po is a profound dark source of unending creation, while wehi, honoured with embellishments, is one of the chant's descriptions of po.