April-2010

International Current Affairs [April 2010]

• Belgium became the Europe’s first country to ban burqa.

• Pakistan’s National assembly passed a bill that takes away the President’s power
to dissolve parliament, dismiss a elected government and appoint the three
services Chiefs. Pakistan’s parliament passes 18th amendment which was later
signed by Presient cutting President’s powers.
• USA and Russia signed Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty(START) that allowed a
maximum of 1550 deployed overheads, about 30% lower than a limit set in 2002.
The treaty was signed in the Progue Castle.
• Emergency was imposed in Thailand.
• Nuclear Security Summit held at Washington.It was a 47 nation summit wherein
P.M. announced setting up of a global nuclear energy centre for conducting
research & development of design systems that are secure, proliferation resistant
& sustainable.
• PM visit USA & Brazil, a two nation tour. He attended Nuclear Security Summit in
USA & India- Brazil-S.Africa(IBSA) and Brazil-Russia-India-China(BRIC) summit
in Brasilia (Brazil).
• 16th SAARC Summit held in Bhutan in 28-29 April. The summit was held in
Bhutan for the first time. It is the silver jubilee summit as SAARC has completed
25 years. The summit central theme was ‘Climate Change’. The summit
recommended to declare 2010-2020 as the “Decade of Intra-regional
Connectivity in SAARC”. The 17th SAARC summit will be held in Maldives in
2011.

National Current Affairs [April 2010]

• Naxals killed about 75 CRPF personal at Chintalnar-Tarmetla village in

Dantewada distt ,Chhattisgarh. Government appoint E.N. Rammohan, to probe
the incident.
• Uninque Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) now known as Aadhaar. It’s
Chairman is Nandan Nilekani. It will assign 16 digit identification number to all
residents in India.
• NTRO- National Technical Research Organisation. The organization came to
limelight after allegation of phone tapping of politicians.
• Indian navy commissioned India’s first indigenously built stealth warship ‘ INS
Shivalik’. The other stealth warship to be built are named as ‘INS Sahyadri’ and
INS Satpura’.
• Right To Education Act is notified and will become a legally enforceable from 1
April 2010. Key features of RTE Act are : All children in 6-14 age group must get
free and compulsory eduction; No child shall be held back,expelled or required to
pass a board examination till Class VIII; There must be 25 % reservation for poor
children even in private & minority schools; There must be one teacher for every
30 students; A child rights commission will look into violations of the RTE law.
 • Govt start Census 2011. It is the 15th Census. It is in two phase. The first phase
is called –House listing & Housing Census and the second phase is called
decadal headcount which will be held in Feb 2011. The Registrar General of
India is C Chandramouli.

Sports Current Affairs [April 2010]

• IPL3 season won by Chennai Super Kings defeating Mumbai Indians.

• Youth Olympics Games 2010 to be held in Singapore in Aug 2010.
• World Youth Championship was held at Baku, Azerbaijan.
• Lawn tennis legend Martina Navratilova diagnosed with Breast Cancer.
• ‘Jumbo’ chosen as 2011 World Cricket Cup Mascot.
• World Kabbadi Cup 2010- India defeated Pakistan to won World Cup Kabbadi
2010 held at Ludhiana.
• Pankaj Advani won the Asian Billiards Championship defeating Singapore’s
Peter Gilchrist for the consecutive third time.
• Badminton Asia Championship, Delhi :
o Men’s singles – Lin Dan defeated Wang Zhenguing
o Women’s singles-Li Xiurei defeated Liu Xin.

Persons in News [April 2010]

• Shashi Tharoor (born 9 March 1956) is a member of the Indian Parliament from
the Thiruvananthapuram constituency in Kerala. A prolific author, columnist,
journalist and human rights advocate, he has previously served as the United
Nations Under-Secretary General for Communications and Public Information
and the Indian Minister of State for External Affairs.
• Lalit Modi (born 29 November, 1963 Delhi, India) is an Indian cricket
administrator and businessman. He is best known for his stint as the Chairman
and Commissioner of the Indian Premier League and the Chairman of the
Champions League from 2008 to 2010. He is also the Vice President of the
Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) since 2005 and Vice President of the
Punjab Cricket Association.

Economics & Commerce [April 2010]

• India became the 7th largest shareholder in World Bank. India’s voting rights has
gone up to 2.91 %. The USA has highest voting rights of 15.85 % followed by
Japan with 6.84 % and Germany with 4 %.
• Govt proposed that concept of GGDP – Green Gross Domestic Product to be
introduced in the country by 2015. In 2012 India will host the Rio+20 conference
on biological diversity.
• Government approved disinvestment of 20% of share in SAIL in this financial
year.
• India’s total external debt as on December 2009 is 251 billion.
• India’s Gems & Jewellery export grow by 16% to $28.41 billion in 2009-2010.
 • RBI announced the credit policy. The CRR has been raised from 5.75 % to 6 %.
The Repo rate has been raised from 5 % to 5.25 %. The reverse repo rate has
been raised from 3.5 % to 3.75 %.

Awards Current Affairs 2010 [April 2010]

• 19Th Bihari Puraskar 2009 has been awarded to Hemant Shesh for his collection
of poetry ‘Jagah Jaisi Jagah’.
• 2010 Commonwealth Writers Prize for the best first Book was awarded to Glenda
Guest for the novel ‘Siddon Rock’. Rana Dasgupta won Commonwealth Writers
Prize for best Book 2010 for book ‘Solo’.
• Carl Zeiss wildlife conservation award was won by Joydip Kundu.
• Amitav Ghosh won the Dan David Prize alongwith Margaret Atwood for
‘Rendition of the 2oth century’.

Misc Issues [April 2010]

• ‘Decision Points’ memoir of former US President George W Bush.

• A variety of mango has been named after Sachin Tendulkar.
• Scientist create element 117 from calcium & Berkelium.
• International congress of Mathematicians will be hosted by India for the first time
in August 2010 at Hyderabad. The congress has been held once every four
years since 1897except the breaks during two world wars.
• Government will opened four new campuses for the IIMC(Indian Institute of Mass
Communication) at Nagpur, Kochi, Jammu and Aizawl.
• Padmaja Naidu Himalayan Zoological Park, Derjeeling become first zoo in the
country to install infrared night vision cameras in the enclosures housing
endangered snow leopard.
• ‘Hindutva, Sex & Adventure’ written by Mark Tully.
• Gorumara National Park, Jalpaigudi has been declared the best among the 235
national parks & sanctuaries in the country by the MOEF.
• ‘Gandhi-Naked Ambition’ written by Jad Adams.
• India ranks 5th in the World’s cybercrime ranking for 2009 after US, China, Brazil
& Germany.
• India lauched GSLV from Sriharikota on 15 April 2010. However the launch was
failed in the third stage. The launch was important as GSLV-D3 was the third
developmental mission of India’s GSLV during which ISRO’s indigenously
developed cryogenic upper stage (CUS) was to be flight tested. This is the 6th
flight of GSLV, but the first one to test Indian made cryogenic upper stage.
GSLV-D3 was to launch the GSAT-4 satellite into an elliptical Geosynchronous
Transfer Orbit. The total flight of the vehicle was planned to be 1022 seconds.
• India likely to complete building its first strategic crude oil storage by Oct 2011.
India is building underground storage at Visakhapatnam in AP and Padur in
Karnataka to store about 5.33 million tones of crude oil which is enough to meet
nation’s oil requirement for 13-14 days. India will join nations like the US, Japan
& China that have strategic reserves.
Persons in News [2010]

• Justice Gyan Sudha Mishra was sworn in as Judge of Supreme Court of India.
She became the 4th women judge to be elevated to the Supreme Court of India.
• Justice S H Kapadia will be next Chief Justice of India.
• Mukul Sangma shown in as Meghalaya Chief Minister.
• Poland’s President Lech Kaczynski died in a air crash at Moscow.
• Juan Antonia Samaranch, Former President of International Olympic Committee
(IOC) died.