Current Affairs 19th April 2017

Current Affairs 19th April 2017 - Important Points

• Historian A V Narasimha Murthy honoured with - Gururaja Bhat Award
• Palladium Cinema site in Srinagar to be developed as - Heritage museum 
• India’s first visually impaired runner to complete Boston Marathon - Sagar Baheti 
• Gorakhpur and Agra Airports renamed by - UP Government
• International Yoga Day with special commemorative stamps celebrated by - UN
• India's most-valued Public Sector Company  becomes - SBI
• First Made in India industrial robot - BRABO unveiled

Current Affairs 19th April 2017 - Details

Historian A V Narasimha Murthy honoured with - Gururaja Bhat Award

Eminent historian Professor A V Narasimha Murthy was presented with Dr. Paduru Gururaja Bhat Award 2017 on 17th April 2017 by D V Sadananda Gowda, Union Minister for Statistics and Programme Implementation.

Important Highlights

• He was chosen for the prestigious award in consideration of his contribution to Indian Archaeology, Ancient History and Numismatics.
• He is the Chairman of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan (BVB), Mysuru. He also served as the Department Head of Ancient History and Archaeology, University of Mysore.
• He is best known for  providing cultural identity to the region of Tulu Nadu as he studied and researched history of Tulu Nadu for over 20 years.
• This award carries the citation and purse of Rs 50,000.

Palladium Cinema site in Srinagar to be developed as - Heritage museum 

The Palladium Cinema site at Lal Chowk of Srinagar is going to be developed as a heritage museum soon. This cinema theatre was once a popular hangout for movie buffs but fell victim to militancy. Palladium Cinema,located at the historic Lal Chowk, was closed down in 1989 after the eruption of militancy in the state. Later in 1990, the cinema was gutted in a fire and it had two fidayeen attacks. At present,security forces have occupied this cinema.

Other Highlights

• Lal Chowk is the Red city square in Srinagar.
• It is the place for political meetings , also the first prime minister of India , Jawahar Lal Nehru unfurled the national flag here in 1948.
• The decision was taken on 18th April 2017 at a meeting chaired by Divisional Commissioner (Kashmir) Baseer Ahmad Khan. 
• This meeting was held to review the progress of various developmental activities being carried out by SDA (Srinagar Development Authority).

India’s first visually impaired runner to complete Boston Marathon - Sagar Baheti 

India’s Sagar Baheti became the first visually impaired Indian runner to complete the historic Boston Marathon on 17th April 2017. Supported by the Massachusetts Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired (MABVI), Sagar completed a distance of 42.16 kilometres in just over four hours. The 31-year old runner finished the 121st Boston Marathon among one of 30000 runners. Sagar is a businessman by profession. In 2013, he was diagnosed with Stargardt’s disease, a type of macular degeneration that eventually leads to blindness.

Key Highlights

• The Boston Marathon is an annual marathon hosted by several cities in greater Boston area of eastern Massachusetts, United States.
• It is always held on the third Monday of April, Patriots' Day.
• The marathon first started in 1897.
• It is the world's oldest annual marathon and known as one of the world's best-known road racing events.
• It is one of six World Marathon Majors also.
• This 2017 Boston Marathon has been recorded as the second hottest in a decade.

 Gorakhpur and Agra Airports renamed by - UP Government

In the third meeting of the Uttar Pradesh cabinet, the state government renamed the Gorakhpur, Agra Airports and name of the Department of Welfare of the Differently-abled after the name of Mahayogi Gorakhnath, the founder of Nath monastic movement. 

Interestingly, the newly-appointed Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is the Head Priest of the Gorakhnath Mutt, which is a leading center of the Nath monastic order. 

Important Highlights

• During the meeting, the cabinet also approved the decision to open 20 new agricultural centers.
• Similarly, the Agra Airport was renamed after RSS ideologue Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay airport.
•  Also, the Department of Disabled Welfare will now be known as Divyang Jan Vikas Empowerment. Divyang is a term used for the differently-abled. 

International Yoga Day with special commemorative stamps celebrated by - UN

The United Nations will be issuing special commemorative stamps to celebrate the International Yoga Day on 21st June this year. The same thing was confirmed by India’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin through a tweet on his social media account.

Important Highlights

• The UN postal agency, UN Postal Administration (UNPA) will issue the new special event sheet to commemorate Yoga Day that has been marked annual since 2015.
• The special sheet comprises stamps with sacred Indian sound “Om” and various yogic asanas images.
• The UN stamps are issued at UN offices in New York, Geneva and Vienna simultaneously.
• The stamps show the aims and achievements of the United Nations and the other organisations affiliated to it.
• The UN General Assembly had adopted the resolution to commemorate the International Day of Yoga every year on 21st June in December 2014.
• The resolution had been passed with the support of a record number of nations (177).

India's most-valued Public Sector Company  becomes - SBI

The State Bank of India (SBI) became India's most valued Public Sector Company in terms of market valuation on 18th April 2017. The market cap of SBI stood at Rs 235307.51 crore as on 18th April 2017. It surpassed state-run energy major Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) as its market cap was about Rs 2961.79 crore higher than that of ONGC's Rs 232345.72 crore. 

Important Highlights

• ONGC once used to be the country's most-valued Public Sector Company in terms of its market valuation.
• Among the top-10 most valued companies list, SBI is on the fifth position while ONGC is at seventh on the list.
•  In Financial Year 2017-18, SBI shares have surged almost 16 percent while ONGC's shares have fallen by over 4 percent.
• In Private Sector, IT major Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) became the most-valued Indian company with a market cap of Rs 454902.85 crore, followed by Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) with Rs 445578.92 crore market cap.
• RIL witnessed  a sharp growth in recent past for the success of telecom venture Jio.

 First Made in India industrial robot - BRABO unveiled

TAL Manufacturing Solutions unveiled India’s first conceptualized, designed and manufactured articulated industrial robot called BRABO in April 2017. BRABO stands for “Bravo Robot” developed indigenously for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) in India.

TAL Manufacturing Solutions is a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Motors.

Important highlights of BRABO

• This robot was designed and manufactured at the TAL’s Pune factory, mainly developed to complement the human workforce.
• It also developed to repeatedly perform high volume, dangerous and time-consuming tasks ranging from handling of raw materials to package finished products.
• Motors and drives for the Robo-arm, which are sourced from Italy, all the other parts of the robot were indigenously manufactured in India.
• BRABO has four patents registered in its name. TAL has also applied for an intellectual property certification for the robot.
• The robot is easy to install, use, program and maintain. It needs only one-time calibration. It does not require any calibration in case of maintenance.
• It has low-cost power transmission system and will be able to work on single phase power supply suitable for MSMEs in the country.
• It will be priced at Rs 3 Lakh for 2kg payload and Rs 6 Lakh for 10kh payload.