Current Affairs 4th-5th May 2014

Current Affairs 4th-5th May 2014 - Important Points

• UNESCO Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize 2014 bagged by Ahmet Sik

• First indigenous air-to-air missile Astra successfully test fired by India

• Panama's vice president Juan Carlos Varela won presidential election

• WTA Portugal Open 2014 clinched by Sania Mirza and Cara Black

• Nobel Laureate economist Gary Becker passed away at age of 93

Current Affairs 4th-5th May 2014 - Details

UNESCO Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize 2014 bagged by Ahmet Sik

2014 UNESCO Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize won by Turkish journalist Ahmet Sik. Ahmet Sik is an investigative journalist. He received the award worth of 25000 US dollars by the Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova in Paris on 2nd May 2014.

Ahmet Sik, 46, is a freelance journalist who worked for several Turkish newspapers such as Cumhuriyet, Radikal, Evrensel and Yeni Yuzyil between 1991 and 2011. He has also worked as photo journalist for the magazine Nikta and Reuters news agency. He is a member of the Turkish Journalist’s Union.

First indigenous air-to-air missile Astra successfully test fired by India

On 4th May 2014, First indigenously developed air-to-air missile Astra successfully test fired from a Sukhoi-30MKI fighter jet over the Arabian Sea off Goa. Astra is India's first Beyond Visual Range (BVR) Air-to-Air missile which is designed and developed indigenously by the DRDO.

Astra is an all-weather missile with active radar terminal guidance. Astra is a highly advanced state of the art missile with excellent ECCM (electronic counter-counter measures) features, smokeless propulsion and process improved effectiveness in multi-target scenario.

Do you know ?

With this India becomes the fiifth country to have BVR missile. Other four countries are US, Russia, France and Israel.

Who is cheif of DRDO : Mr. Avinash Chander

Panama's vice president Juan Carlos Varela won presidential election

On 4th May 2014, Panamanian vice-president Juan Carlos Varela won the presidential election. He will be assuming office from 1st July 2014.

Juan Carlos Varela won with 39percent of the votes, compared to 32 percent for former housing minister Jose Domingo Arias. 

Do you know ?

Panama is situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America.

WTA Portugal Open 2014 clinched by Sania Mirza and Cara Black

On 3rd May 2014, India's Sania Mirza and her Zimbabwean partner Cara Black clinched their first WTA title of the season beating Eva Hrdinova and Valeria Solovyeva in the women doubles final of the Portugal Open tennis.

Sania and Cara won 6-4, 6-3 against the Czech-Russian pair in an exciting clash that lasted one hour and 18 minutes. They won by 6-4, 6-3. Sania and Cara shared 9919 euro as prize money and earned 280 ranking points each for the title.

Nobel Laureate economist Gary Becker passed away at age of 93

Nobel Laureate economist Gary Becker passed away at age of 93 due to illness in Chicago on 3rd May 2014. He was professor of economics and sociology at the University of Chicago.

Becker was born in Pottsville, Pennsylvania in 1930. He completed graduation in mathematics at Princeton University and master’s degree and a doctorate from the University of Chicago.  He did research at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Gary Becker received the Nobel Prize in 1992 in economics for using economics to analyse human behaviour and interaction topics such as crime (why people commit it), discrimination against minorities and family life.