April 2013-Consolidated

Appointments : 

• S Gopalakrishnan, the co-founder and Executive Co-Chairman of Infosys, on 5th April, 2013 was elected as the President of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) for the year 2013-14.
• Krishna Kumar Natrajan appointed as the New Chief of NASSCOM
• PJ Kurien, Deputy Chairman of Rajya Sabha,elected as the New Chairman of the prestigiousAsian Forum of Parliamentarians on
  Population and Development on 11th April, 2013 at Bangkok
• Aruna Bahuguna took over as the first women Special Director General of CRPF. She is an IPS from a 1979-batch Andhra Pradesh cadre
• Italy’s Parliament re-elected Giorgio Napolitano to an unparalleled second term as president on 20th April, 2013.
• Uhuru Kenyatta was sworn in as the New President of Kenya on 9th April 2013. He is the 4th President of Kenya. He defeated Raila
  Odinga.
• Nicolas Maduro was sworn in as the New President of Venezuela on 19th April, 2013 in a ceremony by the National Assembly Speaker, Diosdado Cabello.
• Takehiko Nakao appointed as the President of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) by the Board of Governors. He succeeded Haruhiko Kuroda.
• Narasimhan Ravi, the former Editor of The Hindu was unanimously elected as the president of Editors Guild of India on 23rd
  April, 2013 in New Delhi.
• Parliamentary Speaker Abdul Hamid sworn in as the New President of Bangladesh to replace Zillur Rahman on 24th April, 2013.
• Sunil Bharti Mittal appointed as the New Vice Chairman of International Chamber of Commerce (ICC).

Obituaries

• The Great Indian Mathematician also known as Human Computer, Shakuntala Devi died due to heart failure and renal problem on 21st April, 2013 at Bangalore.
• Historian Professor Bratindra Nath Mukherjee died at his residence in Kolkata on 4th April, 2013. He was a Padma Shree Awardee, a renowned epigraphist and numismatist.
• India’s only Women Chief Election Commissioner, V.S. Ramadevi died due to Cardiac Arrest. She also was the governor of
  Karnataka & HP.
• The first and the only women to be the Prime Minister of Britain, Margaret Thatcher passed away at the age of 87 following a stroke on 8th April, 2013.
• Former Chief Justice of, Justice JS Verma died on 22nd April, 2013 in New Delhi after multiple organ failure at the age of 80 years. He was the 27th Chief Justice of India on 25th March, 1997 and retired on 18th January, 1998.
• Dr Hilary Koprowski, a Polish researcher who Developer of First Successful Oral Vaccination for Polio died on 11th April, 2013 in
  Philadelphia at the age of 96.
• British Scientist, Robert Edwards passed away at 87. He was the Pioneer of Vitro Fertilization that resulted in the birth of first test tube baby of the world.
• Sailendra Nath Roy, an Indian Guinness World Record holder on 28th April, 2013 died during the stunt.
• Renowned violinist and Composer, Lalgudin Jayaraman died in Chennai on 22nd April, 2013 at 82 due to illness.
• Legendary singer Shamshad Begum died on 23rd April, 2013 in Mumbai due to illness. She was 94 years of age.

Awards

• The New York Times won four Pulitzer Prizes including the Award for Investigative Reporting for Stories on 15th April, 2013.
• Telgu Writer, Ravuri Bharadwaja was selected for the Jnanpith Award 2012 by the Jnanpith Award Committee for his contribution to Telgu Literature.
• Navjot Singh became the youngest athlete of Jammu and Kashmir to be conferred with the Sher-i-Kashmir Sports Award on 17th April, 2013.
• The President of India, Pranab Mukherjee gave 54 Padma Awards at the function in Darbar Hall of Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi on 20th April, 2013.
• Sebastian Vettel won the Bahrain Grand Prix 2013.
• Yash Chopra for his contributions to Film Industry will be honoured with Dadasaheb Phalke Academy Award 2013. Yash Chopra and Rajesh Khanna selected for 13th Dada Saheb Phalke Academy Awards to be conferred on 30th April, 2013.
• Belgian Mathematician, Pierre Deligne won the Abel prize 2013. The Abel Prize is considered equivalent to the Nobel Prize.
• Legendary Actor Pran awarded Bollywood’s Highest Honour Dada Saheb Phalke Award for 2012.

Sports

• ICC Test Rankings released by ICC on 21st April, 2013. Hashim Amla was placed at top among batsman and Dale Steyn was ranked best bowler. Pujara and Ashwin are the only two Indians among Top-10.
• Gayle hit Fastest-Ever Century in the history of Cricket during IPL against Pune Warriors India by reaching 100 in merely 30 balls on 23rd April, 2013.

International

• The US House of Representatives passed the Cyber Information Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) on 18th April, 2013.
• Italy got a New Coalition Government with Enrico Letta as its Prime Minister.
•  A Pakistani election tribunal on 16th April, 2013 barred former military dictator Pervez Musharraf from running for Parliament.
• Abu Dhabi based Etihad Airways on 24th April, 2013 confirmed taking over of 24 percent minority stake in Jet Airways for 379 million dollars.
• China Mobile and Vodafone on 4th April, 2013 announced that they formed a consortium in order to bid for the mobile licences in Burma
• Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina rejected New Anti-Blasphemy Law Demands of Islamists.
• The Federal Investigation Agency in Pakistan arrested former President, Pervez Musharraf in relation to the Benazir Bhutto murder case.
•  India and UAE on 24th April, 2013 signed an agreement to increase the number of weekly airlines seat by four times during a bilateral meet at Abu Dhabi.
• Turkey Treasury Undersecretariat would close debt to IMF with refund of 422.1 million USD of capital as part of the 19th stand-by after 52 years.
• The fifth BRICS Summit was held at the Durban International Convention Centre (ICC), South Africa. The theme of the 5th BRICS Summit was: Partnership for Development, Integration and Industrialisation. The participant nations in the summit were Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
• Pakistan successfully test-fired the nuclear- capable Hatf-IV ballistic missile on 10th April, 2013. Hatf-IV has the range of 900 km.
• Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh visited Germany from 10th April – 12th April, 2013. He was accompanied by delegation.
• Vice-President of India Hamid Ansari visited Tajikistan from 14th – 17th April, 2013 for strengthening bilateral ties
• On 8th April, 2013, India and Malta signed the new DTAA at Valetta, Malta.

National

• Government of India approved the National Policy for Children, 2012. The policy recognizes every person below 18 years in age as a child.
• President Pranab Mukherjee on 16th April, 2013 dedicated Siddheshwar Dham Temple to the Nation
•  Lt Cdr Abhilash Tomy became the first Indian to Circumnavigate Globe Solo and Non-Stop on a sail boat. On return he was welcomed by the President of India.
• Swedish Luxury Carmaker Volvo signed Jeev Milkha Singh as its Brand Ambassador.
• The Indian city of Ahmedabad launched a first-of-its-kind Heat Action Plan on 16th April, 2013.
• The Government approved the project for creation of National Optical Fibre Network connecting all the 250000 Gram Panchayats.
• The Odisha Legislative Assembly on 4th April, 2013 unanimously adopted a resolution requesting the Centre to award special category status to the state.
• The world famous textile embroidery handicraft Lucknow Zardozi became a brand after being accorded with the Geographical Indication (GI) registration.
• Book entitled Leaf Turns Yellow: the Sufis of Awadh was released by the Vice President of India, Hamid Ansari at New Delhi.
• Government launched IBIN (India Backbone Implementation Network) for effective implantation of its core programmes and policies.
• Odisha on 8th April, 2013 decided to set up the first public health university in India. This university will be set up under Public-Private Partnership mode.
• The Madhya Pradesh government on 9th April, 2013 decided to declare Malkhamb as the State Sport.

Polity

• Assam Right to Public Service Act 2012 was implemented by Assam to bring in transparency and accountability in the key areas of governance.
• The Meghalaya Lokayukta (Amendment) Bill 2013 was on 18th April, 2013 passed in the state Assembly.

Economics

• Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd and Reliance Communications on 2nd April, 2013 signed a 1200 crore Rupees definitive agreement to roll out the 4G services.
• Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs approved de-control of Sugar.
•  P. Chidambaram on 24th April, 2013 launched medi claim facility for the farmers holding Kisan Credit Cards (KCC) issued by Dena Bank.
• India is the largest recipient of remittances in the world, receiving 69 billion US Dollars in 2012 according to World Bank.
• World Growth Forecast for 2013 was slashed to 3.3% from 3.5% by IMF. Continued recession in Eurozone is the reason for it.
• The retail business of Sahara India Pariwar called Sahara Q Shop entered into the Guinness World Records by opening 315 outlets in 10 states.
• Reserve Bank of India (RBI) decided to launch Plastic notes in the denomination of 10 Rupees in five selected cities of India on trial basis.
• The International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced on 12th April, 2013 that it recognised Somalia’s new government after a 22-year gap in relations with the country.

Science & Tech

• Google Inc acquired Wavii, the news summarization app based in Seattle, for around 30 million US dollar cash.
• NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovered Two Earth- Like Planets Kepler-62f And Kepler-62e.
• Federal Space Agency Roscosmos, Russia on 19th April, 2013 launched the bio-satellite (BION-M) called orbital Noah’s Ark into space with various living organisms.
• Facebook on 4th April, 2013 released the software called Home, which puts the feeds from Facebook on Android phones’ home screen.
• A website on Babu Jagjibvan Ram was launched by the Union Minister for Social Justice & Empowerment on 5th April, 2013, his 106th Birth Anniversary.
• Nuclear Capable Agni-II Missile was Successfully Test-Fired. The medium range nuclear capable Agni-II missile was on 7th April, 2013 successfully test-fired with a strike range of more than 2000 km from the Wheeler Island.