1. World Haemophilia Day is observed every year on 17 April

• The day is observed to raise awareness regarding the disease and other hereditary bleeding disorders.
• 17 April is also the birthday of Frank Schnabel, a businessman born with severe haemophilia who was the founder of the World Federation of Haemophilia (WFH).
• Haemophilia is a mostly inherited genetic disorder that impairs the body's ability to make blood clots.The Theme of the World Haemophilia Day 2020 is : ‘Get + involved’

2. IWF President Tamas Ajan resigns 

• International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) President Tamas Ajan, 81 years old, resigned in the wake of allegations of corruption and doping violations. The IWF Executive Board accepted the resignation of the IWF president. Ursula Papandrea will be the acting president of IWF.
• He is from Hungary, had been at the IWF since 1976, serving 24 years as general secretary and 20 years as president.
• The IWF thanks Tamas Ajan for more than 4 decades of service to weightlifting and most notably for his work in recent years to ensure an anti-doping programme which meets the standards of the IOC (International Olympic Committee) and WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency).
• Papandrea, a former International lifter for the United States (US), is the first woman to lead IWF, which has existed under different names since 1920 and has only 2 presidents since 1972- Ajan and the Austrian Gottfried School.

Foot Notes: About IWF
Headquarters– Budapest, Hungary.

3. S Korea governing party sees big gains in the parliamentary election

• Parliamentary elections in South Korea have resulted in a big win for the governing Democratic Party. Moon's Democratic party and its allies took 180 seats in the 300-member National Assembly, while the opposition United Future Party (UFP) won 103.
• South Korea was among the first countries to hold a national election during the pandemic. The citizens are still being asked to maintain social distancing, wear protective masks, clean their hands with sanitiser and don plastic gloves.
• At each of the 14,000 polling stations, voters had their temperature checked before they were allowed to enter. Those found to have fevers cast their ballots in separate booths that were disinfected after each user.   

Foot Notes: About South Korea
Capital: Seoul
President: Moon Jae-in
Currency: South Korean won
Prime Minister: Chung Sye-kyun

4. India’s Limited-overs vice-captain Rohit Sharma becomes brand ambassador for “CricKingdom”

• Limited-overs Vice-captain of Indian cricket team Rohit Sharma was named brand ambassador of “CricKingdom” a Dubai-based cricket coaching academy which provides a platform for online coaching after the global COVID-19 pandemic subsides.
• Provides support on booking of coaches, ground/nets with the management of academies. They are trying to merge the modern scientific training methods with the time-tested theories of the legends in the game.

Foot Notes: About CricKingdom
World’s first online platform to connect cricket players, coaches, students, academics and facilities.
Co-founder/CEO– Chetan Suryawanshi
Co-founder/CTO– Sesha Sayana
Managing Director– Prashant Naik
Mentor– Dhawal Kulkarni

5. Viswanathan Anand joins WWF India as an ambassador for environment education

• Five-time world chess champion Viswanathan Anand has joined WWF (World Wide Fund) India as its ambassador for the environmental education programme.WWF India is celebrating its 50 years of conservation in India.
• In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, governments, development organisations, corporates and individuals around the world are doing their bit to prevent the spread of the disease.
• The environmental education programme currently reaches out to over 5,00,000 children across 2000 schools in the country.

6. Asia expected to witness zero % growth in 2020: IMF

• The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said that Asia is expected to witness zero % growth in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• It will be its worst growth performance in almost 60 years
• The IMF in a blog titled 'COVID-19 Pandemic and the Asia-Pacific Region: Lowest Growth Since the 1960s' further said the impact of the coronavirus on the region will be "severe and unprecedented".
• This is the worst growth performance in almost 60 years, including during the Global Financial Crisis, when the growth stood at 4.7 %; and the Asian Financial Crisis when it stood at 1.3 %."It further noted that "Asia still looks to fare better than other regions in terms of activity".

Foot Notes: About International Monetary Fund
Founded: 27 Dec 1945
Headquarters: Washington, D.C., United States
CEO: Christine Lagarde (Since 2011)
Founder: Harry Dexter White
Chief Economist: Gita Gopinath

7. India’s Aarogya Setu becomes world’s fastest app to reach 50 million downloads in 13 days

• The National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Amitabh Kant stated that Centre’s mobile app, AarogyaSetu, which is developed for tracking COVID-19 patients, has become the world’s fastest app to reach 50 million (5 crore) downloads in just 13 days.
• The app is developed by the National Informatics Center (NIC) under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) in just 4 days, it supports 11 languages. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is working on testing and some of the other aspects, whereas Tech Mahindra and the Mahindra group is working with the committee on the next version of this application and developing next-generation technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning, and data science.
• Tech Mahindra is also working on expanding the reach of Aarogya Setu on all types of phones, where the current version of the app is only suitable for use on smartphones.

Foot Notes: About MeitY
Union Minister– Ravi Shankar Prasad
State Minister– Sanjay Dhotre

8. China releases 4th Asian Para Games 2022 mascot as ‘FeiFei’ bird

• The organizing committee of Hangzhou Asian Games, has released ‘FeiFei’ the bird as an official mascot for 4th Asian Para Games 2022, which is scheduled to be held in Hangzhou, China from 9 – 15 October 2022.
• The design inspiration of “Feifei” comes from the motif of the ‘Divine Bird’ in the Liangzhu Culture and represent both Hangzhou city’s heritage and its innovation in technology.
• The first fei’ of the mascot represents the birds flying, implying inclusiveness, respect, and fraternity of human society, whereas the 2nd  fei’ represents the mental tenacity of the athletes with disabilities pursuing dreams and reaching beyond themselves.
• The bird’s body features “i” (intelligence) on its crown, which is a symbol of intelligence and wisdom, and it also shows the characteristics of Hangzhou’s Internet city. It also has 45 dots circle on its chest which represents the joyful gathering of Asian Paralympic Committee’s (APC) members, while the Games logo is in the centre.
• It flashes a blue light when exercising & happy.

Foot notes: About Asian Paralympic committee
President: Majid Rashed
Founded at: Busan, Republic of Korea
Founded: 30 October 2002
Headquarters: Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
CEO: Tarek Souei

9. Freedom fighter R V Bhuskute died after a prolonged illness

• Freedom fighter R V Bhuskute, who had participated in the Quit India Movement, died of prolonged illness in Maharashtra's Raigadh district.
• Bhuskute, who had participated in the Quit India Movement, wrote several books on land laws and worked for the release and rehabilitation of bonded labourers in tribal areas of the state.
• The Quit India Movement also known as India August Movement or Bharat Chodo Andolan was launched at the Bombay session of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) by Mahatma Gandhi on August 8, 1942.

10. RBI slashes reverse repo rate by 25 bps to 3.75 per cent to inject liquidity 

• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced a reduction in reverse repo rate by 25 basis points from 4 % to 3.75 %.
• This announcement has been made to facilitate bank credit flows amid the coronavirus crisis and subsequent countrywide lockdown which has brought economic activity to a virtual halt.
• However, it kept the repo rate unchanged. 
• Repo rate is the rate at which the central bank lends money to commercial banks, and reverse repo rate is the rate at which it borrows from them.