30.04.2007

• Mali goes to the polls
• The capital of this country is Bamako.
• President Amadou Toumani Toure, who is contesting as an independent is expected to win the elections.
• Irish Parliament dissolved
• Prime Minister Bertie Ahern has asked President Mary McAleese to dissolve Parliament.
• This country’s Parliament is called Dail.
• What are widgets?
• These enable accessing online applications.
• An excellent article written by J. Murali in today’s Hindu.
• Golf
• Gaurav Ghei became the first Indian to win the Pine Valley Beijing Open.
• Tennis
• Gisela Dulko won her first WTA Tour title beating Sorana Cirstea in the final of the Gaz de France Budapest Grand Prix.
• Cricket – Glenn McGrath
• Is named officially the “Player of the Tournament” at the Cricket World Cup 2007.
• He claimed 26 wickets to emerge as the most successful bowler in a single ICC Cricket World Cup.
• He has 71 World Cup wickets to his credit and earned the distinction of being the most successful bowler in the history of the tournament.
• Insider trading
• It involves purchase or sale of shares by somebone who possesses ‘inside’ information about a company’s performance and prospects which are not available to the market as a whole. Normally, it refers to “market sensitive” information that can impact the valuation of the scrip.
• The government is examining a proposal to make insider trading an offence under the PMLA – Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
• Inscriptions found on meteor dust
• In 1908 a giant meteorite fell in a remote part of Tunguska region in Siberia in Russia.
• The glow of this crash was visible several thousand kilometers away in St. Petersburg, but years later when researchers searched the dense Taiga forest areas they could not find the core of the meteor.
• Now scientists have discovered several artefacts with extra-terrestrial inscriptions near the site of the crash. They believe that the quartz tablets now discovered are part of an information container delievered to Earth by the extra-terrestrial spaceship that crashed in 1908.
• IMF voting quotas
• The present quota share alignment among the members countries is highly skewed in favour of developed countries who enjoy almost 63% of the total quota share while emerging economies have a meager 37%.
• The quotas are determined on the basis of GDP taken on nominal exchange rate terms, among other factors.
• Now India wants the GDP figures to be taken on PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) weight basis.
• PPP means converting rupees to dollars on the basis of what the two currencies can actually buy in their respective economies.
• Padma Sachdev receives Shashwati Award
• Renowned Dogri poetess Smt. Padma Sachdev, receives Shashwati Award today in Bangalore. The award which carries cash of rupees Twenty Thousand, a citation and a momento is given by an organisation in the name of renowned first Canada poetess. Smt. Padma Sachdev has been honoured for her outstanding contribution to Dogri literature.