• Astronomers have taken the first-ever image of a black hole, which is located in a distant galaxy known as ‘Messier 87’ (M87).The ‘Event Horizon Telescope’ captured the image from the galaxy that is 50 million light years away.

• PAISALO Digital Limited signed the first co-origination loan agreement with State Bank of India, the first agreement of its kind in the country that State Bank of India has signed. Introducing a platform for the last mile customer, the loan ticket is designed at Rs.10,000 to 2 lakh.

• Algeria’s parliament confirmed Abdelkader Bensala has the new interim president of the country, following resignation by the ailing Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

• Justice Vikram Nath,the senior most judge of Allahabad High Court, was appointed as the first Chief Justice of the newly-constituted Andhra Pradesh High Court.

• Team India opener Smriti Mandhana has been named as the Wisden Almanack’s ‘Leading Women’s Cricketer of the Year’. The 22-year-old is currently the top-ranked player in women’s ODIs and third in T20Is.

• The government has retained the interest rate for General Provident Fund (GPF), Contributory Provident Fund and other related schemes at 8 per cent for the first quarter of the current financial year.

• The UAE has announced that India will be the Guest of Honour country at the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, ADIBF 2019, to be held at the end of April 2019.

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has won a fifth term in office. Netanyahu is now set to be the longest-serving prime minister in Israeli history even longer than David Ben-Gurion, the country’s first prime minister, who’s often described as “Israel’s George Washington.”

• The most powerful operational rocket in the world,SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, launched its first commercial mission from Florida in a key demonstration for billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s space company. The 23-storey-tall Heavy, which previously launched Musk’s cherry red Tesla roadster to space in a 2018 debut test flight, blasted off from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center carrying its first customer payload.

• Google launched Anthos, a new open platform from Google Cloud, that lets users run applications from anywhere. Note: CEO Google: Sundar Pichai.

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi was decorated with Order of St Andrew the Apostle – the highest state decoration of Russia, for exceptional services in promoting special and privileged strategic partnership between the two countries.  This is the seventh international award that PM Modi has been honoured with.

• The National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG)was awarded the distinction of “Public Water Agency of the Year” by Global Water Intelligence at the Global Water Summit in London.

• Indian Oil Corporation (IOC)has bagged the prestigious ‘AIMA (The All India Management Association), Managing India Award 2019 for outstanding PSU of the year.’

• HDFC Bank has been identified as number 1 bank by customers in India, as per Forbes World’s Best Bank survey.  ICICI Bank was at number 2 and SBI was surprisingly ranked 11th in the list. Note: Aditya Puri is the MD of HDFC Bank.

• The All India Tennis Association (AITA)has signed an MoU with Serbian Tennis Federation (STF) to train Indian junior players under world-renowned Serbian coaches.

• President Jovenel Moise announced that Jean Michel Lapin will be the new prime minister of Haiti.

• Two schemes of the West Bengal government for skill development- “Utkarsh Bangla”and distribution of bicycles to students “Sabooj Sathi” have won the prestigious World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) awards of the United Nations. The “Utkarsh Bangla” project aims at creating a pool of skilled candidates who are industry ready, while under the “Sabooj Sathi” scheme, bicycles are distributed to students between class IX and XII studying in government-run and government-aided schools and madrashas of the state.

• Telugu poet K Siva Reddy has been selected for the prestigious Saraswati Samman, 2018 for his collection of poetry titled Pakkaki Ottigilite.

• The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has approved the merger of Tata Teleservices with Bharti Airtel Ltd., subject to the condition that it furnishes a Rs.7200 crore bank guarantee.

• 12^th April was observed as the International Day of Human Space Flight. 12 April 1961 was the date of the first human space flight, carried out by Yuri Gagarin, a Soviet citizen.

• India’s first-of-its-kind ‘Voter Park’was inaugurated in Gurugram, Haryana, aimed at increasing voter awareness and educating people about the electoral process.

• Professor Najma Akhtar was appointed as the first woman vice-chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia, making her the first woman to hold the charge.

• An image of a little girl crying, as she and her mother have been taken into custody by US border officials in Texas, won the prestigious World Press Photo of the Year. Veteran Getty photographer John Moore took the picture in the Rio Grande Valley in June 2018.

• The World Allergy Organization organized the World Allergy Week 2019 globally from 7-13 April 2019. The theme for World Allergy Week 2019 is “The Global Problem of Food Allergy”.

• Meena Kumari Maisnam(from Manipur) claimed the Gold medal in the 54 kg category at the Boxing World Cup at Cologne in Germany.

• India’s first exotic Bird Park ‘Essel World Bird Park’was launched by Essel World Leisure Pvt. Ltd, the entertainment arm of the $6-billion Essel Group in Mumbai.

• The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal were awarded Pulitzer Prizes for their separate investigations of President Donald Trump and his family.  The Associated Press won a Pulitzer for international reporting for its coverage of the war in Yemen. Reuters was honoured for international reporting for its coverage of atrocities committed against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.

• Reuters journalists, Kyaw Soe Oo, and Wa Lonehave been selected  UNESCO/ Guillermo Cano Press Freedom Prize 2019. Currently, they are serving 7-year prison sentences in Myanmar. They collected classified military records that revealed extrajudicial assassinations of Rohingya Muslims by the army in Rakhine State.

• Former junior national champion Harsheel Dani clinched the Dutch International badminton title in The Hague, Netherlands.

• The Indian Navy undertook the second edition of the bilateral maritime exercise between the Indian Navy and Vietnam Peoples’ Navy, (IN – VPN BILAT EX)at/ off Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam.

• The International Monetary Fund (IMF)and the World Bank have together launched a private blockchain with a pseudo-token. The new token, called “Learning Coin” and only accessible within the IMF and World Bank, has a purpose to teach relevant individuals within the organizations about blockchain. The coin has no real value – hence the description pseudo-token. Note: World Bank President: David Malpass, Headquarters in Washington DC, USA, Established in MD of IMF- Christine Lagarde, Headquarters in- Washington DC, USA.

• Fincare Small Finance Bank (SFB) has been awarded the prestigious Celent Model Bank 2019 Award in the category of Financial Inclusion, for ‘Redesigning Lending to Reach Small Businesses’.

• Bandhan Bank has received approval from the Competition Commission of India (CCI) for the proposed scheme of amalgamation of Gruh Finance with the bank.

• ADB committed to provide USD 3 billion in sovereign loans to India in 2018, the highest level of assistance since sovereign operations began in the country in 1986. In all, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), owned by 68 member countries, committed a total of USD 3.88 billion, including sovereign loans and co-financing during the year ended December 2018. Note: Asian Development Bank Headquarters: Manila, Philippines, President: Takehiko Nakao.

• Canara Bank becomes the first public sector bank in India to meet RBI’s EMV mandate.

• Indian women’s cricket team captain Mithali Raj has been named the goodwill ambassador of Team India at the Street Child Cricket World Cup (SCCWC).

• The Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has appointed Mohammed Ishtayeh as the new Prime Minister.

• Saudi Arabia announced that it will be hosting the G20 summit in November 2020 in its capital Riyadh. This would be the first G20 summit in the Arab world. Last year’s G20 meeting was held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had represented the Kingdom.

• ETMONEY India’s largest app for financial services has integrated with Unified Payment Interface (UPI) as a payment method. ETMONEY is owned by Times Internet which is a part of the Times Group. Note: UPI is an instant real-time payment system developed by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) which facilitates inter-bank transactions.

• The Time 100 Most Influential People 2019 list has been released. Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani and public-interest litigators Arundhati Katju and Menaka Guruswamy, who spearheaded a historic legal battle for LGBTQ rights in India, are the Indian names that appeared in the list.

• 18^th April was observed as the International Day for Monuments and Sites.  The theme for International Day for Monuments and Sites 2019 is ‘Rural Landscapes’.

• Professor Gagandeep Kang has become the first Indian female scientist to be elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in the UK fellowship’s 358-year-history.

• Sri Lanka’s first satellite ‘Raavana-1’was launched into space from NASA’s Flight Facility on Virginia’s east shore.

• Mali’s Prime Minister Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga has resigned.

• Indiaranked 140^th out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index 2019, released by Reporters Without Borders. The index is topped by Norway.

• India’s Bajrang Punia has regained the world number one spot in the men’s 65-kilogram freestyle category rankings. The rankings were released by United World Wrestling.

• India and France will conduct their largest ever naval exercise ‘Varuna’ in May 2019.