Daily Top-10 Current Affairs MCQs/News (Apr 27 2023) for CSS

Table of Contents

6. Cabinet okays loans for e-bikes, rickshaws

• The federal cabinet on April 26, 2023 approved financing facility for electric bikes and rickshaws to promote their use and to augment the purchasing power of the lower and lower middle classes.
• A meeting of the federal cabinet, presided over by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, decided to give loans of Rs 500,000 at zero mark-up under the Prime Minister`s Youth Business and Agriculture Loan Scheme.
• In another significant decision, the meeting approved a proposal that an `Investment Pakistan` office be established under the Board of Investment (BOI) that will function under public-private partnership.
• `The cabinet gave a nod to the legislation over Invest Pakistan initiative on the recommendation of the Board of Investment` it added

7. Xi holds call with Ukraine`s Zelensky

• Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky by phone on April 26, 2023, the first known call between the two leaders since the start of Russia`s invasion.
• The nearly one-hour discussion, which reportedly included Xi advocating for peace negotiations, was met by Russian accusations that Ukraine was undermining efforts to end the fighting.
• Beijing says it is neutral in the Ukraine conflict and Xi has never condemned the Russian invasion, but the Chinese leader has come under increased pressure from Western nations to step in and mediate

8. Maoists gun down 10 Indian cops in Chhattisgarh

• Ten police and their driver were killed in India`s central Chhattisgarh state on April 26, 2023 when their vehicle hit an improvised explosive device, an attack police blamed on Maoist rebels.
• India`s long-running Maoist insurgency began in the 1960s and has cost thousands of lives in the decades since, although violence has waned considerably in recent years.
• Wednesday`s deaths were the worst casualties for security forces in more than two years and claimed the lives of police reservists returning from a mission to investigate rebel movements in remote Dantewada district

9. IS `mastermind` of Kabul airport attack killed

• Taliban government forces have killed the Islamic State mastermind of a devastating suicide bomb attack at the Kabul airport during the chaotic withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan in 2021, the White House said.
• The bomber detonated a device among packed crowds at the airport`s perimeter as they tried to flee Afghanistan on Aug 26, 2021. The blast killed some 170 Afghans and 13 US troops who were securing the airport for the traumatic exit.
• It was one of the deadliest bombings in Afghanistan and prompted a wave of criticism of President Joe Biden for his decision to pull American forces out of the country nearly 20 years after the US invasion

10. Biden, Yoon warn N. Korea of N-response to any attack

• President Joe Biden and his South Korean counterpart Yoon Suk Yeol warned North Korea on Wednesday it would face a nuclear response and the `end` of the leadership there if Pyongyang uses its own arsenal.
• Speaking at the White House after Oval Office talks during only the second state visit so far in the Biden presidency, the two leaders said the US security shield for South Korea was being strengthened in the face of the nuclear armed North`s aggressive missile tests.
• And they made clear that if North Korea attacks the South or the United States, the response will be devastating.
• `A nuclear attack by North Korea against the United States or its allies… will result in the end of whatever regime were to take such an action,`Biden told reporters at a joint press conference with Yoon