Daily Current Affairs: 13 April 2014

1) Kenya's Kipsang sets London Marathon record:  Kenya's world record-holder Wilson Kipsang won the men's London Marathon in a new unofficial course record of two hours, four minutes and 27 seconds on Sunday. Fellow-Kenyan Stanley Biwatt came second. Tsegaye Kebede of Ethiopia, last year's winner was third, and Ayele Abshero of Ethiopia was fourth. Britain's Mo Farah, reigning Olympic and world 5,000 and 10,000 metres champion, finished in eighth place having failed in his goal to break Steve Jones's British record of 2:07:13, which has stood since 1985.

2) Indian Super League: Ganguly buys Kolkata franchise, Tendulkar gets Kochi: Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly were among the host of high-profile winning bidders as the organisers of the much-anticipated Indian Super League on Sunday unveiled the eightfranchises for the event that is set to take Indian football by storm. The bid winners for the eight franchises of the league, which is scheduled to be held in September-November, was announced in Mumbai by organisers IMG-Reliance after evaluation of the bids by a seven-member panel. Tendulkar bagged the Kochi franchise along with PVP Ventures, which also owns a team in the Indian Badminton League while Ganguly, who bid by forming a consortium with Spanish League giants Atletico Madrid and businessmen Harshavardhan Neotia, Sanjeev Goenka and Utsav Parekh, won the Kolkata franchise. The Mumbai franchise went to Bollywood star Ranbir Kapoor and Bimal Parekh while another tinsel town biggie Salman Khan bagged the Pune franchise together with Kapil Wadhawan and Dheeraj Wadhawan of the Wadhawan Group.

3) Pallikal packs off Perry to enter Texas Open final: India's top woman's squash player Dipika Pallikal marched into the biggest final of her career after getting past higher-ranked Madeline Perry from Ireland in the $50,000 Texas Open at the Downtown Club. The 22-year-old World No.12 battled for 75 minutes, enduring three tie-break games, to beat eighth-ranked Perry 11-7, 11-13, 13-11, 10-12, 11-4 in the Women's Squash Association (WSA) Gold 50 event on Saturday.

4) Libya’s PM-designate resigned, citing gun attack: Libya’s Prime Minister-designate, Abdullah al-Thini, resigned on Sunday, citing what he said was an attack on him and his family overnight. In a letter addressed to the National Congress, Libya’s interim parliament, Mr. al-Thini, who was charged with forming a government on last Tuesday, said he and his family had been exposed to “a treacherous attack and shooting which terrified peaceful people in a residential area”. Mr. al-Thini said he and his government would continue to act as a caretaker administration pending the appointment of a new head of the interim government.

5) Missing jet black box from MH370 is feared to be dead now: The missing jet black box appears that it could be dead now which has people worried they will never find MH370. On Sunday, Web Pro News shared how it appears the box could be dead now which will make it really hard to keep searching and have any chance of finding it. This flight has been missing since March 8.

6) India to conduct complex interceptor missile test: In another fortnight, India will be conducting one of the most complex interceptor missile tests. For the first time a state-of-the-art interceptor missile at supersonic speed will seek to engage and destroy an incoming target missile at a very high altitude of 120-140 km over the Bay of Bengal.

7) India becomes net steel exporter after 6 years:  India became net steel exporter in 2013-14 after a gap of six years and is likely to maintain the momentum in 2014-15 as producers are looking to dock more overseas shipment to tide over subdued domestic consumption. Total steel exports by India during the last fiscal stood at 5.59 million tonnes (MT), as against imports of 5.44 MT, Joint Plant Committee (JPC), a unit of the steel ministry, said in a report. India, now the world's fourth largest steel maker, had been a net steel importer since 2007-08 and the trend continued till 2012-13 with 7.9 MT of imports and 5.2 MT of exports. Before 2007-08, India's exports were more than its imports.