Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 18 September 2014

National

BJP’s national executive member Lalitha Kumarmangalam was appointed as the chairperson of the National Commission for Women (NCW).
Kumarmangalam is from Tamil Nadu and runs an NGO called Prakriti.

India will host the Third Meeting of SAARC Cultural Ministers in New Delhi from September 24-26.
Of the seven states invited to the event, six — Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Maldives, Nepal and Bhutan — have already confirmed that they will attend the meet.

To introduce one legislation for all central universities, the Human Resource Development Ministry has circulated the draft bill to all such varsities, asking them to revert with suggestions within three weeks.
There are currently 40 central universities under the Ministry, of which 16 were created in 2009 under one Act, while the rest are governed by separate Acts of Parliament.
The draft bill is based on recommendations of the A M Pathan committee and has been criticised for compromising the autonomy of these universities.

Nobel laureate V.S. Naipaul has been dropped by an international literary festival in Bali after the event refused to meet his “eleventh-hour request” for a $20,000 fee to appear, its organisers said .
The Trinidad-born British writer had been one of the biggest names booked for this year’s Ubud Writers and Readers Festival (UWRF).
However the event’s founder and director, Janet DeNeefe, said they had decided to cancel his appearance after he asked for the fee.

Basketball players will be allowed to wear religious head coverings, such as hijabs or turbans, on a trial basis in some games.
Previous FIBA rules allowed a player to wear only a 5 cm headband. That drew objections that the group was discriminating against Muslim and Sikh players.
The central board of the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) met over the weekend at the men’s World Cup and voted to allow a two-year testing phase that would let players wear head coverings.

The second naval prototype of Tejas, the indigenously developed light combat aircraft, will undergo flight test in Goa by September-end.
With that, India would become the third country to demonstrate this facility.
Indian Air Force version of Tejas was expected to get final operational clearance by March 2015.

Yamaha Motor India Sales launched 149-cc motorcycle Fazer FI, priced at Rs.83,850 (ex-showroom Delhi).
The new model comes with a newly designed air-cooled 149cc, single-cylinder fuel-injected engine which provides enhanced fuel efficiency and acceleration.
The company had recently launched new variants under the FZ series.