Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 22 April 2015

:: National ::

‘Recall orders against Greenpeace India’

• Criticising the Union government’s actions against Greenpeace India as an “attack on democracy and the freedom of speech,” civil society organisations wrote to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh seeking a recall of the orders.

• The Home Ministry has suspended the non-governmental organisation’s registration under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act for 180 days and frozen its bank accounts for alleged financial irregularities. A show-cause notice has been issued, seeking a response within 30 days.

• “The Centre’s move to freeze Greenpeace India’s bank accounts and block sources of funds is a blatant violation of the constitutional rights to freedom of expression and association,” the petition by the civil society groups said.

• The government action, it said, seemed to be an attempt to warn civil society that dissent on development policies and priorities would not be tolerated, even when these were proving to be ecologically unsustainable and socially unjust.

• The petition said the notice to Greenpeace India charged the organisation with causing an adverse impact on “public interest” and the “economic interest of the State”. “These charges give the impression that it is indulging in anti-national activities, using foreign funds.

Indira, Rajiv names dropped from two Hindi awards

• The BJP-led NDA government has dropped the names of former Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi from two awards for propagating Hindi.

• The two awards have been discontinued by the Union Home Ministry, which instead launched two new schemes for doing outstanding work for promoting the progressive use of official language.

• According to a Home Ministry order, the ‘Indira Gandhi Rajbhasha Puraskar’ and ‘Rajiv Gandhi Rashtriya Gyan-Vigyan Maulik Pustak Lekhan Puraskar’, launched more than two decades ago, have given way for ‘Rajbhasha Kirti Puraskar’ and ‘Rajbhasha Gaurav Puraskar’.

Panel to take a fresh look at all proposed river links (Register and Login to read Full News..)

Three new havens for tigers (Register and Login to read Full News..)

:: International :

Maglev train rockets into record books

• Japan’s state-of-the-art maglev train clocked a new world speed record in a test run near Mount Fuji, breaking the 600-kmph mark, as Tokyo races to sell the technology abroad.

• The seven-car maglev (short for magnetic levitation) train hit a top speed of 603 kmph, and managed nearly 11 seconds at over 600 kmph, Central Japan Railway said.

• The new record came less than a week after the company recorded a top speed of 590 kmph, breaking its own 2003 record of 581 kmph.

• The maglev hovers 10 centimetres above the tracks and is propelled by electrically charged magnets. Nearly 200 train buffs gathered for record-setting run, with the crowd cheering as the train broke through 600 kmph.

• “It gave me chills. I really want to ride on the train,” an elderly woman told public broadcaster NHK as the carriage rocketed past her. “It’s like I witnessed a new page in history.” An AFP reporter who previously rode on the super-speed train said the experience was like taking off in a plane, with the feeling of g-force gathering as the speedometer is pushed ever higher.

• “The faster the train runs, the more stable it becomes — I think the quality of the train ride has improved,” Yasukazu Endo, who heads the maglev test centre southwest of Tokyo, told presspersons.

• JR Central wants to have a train in service in 2027, plying the 286-km route between Tokyo and the central city of Nagoya.

• The service, which would run at a top speed of 500 kmph, is expected to connect the two cities in only 40 minutes, less than half the present journey time in Japan’s bullet trains.

• By 2045, maglev trains are expected to link Tokyo and Osaka in just one hour and seven minutes, slashing the journey time in half.

Mediterranean disaster: boat captain faces charges

• The Tunisian captain of the migrant boat in which 800 people are feared to have drowned is set to be charged with mass murder over the Mediterranean's deadliest disaster in decades.

• Prosecutors in the Sicilian city of Catania said on Tuesday they believed Mohammed Ali Malek (27) was responsible for steering mistakes and the reckless overcrowding which led to the horrifying shipwreck off Libya.

• He will appear before a judge along with crew member and Syrian national Mahmud Bikhit (25), who was also arrested in a probe into a catastrophe that has evoked chilling comparisons with the slave trade and allegations of callous disregard on the part of European governments.

• The captain was questioned by investigators on Tuesday after being arrested on suspicion of multiple homicide, causing a shipwreck and aiding illegal immigration. Bikhit faces potential charges on the latter count.

• Hundreds of the victims, including an unknown number of children, will have died in hellish circumstances having been locked in the hold or the middle deck of the 20-metre (66-foot) boat which keeled over in pitch darkness after colliding with a Portuguese container ship answering its distress call.

NYT’s Ebola coverage wins Pulitzer

• The New York Times won three prestigious Pulitzer Prizes and a St. Louis newspaper took the breaking news photography award for its coverage of racial unrest in Ferguson, Missouri.

• The Post and Courier in Charleston, South Carolina, won the coveted award for public service journalism for an investigative series on why South Carolina is among the deadliest States for women in the country.

• The New York Times staff shared the prize for international reporting for its coverage of the deadly Ebola epidemic in West Africa, announced the Pulitzer committee at Columbia University in New York.

• The paper’s Eric Lipton took the prize for investigative reporting on the influence of lobbyists.

• A freelance photographer for the Times , Daniel Berehulak, won the feature photography award for what the committee called his “gripping, courageous” Ebola coverage.

• A Pulitzer prize came a bit too late for Rob Kuznia (39), who had to quit journalism because it didn’t pay enough. LA Observed, a news website which contacted Mr. Kuznia after the prestigious award was announced, reported that he quit journalism last year and now works as a publicist for the USC Shoah Foundation — an organisation dedicated to documenting eyewitness accounts from the Holocaust and other genocides.

Historian Christopher Bayly dead (Register and Login to read Full News..)

Emphasis on Gwadar-Kashgar economic corridor (Register and Login to read Full News..)

:: Business and Economy ::

Centre keeps GPF rate at 8.7%

• The government has kept the rate of interest on General Provident Fund contributions unchanged at 8.7 per cent for 2015-16. The rates are effective from April 1.

• “It was decided by the government to link the interest rates of State PFs [General Provident Fund and other similar funds], including Special Deposit Scheme, 1975 [SDS, 1975] for Non-Government Provident, Superannuation and Gratuity Funds, for the FY 2015-16 to Public Provident Fund [PPF] rates,” said a Union Finance Ministry statement.

• The government recently maintained the rates for the PPF at 8.7 per cent for 2015-16.

• Interest rates for senior citizens in small savings schemes will now be 9.3 per cent and for the Sukanya Samriddhi Account for the girl child, 9.2 per cent.

Rishad Premji joins Wipro board

• Rishad Premji, son of Wipro founder Azim Premji, appointed to the board.

• An alumnus of the Harvard Business School, he was serving as the chief strategy officer, driving mergers and acquisitions.

• While he joins the board on May 1, he will continue to be the executive chairman of the company.

• Mr. Premji, who joined Wipro in 2007, oversaw the setting up of Wipro Ventures, a VC fund that is aimed at investing in start-ups.

AL edges Tata out to become 2 {+n} {+d} largest pick-up brand (Register and Login to read Full News..)

Daiichi exits Sun Pharma; ends 7 years of tumultuous ride in India (Register and Login to read Full News..)

:: Science and Technology ::

Green tribunal’s thumbs up for waste-to-energy projects

• In what could be seen as a setback to those opposing burning of municipal solid wastes (MSW), the National Green Tribunal (NGT), New Delhi, has permitted the States, including Karnataka, to use incinerator technology for producing Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF), commonly known as waste-to-energy.

• However, the Tribunal said no waste could be directly put into the incinerators or for power generation, except the specifically permitted.

• Only those wastes that are found unrecyclable after segregation should be put into the incinerators.

• Also, the tribunal emphasised that it was “not putting any absolute restriction on RDF being used as power generation fuel, but first effort should be made for composting of wet waste”.

• The States are free to use RDF for generating fuel with due care and caution by framing necessary guidelines.

• Meanwhile, the Central Pollution Control Board and the Ministry of Environment and Forests were directed to prescribe specific guidelines for emissions from incinerators.

• The directions were issued on a case between city-based MSW expert Almitra H. Patel vs. Union of India that was referred to the NGT by the Supreme Court, which since 1996 had issued several directions on management of MSW across the country.

• Based on this case, the Centre had formulated the MSW (Management and Handling) Rules, 2000. The NGT also directed dividing the State into clusters for locating sufficient number of incinerator plants.

• Authorities were also asked to provide maximum space for plants to have large storage and processing area for wastes; ensure green belt of higher density around plants, and adopt new technologies.

Chennai to host Global Mobile App Summit (Register and Login to read Full News..)

:: Sports ::

Afghan Cricket Board chief seeks India’s help

• Basheer Stanekzai, manager of the Afghanistan Cricket Board, has said that the country holds Indian players in high esteem and is looking for help from the Indian side.

• Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani, during his visit to India next week, is most likely to seek a home ground for his national team in India.

• “It will really help our players if India were to reserve a home ground for us. Our players are good; they need exposure and facilities like camps.

• If the younger ones get to play in India, they can get noticed and picked for IPL [Indian Premier League] teams. Besides, we are also hopeful that the BCCI [Board of Control for Cricket in India] will help us with technical assistance and its facilities which are of international standards,” Mr. Stanekzai told .

• Rajeev Shukla, IPL chairman, said India was keen that cricket should develop in Afghanistan and was ready to help. “In the past also, whenever Afghanistan has approached the BCCI for help, it has been forthcoming,” Mr. Shukla said.

• Indian officials, however, are tight-lipped about Afghanistan’s demand for inclusion in the IPL. “India has offered to help with the construction of a stadium in Kandahar, but as far as IPL is concerned, it is for the owners of the teams to be convinced about, and be interested in, picking the players — after all, it is big money,” an official said.

Sharmadaa-Lee duo wins title

• Sharmadaa Balu, partnering Pei-Chi Lee of Chinese Taipei, won the doubles title in the $10,000 ITF women’s Pro-Circuit tennis tournament, held at Heraklion (Greece).

• The Karnataka player and Lee defeated Tamara Curovic (Serbia) and Aryna Sabalenka (Belarus) in the final.

India holds Ukraine to a draw

• India held holder Ukraine to a 2-2 draw in the third round of the women’s World team chess championship at Chengdu.

• Padmini Rout was the star for India, as she held former World champion Anna Ushenina to a draw on the third board.

• On the first board, Koneru Humpy drew with Anna Muzychuk, while on the second, Dronavalli Harika signed the peace treaty with Anna’s younger sister and reigning World champion Mariya Muzychuk.

• On the fourth board, Soumya Swaminathan went down to Natalia Zhukova.

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Sources: Various News Papers & PIB

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