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Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 23 January 2015

:: National ::

Justice N. Paul Vasanthakumar, judge of the Madras High Court, has been elevated as the Chief Justice of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court.
Justice Vasanthakumar, who is from Marthandam in Kanyakumari district on Tamil Nadu, had been a lawyer for 25 years. He was made an Additional Judge of the Madras High Court on December 10, 2005, and appointed permanent judge on April 20, 2007.
He disposed of 92,000 petitions as a judge of the Madras High Court and delivered several landmark judgments.

Indian-American author Jhumpa Lahiri won the $50,000 DSC Prize for Literature, one of South Asia’s top literary awards for her book, The Lowland .
The Prize celebrates writing on the South Asian region from writers across the globe and is given to the best novel or translations into English of a work on or about the region.
“This is an enormous honour for The Lowland and for me personally. I wish I was there in person to receive the award,” Ms. Lahiri said through a phone conversation from Rome. Publisher Caroline Newbury accepted the award on her behalf.

A U.S. court has issued summons to Secretary of State John Kerry calling for his response within 60 days to a lawsuit demanding that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) be designated a “foreign terrorist organisation.”
Judge Laura Swain of the District Court of the Southern District of New York said in her summons that Mr. Kerry was required to answer the “declaratory lawsuit” filed by Sikhs for Justice, a human rights group that had earlier filed a case against Prime Minister Narendra Modi alleging culpability for his role in the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat, which occurred when Mr. Modi was the Chief Minister.
This week’s lawsuit, which acquires significance in the context of U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to India over the weekend to join its Republic Day celebrations, called for the Foreign Terrorist Organisation tag for the RSS “for believing in and practicing a fascist ideology and for running a passionate, vicious and violent campaign to turn India into a ‘Hindu’ nation with a homogeneous religious and cultural identity.”
In its 26-page complaint, SFJ alleged that the “crimes of the RSS” included the targeting of religious minorities of India, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians, citing incidents of violence against these groups in Gujarat, Punjab and Orissa, respectively.