WBCS Current Affairs 04/04/2015 to 10/04/2015

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1. India on 9 April 2015 successfully test fired nuclear weapons-capable Dhanush missile from a ship, off the Odisha coast. Test- The ship-based missile was launched from an Offshore Patrolling Vessel (OPV), deep inside the Bay of Bengal to test its full range. It successfully hit the target point with high degree of accuracy. Facts about Dhanush Missile Indigenously developed by Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). The surface-to-surface missile is a naval variant of Prithvi missile. Capable of carrying of 500 to 1000 kilogram conventional as well as nuclear payload. It is a single-stage, liquid-propelled missile and has range of 350 km. Capable to target both land-based and sea-based targets. It gives Indian Navy capability to strike enemy targets with great precision. It should be noted that Dhanush is one of the 5 missiles developed by the DRDO under the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP). The previous trial of the missile was successfully conducted in November 2014.

2. President Pranab Mukherjee on 9 April 2015 appointed the senior most Election Commissioner (EC), Dr. Nasim Zaidi as the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC). He will succeed incumbent CEC HS Brahma, who retires on 19 April 2015 after attaining age 65. Dr Zaidi will have tenure of two years i.e. till he attains the age of 65 in July 2017. About Dr. Nasim Zaidi Nasim Zaidi is 1976 batch IAS officer from the Uttar Pradesh cadre. He had served as the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). He had retired from IAS as Secretary to the Union Government in Ministry of Civil Aviation in July 2012. About Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) As per the provisions of Article 324 of Constitution, Chief Election Commissioner and Election Commissioners are appointed by the President. They hold office for the term of 6 years or until they attain age of 65 years, whichever is earlier. The Chief Election Commissioner can be removed from office only through impeachment by Parliament.

3. Legendary Tamil writer Jayakanthan passed away on 8 April 2015 in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. He was 81. He was known for charting a new course in Tamil literature with his bold and progressive works.

4. Uttar Pradesh government has conferred Sahitya Shiromani Samman upon noted Hindi poet Gopal Das Neeraj. The award carrying cash prize of 21 lakh Rupees was bestowed upon Neeraj by UP Chief Akhilesh Yadav. While presenting award, CM Akhilesh Yadav also announced to give Rashtra Ratn- Sitara-e Hind award to Neeraj for his lifelong service to Hindi literature. Along with Gopal Das Neeraj, veteran Hindi litterateur Uday Pratap Singh was also conferred with Sahitya Shiromani award and cash prize of 21 lakh Rupees.

5. Renowned Tamil Muslim devotional singer EM Hanifa passed away on 9 April 2015 in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. He was 90. He was well-known for his number of devotional songs and was a leading propagandist of Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam (DMK) Party for more than five decades.

6. India and United States (US) have signed Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) transportation between both countries. It was signed by Union Minister of Road Transport & Highways and Shipping Nitin Gadkari and Anthony Foxx, US Secretary of Transportation in New Delhi.

7. Union government has allowed pharmaceutical companies to hike rates of 509 essential medicines by 3.84 per cent. The new prices will be effective from 1 April 2015. In this regard, National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has issued a notification under Drug Price Control Order (DPCO), 2013 in line with the wholesale price index of 2014. These essential medicines are used for treating various ailments like hepatitis B and C, diabetes, and cancer. Presently, Union government regulates prices of a total of 348 essential medicines based on the simple average of all medicines in a particular therapeutic segment with sales of more than 1 per cent. Union government also regulates prices of all other medicines and pharma companies are allowed to hike prices of such drugs by only up to 10 per cent in a year. DPCO, 2013 was notified by the Union government with an effect from May 2014. It has replaced the 1995 order that regulated prices of only 74 bulk drugs and covers 680 formulations.

8. India has registered a major milestone for the nuclear industry by producing record nuclear fuel i.e. producing over 1,252 Metric Tonne (MT) of uranium bundles. Hyderabad-based Nuclear Fuel Complex (NFC) has contributed to achieve this milestone by producing over 30 per cent more fuel compared to its 961.023 MT fuel production in 2013-14. The recorded production also has exceeded country’s annual fuel requirement of 650 MT for the Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs). This surplus nuclear fuel production can last for at least a few months. Nuclear fuel production in India Since 2008, the nuclear fuel production in the country has seen a steady increase. This increase in production has been attributed to the Indo-US nuclear deal and the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) which had simplified the process of acquiring uranium. In 2008-09, NFC had produced 226.89 MT nuclear fuel, prior to signing Indo-US nuclear deal in 2008. But after the Indo-US nuclear deal the production had increased to 600.91 MT in 2009-10. At present, India produces around 5,780 megawatts (MW) of nuclear power. Of this total power produced 4,780 MW of electricity is generated by fuel processed at the NFC.

9. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 8 April 2015 launched Micro Units Development Re-finance Agency (MUDRA) Bank in New Delhi. MUDRA Bank will act as a regulator for ‘Micro-Finance Institutions’ (MFIs) involved in manufacturing, trading and service activities to promote their growth. The Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana will be the main support system for the bank and will be the part of Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI). The MUDRA bank was proposed in Budget 2015-16 by Union Government with an initial corpus of 20,000 crore rupees. Apart from this, 3,000 crore rupees also has been earmarked as credit guarantee corpus.

10.Online marketplace Snapdeal on 8 April 2015 acquired India’s fastest growing mobile transaction platform FreeCharge. With this acquisition, Snapdeal has become India’s largest mobile commerce firm with 40 million users and the largest mobile transactions base for any company. Now Snapdeal can offer wide range of services and products including financial services, mobile recharge and utility payments to its growing user base. About FreeCharge FreeCharge is a mobile commerce platform where users can recharge any prepaid mobile phone, postpaid mobile, DTH & Data Cards in India. Founded in 2010 by Kunal Shah and Sandeep Tandon. It is headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. Since 2011, it had raised over $120 million in financing backed by top tier institutional investors.

11. Gujarat won the Syed Mushtaq Ali T-20 cricket trophy for the tournament season 2014-15. In the final match played at KIIT Stadium, Odisha they defeated Punjab by two wickets. Punjab by batting first had scored 117 for 9 wickets in 20 overs. Gujarat by chasing the target had scored 123 in 19.5 overs for 8 wickets. With this win, Gujarat has won this trophy for second, earlier they won in 2012-13 season.

12. Sumit Mazumder was elected as the President of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) for the year 2015-16. He is Chairman & Managing Director (MD) of TIL Limited. He will succeed Ajay Shriram, Chairman of DCM Shriram Consolidated Ltd.

13. The Union Cabinet on 7 April 2015 approved amendments to the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Bill, 2013 to protect the interests of consumers and curb the malpractices in the real estate sector. Decision in this regard was taken by Union Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The bill seeks to create a uniform regulatory mechanism across the country and enhance the growth of construction sector. It also ensures to bring transparency and accountability in the real estate sector to access capital and financial markets essential for its long term growth. Facts about Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Bill, 2013 Regulates transactions in real estate projects between the promoters and buyers. Establishes state level regulatory authorities called Real Estate Regulatory Authorities (RERAs) and tribunals called Real Estate Appellate Tribunals to settle disputes. Promoters and real estate agents must register project details with RERAs who intend to sell any plot, apartment or building. All information for registered projects must be disclosed on website of the RERA. It will include details of promoters, land status, layout plan, schedule of execution and status of various approvals. The bill enforces the contract between the developer and buyer and fast track the mechanism to settle disputes. 50% of the amount collected from buyers for a project must be maintained in a separate bank account and must only be used for construction of that project. The Bill was initially introduced in Rajya Sabha by then UPA-2 government led by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. It was only applicable only for residential real estate and is still pending in Rajya Sabha. The approved amendments by current Union Government seeks to bring commercial real estate under the ambit of bill.

14. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on 7 April 2015 has proposed ‘112’ as a single emergency number that can be used all across the country including for police, fire and ambulance departments.

15.The National Green Tribunal (NGT) on 7 April 2015 held that all diesel vehicles heavy or light which are more than 10 years old will not be permitted to ply in Delhi and NCR. The judgment was given by bench headed by NGT Chairman Justice Swatanter Kumar on a petition filed by Vardhaman Kaushik who had contended that the level of particulates in Delhi is raising manifold.

16.Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 7 April 2015 approved strengthening and widening of three sections connecting the two temple towns of Varanasi and Madurai.

17. World health Day was observed all over the world on April 7, 2015. Theme for year 2015 was “food safety” with the slogan from farm to plate, make food safe.

18.15-year-old Indian-origin student, Pratap Singh from United Kingdom (UK) has won prestigious award Institute of Physics (IOP) Prize. Singh, who is a student at The Perse School, Cambridge received the prize for his experiment to verify an effect of Albert Einstein’s special relativity theory. The award comprises £500 cash prize and a trip to a national physics-related activity. His research will be also published in international journal Physics Education.

19.State owned Dena Bank has signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India to provide insurance cover to its all Aadhaar-linked savings account holders in the age group of 18 to 50 years. LIC will provide insurance cover under the Union Government’s flagship Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana (PMJBY) scheme.

20. Bangladesh cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has approved the revised India-Bangladesh trade agreement. The revised agreement will facilitate both countries to use each other’s land and water routes for trade with a third country and remove long standing barrier in regional trade.

21. Dr Mayilsamy Annadurai has assumed the office of Director, ISRO Satellite Centre (ISAC) in Bengaluru, Karnataka. He replaced Dr. S.K. Shivakumar, who had retired on 31 March 2015.

22. Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has re-appointed Rajeev Shukla as chairman of the Indian Premier League (IPL) Governing Council.

23. First indigenously-built Scorpene Submarine on 6 April 2015 was undocked at the Mazagaon Dockyard Limited (MDL) in Mumbai, Maharashtra. The undocked submarine was named Kalvari and is expected to be commissioned into Indian Navy by September 2016.

24. Syrian-Lebanese Arab poet Adonis has been chosen for 2015 Kumaran Asan World Prize for poetry. Adonis was born as Ali Ahmad Said Esber in Western Syria in 1930. Since 1985, he had settled in Paris, France.

25.Indian chess Grandmaster Dronavalli Harika on 6 April 2015 won the bronze medal in the World Women’s chess championships along with Swedish Grandmaster Pia Cramling. In the semifinal match played at Sochi in Russia, Harika lost to Ukraine’s Mariya Muzychuk and settled to Bronze medal with US $ 20,000. World Women’s chess championship’s winners are Mariya Muzychuk (Ukraine) - Won Gold medal along with US $ 60,000 by 2.5 points. Natalija Pogonina (Russia) – Won Silver medal along with US $ 30,000 by 1.5 points. About Women’s World Chess Championship It is played to determine the women’s world champion in chess. It is administered by World Chess Federation (FIDE).

26. India is going to host the 5th meeting of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Health Ministers in New Delhi. The 5th meeting will start on 9 April 2015 and is being held in pursuance of decisions taken by the SAARC Summit of Heads of States held at Kathmandu in November 2014.

27. Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched National Air Quality Index (AQI) to give pollution information on real time basis. Initially the new index will cover 10 cities. They are Ahmedabad, Chennai, Delhi, Kanpur, Lucknow, Agra, Faridabad, Varanasi, Bangalore and Hyderabad. Later it will be extended to more than 60 cities with a population exceeding one million. Facts about National Air Quality Index (AQI) AQI will be used to inform people about daily air quality in turn it will provide advisories on health consequences. It will also tell how clean or polluted the air is and what associated health effects. The AQI has been developed for six pollutants- nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide, ozone, Particle Pollution (PM)2.5, PM10 and carbon monoxide. The new AQI is hosted on the website of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).

28. Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) has won the prestigious Golden Peacock National Quality Award for the year 2015.

29. West Bengal and Bihar Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi took additional charge of Mizoram . He was sworn in as 16th Governor of Mizoram on 4 April 2015.

30. Pedro Cateriano Bellido was appointed as Prime Minister of Peru by the President Ollanta Humala. He will replace Ana Jara, who had lost a confidence vote and was sacked by Peruvian Congress amid allegations of corruption

31. Union Government on 4 April 2015 formally launched the ‘Give It Up’ movement in Karnataka. It was launched by Union Minister of State (MoS) for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradan. The movement appeals to the rich people to voluntarily give up their subsidy amount given on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cylinders.

33. 88th Akhil Bhartiya Marathi Sahitya Sammelan (All India Marathi Sahitya Sammelan) on 3 April 2015 began in Ghumaan village in Gurdaspur district of Punjab.

34. Union Government again has extended rolling out deadline for National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013 by six months. It was announced by Union Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan in order to give more time to states to roll out NFSA. The extension will help remaining states adopt and implement the law within next six months. It is third time, this deadline has been extended and the second deadline was to end on 4 April 2015. So far only 11 states and Union Territories (UTs) have implemented NSFA which was passed by Parliament in September 2013. Remaining 25 states/UTs have not implemented it yet. 11 states and UTs that have implemented NSFA fully or partially are- Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Delhi and Chandigarh. Facts about National Food Security Act (NFSA) 2013 NSFA aims at providing legal entitlement to 5 kg of subsidised foodgrains to the identified person per month. Grains like wheat, rice and coarse grain will be distributed at the price of 3 Rs. 3, Rs. 2 and Rs. 1. Pregnant women and lactating mothers and children are entitled to get meals under the prescribed nutrition by MDM and ICDS. The age group would be 6 months to 14 years. NFSA 2013 will provide high nutrition food to the age group of 6 years. Pregnant women and lactating mothers will be entitled to get maternity benefit of not less than Rs. 6,000.

35. Malli Mastan Babu, one of India’s top mountaineers passed away. His dead body was recovered in the Andes Mountains between Argentina and Chile after he went missing on 24th March, 2015 during an expedition to Cerro Tres Cruces Sur.

36. President Pranab Mukherjee on 3 April 2015 gave his assent to re-promulgate the Land Acquisition Ordinance as per Article 123 of Constitution. Earlier, in this regard Union Cabinet had made a recommendation to President as present Land Acquisition Ordinance promulgated in December 2014 is going to lapse on 5 April. The new ordinance includes 9 amendments that were part of Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) Bill, 2015. Lok Sabha had passed the bill in the budget session in March 2015. However, the bill is pending before the Rajya Sabha, where government is in minority. Earlier, President had prorogued the 234th session of the Rajya Sabha in order to pave the way for re-issuing of the Ordinance as per provisions of Constitution. Article 123 of Constitution It gives legislative power to President. He can issue ordinances when Parliament is in recess i.e. not in session if there is urgent need to have a law on some urgent public matter. The ordinance has similar effect to an act of parliament. However, every ordinance must be laid and approved by both houses of the parliament within 6 weeks from the reassembling. If not placed and approved by both houses of the parliament after reassembling it becomes invalid or lapses.

37. Minor planet was named after India’s chess legend and first grandmaster Vishwanathan Anand by the Minor Planet Center. His name was given to the minor planet which was previously identified as planet 4538. Now the planet will be called as 4538 Vishyanand and is located somewhere between the Mars and Jupiter.

38. In recently released 2015 FM Global Resilience Index, India has been ranked a low 119 out of 130 countries. India despite having scope and global potential was ranked 119 compared to 112th rank in 2014 Global Resilience Index.

39. Captain Anoop Kumar Sharma has taken over as whole-time director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Essar Shipping Ltd (ESL). He replaced Ramakrishnan A. R. who had retired from service on 31 March 2015.

40. Union Government has unveiled new Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) to make India an exporting powerhouse in the next five years. The new trade policy will incorporate government ambitious initiatives such as Make in India, Digital India mission, Skill India programme, ease of business in order to boost jobs and take India’s exports to 900 billion dollars by 2020. The goals of the new policy will be achieved by simplifying complex procedures, addressing infrastructural bottlenecks and eliminating manufacturing hurdles. Focus areas of the new FTP are Labour intensive sectors to generate more employment. Boosting to environment-friendly products. High tech value addition. Involving skill India programme to promote entrepreneurship. Moving towards branding of products. Incentives for units located in SEZs. Making the life of traders easier. Key facts FTP also takes into consideration e-commerce. Under the new policy, India’s nascent, e-commerce sector would also be extended sops. The new trade policy will be based on two new schemes- Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS) and Services Exports from India Scheme (SIES). Under these two schemes, government has merged all earlier export promotion schemes. MEIS is for export of specified goods in specified markets with the rate of rewards range from 2 to 5%. SIES is for increasing exports of notified services and the selected services will be rewarded at the rates of 3 to 5%. The new also move towards paperless working. In this regard, a facility has been created to upload documents in exporter/ importer profile in order to avoid need of repeatedly submitting documents.

41. Mariyam Asif Siddiqui, a 12-year-old Muslim girl from Mumbai has secured first place Shrimad Bhagwad Gita Champion League. She won the first prize in an inter-school competition for explaining the teachings of the holy book- Bhagwad Gita. The Shrimad Bhagwad Gita Champion League was organised by International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) in March.