Current Affairs Update – 22nd April, 2015

Hello and welcome to ExamPundit. Here are Important Current Affairs Update for 22nd April, 2015.

• Union Finance Ministry retained the rate of interest for
  General Provident Fund (GPF) and other related schemes at 8.7 per cent for
  2015-16. The notification was issued by the Finance Ministry on 21 April 2015.
• The 8.7 per cent interest will apply on Provident Funds of
  central government employees, railways and defence forces. The rate of interest
  will be effective from 1 April 2015.
• The interest rate for GPF is in line with the interest rate
  fixed for Public Provident Fund (PPF) at 8.7 per cent for 2015-16.  The Government had raised the interest rates
  for other small saving schemes.
• The interest rate for senior citizens savings scheme was
  hiked from 9.2 per cent to 9.3 per cent and the interest rate for Sukanya
  Samriddhi Account, the special deposit scheme for girl child has been hiked
  from 9.1 per cent to 9.2 per cent.
• The interest earning for Kisan Vikas Patra has been retained
  at 8.7 per cent.

• Sebi today said Reena Bansal, wife of a former sub-broker
  with ICICI Securities, will continued to be barred from the capital market for
  one more year for her involvement in defrauding investors through illicit
  dealings in shares of many blue-chip companies.
• The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), through
  an interim order in April 2011, had banned Reena, wife of the late Rajeev
  Bansal, from the securities market till further orders.
• Now, Bansal will be barred from the securities for one more
  year as she has already undergone the debarment for four years.
• A preliminary probe by Sebi had found that Bansal had acted
  as an unregistered sub-broker and dealt in shares of various firms such as the
  State Bank of India, Reliance Power, Unitech, Ranbaxy, Tata Steel, United
  Breweries and Infosys Technologies for her clients.

• 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’.
• Home Ministry officials denied that the earlier two awards,
  named after the two former Prime Ministers belonging to the Congress, have been
  changed due to political considerations by the BJP-led NDA government.

• Government has initiated action to create a national level
  mechanism to counter cyber security threats with a financial outlay of Rs 775
  crore to be spent over a period of five years, Parliament was informed today.
• “The government has initiated action to create a
  national level mechanism to generate necessary situational scenario of existing
  and potential cyber security threats and enable timely information sharing for
  proactive and protective actions by individual entities,” Minister of
  Communications and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad said in a written
  reply to the Lok Sabha.
• For this purpose, a financial outlay of Rs 775 crore over a
  period of five years has been projected, he added.
• The Minister said the budget allocation for cyber security
  programme has steadily increased from Rs 36.06 crore during 2012-13 to Rs 85
  crore during 2015-16.
• This includes funds for measures and initiatives for
  tackling cyber crimes effectively, he added.

• Moving ahead in line with digital India, railways today
  launched mobile application for paperless unreserved tickets.
• Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu introduced from here the
  mobile app for paperless unreserved ticketing for commuters in Egmore and
  Tambram suburban sections in Chennai under Southern Railway zone.
• Developed by Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS)
  “utsonmobile” – the paperless unreserved ticketing feature in mobile
  application aims to eliminate the need for printing of unreserved tickets.
• Payment for the ticket is done through the “railway wallet”
  feature in the App. After booking the ticket, the passenger will get ticket
  confirmation screen, which will contain limited information about the ticket,
  they said.
• On a pilot basis, the paperless ticketing system in
  unreserved segment will cover 15 stations in the suburban section of Southern
  Railway, officials said.
• Railways plan to extend the paperless service in suburban
  section in all metros.

• Setting at rest issues, the Supreme Court cleared the decks
  were for commencing the hearing on the validity of the new law on appointment
  of judges with a Constitution Bench rejecting demands for recusal of judges.
• “Justice J S Khehar will not recuse himself from
  hearing,” Justice J Chelameswar said on behalf of the five-judge bench
  which overruled the objection on Justice Khehar heading the bench.
• Justice Chelameswar said the reasons for the non-recusal of
  Justice Khehar will be delivered later.
• The bench, also comprising Justices Madan B Lokur, Kurian
  Joseph and Adarsh Kumar Goel, besides Justices Khehar and Chelameswar, said it
  will commence the hearing on April 27 to examine the validity of the new
  law–National Judicial Appointments Commission Act–which has been notified. It
  replaces the two-decade-old collegium system of appointment of judges to the
  higher judiciary.

• The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) on 21 April
  2015 accorded final approval to Rajaji National Park, Uttarakhand as India’s
  48th Tiger Reserve. With this notification, Uttarakhand got its second tiger
  reserve after the Corbett Tiger Reserve.
• The notification was announced by Uttarakhand Chief Minister
  Harish Rawat while releasing logo of the Rajaji Tiger Reserve.
• The Rajaji National Park that came into existence in 1983 is
  spread across three districts of Uttarakhand namely Haridwar, Dehradun and
  Pauri Garhwal in an area over 820 square km.
• The park is a home to 315 bird species, 40 species of
  reptiles and fish and 400 Asian elephants.
• Uttarakhand is a state that has the second highest tiger
  population in the country after Karnataka. Tigers are present in the state in
  the Chilla and Dhaulkhand ranges of the Rajaji National Park. The park
  encompasses the Shivaliks near the foothills of the Himalayas.
• The park was named after the last Governor-General of
  independent India, C Rajagopalachari, popularly known as Rajaji. C.
  Rajagopalachari was one of the first recipients of India’s highest civilian
  award Bharat Ratna in 1954.

• Two Indians are among 16 scholars selected for the 2015 Yale
  World Fellows in the US for their exemplary mid-career work.
• An Indian conflict reporter, Rahul Pandita and a healthcare
  founder, Zeena Johar were selected by the prestigious Ivy League university.
• They were chosen from a pool of about 4,000 applicants for
  the New Haven, Connecticut-based university’s signature global leadership
  development initiative.
• With the addition of Pandita and Johar, the global Yale
  World Fellows network now includes 17 Indian Fellows, more than any other
  country since the programme was established in 2002.
• Pandita is mostly known for his reportage on Maoist
  insurgency in central and eastern India, and on the turmoil in Kashmir.

• The Indian passport has been ranked 48th in a list of 50
  most powerful travel document in the world, according to a global survey topped
  by Sweden.
• Germany-based Go Euro travel comparison website ranked the
  top 50 countries of the world based on their passport’s eligibility for
  visa-free entry, cost of application as well as number of hours worked to
  acquire the document.
• India, which came towards the bottom of the ranking, offered
  visa-free entry to 52 countries and cost USD 24 and 87 hours of working time.
• Sweden topped the chart with 174 visa-free countries,
  costing USD 43 and just one hour of working time.
• Finland, Germany, the UK and US completed the top 5 with 174
  visa-free countries all round.

• One of NASA’s crowning glories, the Hubble Space Telescope,
  marks its 25th anniversary this week.
• With 1 million-plus observations, including those of some of
  the farthest and oldest galaxies ever beheld by humanity, no man-made satellite
  has touched as many minds or hearts as Hubble.
• NASA is celebrating Friday’s anniversary with ceremonies
  this week at the Smithsonian Institution and the Newseum in Washington.
• A full decade in the making, Hubble rocketed into orbit on
  April 24, 1990, aboard space shuttle Discovery.
• NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is due to be launched in
  2018 to a vantage point 1.6 million kilometres away.

• A 3,133 square metres blanket, knitted together by people of
  six countries including India to pay tributes to the legacy of South African
  anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela, today set a new Guinness World record.
• Scores of volunteers worked through the night to join the
  hundreds of blankets knitted into a single one, covering the sprawling lawns of
  the Union Buildings, seat of the South African government.
• The project was started by Carolyn Steyn last year to knit
  67 blankets for Nelson Mandela Day, on which South Africans engage in some form
  of community service to commemorate the 67 years of his life before being freed
  from prison to become the country’s first democratically-elected President.

• NASA engineers have developed the first full-scale, 3D
  printed copper rocket engine part – a combustion chamber liner that operates at
  extreme temperatures and pressures.
• Numerous complex parts made of many different materials are
  assembled to make engines that provide the thrust that powers rockets.
• Additive manufacturing has the potential to reduce the time
  and cost of making rocket parts like the copper liner found in rocket
  combustion chambers where super-cold propellants are mixed and heated to the
  extreme temperatures needed to send rockets to space, NASA said.
• A selective laser melting machine in Marshall Space Flight
  Centre’s Materials and Processing Laboratory fused 8,255 layers of copper
  powder to make the chamber in 10 days and 18 hours.

• Even as the regulator IRDA is busy finalising norms to allow
  global reinsurers to enter the country, international firms are putting in
  place their top teams, with the US-based RGA taking the lead by appointing
  former acting chairman of LIC, Thomas Mathew, as its India head.
• Mathew joined RGA (Reinsurance Group of America) India as
  Managing Director and Chief Executive on March 30.
• At present, Mathew is the non-executive chairman of the
  privately-promoted commodity bourse MCX-SX, and continues to hold the post.
• According to industry sources, the second-largest global
  reinsurer Swiss Re is also in the process of appointing a CEO for its India
  operations.
• The move comes as Dhananjaya Date, who was heading its
  operations here, when it only acted as a service company, retired recently.
• The Zurich-based Swiss Re had shortlisted Joydeep Roy, who
  was former chief executive of L&T General Insurance and P Nandagopal,
  Managing Director and Chief Executive of IndiaFirst Life Insurance, for the
  post.

• Sweden’s Volvo named the head of Volkswagen-owned Scania as
  its chief executive on Wednesday, replacing embattled Olof Persson who for
  nearly four years led a sweeping efficiency drive at the global truck maker.
• The group, vying for global dominance with Germany’s Daimler
  and VW’s truck brands, also released better than expected quarterly earnings
  two days ahead of schedule and said it would seek an external partner for parts
  of its IT business.
• Persson had led a restructuring programme aimed at cutting
  10 billion Swedish crowns ($1.2 billion) in costs and boosting profitability to
  the level of more nimble rivals such as Scania.
• But with less than a year to go to the deadline for the
  scheme and margins still below where they were before the plan was launched,
  pressure on Persson from top owners such as activist fund Cevian had been
  steadily building.
• Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg, who had appeared to give
  Persson a lease of life only weeks ago amid reports he was due to get the axe,
  said Scania boss Martin Lundstedt was being brought in to lead the next phase
  for Volvo.

• Author Rana Dasgupta’s literary potrait of Delhi Capital is
  among six books shortlisted for the George Orwell Prize for political writing
  2015.
• The book is the third work of fiction by Dasgupta who had
  previously won the 2010 Commonwealth prize for his work Solo.
• In the shortlisted book, Dasgupta explores life-changing
  consequences for Delhi’s people, meeting with billionaires and bureaucrats,
  drug dealers and metal traders, slum dwellers and psychoanalysts.
• The 43-year-old British-Indian author who was born in the UK
  has been living in Delhi for the past 15 years, ever since he moved here from
  New York in the year 2000.
• The Orwell Prize worth 3000 pounds, named in memory of the
  British journalist, novelist and essayist George Orwell is scheduled to be
  announced on May 21.
• Other shortlisted books include Hack Attack by Nick Davies,
  In Plain Sight by Dan Davies, Modernity Britain by David Kynaston, Private
  Island: Why Britain Now Belongs to Someone Else by James Meek, and The People’s
  Republic of Amnesia by Louisa Lim.

• The Income Tax (IT) Department on 21 April 2015 was awarded
  the Prime Minister’s Award for Excellence in Public Administration for easy tax
  compliance through quality service. The award was presented at a function at
  Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on occasion of
  Civil Services Day.
• The Prime Minister Award for excellence in public
  administration to the Income Tax Department demonstrates the commitment of the
  Department towards achieving Minimum Government and Maximum Governance in tax
  administration.

• An Indian-origin software engineer in the US has shared this
  year’s Pulitzer Prize for graphics team of investigative journalism, in growing
  recognition of the importance of using IT tools in reporting.
• Palani Kumanan, who is a software architect with Dow Jones
  that publishes the Wall Street Journal, was a part of the winning project’s
  graphics team.
• The Journal won the top journalism award announced on Monday
  for its mammoth investigative project, “Medicare Unmasked.”
• He shared the prize along with members of the Journal’s
  graphics team Martin Burch, Chris Canipe, Madeline Farbman, Jon Keegan and
  Stuart Thompson.

• International Mother Earth Day was observed globally on 22
  April 2015 with the theme It’s our turn to lead.
• The theme highlights the need for change and seeks to inform
  the communities and leadership that action needs to be taken on climate by
  promoting a goal of environmental awareness through developing sustainable
  initiatives and galvanizing every human to pledge Acts of Green.
• This is the 45th anniversary of the Earth’s Day, the year
  when the world leaders will pass a binding climate change treaty in Paris in
  December 2015. The treaty will be adopted to make sure the future of Earth, our
  planet and the survival of life on it.
• International Mother Earth Day also known as Earth Day is
  being celebrated across the world since 1970.

• Cricket South Africa (CSA) on 21 April 2015 announced a new
  tournament to be known as the Africa T20 Cup. The tournament was planned to
  promote the game and nurture young talent in the continent.
• The tournament featuring Zimbabwe, Kenya, Namibia, hosts
  South Africa and 12 CSA affiliates will run from 4 September to 4 October 2015.
• The tournament will be a World Cup-style competition,
  consisting of four pools of four teams each with the winners of each pool
  advancing to the semi-finals and eventually to the final.
• Besides, the CSA also announced the appointment of former
  Proteas paceman Makhaya Ntini as the Africa T20 Cup Ambassador.

• Eminent historian Professor Christopher Alan Bayly died on
  20 April 2015 in Chicago due to heart attack. His death was announced by the
  Centre for South Asian Studies at the University of Cambridge. He was 70.
• He was a historian who specialised in British Imperial,
  Indian and global history and his works covered the 18th and 19th century India
  and British imperial history. For his contribution to historical scholarship,
  he was knighted in 2007.

• The Local Roots of Indian Politics: Allahabad 1880-1920
  (1975)
• Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the
  Age of British Expansion, 1780-1870 (1988)
• Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire (1990)
• The Birth of the Modern World: Global Connections and
  Comparisons 1780-1914 (2004)

Regards

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