Current Affairs Update – 24th March, 2015

Hello and welcome to ExamPundit. Here are the current affairs for 24th March, 2015.

• The Supreme Court (SC) of India on 24 March 2015 declared
  Section 66A of the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000 as unconstitutional
  and struck it down. The section empowers law enforcement agencies to arrest
  those who post objectionable content online and provides for a three-year jail
  term.

1. It violates the citizens fundamental right to freedom of
   speech and expression provided in the Article 19 (1)(a), not saved by Article
   19(2), of the Constitution of India.
2. The vagueness of language used in the Section 66A (like the
   words grossly offensive and of menacing character) is prone to misuse by
   enforcement authorities.

• The land mark judgment was delivered by a SC bench of
  Justices J Chelameswar and RF Nariman on a batch of petitions challenging the
  Section 66A of the IT Act, 2000.
• The first Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was filed by
  Shreya Singhal in 2012 wherein she sought amendment to the Section 66A after
  two girls were arrested under this section in Thane district for criticizing
  shutdown in Mumbai following Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackray’s death in a
  facebook post.
• In Shreya Singhal vs. Union of India case the apex court had
  come out with an advisory on 16 May 2013. As per the advisory, a person,
  accused of posting objectionable comments on social networking sites, cannot be
  arrested without police getting permission from senior officers like Inspector
  General (IG) or Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP).

• The Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Mars Orbiter
  Mission was, on Tuesday, extended for another six months to further explore the
  Red Planet and its atmosphere.
• The historic mission has completed six months of orbiting
  the Red Planet.
• India also became the first country to have entered the Mars
  Sphere of Influence in its maiden attempt.
• Of the five payloads onboard, the Mars Colour Camera (MCC)
  has been the most active, taking several stunning images of the red planet’s
  surface and its surroundings, including valleys, mountains, craters, clouds and
  dust storms.
• The other four instruments have been conducting experiments
  to study the Martian surface, its rich mineral composition and scan its
  atmosphere for methane gas to know if it can support life.
• The four instruments are Methane Sensor for Mars (MSM),
  Lyman Alpha Photometer (LAP), Mars Exospheric Neutral Composition Analyser
  (MENCA) and Thermal Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (TIS).

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 23 March 2015 announced the
  setting up of the Shaheed Bhagat Singh PG Institute for Horticulture Research
  and Education at Amritsar, Punjab.
• This announcement was made after he paid homage to martyrs
  on the occasion of 84th Martyrdom Day at the National Martyrs Memorial in
  Hussainiwala, near Firozpur in Punjab
• Narendra Modi is the first Prime Minister of India in 30
  years to visit Hussainiwala, the place where Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh was
  cremated in 1931. Rajiv Gandhi was the last Prime Minister of India to visit
  Hussainiwala. He visited the place in 1985.

• The Union Cabinet approved the Appropriation Acts (Repeal)
  Bill, 2015 on 20 March 2015. The bill is intended to repeal 758 Appropriation
  Acts passed by the Parliament.
• The list of acts to be repealed includes Appropriation Acts
  [including Appropriation (Railways) Acts] enacted between 1950 and 2012 and 111
  State Appropriation Acts enacted by the Parliament between 1950 and 1976.
• Repealing of above acts is in tune with the Union
  government’s objective of repealing the obsolete laws as they have outlived
  their utility. Around 1741 laws in the country have become redundant but still
  they are in existence.
• The above step by the cabinet is in consonance with the recommendations
  of the Commission on Review of Administrative Laws (P.C. Jain Commission) which
  gave its Report in 1998.The committee has recommended the repeal of 700
  Appropriation Acts passed by the Parliament from time to time since 1950.

• State Government of Maharashtra on 23 March 2015 announced
  that those involved in the sale of gutka in the state will be booked under
  Section 328 of Indian Penal Code (IPC), that is, sale of gutka will be made a
  non-bailable offence.
• The decision was announced by State Food and Drug Minister
  Girish Bapat in the State Legislative Assembly.
• Until now, the manufacture and sale of Gutka was banned in
  Maharashtra, but was not implemented effectively leading to smuggling of the
  tobacco-laced chewing products in the state from neighbouring states.
  Maharashtra banned the sale of gutka in July 2012.

• Indian Railways on 24 March 2015 launched its own RuPay
  pre-paid card. The card will enable passengers to book their Rail tickets and
  do shopping using RuPay pre-paid debit cards. Card can be availed from either
  the Union Bank or the IRCTC.
• The RuPay pre-paid card was launched by Indian Railway
  Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), the Railways’ tourism and catering
  arm, in collaboration with the Union Bank of India.
• RuPay is India’s own card payment gateway network and
  provides an alternative system for banks to provide debit card service.
• The transaction charge will be 10 rupees per ticket for
  booking a ticket through the card on the IRCTC portal. As an opening offer, the
  transaction charge will not be levied for six months for purchasing tickets on
  the IRCTC’s website. The initial value of the card is 10000 rupees, which can
  be recharged.

• A German airliner crashed near a ski resort in the French
  Alps today, killing all 150 people on board, in the worst plane disaster in mainland
  France in four decades.
• France’s junior transport minister said there were “no
  survivors” from the crash of the Germanwings Airbus A320, a low—cost subsidiary
  of Lufthansa, in a remote part of the Alps that is extremely difficult to
  access.
• Civil aviation authorities said they lost contact with the
  plane, which was carrying 144 passengers and six crew, and declared it was in
  distress at 10:30 am (1500 IST).
• The plane was travelling from the Spanish coastal city of
  Barcelona to the German city of Duesseldorf when it went down in the ski resort
  area of Barcelonnette.
• A witness who was skiing near the crash site told a French
  television channel he “heard an enormous noise” around the time of the
  disaster.

• Energy-starved Pakistan will purchase 4,000 megawatt of
  electricity from China to meet its power crisis, media reports said today.
• The country has been hit by some of the worst power cuts in
  recent years, shutting businesses and enraging the domestic consumers.
• China has offered to export 4,000 MW of electricity to
  Pakistan for which a memorandum of understanding will be signed in a couple of
  days, Dawn reported.

• The FBI has issued a ‘wanted notice’ against a 42-year-old
  Indian-origin man believed to have fled the US to India after being found
  guilty of cyber crimes.
• Shivraj Singh Dabi fled from Sacramento County, California,
  after he was found guilty of charges related to accessing the computers of his
  previous employer and deleting and purposely damaging the computer data on
  those computers, a felony, the FBI said in a statement.
• On July 21, 2008, a federal arrest warrant was issued by the
  United States District Court, Eastern District of California, Sacramento,
  California, after Dabi was charged with unlawful flight to avoid confinement,
  it said.

• Amitav Ghosh on Tuesday emerged as the only Indian author
  among 10 finalists for this year’s Man Booker International Prize for his
  contribution to the English language writing.
• Kolkata born, 58-year-old Mr. Ghosh had narrowly missed out
  on the Booker Prize back in 2008 when he was shortlisted for his work Sea of
  Poppies.
• The international version of the popular literary prize, to
  be held in London on May 19, is awarded every two years to a living author who
  has published fiction either originally in English or whose work is generally
  available in translation in the English language.
• The awards comes with a £60,000 cheque and can be won only
  once in an author’s lifetime.

• Indian-American Renu Khator on 18 March 2015 was elected as
  the Chairperson of the Board of Directors of the American Council on Education
  (ACE). ACE is the major coordinating body for US colleges and universities.
• She was elected as the Chairperson of the ACE’s Board during
  the ACE’s 97th Annual Meeting in Washington, DC.
• She succeeded James H. Mullen Jr and she will serve for a
  period of one year.
• Before becoming ACE Board Chairperson, Khator served as the
  vice-Chairperson of ACE.

• An Indian American novelist Akhil Sharma beat authors from
  around the world to win a prestigious British literary prize here created as a
  reaction to perceived weaknesses of the Man Booker prize.
• The Delhi-born author’s semi-autobiographical story Family
  Life,described as a classic American story of a poor boy becoming rich, was up
  against seven other novels for the 2015 Folio Prize.
• Sharma, who is based in New York, was presented with the
  winner trophy by Jean-Marc Rathé of the Folio Society along with a cheque for
  40,000 pounds at a ceremony in London.
• Family Life tells the story of an Indian family through
  Ajay, a young boy born in Delhi who moves with his family in their search of a
  better life. They end up in Queens, New York, and all seems to be going well
  until a family tragedy changes all of their lives dramatically.

• Noted Hindi writer Dr Swati Tiwari has received the
  ‘National Ladli Media and Advertising Award for Gender Sensitivity’ for her
  book on the lives of widows of the Bhopal gas tragedy.
• Instituted by Population First, the award under non- fiction
  category was presented to the Bhopal-based author at a function in Mumbai on
  March 20 by Counsel General of Canada Richard Bale in the presence of
  Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, a release said today.
• Tiwari’s book Sawaal Aaj Bhi Zinda Hai presents that the
  Bhopal gas disaster was not just a tragedy for Bhopal but for the entire
  nation.
• It chronicles the lives of women who have been and continue
  to be the worst hit victims of the tragedy. The book also highlights the irony
  that medical card holds more importance than a ration card for these victims.

• Indian ecologist Madhav Gadgil and US Scientist Dr. Jane
  Lubchenco were on 23 March 2015 named for the Tyler Prize for Environmental
  Achievement 2015.
• They were named for the award for their leadership and
  engagement in the development of conservation and sustainability policies in
  the United States, India and internationally.
• As the winners of the Tyler Prize, Lubchenco and Gadgil will
  share the 200000 US Dollar cash prize and each will receive a gold medallion at
  a private ceremony in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles on 24 April 2015.
• Madhav Gadgil became the second Indian to receive the award
  after MS Swaminathan in 1991. He received the award to help dramatically
  improve crop yields in India.

• The President of India Pranab Mukherjee on 23 March 2015
  awarded Certificate of Honour to eminent scholars of Sanskrit, Pali/Prakrit,
  Arabic and Persian. He also conferred the Maharishi Badrayan Vyas Samman to young
  scholars for the year 2014.
• The Certificate of Honour for Sanskrit (International) was
  awarded to Prof. Pierre-Sylvain Filliozat.

Language	Name
Sanskrit	Dr. KS Maheswaran Dr. Pramod Kumar Sharma Dr. Madhav Janardan Ratate Dr. Vinay Kumar Pandey
Arabic	Dr. Aurang Zeb Azmi
Persian	Dr. Atiqur Rahman
Pali/Prakrit	Dr. Samani Sangeet Prajan

• New Zealand today scripted history by making their maiden
  cricket World Cup final appearance with a stunning four—wicket win in a
  nerve—wrecking last—four clash against the formidable South Africa, finally
  shedding the tag of perennial under—achievers in the mega event.
• Chasing a stiff target of 298 runs in 43 overs under the
  Duckworth/Lewis rule in the rain—curtailed game, New Zealand crossed the line
  when Grant Elliot (84) smashed Dale Steyn over long-on for a six with just one
  ball to spare in a thrilling showdown.
• Needing 12 to win off six balls, Vettori found the fence to
  bring the equation down to five from two balls, before Elliot hit the winning
  runs as the Eden Park broke into wild celebrations.
• The result meant the perennial choker’s tag would continue
  to haunt South Africa and they would once again look for soul searching.
• Since the inaugural edition in 1975, New Zealand have
  reached the semifinals of the showpiece event six times, but failed to clear
  the penultimate hurdle on all the occasions.

• World Tuberculosis Day (WTD) 2015 was globally observed on
  24 March 2015. The theme for the year 2015 is continuation of the 2014 theme
  Reach the 3 Million. The main sub-theme and message for the year 2015 is Reach,
  Treat, Cure Everyone.
• The WTD is annually celebrated on 24 March to commemorate
  the day on which Dr. Robert Koch discovered the cause of tuberculosis, the TB
  bacillus in 1882. The day aims to build public awareness about the global
  epidemic of tuberculosis (TB) and efforts to eliminate the disease.

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