18th April 2015

>>Supreme Court has appointed Vivek Priyadarshi to head an investigating team to further probe the Indian Premier League (IPL) season 6 spot-fixing and betting scandals.

>> US President Barack Obama plans to honour Microsoft’s Indian-origin CEO Satya Nadella with the ‘Champions of Change’ award for bringing about change within his company to support working families.

• ‘Champions of Change’ award is given to those who support working families and have helped to bring about change within their companies, communities or organisations by advocating for commonsense paid sick and paid leave policies, equal pay and an end to pregnancy discrimination to support families, businesses, and economy.
• The ‘Champions of Change’ programme was created as an opportunity for the White House to feature individuals doing extraordinary things to empower and inspire members of their communities.

>>Haryana’s Ashish Jakhar on Friday set a national youth record in boys’ hammer throw on the second day of the 12th National Youth Athletics Championships here.

• Ashish hurled the 5kg ball-and-chain to a new distance of 71.92m on his opening throw and went on to improve it further to 72.04m to stamp his class with fine rotations on the circle to set the first national record of the meet.

>>Andhra Pradesh Government inks MoU with IISL Company to exchange streetlights in 13 municipalities with LED lights

• MoU was signed by Minister for Municipal Administration and Urban Development T. Narayana and IISL’s representatives in Amaravati, the brand new capital state.
•  As per the contract, IISL will keep substitute and keep LED streetlights within the 13 municipalities for seven years.
• By fitting LED streetlights, cut down the energy consumption by 50 per cent.

>>An MoU was signed between Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL) and Dighi Port, developed by a private firm in the Konkan region.

• Aiming to strengthen the transport network in Maharashtra, the state government is developing a number of small and big ports and connecting it with rail and road network in its effort to develop water transport system.
• A special purpose vehicle, with 26 per cent ownership with RVNL, 11 per cent with the state-run Maharashtra Maritime Board and the rest with the port company, will be executing the 33.7-km line connecting the port, about 150km from Mumbai, with the nearest railhead at Roha on Konkan Railway.
• In accordance with the Centre's policy to promote waterways and connect private ports with rail network and roads, the state government has taken an initiative to connect all ports.

>> Maharashtra government sets up task forces on agriculture development and poverty alleviation.

• The 12-member task force for agriculture development will be headed by the additional chief secretary (Agriculture).

• At the first meeting of National Institution for Transformation of India (NITI) on February 8, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had suggested to all state governments to set up such panels, a government resolution (GR) issued .
• The state government in a separate GR said another task force has been set up for poverty alleviation to be headed by principal secretary (Social Justice department).

• Secretaries of the departments of finance, planning, cooperation, water resources, water conservation, forest, dairy development are the members of the task force on agriculture.
• The task force on poverty elimination comprises secretaries of departments of tribal development, rural development, finance, housing, urban development, labour and public health.

>> President Pranab Mukherjee  inaugurated the centenary celebrations of Patna High Court.

•    The court came into existence in the year 1916.
• The President mentioned the glorious history of the Patna High Court where the country's first President Rajendra Prasad and the first President of the Constituent Assembly of India Sachchidanand Sinha had practised.
• He further said that three Judges of the Patna High Court Justice Bhuvaneshwar Prasad Sinha, Justice Lalit Mohan Sharma and Justice R M Lodha were elevated to Chief Justice of India.

>> Today is World Heritage Day.

• UNESCO established 18 April as the International Day for Monuments and Sites in 1983. 
• It aims to raise public awareness about the diversity and vulnerability of the world’s built monuments and heritage sites and the efforts required to protect and conserve them.
• ICOMOS: International Council on Monuments and Sites.

>> Vikas Swarup took over as the new face of the Spokesperson in the External Affairs Ministry.

• Vikas Swarup, the author of Oscar award winning 'Slumdog Millionaire', is most likely to succeed Syed Akbaruddin as Foreign Ministry spokesperson.
• Mr. Akbaruddin, who has been designated as the chief coordinator for the India-Africa summit to be held in New Delhi in October, is credited with bridging the gap between the Ministry and the masses using social media.

>> The World Bank chief Jim Yong Kim said on Friday that the "strong visionary leadership" of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has resulted in "extraordinary effort" by India on financial inclusion of its people.

• The World Bank in a report released this week said by January 2015, 125 million bank accounts had been opened under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojna launched in August 2014 for comprehensive financial inclusion with the goal of opening a bank account for every household in India.
• As a point of comparison, a 2013 survey had found that fewer than 400 million people in the country had an account.

>> The Haryana Government on 14 April 2015 issued a notification that forests in Aravalli ranges are not a forest.  

• According to the latest order, the vast tracts of forests of Aravalli range, including Mangarbani grove, would now be recorded as not forest.
• This reverses the department's March order in which it was decided to record the entire Aravali range as forest while carrying out ground surveys of natural conservation zones (NCZs) in NCR.
• Consequently after this order, the forest clearance regulations which currently prevent the lands from being diverted for any other activity would not apply on these lands, making it a cake walk for real estate and other industries to chop the forests to use the lands.
• This latest decision of Haryana government to free up about 80000 hectares of land is seen by activists and local villagers as a result of constant lobbying by builders.