Current Affairs : May 4, 2010

• Election Commission recommends to the president that former minister P.C. Thomas be barred from contesting any election for the next three years as he had violated the model code of conduct during the 2004 Lok Sabha polls.
• India lifts the ban on grant of emigration clearance for Indians wishing to travel to Iraq. However, added a cautionary advisory that they take care of their personal security while working or visiting Iraq. India had warned its citizens not to travel to the conflict-ridden Gulf country months after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.
• The Lok Sabha passes the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions (Amendment) 2009 Bill. The National Minority Educational Bill amends the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions Act 2004. The National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions was established through the promulgation of an Ordinance dated November 11, 2004. The Act provided for constitution of the Commission. The key objective is to ensure that the true amplitude of the educational rights enshrined in Article 30(1) of the Constitution is made available to the members of the notified religious minority communities.
• Lok Sabha Passes the Energy Conservation Amendment Bill. Energy Conservation Amendment Bill seeks to empower the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) to fix the criteria and procedures for accreditation of energy auditors and appoint its officers and staff to accredit energy auditors, a job presently being done by government officials. It also empowers the Central government to prescribe, by rules, the procedure for issue of energy saving certificate to designated consumers and the value of metric ton of oil equivalent of energy consumed. It levies additional penalty for failure to comply with the legal provisions.
• 98th Indian Science Congress 2011 will be held at the SRM University, Chennai and preparations are in full swing as the ”Indian Science Congress 2011” Website (www.isc2011.in) has been launched. Focal theme of the India of the Indian Science Congress 2011 is ”Quality Education and Excellence in Scientific Research in Indian Universities”. Over 8,000 delegates from several Universities, different institutions and national laboratories across the country and abroad, including a few Nobel Laureates, will be participating in the Indian Science Congress 2011 during January 3-7, 2011.
• A new Report by PricewaterhouseCoopers(PwC) on the global Aerospace and Defense (A&D;)industry says that Asia-Pacific market, led by India and China, will grow more than 70 per cent, making it the largest market in the world for new aircraft.
• Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh is the chairman of a Panel of 35 members which has been set up to frame guidelines to commemorate the 150th birth anniversary of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore that falls May 7 . The committee will decide the various activities to take place to mark the event.
• Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal launches N-LIST ( National Library and Information Services Infrastructure for Scholarly Content) , a facility to give Indian scholars online access to academic materials– journals and books. The project covers more than 2,100 electronic journals and 51,000 electronic books.
• US-based Indian WWE Wrestler the Great Khali alias Daleep Singh Rana announces to establish a Wrestling Stadium in Himachal Pradesh.
• In the 4th Asian Youth Judo Championships & 11th Asian Junior Judo Championships held in Bangkok, Thailand, India has bagged a total 5 (two silver and three bronze) medals.
• 2010 Review Conference for the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) is being held at United Nations Headquarters in New York from 3 to 28 May 2010. President of the Review Conference is Ambassador Libran N. Cabactulan of the Philippines. India has made it clear there is no change in its position that the NPT was discriminatory.
• Women magicians from Kerala and different parts of the country and abroad would be exhibiting their skills at the world’s first Convention of Women Magicians to be held in Thiruvananthapuram on May 30.
• According to a revelation by Pentagon, United States have a total of 5,113 nuclear warheads in its stockpile as of September 30, 2009. This classified info is a part of America’s effort to increase the transparency of global nuclear stockpiles: a step which it thinks is important to nonproliferation efforts. The latest number represents 84 per cent reduction from the stockpile’s maximum (31,255) at the end of fiscal year 1967, and over a 75 per cent reduction from its level (22,217) when the Berlin Wall fell in late 1989.
• World Bank has blacklisted the Indian company for three years, ending January 11, 2013. The bank has accused Venugopal Dhoot-led Videocon of indulging in fraud and corrupt practices in dealings with it.
• The number of Internet frauds rose from 102 in 2007 to 113 in the following year and 269 in 2009, involving an amount of Rs 2.51 crore (Rs 25.1 million), Rs 5.53 crore (Rs 55.3 million) and Rs 5.90 crore (Rs 59 million) – Minister of State for Finance Namo Narain Meena

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Month: Current Affairs - May, 2010