Current Affairs : April 10, 2010

April 14, 2010

Appointments:
Karnataka: New Chief Justice – JS Khehar
Justice JS Khehar is the new chief Justice of Karnataka High Court. He was enrolled as an advocate in 1979 and appointed Additional Advocate General, Punjab in January 1992. He was elevated to the High Court of Punjab in 1999 and appointed Chief Justice of Uttarakhand High Court on November 29, 2009.

The present Chief Justice PD Dinakaran has been transferred to Sikkim High Court.

Events, Happenings and Observances:
First Public Sector Day
April 10, 2010 marks the first “Public Sector Day” organized by Standing Conference of Public Enterprises (SCOPE) and the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) New Delhi.

Awards:
SCOPE Awards 2008-09 & 2007-08
On the occasion of first Public Sector Day celebrations, SCOPE awards were presented Read Here

National Aeronautics Award – P S Subramanyam
P S Subramanyam is an eminent DRDO scientist and Director, Aerospace Development Agency (ADA), Bangalore (an organ of DRDO) has been awarded National Aeronautics Award by the Aeronautical Society of India for the year 2009 for his outstanding contribution which led to development leading to more production of the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), ‘Tejas’.

FactBox: Tejas
Tejas, a Light Combat Aircraft developed by India has a tailless, compound delta wing design powered by a single engine. LCA-Tejas has completed total 1334 test flights successfully till now. The name Tejas was given to this Light Combat Aircraft by former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Tejas will be inducted into the Indian Air Force by early 2011. Its design has been prepared by Aeronautical Development Agency and the Manufacturer is Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. Tejas is the supersonic fighter being manufactured indigenously by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. The project was launched in 1983, while took the first flight on 4 January 2001.

National Updates:
Jammu & Kashmir: Inter-District Recruitment Bill
Jammu & Kashmir assembly passes a controversial Inter-District Recruitment Bill . This bill curtails job opportunities for general candidates across the state. As per this bill , the educated youth are allowed to apply for government jobs only in their home district, scheduled caste candidates can apply for government jobs in any of the 22 districts of the state. .

On India Australia Education Council
India & Australia have agreed to constitute the India-Australia Education Council. Council will bring together government, academia, business and industry of both the countries to further bilateral collaboration in the education sector. In this context Three MoUs in the field of education were also signed in the presence of the two Ministers: Shri Kapil Sibal, Union Minister of Human Resource Development, and Ms. Julia Gillard, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations

MoU between Association of Indian Universities and Universities Australia.
MoU between Central Board of Secondary Education and Australian Council of Education Research and
MoU between The Energy Research Institute (TERI) and Deakin University.

Business & Economy:
India’s Forex Reserves:
India’s Forex reserves are $279.096 billion for the week ended April 2, 2010. The RBI releases weekly report on Forex Reserves of the country.
This includes

$ 254.730 Billion Foreign Currency Assets excluding US$ 250 million invested in foreign currency denominated bonds issued by IIFC (UK)
$ 17.986 Billion Gold Reserves Including USD 6,699 million , reflecting the purchase of 200 metric tonnes of gold from IMF on November 3, 2009.
SDR worth $ 5.001 Billion including SDR 3,082.5 million (equivalent to US$ 4,883 million) allocated under general allocation and SDR 214.6 (equivalent to US $ 340 million) allocated under special allocation by IMF done on August 28, 2009 and September 9, 2009, respectively
$ 1.379 Reserve Position in IMF. Reserve Position in the International Monetary Fund (IMF),i.e.,Reserve Tranche Position (RTP) which was shown as a memo item from May 23, 2003 to March 26, 2004 has been included in the reserves from the week ended April 2, 2004 in keeping with the international best practice.

Latest Automobile Market growth Data:
As per the data released by industry body SIAM (Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers; Located: New Delhi, Director General- Mr. Dilip Chenoy) the light vehicle market comprising passenger cars, utility vehicles, multi-purpose vehicles and light commercial vehicles have grown 27.5% in India in 2009-10. This growth rate is second in the world only after China (42%) and faster than Germany (23%), Brazil (11%), France (11%), Italy (-0.2%), UK (-6%), Japan (-9%), US (-21%) and Russia (-50%). The credit goes to government’s economic revival package along with country’s low car penetration, stable economic growth, new model launches and lower interest rates.

International :
Poland: President & 131 others die in Russia Jet Crash
Polish President Lech Kaczynski and his wife along with 130 others died in a plane crash, when their plane crashed while coming in for a landing in western Russia

Iran: advanced centrifuge machines
In a sequel to announcements about the development of the new machines, the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad unveils a third generation of domestically built centrifuges accelerating country’s uranium enrichment programme signaling the world about its fearful nuclear programme ambitions.

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