Current Affairs : April 13, 2010

Chief Justice of Jammu & Kashmir High Court: Justice Aftab Hussain Saikia
Justice Aftab Hussain Saikia was administered the oath of office by Jammu & Kashmir Governor N N Vohra as Chief Justice of Jammu & Kashmir High Court, Jammu.

Awards:
Ambedkar awards 2009
Mauritius Bhojpuri Institute founder director Sarita Boodhoo has been selected for the Dr Ambedkar International Award 2009 conferred by Bharatiya Dalit Sahitya Akademi (BDSA). The award will be conferred during the 26th National Conference of Dalit Writers of BDSA in the city on December 12.

National Updates:
Asian Development Bank (ADB) Latest projections about India’s Growth
‘Asian Development Outlook 2010’ which is ADB’s annual flagship publication has pegged India’s growth rate 8.2 per cent in 2010 and 8.7 per cent in 2011. The annual inflation projects are 5% in 2010 and 5.5% in 2011.

Developing Asia was set to grow 7.5 per cent in 2010 and 7.3 per cent in 2011, picking up from 5.2 per cent in 2009, the ADB said in its Asian Development Outlook 2010.

What is Developing Asia?: Developing Asia refers to 44 developing member countries of the Asian Development Bank and Brunei Darussalam, an unclassified regional member; East Asia comprises People’s Republic of China; Hong Kong, China; Republic of Korea; Mongolia; and Taipei,China; Southeast Asia comprises Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malaysia,Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Viet Nam; South Asia comprises Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Bangladesh,Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka; Central Asia comprises Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan; and The Pacific comprises Cook Islands, Fiji Islands, Kiribati, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Palau, Samoa, Solomon Islands,Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.

On Green India Mission
Green India Mission is one of the eight missions announced by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2008 under the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC). It aims to expand forest cover from 23 percent to 33 percent in the country and afforestation of 6 million hectares of degraded forest land. The Minister of Environment says that draft document will be ready by April End and implementation blue print will be ready by August 2010.

Quick Facts: 8 Missions of Prime Minister’s Action Plan on Climate Change:
National Solar Mission
National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency
National Mission on Sustainable Habitat
National Water Mission
National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem
National Mission for a “Green India”
National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture
National Mission on Strategic Knowledge for Climate Change

Business & Economy:
State Bank of India: Assam Rifles salary package
Similar to the earlier launched packages for Indian Army and Indian Navy, the State bank of India launches Assam Rifles salary package for personnel of Assam Rifles. This package includes free drafts, free cheque book, free fund transfers to any of the SBI Group’s about 15,000 branches and free ATM cards.

abilitymatrimony.com
This is the url of new matrimonial website launched by Bharat Matrimony for differently-abled people. The portal has been launched by Bharat Matrimony Founder and CEO Murugavel Janakiraman.

ICAI-CBEC MoU:
Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) & Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) sign a MoU under which the ICAI praticing members will provide e-filing returns at a charge of maximum Rs 800.The aim is to reduce paperwork, transaction costs and increase accountability, efficiency and transparency. As per the MoU, a practicing CA or a firm with a minimum experience of one year could apply for e-filing of service tax returns. CBEC will provide a user name and a password to activate the facility.

India’s Disclosure pacts with 9 Tax Heavens:
A new agreement has been signed by Indian Government and 9 tax heavens. Now, India can initiate and negotiate agreements for exchange of information for the prevention of evasion or avoidance of income tax and assistance in collection of income tax with these nine specified territories which include Guernsey, Isle of Man, Jersey (all British Crown Dependencies), the Netherlands Antilles (an autonomous part of the Dutch kingdom) and Macau (a special administrative region of the People’s Republic of China).

The government has ordered re-negotiation of total 77 double-tax avoidance pacts entered into so far to get real time information and track tax evasions or stashing away of black money in other countries.

BSE – NYSE Technologies Agreement
NYSE Technologies is the commercial technology division of NYSE Euronext. NYSE Euronext is a Euro-American corporation that operates multiple securities exchanges, most notably Euronext, New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), and NYSE Arca. NYSE Technologies was launched in January 2009, incorporating all the internal technology divisions of NYSE Euronext.

The Bombay Stock Exchange enters into an agreement with the exchange solutions provider NYSE Tech to offer high speed and low latency trading facility.

Abroad:
China ‘s Second Lunar Probe
Chang’e-2 is China’s second lunar orbiter , an un-manned lunar probe scheduled for launch in October 2010. The The probe will conduct research at a 100-kilometer-high moon orbit as a preparation for a soft landing by Chang’e 3.

EV-neo
EV-neo is all-electric scooter launched in Japan by Honda Motor Company that will mark its first attempt at mass-marketing zero-emission motorbikes.

Ads by Twitter:
Twitter decides to sell advertising on its site for the first time. Advertisers will be able to buy “Promoted Tweets” that will appear on Twitter’s search results pages. Earlier Twitter had sold Tweet Search results to Google.

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