Current Affairs - 3rd, 4th, 5th May 2014
Low carbon growth strategy for India
Dr. Manmohan Singh formed an expert committee to suggest a low carbon growth strategy for India in 2010 and the committee headed by Dr. Kirit Parikh, former member of planning commission has finally submitted its report to the central government.
SIT on black money
The Supreme Court recently constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to monitor union govt’s probe on black money. The SIT will be headed by former judge MB Shah. This came a day after P. Chidambaran wrote to Switzerland govt. to disclose the names of black money account holders.
New electoral law in Tunisia
Tunisia became the first country to adopt a historic electoral law in which it becomes mandatory for political parties to have lists with half women and half men candidates in legislative elections.
Top 100 young universities, 2014
In the list of top 100 young universities in the world, the only Indian institute is IIT Guwahati which ranks at number 87. It shares the 87th rank with Portugal's New University of Lisbon and Australia's University of Western Sydney. The report has been made by London based Times higher education magazine. Korea's Pohang University of Science and Technology clinched the top spot for the third consecutive year.
New VC of Jamia Milia Islamia
Prof. Talat Ahmed has been appointed as the new VC of the Delhi based university by President Pranab Mukherjee.
Election Queue Management System,/h2>
India has introduced election queue management system in these general elections in Burdwan district of West Bengal. Its designed to help voters to find out the level of crowd in the polling booths online or through SMS.
Air India to join Star Alliance
Air India has become the first Indian carrier to to join world’s largest airline grouping star alliance. It will help Air India get access to lounges across the globe and enjoy seamless connectivity across the world on Star members.
World Press Freedom Day on May 3
This day is observed each year on 3rd of May to promote freedom of expression and press all over the world. UNESCO confers Guillermo Cano Pres Freedom Prize to any deserving journalist as Guillermo Cano was a Colombian journalist murdered for his fearless writing against drug barons.
US Green building Council
India gets the 3rd rank in the USGBC list with Canada and China at number 1 and 2 respectively. It names countries apart from US for constructing energy efficient green buildings.
Press Freedom Ranking 2014
India ranks at 78th spot in the list in 2014. Sweden alongwith Netherlands and Norway top the ranking with the most independent press in the world. Belarus is the most repressive country for press freedom together with Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
IIP and WPI to be re casted
As per the recommendations of a high level committee headed by member of planning commission Saumitra Chaudhary, the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) and WPI should be re cast. The base year will be changed in both the indexes. The IIP gives details of the growth of various industrial sectors such as mining, electricity and manufacturing. While the WPI is the price of a representative basket of wholesale goods and its changes are used as a key measure of inflation. The panel has suggested a change in the base year of both WPI and IIP initially to 2009-10 and subsequently to 2011-12. The current base year for both the indices is 2004-05. The base year value is taken as 100 and the changes are calculated accordingly.
