Current+Affairs+January+2010+to+2011

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Current Affairs January 2011

Awards

Which bank has been presented with Skoch Financial Inclusion Award 2011 for "SHG Initiatives- Urban Financial Inclusion"?

Indian Bank

Business

In which Social Networking site did Goldman, Digital Sky Technologies invest USD 500

million?Facebook

How many more banks has RBI allowed to import gold and silver?7 (State Bank of Mysore, Karur Vysya Bank, Punjab and Sind Bank,South Indian Bank, State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur, State Bank of Hyderabad

and State Bank of Travancore)

What system did BSE launch recently?Index-based circuit breaker system

Which Public sector bank is planning to setup 600 financial inclusion centres, 300 by March-end2011 and another 300 by March-end 2012?

SBI

Where the world's first Art Exchange was launched to offer opportunity for individuals and

institutions to buy and sell shares of famous artworks?In Paris, A&F Markets

People

At which class has Utkarsh Tripathi, student of the Brij Bihari Sahai (BBS) Inter College in

Allahabad is Jagriti newspaper turns editor, reporter and publisher?Class 8

Who has been appointed as CIO of Allianz Investment Management?Nikhil Srinivasan

What has been setup in Haryana in the memory of astronaut Kalpana Chawla in her home town

Karnal?Medical College



Who has been appointed as part-time Chairman and Managing Director of HMT Machine Tools

Ltd.?G.K.Pillai

Event

Where a 4-day World Sanskrit Book Fair(sanskritbookfair.org) has been organised from January

7th 2011?National College Basavanagudi, Bangalore, India

Which 5-day event was inaugurated by Prime Minster Manmohan Singh and held at the SRMUniversity in Kattankulathur near Chennai?

98th Indian Science Congress (ISC)

Science

What has been commissioned to the country by Prime Minister, Dr.Manmohan Singh at Tarapur,

around 100km north of Mumbai?2nd Power Reactor Reprocessing Plant

Sports

Who won the 5-match series 3-1, to retain Ashes?

England

Who retired from all form of cricket including IPL, becomes Sports administrator of Karnataka

State Cricket Association and an entrepreneur to launch sports edu outfit Tenvic?Anil Kumble

Which England all-rounder retired from Test cricket in 2011?Paul Collingwood

Which company sponsored Formula 1 rider Narain Karthikeyan on his re-entry?

Tata's Hispania Racing Team

Technology

What are the unique features of Intel's 2nd generation intel core processors?Built-in visual capabilities to deliver superior audio-visual experience, faster downloading



ability and improved battery life

What is the USB version of Transcend's JetFlash 700?USB 3.0

international Current Affairs [January 2010]

• Gilgit Baltistan region elected its first Chief Minister Mehdi Shah on the basis of Gilgit BaltistanEmpowerment & Self Governance Order 2009. The new appointed CM declare the GilgitBaltistan region as 5th province of Pakistan. The Indian Govt has, however, of the view that theregion was part of J & K, and thus objected to the remarks of CM.

• Venezuela devalued it currency ‘Bolivar’.• A massive earthquake strike Haiti, the Carribbean nation. Capital of Haiti is Port-au-Prince.• Mahinda Rajapaksa won a second term as Sri Lanka’s President. He belongs to Sri Lanka

Freedom Party.

National Current Affairs [January 2010]

• Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina visit India in Jan 2010. She belongs to Awami LeagueParty. The two countries signed five agreements – on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters,on transfer of sentenced persons and on combating international terrorism, organized crime &illicit drug trafficking besides MOU on cooperation in the power sector and on cultural exchanges.India give Bangladesh a $ 1 billion line of credit, the biggest it has given to any country so far.

• South Korea President Lee Myung Bak visit India in Jan 2010. The two countries decided todouble the bilateral trade to $ 30 billion by 2014. Four facts were signed between two countries –cooperation in peaceful use of outer space, IT, science & technology for the year 2010-12 andtransfer of sentenced persons. South Korean President was also the chief guest at 2010 RepublicDay Parade.

• Gujarat Local Authorities Law (amendment) Bill 2009- The Bill makes it the duty of a qualifiedvoter to vote during elections to local bodies. Voting is compulsory, but the Bill allows voters tocast their vote in favour of none of the candidates. Election officers will declare those who fail to

vote defaulter, and serve them a notice.• India and China has decided to start joint military exercise from 2011.• Najib Razak, Malaysia Prime Minister visit India in Jan 2010.• Govt launched Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission. Key highlights of the mission are :

o To create an enabling policy framework for the deployment of 20,000 MW of solar power by 2020.

o To create favourable conditions for solar manufacturing capability for indigenousproduction and market leadership.

o To promote programmes for off grid applications, reaching 1000 MW by 2017 and 2000MW by 2022.

o To achieve 15 million sq. meters solar thermal collector area by 2017 and 20 million by2022.

o To deploy 20 million solar lighting systems for rural areas by 2022.

• New Governors appointed : a) M K Narayanan – West Bengal, b)Shivraj Patil – Punjab, c)Mohsina Kidwai – Jharkhand, d) Shekhar Dutt – Chhattisgarh, e) E S L Narasimhan – AndhraPradesh.

• Govt plans to create a National Gas Highway Development Authority. The present Gas PipelineDensity in India is 3.29 Km per 1000 Sq.Km.

• Govt plans to set up a National Green Tribunal to control Carbon Emissions and pollution. It willbe responsible for implementing the low carbon roadmap to be set forth in the 12th Five Year Plan.



Sports Current Affairs [January 2010]

• U-19 World Cup 2010 held in New Zealand from 15 – 30 Jan 2010. Javagal Srinath from Indiaappointed as one of the match referee for the tournament.

• Australia won the U-19 World Cup for the third time defeating Pakistan. India is placed at 6thrank. Australia won the cup for the third time.

• Rafael Nadal won the Capitala World Tennis Championsip, held at Abu Dhabi defeating RobinSoderling.

• Magnus Carlsen becomes the youngest World No.1 chess player at the age of 19 years breakingthe Garry Kasparov’s record when he became the world’s top ranked chess player at the age of 22 years in 1985. Magnus Carlsen is the 5th player after Kasparov, Kramnik, Topalov andV.Anand (India) to cross the 2800 ELO rating. In the Jan 2010 FIDE ranking, Carlsen stood at 1stplace, Topalov at 2nd place and V Anand at 3rd place.

• Marin Cilic defeated Staniglas Wawrinka to won Men’s singles title of Aircel Chennai Open.• Pakistan’s cricketer Shahid Afridi was banned for two T20 internationals after he was found guilty

of ball tempering in a ODI against Australia.• Corus Chess Grandmaster Tournament won by Magnus Carlsen. V.Anand of India ranked at 4th

place. Hopman Cup 2010- Spain defeated Great Britain.• Australian Open 2010 : Women’s Single- Serena William defeated Justin Henin. It is Serena’s

5th Australian Open title. It is also Serena’s 12th Grand Slam title equaling the record of BillieJean King.

• Men’s Single- Roger Federer(Swiss) defeated Andy Murray(Britain). It is Federer’s 4th AustralianOpen title. It is Federer’s 16th Grand Slam title.

• Men’s Double- Mike Bryan & Bob Bryan defeated Daniel Nestor & Nenad Zimonjic.• Women’s Double – Serena Williams & Venus Williams defeated Cara Black & L Huber.• Mixed Double – Laender Paes (India) & Cara Black (Zimbabwe) defeated Ekterina Makasova &

Jaroslav Levinsky. It is Paes’s 11th Grand Slam title.

Science and Technology Current Affairs [January 2010]

• 97th Indian Science Congress held at Tiruvananthapuram in Jan 2010. The theme of this year

congress was ‘ Science & Technology of 21st Century- National Perspective’.• The longest annular solar eclipse on the third millennium occur on 15 Jan 2010. The next annular

solar eclipse will be visible in year 3043. Annular eclipse is occurred when the sun is visible like aring of fire, with the moon darkening its centre. The last annular solar eclipse visible from Indiawas occurred in 1976. In July 2010 also, a total solar eclipse will be occurred.

• There are three strains of wild Polio virus namely P1, P2 & P3. Type 2 wild Polio virus (P2) waseliminated from the world in 1999.

• First public hearing on the introduction of Bt Brinjal (First Genetically Modified Food Crop in India)was held in Kolkatta. Seven such public hearing are being organized by Centre for EnvironmentEducation, for opinion of public in respect of introduction of Bt Brinjal. 2nd hearing was held atHyderabad.

• 50th anniversary of creation of LASER is being celebrated in 2010. Theodore Maimanconstructed the first LASER in May 1960. LASER stands for Light Amplification for Stimulated

Emission of Radiation. Charles H Townes was father of MASER.

Persons in News [January 2010]

• Billy Arjan Singh, wildlife conservationist and Padma Shri awardee died.• P D Dinakaran, Chief Justice of Karnataka High Court faces impeachement motion. The process

was initiated in the Parliament. He is the first High Court Chief Justice against whomimpeachment motion have been initiated. Justice V Ramaswami is the only judge to have facedimpeachment proceedings in parliament.



• Justice V S Sirpurkar appointed to head a three member panel to look into allegation of land graband misconduct against Chief Justice P D Dinakaran in the wake of impeachment motion initiatedagainst him in Parliament.

• Fahmida Mirza is the first woman Speaker of Pakistan National Assembly.• Ricky Ponting, Australian cricket team captain, has been named as ESPN Cricinfo Player of the

Decade for 2000.•

Jyoti Basu, former West Bengal Chief Minister, died.• Mrinal Pande, appointed as Chairman, Prasar Bharti Board.• Lee Myung Bak, South Korea President was the Chief Guest at 2010 Republic Day Parade.• Shiv Shankar Menon is appointed as National Security Advisor.• Vikram Srivastava appointed as Director General of CRPF(Central Reserve Police Force).• Ranjit Kumar Bhatia appointed as Director General of ITBP (Indo Tibetan Border Police).

Books & their Authors [January 2010]

• ‘All that you can’t leave behind’ written by Soumya Bhattacharya.• ‘We Must Have No Price’ written by Arun Sourie.• ‘Train to India- Memories of another Bengal’ written by Maloy kumar Dhar.•

‘Not by Reason alone : The Politics of Change’ written by N K Singh.• ‘Five Point Someone’ written by Chetan Bhagat.• ‘Nehru : The invention of India’ written by Shashi Tharoor.• ‘The Museum of Innocence’ written by Orhan Panuk.• ‘Thoughts on Linguistic States’ written by B R Ambedkar.

International Current Affairs [February 2010]

• NATO forces carried out Marjah operation (dubbed Moshtarak) against Taliban forces inAfghanistan.

• European Union summit was held in Brussels. EU & IMF decided to giving support to Greece inits struggle to bring its ballooning budget deficit under control. EU President is Herman VanRompuy.

• Iran’s President Mahmood Ahmedinejad declared that Iran had produced first batch of 20 %enriched uranium and now Iran became a nuclear state.

• Iran launched ‘Kavoshger -3 rocket’ capable of carrying a satellite. It carried a mouse, worms &two turtles.

National Current Affairs [February 2010]

• Kirit Parikh committee , set up to review petro pricing regime, submit its recommendation. Itsmajor recommendation are to deregulate the prices of petrol & diesel as per market prices,reduce the subsidy on LPG.

• India signed a Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement with the UK, which became the 8th countryto enter into such a pact, since the lifting of atomic trade embargo in 2008.

•Govt set up a panel under the Chairmanship of former Justice B N Srikrishna which wouldconsider the demand for splitting Andhra Pradesh.

• India and Denmark signed a social security pact which will relieve their workers from doubletaxation and provide for cooperation in areas of labour market expansion and orderly migration.

• Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visits Saudi Arabia in Feb 2010. He was the first Indian PM in28 years to visit the gulf country. Saudi Arabia is India’s largest supplier of crude oil ( 23 %)followed by Iran ( 17 %) and Nigeria ( 11 %). India is offering upto 10 % equity to Saudi petroleumfirm Saudi Aramco in a refinery being built in Orissa. PM addressed the Shoura council of SaudiArabia.



• Constitution 111th Amendment – Proposes to incorporate a new Part ( Part IX B) in theConstitution so as to provide for legal framework to regulate the functioning of cooperativesocieties. A new Article ( Article 43 B) is also proposed to be inserted in Part IV of theConstitution (Directive Principles of State Policy) for the States to promote voluntary formation,autonomous functioning of cooperative societies.

• Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill 2009 commonly known as Nuclear Liability Bill will be

introduced by Govt in Parliament in Winter session 2010. The draft bill aims at limiting the liabilityof a nuclear plant operator to Rs. 300 crore in the eventuality of an accident. The bill provides for the penalty to be paid by the operator and not the supplier companies which would mainly beAmerican in this case. India has entered into civil nuclear cooperation agreement with eightcountries so far.

Sports Current Affairs [February 2010]

• 11th South Asian Games 2010 : Held at Dhaka, Bangladesh from 29 Jan to 8 Feb. Originallyscheduled to take place in 2009, but due to general elections in Bangladesh, the games wereheld in 2010. This was the third time that the Dhaka hosted the Games, thus becoming the firstcity to hold the games three times. 8 countries participated in the games in 23 different sports,including T20 cricket, which was introduced for the first time in SAG. The 8 countries included are

Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan & Sri Lanka. 1The logo of thegames was ‘Kutumb’, a flying doel , which is the national bird of Bangladesh. The mascot of thegames featured a magpie robin, which was holding the torch to begin the games. The final medaltally include : India - 1st place with 90 G 55 S 29 B Total 174, Pakistan- 2nd place with 19 G 25 S36 B Total 80, Bangladesh- 3rd place with 18 G 23 S 56 B Total 97.

• West Zone won Duleep Trophy ( 2009-10) defeating South Zone.• India’s Gaganjeet Bhullar won the Asian Tour International Trophy 2010. It is his 2nd consecutive

title.• Euro 2012 to be co-hosted by Poland and Ukraine.• 2010 Winter Olympic Games were held at Vancouver, Canada. Mascot of the game was MIGA (a

sea bear), QUATCHI( a sasquatch) and SUMI (animal guardian spirit). The logo of the gameswas Ilnaaq meaning Friend in Inuktut. There were 86 events in 7 sports. The games were heldfrom 12 Feb to 28 Feb. Final medal tally. Canada- 14 G 7 S 5 B, Germany- 10 G 13 S 7 B, USA-

9 G 15 S 13 B.• IOC (International Olympic Committee ) has approved ICC (International Cricket Council) bid to

join the Olympic games 2020. The first time cricket was included in the Olympic games was inParis Olympic 1900.

• 11th World Hockey Cup 2010- To be held in Delhi, India. This is 2nd WHC which India is hosting.India also hosted the WHC in 1982 at Mumbai. 12 countries participated in the tournament. WHCis held in the years between two summer Olympics. First WHC was held at Barcelona in 1971.Pakistan has won the cup four times, Netherland three times, Germany two times, India &Australia once each. India won the WHC in 1975.

• Sachin Tendulkar became first player in the world to score a double century in ODI (One dayInternational). He scored 200 (Not out) against South Africa.

• Commonwealth Shooting Championship was held in New Delhi in Feb 2010. India stood at firstplace with 35 Gold 25 Silver and 14 Bronze. England stood at 2nd place with 4 gold and Wales

stood at 3rd place.

Science and Technology Current Affairs [February 2010]

• USA Space agency NASA launched Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) to discover the causesof extreme solar activity such as sun spots and solar winds & flares.

• ‘GANGES’- Global Advisory Network Group on environmental sciences. It was created by Govtfor environment research work.



• Agni-III ballistic missile with a range of 3500 Km was successfully launched from Wheeler Island,Orissa.

• Ht Cotton – Herbicide Tolerant Cotton. The variety of Ht Cotton in MON 1445. The variety canwithstand herbicides (weed killers) for better productivity and is under trail.

• Cervical cancer is caused by HPV- Human Papilloma Virus.• South Korea has world’s highest average connection speed at 14.6 Mbpd in Internet links. Japan

has 2nd highest average speed.• Scientist deciphered the genetic blueprint of South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Titu.

Persons in News [February 2010]

• Horst Kochler , Germany President visit India in Feb 2010.• Abdullah Gul, Turkey President visit India in Feb 2010.• Economist Kokkadan Nandanath Raj, who made a significant contribution in the preparation of

first Five Year Plan(1951-56) died.• Sharad Chandra Sinha is appointed as Director General of National Investigation Agency(NIA).• Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian President visit India in Feb 2010.• Muhammad Shahrul Ikram Yaakob of Malaysia appointed Chairman, International Atomic Energy

Agency.• Govt appointed R S Pandey as its mediator for talk with NSCN(IM) in Nagaland to carry forward

the peace process.• Former Justice P V Reddy will be appointed as Chairman, Law Commission of India.• Ram Baran Yadav, Nepal President visit India in Feb 2010. It was the first visit by Yadav to any

foreign country after taking over as Nepal’s President. Yadav is the first President of Nepal sincemonarchy ended in 2008. India extended $ 250 million soft line of credit to Nepal.

• Rajinder Singh became first non-white and also first Asian member of the right wing BritishNational Party, after it amended its constitution to allow black and Asian to be its member.

• Amitabh Bachan became the brand ambassador of Gujarat state.• Amnesty International, the global human right organization has appointed Salid Shetty as its next

Secy General from June 2010. He will be the first Indian to head the organization.• Shah Rukh Khan & Kajol become the first Indian bollywood actors to ring the opening bell of the

world’s biggest stock exchange’ NASDAQ’.• Rajiv Satav appointed President, Indian Youth Congress.• Katrina Kaif awarded with 2009 Excellence in Performing Arts Award established by

ASSOCHAM.• M H Hussain, famous painter accepted citizenship of Qatar.

Economics [February 2010]

• Planning Commission grant special category status to the Bundelkhand region comprising 9 disttof Uttar Pradesh and 15 distt of Madhya Pradesh for the irrigation projects. Under specialcategory status, state govt can seek 90 % grant assistance from the centre and 10 % as loan.

• Govt revises base year for the calculation of National Income from 1999-2000 to 2004-2005. TheGDP for 2009-10 will be Rs. 55,74,449 crore and the fiscal deficit for the corresponding period willbe 6.4 %.

• Capital Control – Foreign capital inflows in the form of loans and equity that are allowed in arestricted form are said to be controlled. The capital inflows include foreign borrowings by Indiancorporate and businesses, NRI deposits and portfolio flow from institutional investors into thestock market. Loans to Govt and short term trade credit are also included. India had control onboth capital account transactions as well as on current account with the local currency fixed bythe Central Bank. In 1991, rupee was first made convertible on the current account. In 1994, Govtallows foreign portfolio investments.



• Govt will replace Benchmark Prime Lending System (BPLR) with Base rate system from 1 April2010 to make bank lending more transparent. It provided for minimum rate for all types of loansfor banks.

Misc Issues [February 2010]

• Milan 2010, a biennial meeting of navies of Asia Pacific countries held at Port Blair in Feb 2010.12 countries of Asia Pacific Region participated in it. It is the 7th edition of Milan exercises. It is abiennial exercise of Asia Pacific maritime navies, hosted by the Indian Navy. First Milan exercisewas held in 1995.

• ‘Vayu-Shakti’ name given to IAF exercise conducted at Pokhran range in the Thar desert in Feb2010. IAF is the 4th largest air force in the world after USA, Russia and China.

• ‘Bo’ language of Andaman become extinct. Its last speaker died.• As per Indian Meteorological deptt, 2009 was the warmest year since 1990. The annual mean

temperature for 2009 was 25.55 degree celcius for the country s as a whole.• Uttarakhand became first state in the country to ban the cultivation of Bt Brinjal ( Country’s first

Genetically Modified food crop). Bt Brijnal is a genetically modified crop which has a specialgene- Cry1AC, inserted to make it poisonous to pests. GM Crops resists pests and give better yields as well as nutrition. Bt Brinjal is developed in India by Mahyco company. GM foods are

derived from organisms whose DNA has been modified through genetic engineering.• China ranked 1st in the wind power capacity in the world. India is at 5th place with 10925 MW

capacity. The five top nations in the order of wind power capacity are China, US, Spain, Germany& India.

• Eurozone is a economic and monetary union of 16 EU member states which have adopted theeuro currency as their sole legal tender. PIIGS countries include Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece &Spain.

• 17 army jawans killed in a avalanche at High Altitude Warfare School (HAWS) at Khilanmarg,J&K.

• West Bengal govt reserved 10 % of govt jobs in the state for poor muslims.• China will celebrate 2010 as Year of Tiger.• India has a road network of 33 lakh km and is second largest in the world. It included 200 km of

expressway, 70548 km of national highways, 131899 km of state highways, 467763 km of major

district roads and 26.5 lakh km of rural & other roads. The Golden Quadrilateral joining four metrocities of Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkatta, has a length of 5846 km.

• Taj Mahotsav organized by UP govt in Feb 2010 with the theme ‘Ek Utsav Prem Ka’.• Vancouver city, Canada named as the World’s most livable city as per survey conducted by

Economics Intelligence Unit. Delhi is ranked at 113th place and Mumbai at 117th place.• 16th Conference of Parties (COP) will be held in Dec 2010 at Mexico. The 15th COP was held in

Copenhagen in Dec 2009.• Hyderabad International Airport has been named amongst the world’s five top airports. Other four

airports are Seol, Singapore, Hong Kong and Beijing.• ’1000 faces for 1000 tigers’ campaign was launched in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The campaign

aims to help double the number of wild tigers in Malaysia by 2022.• Sachin Tendulkar features in BMC’s ‘Save Water Campaign’.•

Indian Navy inducted Russian built MiG 29 K fighters planes.• Basic Capabilities Index 2009- India received 68 points. The index was published by Social

Watch’s. The highest BCI points was given to Iran having 97 points and lowest points 44 wasgiven to Chad.

• K R Sridhar, an US based Indian scientist invented Bloom Box- which convert air and virtually anyother fuel source into clean electricity. The box uses solid oxide fuel cells and can generate 100KW of power.

• Present life expectancy of life at birth in India is 63.4 yrs. The highest expectancy of life is inAustralia of 81.4 yrs, 81 yrs for France and 79.3 yrs for England.

• World Cancer Day – 04 Feb



• International Condom Day – 14 Feb

International Current Affairs [March 2010]

• China will launch in 2011 unmammed space mode ‘ Tiangong I’ for its future space laboratory.• US internet giant Google close its business in China.• India’s largest telecom service provider Bharti Airtel buy Zain’s Africa operations for an enterprise

value of $ 10.7 billion (Rs 49000 crore). Currently Bharti’s non-India operations include Sri Lanka& Bangladesh.

• Russia abolished two of its eleven time Zones.

National Current Affairs [March 2010]

• Govt launched National Mission for Empowerment of Women aimed at inter-sectoralconvergence of all pro- women programmes.

• Constitution 108th Amendment Bill 2008 commonly known as women’s reservation bill waspassed by Rajya Sabha by 186 in favour 1 against 39 abstained (Current strength of RajyaSabha is 233). The bill seeks to reserve a third of the seats on the Lok Sabha and state

assemblies for 15 years on a rotational basis. It was first introduced in 1996. Sharad Joshi, anindependent MP is the only MP which cast vote against the bill. In the present Lok Sabha, thereare 59 women MPs out of 543 MPs. Total MLAs in 29 state assemblies in India are 4093.

• Yamunanagar (Haryana) and Vishakhapatnam (AP) are choosen for a pilot project on savinghousehold energy by replacing incandescent lamps with CFLs (Compact Fluorescent Lamps).

• Earth Hour 2010 has been celebrated on 27 March organized by World Wide Fund for Nature,India. Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru are official Earth Hour Cities among 15 Indian cities.

• Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister of Russia visit India in March 2010.• Supreme Court allowed religion based 4 % reservations in Govt jobs & educational institutes in

Andhra Pradesh. It extended the benefit to 14 OBC in muslims in the state. The matter is further referred to Constitutional bench of Supreme Court.

• ’Bold Kurushetra’ a joint armour exercise between India and Singapore was held at Jhansi(UP).• Prohibition of unfair practices in technical, medical educational institutions & universities Bill is

passed by Govt. It provided for 3 year imprisonment and a fine of upto Rs 50 lakh for higher education providers guilty of misleading students.• Govt approved Foreign Educational Institution (Regulation of Entry & Operation) Bill 2010. It

provides foreign universities to set up campuses in India.• Govt amends Anti Hijacking Act 1982. It now provides for death sentence to the hijackers.• Govt starts the scheme for creation of the National Population Register (NPR) of Indian residents.

The project will cover an estimated 1.2 billion people and total cost of the project will be Rs.3539.24 crore.

• India became 1st country in the world to have a ‘manoeuvrable’ supersonic cruise missile, when itsuccessfully test fired 290 km range Brahmos missile.

• Chinese Vice Premier Hui Liangyu visit India in March 2010.

Sports Current Affairs [March 2010]

• Tamil Nadu defeated West Bengal to won Vijay Harare Cricket Trophy.• Australia won World Hockey Cup 2010 defeating Germany. India ranked at 8th place.• India won six gold medal in the Commonwealth Boxing Championship held at Delhi.• Two new IPL teams, Kochi was auctioned for Rs 1533 crore and Pune was auctioned for Rs 1702

crore. Kochi was auctioned to Rendezvous Adventure Sports Ltd. Pune was auctioned to SaharaAdventure Sports Ltd.

Persons in News [March 2010]



• Rajan Bharti Mittal appointed President FICCI.• Major Dimple Singla became first women army officer in the country who has been sentenced to

imprisonment for corruption.• Bhubneshwar Kalita has been choosen as the Chef de Mission of the Indian contingent at

Commonwealth Games 2010.• Cricketer Kapil Dev has been inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame.

• Former Supreme Court judge P V Reddy appointed as Chairman, Law Commission of India.• Lt Gen V K Singh appointed as new Army Chief.• Sonia Gandhi appointed head of National Advisory Council. NAC advice the govt on policy

matters, monitor flagship programmes and prepare the ground for other pro-poor legislatures.• Lyricist Javed Akhtar, Mani Shankar Aiyar, Dr Ram Dayal Munda, Dr Balchandra Mungekar and

Kannada Actress B Jayashree are among other persons nominated to Rajya Sabha.• Austrian base jumper Felix Baumgartnar will became the first person to leaps from the edge of

space at a height of 37 km above earth’s surface. He become the first man to break the speed of sound hitting a top speed of about 11000km/hr. He will jump on 11 April 2010.

• Katie Spotz became the youngest person to complete a solo journey across the Atlantic Ocean.• Girija Prasad Koirala, Nepal Ex Prime Minister died. He was 5th time Nepal PM.

Awards Current Affairs 2010 [March 2010]

• Oscar Awards 2010o Best Director- Kathryn Bigelow for The Heart Locker. She became first women to win the

Oscar for best director.o Best Film- The Heart Locker.o Best Actor- Jeff Bridges for Crazy Heart.o Best Actress- Sandra Bullock for The Blind Side.o Best Supporting Actor –Christoph Waltz for Inglorious Basterds.o Best Supporting Actress –Mo’Nique for Precious.o Best foreign language film- The Secret in their Eyes, from Argentina.

• Amitabh Bachchhan honoured with lifetime achievement award at 34th Hong Kong InternationalFilm Festival.

• Surjit Pater has been awarded with 19th Saraswati Samman 2009 for ‘Lafzan Di Dargah’.• Moortidevi Award was given to the Law Minister M Veerappa Moily for his work Shri Ramayan

Mahanveshanam.• Vyas Samman 2009 was awarded to Amar Kant for his work ‘Inhin Hathiyaron Se’.

Misc Issues [March 2010]

• Brahan Natyanjali 2010 festival was organized to celebrate 1000 years of Tanjavur temple inTamil Nadu which was built by Chola emperor Rajaraja Chola in 1010 AD.

• 192 year old Presidency College of Kolkatta (India’s oldest college) converted into PresidencyUniversity. It became 18th state university in West Bengal.

• Railways started ‘Maharajas Express’ from Kolkatta to Delhi. It is a tourist train having stoppage

at Gaya, Varanasi, Bandhavgarh, Gwalior, Khajuraho and Agra.• The book ‘Way to go’ written by Upamanyu Chatterjee.• The book ‘Wide Angle’ written by cricketer Anil Kumble.• The book ‘El Sari Rojo’ written by Javier Moro, is on the life of Sonia Gandhi.• World TB Day celebrated on 24 March.• Constitution 112th Amendment Bill 2009 seeks to amend following clauses of Article 243T of the

Constitution that provides for reservation of seats for SC & ST and also for women in Urban Localbodies : a) In clause (2) for the word ‘one third’, the word ‘one half’ shall be substituted, b) Inclause (3) the word ‘one third’ , the word ‘one half shall be substituted.



International Current Affairs [April 2010]

• Belgium became the Europe’s first country to ban burqa.• Pakistan’s National assembly passed a bill that takes away the President’s power to dissolve

parliament, dismiss a elected government and appoint the three services Chiefs. Pakistan’sparliament passes 18th amendment which was later signed by Presient cutting President’s

powers.• USA and Russia signed Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty(START) that allowed a maximum of

1550 deployed overheads, about 30% lower than a limit set in 2002. The treaty was signed in theProgue Castle.

• Emergency was imposed in Thailand.• Nuclear Security Summit held at Washington.It was a 47 nation summit wherein P.M. announced

setting up of a global nuclear energy centre for conducting research & development of designsystems that are secure, proliferation resistant & sustainable.

• PM visit USA & Brazil, a two nation tour. He attended Nuclear Security Summit in USA & India-Brazil-S.Africa(IBSA) and Brazil-Russia-India-China(BRIC) summit in Brasilia (Brazil).

• 16th SAARC Summit held in Bhutan in 28-29 April. The summit was held in Bhutan for the firsttime. It is the silver jubilee summit as SAARC has completed 25 years. The summit central themewas ‘Climate Change’. The summit recommended to declare 2010-2020 as the “Decade of Intra-

regional Connectivity in SAARC”. The 17th SAARC summit will be held in Maldives in 2011.

National Current Affairs [April 2010]

• Naxals killed about 75 CRPF personal at Chintalnar-Tarmetla village in Dantewada distt,Chhattisgarh. Government appoint E.N. Rammohan, to probe the incident.

• Uninque Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) now known as Aadhaar. It’s Chairman is NandanNilekani. It will assign 16 digit identification number to all residents in India.

• NTRO- National Technical Research Organisation. The organization came to limelight after allegation of phone tapping of politicians.

• Indian navy commissioned India’s first indigenously built stealth warship ‘ INS Shivalik’. The other stealth warship to be built are named as ‘INS Sahyadri’ and INS Satpura’.

• Right To Education Act is notified and will become a legally enforceable from 1 April 2010. Keyfeatures of RTE Act are : All children in 6-14 age group must get free and compulsory eduction;No child shall be held back,expelled or required to pass a board examination till Class VIII; Theremust be 25 % reservation for poor children even in private & minority schools; There must be oneteacher for every 30 students; A child rights commission will look into violations of the RTE law.

• Govt start Census 2011. It is the 15th Census. It is in two phase. The first phase is called –Houselisting & Housing Census and the second phase is called decadal headcount which will be held inFeb 2011. The Registrar General of India is C Chandramouli.

Sports Current Affairs [April 2010]

• IPL3 season won by Chennai Super Kings defeating Mumbai Indians.• Youth Olympics Games 2010 to be held in Singapore in Aug 2010.

• World Youth Championship was held at Baku, Azerbaijan.• Lawn tennis legend Martina Navratilova diagnosed with Breast Cancer.• ‘Jumbo’ chosen as 2011 World Cricket Cup Mascot.• World Kabbadi Cup 2010- India defeated Pakistan to won World Cup Kabbadi 2010 held at

Ludhiana.• Pankaj Advani won the Asian Billiards Championship defeating Singapore’s Peter Gilchrist for the

consecutive third time.• Badminton Asia Championship, Delhi :

o Men’s singles – Lin Dan defeated Wang Zhenguing



o Women’s singles-Li Xiurei defeated Liu Xin.

Persons in News [April 2010]

• Shashi Tharoor (born 9 March 1956) is a member of the Indian Parliament from theThiruvananthapuram constituency in Kerala. A prolific author, columnist, journalist and human

rights advocate, he has previously served as the United Nations Under-Secretary General for Communications and Public Information and the Indian Minister of State for External Affairs.

• Lalit Modi (born 29 November, 1963 Delhi, India) is an Indian cricket administrator andbusinessman. He is best known for his stint as the Chairman and Commissioner of the IndianPremier League and the Chairman of the Champions League from 2008 to 2010. He is also theVice President of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) since 2005 and Vice Presidentof the Punjab Cricket Association.

Economics & Commerce [April 2010]

• India became the 7th largest shareholder in World Bank. India’s voting rights has gone up to 2.91%. The USA has highest voting rights of 15.85 % followed by Japan with 6.84 % and Germanywith 4 %.

• Govt proposed that concept of GGDP – Green Gross Domestic Product to be introduced in thecountry by 2015. In 2012 India will host the Rio+20 conference on biological diversity.

• Government approved disinvestment of 20% of share in SAIL in this financial year.• India’s total external debt as on December 2009 is 251 billion.• India’s Gems & Jewellery export grow by 16% to $28.41 billion in 2009-2010.• RBI announced the credit policy. The CRR has been raised from 5.75 % to 6 %. The Repo rate

has been raised from 5 % to 5.25 %. The reverse repo rate has been raised from 3.5 % to 3.75%.

Awards Current Affairs 2010 [April 2010]

• 19Th Bihari Puraskar 2009 has been awarded to Hemant Shesh for his collection of poetry

‘Jagah Jaisi Jagah’.• 2010 Commonwealth Writers Prize for the best first Book was awarded to Glenda Guest for the

novel ‘Siddon Rock’. Rana Dasgupta won Commonwealth Writers Prize for best Book 2010 for book ‘Solo’.

• Carl Zeiss wildlife conservation award was won by Joydip Kundu.• Amitav Ghosh won the Dan David Prize alongwith Margaret Atwood for ‘Rendition of the 2oth

century’.

Misc Issues [April 2010]

• ‘Decision Points’ memoir of former US President George W Bush.• A variety of mango has been named after Sachin Tendulkar.•

Scientist create element 117 from calcium & Berkelium.• International congress of Mathematicians will be hosted by India for the first time in August 2010

at Hyderabad. The congress has been held once every four years since 1897except the breaksduring two world wars.

• Government will opened four new campuses for the IIMC(Indian Institute of MassCommunication) at Nagpur, Kochi, Jammu and Aizawl.

• Padmaja Naidu Himalayan Zoological Park, Derjeeling become first zoo in the country to installinfrared night vision cameras in the enclosures housing endangered snow leopard.

• ‘Hindutva, Sex & Adventure’ written by Mark Tully.



• Gorumara National Park, Jalpaigudi has been declared the best among the 235 national parks &sanctuaries in the country by the MOEF.

• ‘Gandhi-Naked Ambition’ written by Jad Adams.• India ranks 5th in the World’s cybercrime ranking for 2009 after US, China, Brazil & Germany.• India lauched GSLV from Sriharikota on 15 April 2010. However the launch was failed in the third

stage. The launch was important as GSLV-D3 was the third developmental mission of India’s

GSLV during which ISRO’s indigenously developed cryogenic upper stage (CUS) was to be flighttested. This is the 6th flight of GSLV, but the first one to test Indian made cryogenic upper stage.GSLV-D3 was to launch the GSAT-4 satellite into an elliptical Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit.The total flight of the vehicle was planned to be 1022 seconds.

• India likely to complete building its first strategic crude oil storage by Oct 2011. India is buildingunderground storage at Visakhapatnam in AP and Padur in Karnataka to store about 5.33 milliontones of crude oil which is enough to meet nation’s oil requirement for 13-14 days. India will joinnations like the US, Japan & China that have strategic reserves.

Persons in News [2010]

• Justice Gyan Sudha Mishra was sworn in as Judge of Supreme Court of India. She became the4th women judge to be elevated to the Supreme Court of India.

• Justice S H Kapadia will be next Chief Justice of India.• Mukul Sangma shown in as Meghalaya Chief Minister.• Poland’s President Lech Kaczynski died in a air crash at Moscow.• Juan Antonia Samaranch, Former President of International Olympic Committee (IOC) died.

International Current Affairs [May 2010]

• G-15 summit was held at Tehran on 16-17 May.• Bangladesh handed over Ranjan Daimary of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland to India.

The group was responsible for serial bombing in Assam in 2008.• National League for Democracy (NLD) party of Myannmar’s democracy leader Aung San Sui Kyi

was abolished after deadline to re-register as a political party was over.

• EU-IMF provide a $ 1 trillion rescue package to the Greece to resolve its debt crises.• Pakistan successfully test fired two short range ballistic missiles, Shaheen I( range 650 Km) and

Ghazani (range 290 Km) capable of carrying nuclear war heads and striking Indian cities.

National Current Affairs [May 2010]

• Naxalites killed 47 people in a landmine blast between Dantewada and Sukma in Chattisgarh.• Test fire of nuclear capable Agni-II missile was successfully carried out from Wheeler Island off

the coast of Orissa on 17th May. Agni II has a range of 2000Km. It is 20m long two stage solidpropelled ballistic missile. It was developed by Advanced System Laboratories alongwith DRDO& Bharat Dynamics Ltd.

• Supreme Court in a recent judgement upheld a rule that allows the adjustment of reservedcategory candidate SC/ST/OBC against their quota seats even if they manage to qualify anexamination for govt services on merit.

• National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) is the monitoring authority for theRight to Education Act which became effective from April 1, 2010.

Sports Current Affairs [May 2010]

• England won 2010 ICC World Twenty20 Cricket tournament defeating Australia. The tournamentwas held at South Africa. Kevin Pieterson of England has been declared as Player of theTournament.



• Australia won 2010 Women’s World Twenty20 Cricket tournament defeating New Zealand.• India and South Korea were declared joint winner of 2010 Sultan Azlan Shah Hockey Cup, after

suspension of the final match due to heavy rains.India’s Sardar Singh has been declared as BestPlayer of the Tournament. Australia won the Bronze medal. The tournament was held at Ipoh(Malaysia). India had won the tournament earlier in 1985, 1991, 1995 & 2009.

• China won Thomas Cup ( Men’s Badminton) defeating Indonesia.•

In the World Youth Boxing Championship, held at Baku, Azerbaijan, India won 1 Gold & 1 Silver.Gold medal was won by Vikas Krishan and Silver medal was won by Shiva Thapa.• India won bronze medal in the 2nd Asian Paragliding Championship held at Nishiewa, Japan.• World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand retained his title after defeating Veselin Topalov of

Bulgaria in the World Chess Championship 2010.

Persons in News [May 2010]

• Gita Gopinath an Indian origin associate professor at Harvard Univ has been appointed a fullprofessor, the first Indian woman in the Institution’s history to ge given this appointment.

• Former Vice President of India, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat died.• Rima Fakih was crowned Miss USA 2010. She became the first ever muslim American Miss USA.

She is of Lebanese muslim descent.• Singer Christina Aguilera was named Ambassador against hunger by the United Nations World

Food Programme.• Rushanara Ali became first person of Bangladesh origin to be elected to the British Parliament.• David Cameron elected Prime Minister of Britain. Nick Clegg became the Dy Prime Minister.

Britain gets first coalition govt since World War-II. It is between Conservative and LiberalDemocrats.

• Justice S H Kapadia sworn as new Chief Justice of India.• Hari S Bhartia elected as President of Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) for 2010-11.• Jessica Watson became the youngest person to sail unassisted around the world in a yatch.

Awards Current Affairs 2010 [May 2010]

• Vandana Shiva has been awarded Sydney Peace Prize 2010 for her work in the field of social justice.

Misc Issues [May 2010]

• International Mosaics Festival was held in Tunisia.• Aman ki Asha- the name of the Indo Pak Business Meet held at New delhi.• International Museum Day- 18 May.• ’Yours Sincerely’ written by Natwar Singh.• ’The Duel’ written by Tariq Ali.• ’The Promise :President Obama, Year One’ written by Jonathan Alter.

International Current Affairs [June 2010]

• Julia Gillard become Australia’s first women Prime Minister replacing Kevin Rudd following asudden revolt against him.

• No more time for sorrow’ written by Robert Beeman. The author predict that terrorist will set off anatom bomb in the USA by 2013.

• Tuvalu become 187th member of IMF (International Monetary Fund). The island is located in thePacific Ocean.



• Kyrgyzstan voted for a new constitution in a referendum. It is Central Asia’s first parliamentdemocracy.

• G-20 summit held at Toronto, Canada.

National Current Affairs [June 2010]

• In the Global Peace Index 2010, India ranked at 128.• 2010 Failed State Index- Somalia top the list followed by Zimbabwe, Sudan & Chad. India is

ranked at 87 place out of 177 countries. Norway in ranked at the bottom of the list.• President Rule imposed in Jharkhand.• Amar Singh launches a new party ‘Akhil Bhartiya Lok Manch’.• South African president Jacob Zuma visited India.• Turkmenistan President Gurbaguly Bardimuhamedov visited India.• Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa visited India. India signed 7 pacts with Sri Lanka. India

will assist in building 50000 houses in the northen & eastern provinces of Sri Lanka.• Bangladesh Govt has requested to rename the train linking West Bengal to Tripura via Banglades

as ‘ Sonar Tori’. Earlier the name of the train as envisaged in the Railway Budget 2010 is ‘Epar Bangla Opar Bangla’. Sonar Tori is a collection of poems written by Rabindranath Tagore, whose150th birth anniversary is being celebrated in 2010.

• Maharastra will become first state in the country to have a real estate regulatory authority.• BWA- Broadband Wireless Access. The BWA spectrum was auctioned by the Govt. BWA

Spectrum is essential for rolling out WiMAX services enabling hand held devices and laptops toaccess Intranet. It will allow firms to offer high speed Net, Web telephony & TV Services. Thegovt fixed Rs.1750 crore as base rate for BWA license. The auction was held for 117 rounds andin 16 days. Rs.12848 crore was the pan India BWA license price which was won by InfotelBroadband services ( in all 22 circles). The Govt auctioned the BWA license for a total of Rs.38,543 crore. Mumbai had the highest bid of Rs.2293 crore followed by Delhi with Rs.2241crore respectively.

• India signed Civil Nuclear agreement with Canada. The agreement was signed by ManmohanSingh and Canada’s PM Stephen Harper. Canada is the 8th nation to enter into such anagreement with India. Canada served nuclear ties with India in 1974 when India conducted itsfirst nuclear test at Pokhran in 1974. India’s nuclear power programme is based on the CANDU( Canada Deuterium Uranium) reactor.

• India become a full fledged member of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a 34 member inter governmental body that devises policies at both national & international levels to combatmoney laundering and terrorist financing. FATF membership will enable Indian authorities toaccess information on suspect accounts in nations such as Switzerland & UK. India become its34th member.

Sports Current Affairs [June 2010]

• French Open 2010 :o Men’s singles – Rafael Nadal defeated Robin Soderling. He is the second person after

Bjorn Borg to win 5th French Open titles.

o Women’s singles- Francesca Schiavone (Italy) defeated Samantha Stosur (Australia).She became first Italian women to won the French open.

o Men’s Doubles- Daniel Nestor & Nenad Zimonjic defeated Lukas Dlouhy & Leander Paes.

o Women’s Doubles- Serena Williams & Venus Williams defeated Kveta Peschke &Katarina Srebotnik.

o Mixed Doubles – Katarina Srebotnik & Nenad Zimonjic defeated Yavoslava Shvedova &Julian Knowle.



• Saina Nehwal defeated Choo Wong Mew to win women’s single title in Yonex-Sunrise IndianOpen badminton championship. In the Men’s singles Yunus Alamsyah won the title.

• Saina Nehwal defeated Japan’s Sayaka Sato to win women’s singles title in Indonesian OpenSuper Series 2010.

• Indian Ronjan Sodhi won the double trap gold medal at ISSF World Cup in Lonato, Italy.• India defeated Sri Lanka to won Asia Cup(Cricket) 2010. India won the title after 15 years i.e. it

won the cup in 1995.• Saina Nehwal won the Women’s singles title in Singapore Super Series badminton championship

2010 defeating China’s Tzu Ying Tai. It was her 2nd consecutive title.• 3000th ODI( One day international) cricket match was played between England & Australia.

Persons in News [June 2010]

• Former CJI K G Balakrishnan is appointed as Chairman of National Human Rights Commission.• O P Bhatt has been elected as Chairman , Indian Banker’s Association for the year 2010-11.• Tenzin Norzon, a resident of Varanasi crowned as Miss Tibet 2010.• J G Farrell won the Lost Man Booker Prize for his novel ‘Troubles’.• Sachin Tendulkar conferred with Indian Air Force’s honorary rank of Group Captain. Till now 21

persons have been granted honorary ranks by the IAF. The first person was Raja of Jawhar- RajaYaswant Rao in 1994. Tendulkar is the first sportsperson to be conferred with this honour.

• Sharad Pawar will be 7th President of ICC. He become 2nd Indian after Jagmohan Dalmia tooccupy the position. He succeeded David Morgan.

• Wrestler and 1970’s Asian Games Gold medalist, Chandagi Ram Kaliram died.

Misc Issues [June 2010]

• India and France held a joint air combat exercise in France called ‘Garuda IV’.• Cyclone Phet hit Gujarat coast .• Indigenous developed vaccine ‘Vaxiflu-S’ against swine flu (H1N1) is launched.• Mars-500 : An experiment to study the effect of long isolation to better understand how a real

space crew should cope with stress and fatigue. The experiment is conducted by Russia, China

and The European Space Agency at Moscow. A total of 520 days are required to travelled to andback form Mars planet.

• Capital Gate Tower in Abu Dhabi has been certified at world’s furthest leaning manmade tower.The tower leans at 18 degrees, over four times angle of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

• World Blood Donor Day- 14 June. Theme of 2010 is ‘Celebrating your gift of blood’.• World Environment Day – 5 June. Theme of 2010 is ‘Biodiversity : Connecting with Nature’.• Statistics Day- 29 June. Celebrated in honour of Prof P C Mahalanobis.• Govt made it mandatory for companies listed on the stock exchange to raise public shareholding

to 25 %.• Craig Venter created first living cell created synthetically by human being.• Bharti Airtel acquire Kuwait based Zain Telecom’s African business for $ 10.7 billion or Rs.

48,150 crore. Bharti now become 5th largest telecom company in the world.• Broadband users in India as on March 2010 was 8.75 million.• Forbes list 1011 billionaires in the world. It included 14 women, 7 of whom are from China.• India has 1.27 lakh millionaires in 2009, a rise of 50.9 %. HNWI (high net worth individual) are

defined as those having investible assets of $ 1 million or more. Hongkong topped the globalgrowth in HNWI followed by India.

• Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace & Sustainable Development is being set up inNew Delhi.

International Current Affairs [July 2010]



• Japan ElectionsDemocratic Party of Japan suffered a heavy blow in the elections for the upper house of Japan’sDiet (parliament) when it won ten seats fewer than expected thus loosing its majority. DPJ willnow have to look for new coalition partners to restore its majority in the upper house and enable itto easily pass laws through the Diet legislature. After breaking the 55 year period of dominance of the Liberal Democratic Party and naming Naoto Kan the new prime minister just a month back

the results have baffled the DJP.• July 15th Summit, Islamabad

Failed talks between Indian Foreign Minister SM Krishna and the Pakistani counterpart Mr. ShahMehmood Qureshi's have once again proved that whenever efforts were initiated by India toimprove the relations between the two countries. The Pak leaders and officials took deliberatesteps to derail the process conveying a clear message to India that the talks can continue only onits terms.

• Gulf of SpillMore than three months after the April 20 explosion aboard the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon oilplatform, which killed 11 workers and sank the rig gushing oil into the Gulf of Mexico, the mostsevere US environmental disaster ever is close to coming to an end. In an operation called “statickill” 2,300 barrels of mud was forced down into the well’s opening overnight pushing the crudeback down to its source. A cap over the wellhead has shut in leaking oil since July 15 and thestatic kill — also known as bull heading — probably would not have worked without the cap inplace.

• GenocideOmar-al-Bashir, President of Sudan has been charged with three counts of genocide over theDarfur Conflict, he was convicted by the International Criminal Court at The Hague. It is for thefirst time that a court has accused anyone of genocide.

• Jacob Lew the new Budget Director President Barack Obama has chosen Mr. Jacob Lew as his new budget director. This is Mr. Lewssecond stint with the federal budget.

National Current Affairs [July 2010]

• Noose tightening for Politicos in Sohrab case

Sohrab case getting murkier with CBI stepping up pressure on top Gujarat IPS OfficersP.C.Pande, O.P.Mathur and Geeta Johri for their suspected involvement in scuttling the probe atthe behest of former Gujarat Minister of State for home Amit Shah. Two Rajasthan BJP leadersGulabchand Kataria and Om Mathur are also facing the CBI heat.Sohrabuddin Sheikh was killed in a fake encounter and his wife who was a witness to her husband’s abduction was also later eliminated. The agency is investigating the police-politiconexus behind the killings.

• Chidambaram confident of overcoming maoist problem in three yearsAddressing a meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee for the ministry of homeaffairs, P Chidambaram informed that in a meeting of chief ministers of seven Naxal-affectedstates on July 14, a decision of unified command was agreed to namely in-- West Bengal, Orissa,Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand -- for anti-Naxal operations. A two-pronged strategy of initiatingdevelopment and police action in the affected areas was designed to overcome Maoist problem

after consultations with the Naxal-affected states• Grooming for a succession?

Noel Tata, chairman Ratan Tata’s brother has been installed as the chairman and CEO of TataInvestment Corp and the MD in Tata International while relinquishing his executive position inTrent Ltd within the last two months. There is speculation that these moves are in line with thegroup’s succession plan for top job i.e. the Chairmanship of Tata Sons in 2012 when Ratan Tatasteps down.

• Applaud or embarrassment?According to top sources from Central Vigilance Commission, fake certificates were beingroutinely issued to pass substandard work and material to the vendors of Commonwealth Games



that the war was nearing an end. The remaining force of 50,000 soldiers will train Iraqi securityforces and provide security for ongoing US Diplomatic efforts.

• Australia with a hung parliamentAustralians failed to elect a new government in the polls held in August and were left with a hungparliament. The non-result elections between Julia Gillard’s Labor and Abbott’s Liberal party ledto the first hung parliament in Australia since World War II. Three key Independents are now in

the process of deciding which party to support to form a government.• Pakistani cricketers tainted

The Game of cricket gets murkier with alleged match-fixer Mazhar Majeed’s claim of havingrigged games played by Pakistan for three years. The British Police recovered cash from hotelrooms of Pakistani players involved in spot fixing. Salman Butt, Mohammad Amir and MohammedAsif were interviewed and their mobiles confiscated after Majeed’s confession. The Anti-Corruption Unit of the ICC will probe all 82 international matches played by Pakistan during thistime. The news came as a bolt for the flood-stricken and violence-plagued country where cricketis the national sport.

• Pakistan FloodsAnnual monsoons rains have led to flooding in Pakistan leading to the death of 1500 people andrendering thousands homeless. In the worst flooding disaster in 80 years the floodwaters haveaffected about one-fifth of the country washing away millions of hectares of crops, submergingvillages and destroying roads, bridges, schools, electricity and communication setting back theinfrastructure by many years. Disease is fast spreading in these flood affected areas and therehave been warnings that dams in the south may burst. It is estimated that the floods in Pakistanhave displaced people thrice the number displaced during partition.

• Hike in Visa feeThe Obama Regime has raised H-1B and L1 visa fees to protect its borders from illegal Mexicanimmigrants. This additional fee would be used to build operating bases and deploy unmannedaerial surveillance to beef up U.S.-Mexico border security. The impact of this hike will besubstantial on Indian IT companies that account for approximately 50,000 H1 and L1 visas per year.

• Mosque near ground ZeroA New York city panel has cleared the way for the construction of a mosque near ground zerothat has been causing a political uproar over religious freedom. The proposed construction of themosque near ground zero has sparked debate all around the country. President Barack Obama,however, supported the right of having a mosque by asserting that Muslims have the same rightto freedom of religion as everyone else in America.

• China to launch space stationHaving finished the first module of a planned space station and testing its electronics and other systems China is all set to launch it into orbit next year. Changes were being made to the rocketthat will carry the 8.5ton Tiangong 1 module into a set orbit. No finishing or manning dates havebeen given for the space station. The official Xinhua news agency said that The Shenzhou 8spacecraft and Shenzhou 9 and 10 spacecraft would dock with it in the second half of 2011 and2012 respectively.

• Online routeOxford English Dictionary that has been in print for over a century may never appear in print for the future generations. The word reference Bible is likely to loose its existence to its onlineversion. With the digital books becoming popular, the format that the 3rd edition, currently being

worked upon, will take is anybody’s guess.

National Current Affairs [August 2010]

• Nuclear liability bill passedNuclear liability bill which was adopted by Rajya Sabha has now been approved by the process of Voice vote. The session of the Parliament lasted 48 hours extra than the scheduled time so thatthe legislation can be easily passed and approved. A total of 18 amendments were introduced inthis bill by Lok Sabha before processing it further. Soon the bill was selected for a considerable



hike in the liability of operator. This liability has now become 3 times then what it was in the pastand now holds a value of rupees 1500 crore’s in total. By virtue of progression of this bill andsignificant increase in the liability many overseas companies have shown their interests in settingup reactors in India. Special accidental care will now be provided for the employees operating inthe various sections of the nuclear plants. The decision and the passing of the bill had beenstrongly opposed by the BJP leaders as they found it insignificant.

•

Swiss Bank AccessSwiss Authorities will provide information to India on cases of tax fraud and tax evasion fromJanuary 1,2011under the reworked double tax agreement (DTA) signed by India and Switzerland.The Indian Authorities can now seek information about the account holders in Swiss banks whohave a case filed against them for tax evasion.

• Government Intervention for CWGPM and his select team of ministers takeover as CWG supervisors. Indian Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Singh took over the reigns of the forthcoming games in the wake of scandals andunfinished work surrounding the event. Committee of Secretaries, headed by a CabinetSecretary, will now supervise the mega event to be held in October overtaking OrganizingCommittee chief Suresh Kalmadi.

• Bhopal Case reopenedThe Supreme court of India has reopened the Bhopal Gas leak case in response toGovernment’s petition for harsher punishment to the guilty for the worst tragedy of its kind inwhich at least 7,000 people perished within days of the release of the toxic methyl isocyanate gasat the Union Carbide pesticide plant on 3 December 1984, and a further 15,000 died later fromexposure to the gas. The tragedy left countless others with lifelong damage to their health.

• CSAT to replace the civil services prelimsThe new Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT) will replace the existing civil services (preliminary)examination from 2011. The new scheme will test the candidates for their aptitude for civilservices as well as their ethical and moral dimension of decision-making. There will now be twocommon papers with equal weightage in place of one common paper (general awareness) andone optional paper (any particular subject of choice). The civil services main exam and theinterview will remain the same as of now.

• Rahul creates controversyWherein one place Mamta Banerjee is speaking in the favour of naxals and now Rahul Gandhi issharing a dias with a suspected Maoist , this is the approach of the government in the fightagainst naxals.

• Member Parliament salaries hikedParliament recently in Delhi has made a decision to increase the salaries of MPs. A hike of aboutrupees 35000 will be introduced in the salary of each MPs thus taking it from figures like 20,000to 55,000 or so. Because daily allowance has an important role to play hence parliament has alsodecided to exactly double the allowances issued daily to each Member of Parliament. Hence dailyallowance of rupees 1000 will now become 2000. This daily allowance will be issued only whenthe parliament session is in progress. Other than the daily allowances the official expenses for every office per month have now been considerably raised and touch a 50,000 amount. That isnot all the travel and conveyance charge issued will now become 4 times which were earlier around rupees 1,00,000. Retired members will now get a monthly pension of around rupees20,000 which was around 10,000 in the past times.

• Commonwealth with less green

Approximately 40,000 trees have been either felled or transplanted for Delhi’s preparation of Commonwealth Games 2010. Apart from the financial burden of creating world classinfrastructure and transport facilities Delhites have to bear the loss of its green cover as thecompensatory plantation cannot in any way compensate for the loss of a fully grown, mature tree.

• Blackberry controversyResearch in Motion (RIM), the maker of Blackberry has finally surrendered to Indian securityagencies’ demand for access to their server. The company has proposed for lawful access to itsservices including the messenger as well as the enterprise with immediate effect and thecompany would have to set up a server in India if it does not work to the satisfaction of Indian



agencies. The security agencies already had access to voice data, SMS and general emails sentthrough Blackberry devices but Blackberry email and messaging services that are highlyencrypted were major concerns for the security agencies. With this understanding in place thegovernment has decided to serve notices to Google and Skype also to fall in line.

• Direct tax codeThe Government deferred the direct tax code(DTC) by yet another year to April 2012 causing yet

another disappointment to the taxpayers. Women taxpayers suffered a bolt as the preferentialtreatment meted out to them earlier is now proposed to be withdrawn. Senior citizens, however,enjoy a higher exemption limit. The bill that replaces the Income Tax Act 1961 seeks an increasein exemption threshold of individuals from Rs.1.6 lakh currently to Rs.2lakh. The corporate taxeswill be reduced to a flat 30%.

• Leh hit by floodA cloudburst on the intervening night of August 5 and 6 has led to flash floods and mudslides inthe Leh district of Jammu and Kashmir. The cloudburst and the following floods have claimedover 175 lives and injured about 400 people, besides causing widespread damage to public andprivate property. The worst hit Chuglamsar has just turned into debris all over.

• More rich than poor IndiansNational Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) has estimated in its report, "How IndiaEarns, Spends and Saves", that despite the economic slowdown of the last three years, thenumber of high-income households in India has exceeded the number of low-income households.Households with high income or earnings have grown by over 3.7% in total and now touch themark of around 21%. That is not all also the households with low income sources have fallen byaround 3.2% and gone down to a mark of 18%.

• CWG AnthemWhen everything is being prepared for the common wealth coming up in October then how couldMusic maestro A R Rahman stay away from it. Yes, the musician has launched the theme songfor the Commonwealth Games 2010 that has the best lyrics covering khelo oh yaaro,,jeeto ohyaaro. During the launch of this theme song honorable Chief Minister Shiela Dixit, Bhupinder Singh Hooda and OC Chairman Suresh Kalmadi were present in the ceremony.

• CWG breeding mosquitoesThe fingers are already crossed and people fear further delay in the common wealth problems.When the earlier hurdles are not getting removed and new problems are coming into view. Thesincere attention is being drawn by the mosquitoes breeding in various dumps. Because of heavyrainfall in the country water is collected in almost every venue and mosquitoes have convertedthese venues into their favorite breeding places and are increasing the fear of dengue disease.

• Yet another marine disaster A foreign cargo ship MV Khalijia-111 which collided with MSC Chitra which was carrying about1,200 containers with over 266 tonnes of fuel about 10 km off Mumbai harbour has spilled oil intothe Mumbai seas. The collision tilted MSC Chitra vessel causing 300 containers carrying oil totumble into the Mumbai waters creating a thick oil slick two to three kms around the vessel Chitracausing a serious threat to the marine life.

• India’s IndependenceAugust 15th, 2010 India celebrated the 63rd anniversary of its independence.

• IBM Number two employer IBM is the second largest private sector employer in India after TCS . The company has morethan one lakh people on its rolls.

Sports Current Affairs [August 2010]

• Sehwag denied centuryA deliberate no ball by the Srilankan off-spinner Suraj Randiv to prevent Virendar Sehwag fromcompleting his century in the tri-series has left a bad taste in the mouth for all cricket lovers.Indians were just short of 5 runs from destination called victory and the opening batsman VEERUwas just a run away from his ton. At the same time Lankan skipper chose spinner S. Randiv tocome in and bowl. On the third bowl of his spell Virender Sehwag sent the bowl out of the fence



with a huge six but the turning point was that it was a no ball which defended Virender Sehwagfrom completing his century. As per the declaration of the match referee it was been found outthat it was an intentional attempt.

• Shooting GoldTejaswini Sawant created history by becoming India’s first female shooter to clinch gold at theWorld Shooting Championship held in Munich, Germany. The 29-year-old, who shot a score of

597/600 (100, 100, 100, 99, 99, 99), equaling the world record in the process, won the 50m rifleprone event• Sri Lanka wins the tri series

The host Sri Lanka’ eight wicket victory over India in Dambulla represents its 25th win in atournament final. Sri Lankan skipper Kumar Sangakkara'who won the toss decided to bat againstIndia in the tri-series final. The Sri Lankans won the match by 74 runs in this game. With this itbecame the second team to win a tournament final on 25 occasions. Australia has won 52tournament finals.

• First Indian US PGA Tour winner Arjun Atwal has become the first Indian Golfer to win the US PGA tour. Atwal, who started playingat the age of fourteen, became one of the leading players on the Asian Tour and the Europeantour. He is the the first native East Indian golfer to become a member of, and later win the U.S.PGA Tour.

Persons in News [July 2010]

• Michael Kirk Douglas diagnosed with throat cancer Michael Kirk Douglas, winner of three Golden Globes and two Academy Awards, was diagnosedwith throat cancer in August this year. He received the AFI (American Film Institute) LifeAchievement Award in 2009. The 65-year-old actor, a heavy smoker, was informed of hiscondition labeled as Stage 4 cancer after his doctor's appointment for an extremely sore throat.Douglas who is to undergo chemotherapy and radiation is optimistic about his chances for recovery

• Archie PanjabiRecently 62nd Emmy awards were held and the best part was to hear about actress ArchiePanjabi from the Indian-origin who has won the award for best supporting actress in the movie

“The Good Wife”. Her performance has been rated to be the best in the international releaserecognized as “Bend it like Beckham”. Many others were nominated for the same designation butbecause the best performance deserves to be on the top hence the results proved it and ArchiePanjabi took the award.

• Anil Aggarwal to overtake Mukesh AmbaniIt was Anil Aggarwal who laid the foundation of Vedanta Resources Corporation, a UK basedcorporation and all by the virtue of it that he has been designated as the non-resident Indianbillionaire. By this effort he has become the largest promoter of a corporate house thus overtakingMukesh Ambani.

• Pallava BaglaPallava Bagla from India has won the David Perlman Award for Excellence in Science Journalismby American Geophysical Union (AGU). Pallav won this award for his articles on the impact of change in climate on the Himalayan glaciers. Bagla is an author and freelancer for BBC and the

likes. His latest book is "Destination Moon: India's Quest for Moon, Mars and beyond".

International Current Affairs [September 2010]

• Indians freed from Malay traffickers:Not less than 24 Indian men who were discovered bound up in a residence in a Malaysianboondocks were successfully freed from the arrest and two Pakistani men supposedly engaged ina human trafficking guild were detained with immediate effect. "Inquiries into the matter exposedthat those people, age-old amid 20 and 30, were from Uttar Pradesh. If the reports of the media



are to be trusted, the victims landed on to the capital’s intl. airport four months back, afore gettingpicked by the accused people who were apparently looking for workers in an industrial unit inJohor," he said. He further stated that the two men promised the Indian workers appealing wagesas the bait. It is once again proved that Malaysia is a magnet for wide spread drug peddling andhuman trafficking. Unemployed workforce looking out for jobs is brought for added transfers toother Southeast Asian countries and to Australia.

•

Indian to lead FIDE:Indians have already proved their metal in various sports at the international level. Tennis,Cricket, Shooting, Boxing and also Chess. After Vishwanathan Anand, another lot of Indians areabout to triumph on the World Chess Podium. D.V. Sundar has been elected has the President of the world body for the sport of chess, FIDE at Russia. Apart from that, the president for the AsianContinent was Mr. Dongre and Commonwealth Chess Federation President was revealed in thename of Mr. B.S. Chahuhan, a press statement by the All India Chess Federation revealed.

• Make way for the new breed:The new world power calendar for 2010 has once again predicted that New Delhi’s dominance inthe world will see acceleration by 2025. Among the able coalition, the country has been placed atthe fourth position afterwards the US, China and the European Union. ‘The Global Governance2025’ was together brought out by the National Intelligence Council (NIC) of the US and theEuropean Union’s Institutes for Security Studies (EUISS). In the current year, the US leads the lotof able countries/regions, cumulatively for about 22 percent of the worldwide supremacy. The USis chased by China at 12 percent, European Union at 16 percent and India at eight percent. Indiacomes next to Japan, Russia and Brazil with beneath than 5 percent apiece. Following theseglobal statistics, by 2025 the ability of the US, EU, Japan and Russia will cut down although thatof China, India and Brazil will boost but this surge will see the positions unchanged. By 2025, theUnited States of America will continue to be the most dominating nation, but it will be possessing

just a bit above 18 percent of the global authority. The US will be carefully trailed by China with16 percent, European Union with 14 percent and India with 10 percent looking to overleap.

National Current Affairs [September 2010]

• PM and Sonia Gandhi inaugurate UID:The Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh and UPA Arch Sonia Gandhi shaped a record by

accordingly ablution the world's aboriginal ID activity on September 29th 2010 forth with Nilekani,the arch man of the ministry is acclimated to accommodate Unique Identification Numbers for India's citizens (cumulatively well in billions), by rendering them the aboriginal collection of twelvedigit figures to ten clannish. The PM as well as the UPA Chief were collectively congratulated inthe presence of former Infosys headman. This ID Card is assumed to be nation’s biggest ever tech adeptness action alleged 'Aadhaar'(base), that is due to be issued to all Indians toaccommodate them within a lucrative nationally accurate and absolute individual antecedent of character affidavit through an authenticity vault and that will help to accomplish supply processestransparent. Biometric following abstracts include fingerprints and an iris browse gettingacclimated for the aboriginal time wherever in the planet.

• Yamuna raises its bar, causes menace:The baptize akin in the river rose to 206.70 accent recently, 1.87 accent aloft the crisis mark of 204.83 accent and is acceptable to go up added as neighboring Haryana would absolution addedwater in the river, a chief official of the flood ascendancy administration said. Waters from theflood reached into vicinities like of the local areas as well (Yamuna and Sonia Vihar, Usmanpur,Jaitpur are a few). A large number of localities that reside in the areas forth the banks of the river were apparent lined up on the footpaths on the ITO arch with whatsoever they had of their possessions. Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit had on Friday requested the inhibiters not to get intoagitation and said all basic measures are getting put into abode to accommodated any possibleoccurrence. Over 100 cadre from National Disaster Response Force, were soon deployed toabetment the bounded authorities. The ascent Yamuna has affected the Northern Railways toabolish 25 trains and absent 36 others. The cancelled train were prominent ones (Kalka andBrahamaputra Mail, Shalimar, A.A. and G.N. Express, etc). The 90 trains that have to be



detoured included the most heavily commuted ones and this has disrupted the life of the generalpublic paralyzing their usual movements, a Northern Railway spokesmen stated.

• Ayodha Verdict finally out, Allahabad Bench applauded:Culminating 60 years of anfractuous proceedings, asserts and counter-claims, optimism anddesolation, Allahabad HC conventions in favor of improvised Ram temple on quarreled site; theremaining of acreage to be disconnected amid Hindus & Muslims. In what is conceivably the most

of eagerly anticipated judgment in contempt times, a breach adjudication dispensed out by athree-member bank of Allahabad High Court were in full abounding of the claims of the Hindupetitioners while acclimation a three-way analysis of the acknowledged land. The cardinalprovided acknowledged permit to the temporary Ram temple that came up afterwards theannihilation of the acknowledged anatomy in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992. The entire panel of adjudicators – the prominent faces of the country (Justice Agarwal, Khan and Sharma) – wasvery much in favor of the acceptance that captivated the acknowledged land was the native landof the Hindu deity. Mr. Sharma and Mr. Agarwal settled with the long-held affirmation of theSangh Parivar and an area of archaeologists that the acknowledged anatomy cannot be advisedas an Islamic place of worship as it came into actuality adjoins the credo of Islam.

• Lights, Camera and Applause:The 57th Edition of the National Film Award ceremony was concluded for the year 2009 in themonth of September. The awards were given away in three groups namely, finest Feature MotionPicture Class led by Chairpersonship of Mr. Sippy, Non Feature Motion Picture Group led byChairpersonship of Mr. Pandey, and Script on Movies beneath the Chairpersonship of Mr. S.Bandhopadhyay.

• The following were the recipients of a few awards in various nominations:a. Motion Picture: Malayalam flick – KuttySrankb. I.G.A. for the Best first appearance movie : Hindi movie – Lahore for the Directionc. Box office blockbuster (widespread entertainment): Hindi – 3 Idiotsd. N.D.A. for the Best motion picture on Patriotic Spirit: Hindi – Delhi 6e. Best motion picture on Society’s Matters: Bollywood - Well Done Abbaf. Motion Picture for Kids: Tied between Keshu (Malayalam) and Putaani Party (Kannada)g. Direction: Rituparno Ghosh for Abohomanh. Actor: Amitabh Bachcha for Auro’s rolei. Actress: Ananya Chatterjee

j. Child’s Performance: Tollywood’s Pasanga

k. Male Singer: Rupam Islam in Bengalil. Female Singer: Neelanjana Sarkar in Bengali

Sports Current Affairs [September 2010]

• Kalmadi and Co. pocket Common man’s Wealth:The contempt letters of forgery and fraud in Commonwealth Games resulted in an abnormallyaffliction of our nation’s picture. The bulk of finances used up on modernizing the venues for Commonwealth Games accommodate a prima facie affirmation of ample calibration enticement inthe alignment of Commonwealth Games. The abstracts accessible on the Commonwealth Gameswebsite reveals that the amount of refurbishing the JNU stadium was USD 215 million; the IGIStadium USD 150 million; the Hockey stadium (named after Dhyan Chand) USD 60 million; andthe Shooting Alleys USD 35 million. An absolute sum of USD 10150 million was spent onrenovations. The costs incurred in the advance of the lone cricket stadium in Delhi were USD 20million. For the LBS stadium in Hyderabad was USD 18 million, and architecture of acontemporary and technology studded stadium in the city of oranges amounted USD 19 million. Itis acute that the Central Government anon adjustment a top akin analysis into this arrangementand the dealings embarked on. It is abominable that such all-embracing abusage of communalresources has taken abode in the name of the Commonwealth Games. The accusations of inducement ambit from favoritism in accolade of affairs to big-ticket appoint of accessories for training and abrupt accretion in the costs of architecture treaties.



• Bridge Collapses; Casualties cross double figures:Reportedly not less than 27 people were afflicted afterwards an under-construction foot over bridge burst within the close proximity of the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, the capital area of theCommonwealth Games, bidding the Organizing Committee (OC) to awning up by giving astatement or in other words a false sense of complacency and assurance that everything is beingtaken care of. The arch was to hotlink the amphitheater to parking for delegates and athletes. The

Urban Development Minister, Jaipal Reddy has dismissed the pressures by quoting it is anegligible incident. The Public Works Department (PWD) has urged for an acoount of thestructure from the builders. Later the aforementioned day, Organizing Committee SecretaryGeneral Lalit Bhanot addressed reporters: "We will put up a great show. He said the venues willbe all set in the days to come and there would be added sprucing to accommodate top notchstandards. However, the mishap is a concern to the CWG organizers, who are already nabbedamidst accuse of laziness and fraud for the XIX Edition. Previously, Mike Hooper, the maincontroller of the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF), remarked on the condition of hygieneat the Games Village as “dirty.”

• Chennai are the Super Kings of Twenty20 Cricket:The Mahendra Singh Dhoni led Chennai Super Kings are the champions of the second edition of the AirTel Champions League Twenty20 hosted by South Africa from September 10th toSeptember 26th. Chennai Super Kings defeated their fellow finalists in some fashion by 8 wicketsin the final of the Champions League T20 2010.Warriors had won the toss earlier and decided tobat first but bootless to account an appropriate target, but only capable to set a minimal total of mere 128 runs for 7 wickets. Only Davy Jacobs’s denticulate 34 runs were the notablecontribution and was also the best from the entire batting lineup of the Warriors. MuttiahMuralidaran was the most booming bowler scalping 3 wickets for only 16 runs. Ashwin got acouple of wickets for 16 runs as well. Chennai Super Kings started off in some style by bakingbatting by Murali Vijay who denticulate a 58 run total. Michael Hussey fabricated 42 handy runs tothe total. The Opening brace fabricated 103 runs which fabricated their way of triumph easier than it ever seemed. With this Murali Vijay became the highest run getter of the second edition of the Champions League Twenty20. He was facilitated with the Man of the Match Award. With suchgreat triumph on the world stage, the Indian and CSK captain has silenced his critics and is still incontention to be the best ever captain in the world today.

Business And Economy 2010

• A 10 % dip in exports, targets seems unlikely:The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) predicted arrears of abutting to 10 per cent in exports ambition for accepted budgetary due to arrest in exportsadvance rate. This is for the reason that developing countries, like India, are those that arealready going in for budgetary alliance as their economies initiated fractional cycle aback of relief packages, affect of which will be significantly seen on India’s consign gain in the ongoing fiscal,said Secretary General, ASSOCHAM, Mr. D.S. Rawat. Approximations acknowledge that abuttingto $US 20 billion of exports’ gain are captivated in countries; including various Europeancountries in which sprawl in demand and consumption behaviors are getting carefully followed.As an aftereffect of budgetary consolidation, India’s export transaction that nurtured at theamount of 32.6 per cent in April 2010, it cut down to 35.1 per cent in the afterward months afore

advancing along to a point of 30.4 per cent in June, which slithered at dreadfully lower akin of 13.2 per cent in July this year and change about trend will abide with a few enhancements roundabout in the remainder of the months of this fiscal, cumulatively astringent dip down of exports’returns reaching at a point $US 180 billion by March 31st, 2011, said the Secretary General of thebody.

• Five Indian States;Top Investment Magnets: Gujarat has come into view as a baton of the part of 5 apex parts of India i.e. West (Maharashtra), South-East (Orissa), South (AP and Karnataka), in molding to bethe top preferred investment pit stops and in alluring 52.42 % of cumulative investment of tons of Indian rupees for 20 States, according to a generalization undertaken by ASSOCHAM. While



making the study public, Chamber Secretary General, Mr. D S Rawat reported that MahatmaGandhi’s home state has alone drawn investment proposals of USD 268375 million,Maharashtra’s also close to a staggering USD 231378 million, Orissa a gigantic USD 220171million, AP a mountaineering USD 180794 million, Karnataka a whopping USD 163791 millionand the rest 15 states short listed equal to USD 1377299 million amounting for only proposals.The heaviest bulk of investment has gone into ( in terms of percentages) electricity sector (40.3),the service sector (22.6 ), manufacturing industry (22.1 ), realty and property division (9.9), mining(2.4) and irrigation (2.3).

• India tipped to become vehicle giants:“India has already accomplished this great landmark well around 6 years advanced of thedecided missions”, quoted by the Secretary for Ministry of Heavy Industry, Mr. B S Meena whohighlighted this while speaking in New Delhi at the Roundtable Conference. Meena added that for the time span up to August 2010, the achievement of the automobile segment has been acutelycommendable with the assorted manufacturing of cars growing at 32.4% over the same epochthe previous year. The commuter vehicles, business cars and bike segments have all embarkedon the absorbing advance ante of 32%, 49% and 31% appropriately during this interlude, hefurther stated. The Secretary also brought to light that it is anticipated that the measurement of the Indian commuter cars articulation in 2020 will be abutting to nine million units and two-wheelers approx. thirty million pieces. Light motor vehicles’ construction in India is probable toaccustom the superlative rate of progress. The achievement of such a degree would place India

as one of the top 5 car creating nations all across the globe by the year 2020 with the localutilization growing by 4-folds to US 120 billion dollars.

International Current Affairs [October 2010]

• India gets UNSC non-permanent seat:The biggest news on the international front for India has been its inclusion into the UNSC as anon-permanent member after a gap of 19 years. Even as India’s acclamation for a non-permanent bench on the body that includes fifteen members in total was an inevitable cessationafterwards Kazakhstan back out of the chase for the Asian bench beforehand in early January.India got an unbelievable 187 of the 191 votes in the UN General Assembly ballot on October 14th 2010. India's previous spell in the Security Council was way back in 1992. Almostimmediately afterwards India's appointment, Indian agent to the United Nations Hardeep SinghPuri put it straight that New Delhi would make use of this couple of year valid span to buildassurance and accord a feeling of aplomb to the five non changing associates (famously knownas the P-5) - the United States of America, Russia, Britain, France and China. Considering thatBrazil, a running affiliate of the United Nation Security Council, and South Africa and Germany,which got appointed with India, on October 14th were as well in contention for a permanentmembership, he stated: 'Of course everybody of us will attempt to bring into play the two yearswe need to render our allies a feeling of aplomb and formulate trust and faith so that they are atease with our role playing in the United Nation Security Council on a continued period of time'.

• India and Mozambique sign 3 agreements:India and Mozambique came together and signed three agreements and a credit band of 500million United States dollars has been advanced to that nation state for works regarding theinfrastructure, agronomics and power during a convention that featured President of MozambiqueArmando Guebuza and Prime Minister of India Dr. Manmohan Singh. Guebuza and Singh, whocaptivated entrustment level converses, resolved to actualize an affiliation following the lines of superior political meeting, deepening of bread-and-butter collaboration, deepening of defense andaegis collaboration, distinctively to get hold of sea lanes in opposition to piracy and, cooperationin competence building and human resource (or workforce) development. “Both of us together accord to the aforementioned Indian Ocean association and we carve up familiar issues. It is inour alternate absorption to ensure the assurance and aegis of sea lanes of communication in theIndian Ocean,” Dr. Manmohan Singh said in a collective journalist statement. India will back theenactment in preparation and setting up organizations in Mozambique to back capacity building inthe coal business and will as well back the ability formation for the defense and patrolling



personnel of that nation state, the Prime Minister alleged. Conveying worry over the assuranceand aegis of sea lanes in Indian Ocean, Guebuza promised India it will accommodate all practicalaid to safeguard them.

National Current Affairs [October 2010]

• Third stage of Bihar polling completed:Polling was carried out affably in 48 electorates on 28th Oct 2010, estimating in the thirdappearance of Bihar Assembly elections, which witnessed an approximated 53% voter responsive. Electorates like Amnour, Taraya, Ramnagar, Balmikinagar and Patepur (Maoistfollowers) account about 45%-52% voting. Voters were carried by boats in the littoral areas of Raghopur Assembly electorate in Vaishali commune where the popular figure of Rabri Devi wasin the tussle. The better half of RJD spearhead Lalu Prasad Yadav is as well battling fromSonepur bench in Saran constituency. More than 185 people were held during the balloting,which saw miniature incidents of affray and fracas. Unlike on a number of occasions before, thistime Bihar polling did not see what it usually it experiences in terms of riots, booth capturing andother forms of unrest and violence that hampers the true and the honest spirit of competition."Apart from this, it was nonviolent and silky," stated by Neelmani (DG of Police). Approximatelysixty cars were as well detained. In excess of one crore voters will adjudge the future of six

ministers (of the state) in the third stage. The following round i.e. stage 4 will be carried out onNov. 4 2010.• UID experiences technical hiccups:

In order to overcome the challenge posed by the huge figure of people (approximately 1.03billions) in the country, the chief of the dept. stated that the 16 digit long UID numbers will bereleased in the next year and half or so. He added that the epicenter of its working will be in thecity of Bangalore. An easy remedy to the obstacles posed by the allotment of different IDs is tohave a bench where every formerly sanctioned UID are kept and a fresh one is given onlyafterwards verifying that is actually a unique code. Fundamentally, we charge to break anextremely tough difficulty in dispersed schemes once we have copies of the bench (for dependability) and ought to accordingly respond/keep informed the table as questions are asked.Taking the point in consideration, provided the millions of accretion objects affiliated to the web,there is no scrutiny if a prime number selected is the similar chosen by somebody else before. If this is to happen, it is an aegis aperture of the aboriginal order for web; the possibly is,nevertheless, acutely undersized. Population on another instance has proven to be a major obstacle in the development and progress course of India. UID which was anticipated to be ahuge success and particularly curb this issue is yet to combat the problem itself to even get kickstarted.

• Haryana barricades polythene bags entry:In another attempt to safeguard the environmental and not add insult to the already injured stateof the planet, like the govt. of Delhi, Haryana govt. has also decided to prohibit polythene bags inthe state. The ban includes a complete no-no of recycling, storage and usage (in any form) withinthe state. A suggestion to this aftereffect has been supported by Bhupinder Singh Hooda (thehonorable Chief Minister of the state), an authorized agent said in the capital on Saturday. Theresolution was taken as it was empiric that fractional forbid on use of polythene bags of a clearlydefined array bracket did not crop the needed consequences. There was consistent ambiguityover the array of poly bags in exercise and it had as well been discovered that nibbling of a greatnumber of polythene bogs had resulted in deaths of cows on a regular basis, he said. This type of thinking and resolutions are the only way through which we can combat and better the ailing stateof the plant Earth. If all other cities and states like previously Delhi and now Haryana think aboutthe hazards the polythene bags can cost, we will be having better standards of health andhygiene.

Sports Current Affairs [October 2010]



• A century of Medals in CWG 2010:Thanks to the final in the woman badminton category that India was able to taste the sweet glandof a century tally of medals for the very first time in any CWG edition. India had tallied 38 gold, 27silver and 36 bronze medals which cumulatively read 101 medals. Even though India wereshattered to an 8-0 defeat by the Aussies the woman shutters’ heroics steered them to a total of medals that read 101. India finished ahead of England (142) and behind Australia (177). The

culminating day (Oct 14th) saw the quest of an unimaginable 2nd place finish thanks to Jwala andAshwini. They defeated Singapore’s Sari Shanti Mulia and Yao Lei with some ease and becomethe lone pair so far to win gold in women badminton (doubles). But the cherry on the cake wasput by Indian badminton pioneer – Saina Nehwal. The hosts scalped addition one inclusive of abronze medal when our table tennis masters Poulomi Ghatak and Mouma Das won in thedoubles for women bronze medal final round alongside the Australian pair. Tan Zed Vivian andPeri Campbell-Innes. But the finals for the hockey men were a match to forget as they werethumped by the Kangaroos scoring 8 past their goal. Going into this match with some resilientattitude as shown in the semis, the Aussies brought them to ground by outplaying them withpower play.

• Master Blaster’s the Best; ICC admits:Sachin Tendulkar (quite unsurprisingly) was shortlisted for the most decorated cricketingaccolade in contempt period, an award given to the greatest cricketer for the year that is namedafter Sir Garfield Sobers. The Master Blaster turned out to be the second Indian to win theaccolade following the success of Rahul Dravid in the same award six years before. Afterwardsaccumulating 1,000 runs in Test match cricket this calendar year more to the point becoming theaboriginal cricketer to score a double century in LOI cricket playing against South Africa on Feb24th 2010 in Gwalior, Sachin completed a double of awards at the even by also winning thefamous – LG People’s Choice Award. The Men in Blue had a lot extra to applaud about as their striking opener, Virender Sehwag, with 1,282 runs in the game’s longer adaptation, was chosenas the Test Cricketer of the Year and M.S. Dhoni was selected as the captain of a World Test XI.In the previous, Sehwag’s Delhi team mate as well as opening partner, Gautam Gambhir wasgiven this privilege. Decorated Indian off-spinner, B.S. Bedi was introduced into the Hall of Fame(for ICC) forth along with the legendary West Indies’ fast bowlers Garner and Walsh and RachaelHeyhoe Flint (ex-England women cricketer) The LOI (also known as ODI) Player of the Year wasbagged by the South African cricketer A.B. de Villiers.

• Kangaroos see BLUE in India:

In a highly anticipated and evenly fought cricket competition between two giants of the beautifulgame of cricket between India and Australia, the former proved to be good for the Aussies. TheAustralian team over a period of time has seen its main workforce in Gilchrist, Hayden, McGrathand others retiring had to rely majorly on the young breed of players lacking experience of play inthe Indian subcontinent. India had slipped its rank down a bit from No. 1 and was in a quest to getit back. That’s what actually transpired. Thanks to the great heroics of Sachin along with the restof his teammates India were not only able to beat the Aussies but finish it as a clean sweep whichthe team Down Under hadn’t experienced for quite some time. Sachin’s double ton was thehighlight of the series and imperative in order to retain the coveted Border-Gavaskar Trophy.Apart from the Test Series, India also won the ODI series without losing single game (1-0). Twoof the three matches were abandoned due to bad weather conditions while the sole game played,India convincingly beat the Australians thanks to a solid partnership between Suresh Raina andMohit Tiwary. The partnership between the two batsmen helped India to chase down a total just

under 300.

Business And Economy 2010

• Inflation hits essential commodities:Prices of seven of the most essential commodities for example that make up the most of our meals for the day have steeped upwards by a percentage of 18 on an boilerplate for over oneyear long period (Aug ’09 – Aug ’10) while per capita earnings of an boilerplate Indian citizen hasseen a surge by 10.4% (these facts have been obtained by a research from ASSOCHAM). At the



same time as prices of all kinds of staple commodities experienced an aciculate boost, alignmentamid 40%, 27%, and 26%, in that order, added necessities for daily meals saw a rising instant inthe ambit of 11%, 10%, 9% and 7% in that order. The per capita earnings of a boilerplate Indianwas seen about Rs. 40,141/- per annum in the previous financial year amplified by about Rs.4,404/- in the current year, totaling to Rs. 44,345/- each year. The organization includes that theacceleration in mandatory commodity prices and per capita income was absolutely uneven. Thevalues of condiments and spices and condiments belted quite higher from the phase in 2009August and have seen significantly greater animation in their prices which shot up to the bar of over 40% amid the year long period specified earlier.

• 18.18 people went Mobile:The telecom companies in India had new 18.18 million user as per records of the quarter justended, using the final figure of mobile users in India to 670.60 million, the Telecom RegulatoryAuthority of India (TRAI) alleged. According to facts disclosed by the telecom controller in thesecond week of October, the mobile phone subscriber abject shot up from 652.42 crores in thefirst quarter than ended for FY 2010, to 670.60 crores by the first month of the second quarter of FY 2010 that took shape of a shape of 2.79 percent. The cumulative number of phonesubscribers (both wireless and fixed line) in India amplified to 706.37 crores by the last weeks of late August from 688.38 crores in July, it further stated. With this, the all-embracing telephonesper 100 people or telephone density in India went nearly up to 59.63 percent. The advancementin the wireless class was led by Vodafone, which has new 2.30 crore new users to yield its

subscriber abject to 113.77 crore subscribers. Just behind chasing Vodafone, PSU (govt. run)abettor BSNL further had an enormous 2.25 crore users in early 2nd quarter of FY 2010, whichresulted in its entire subscriber abject to 76.03 million. Telecom market baton Bharti Airtel saw2.03 crore new users, which took its consumer abject to 141.25 million, at the same time asAditya Birla Group’s Idea Cellular and Aircel had 1.98 crore new users and 1.61 coressubscribers, in that order.

• India gets 1% of World’s Auto:According to a study carried out by FICCI, India stands 22nd in auto exports. Indian auto industrystrives to accomplish consigns ambition of USD 12 billion in the next four years: FICCI strives 3%allotment in all-around exports in the next six years. Despite the fact that India has coped to bethe seventh largest manufacturer of automobiles all across the globe but it continues to be aminiature contributor in the all-around market, empiric FICCI Abstraction on Indian Auto Exports.The share of the country in all-around automobile exports is a bare 1% in the previous year and

our country ranks 22nd in car exports declining abaft countries like Thailand and China (in Asia),Mexico, Argentina, Brazil (North and Latin America) and Turkey (from Europe), acclaimed FICCIStudy. Regardless of this, Indian vehicle business is assured of accomplishing its consignambition of USD 12 billion within the next three to four years, which will be great considering thefact it will be two years prior to the planned year of 2016 outlined in Automotive Mission Plan2006-16. At present, India exports USD 4.5 billion of vehicles which cover tractors, commuter cars, business cars and others like scooters and motor-bikes.

International Current Affairs [November 2010]

• Pakistan’s Initiative against TerrorismPakistan has been the victim of international terrorism in the past few months. As a result of this,a top US official recently said that Islamabad should begin to crack down on terrorists andterrorist groups operational within the country immediately. Barrack Obama, President of theUnited States of America has also agreed to this statement and feels that Pakistan has been oneof the major victims of international terrorism lately. President Obama also said that Pakistanneeds to take strong and immediate steps against all terrorist groups operating on Pakistani soil.Furthermore, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Robert Blake said that anumber of terrorist groups are operating in a syndicate and working together against Americaninterests, not just in the US but in other nations such as Afghanistan and India as well. Mr. Blakealso stated that the US has welcomed every step take by Pakistan so far and that it is in fullsupport of Pakistan as always.



• UN’s terrorism sanctions listIn a recent and sudden move, a US committee took down several names of al-Qaida and Talibanterrorists off its terrorism sanction lists. The committee said that the reason for such an actionwas that several of the names on the sanctions list were probably dead. The committee ChairmanThomas Mayr Harting said that following this step, the committee had started investigations intohow many terrorists put on the list were actually dead. This committee was set up in 1999.

•

New Government in IraqProlonged warring and quarrels between rival political factions in Iraq had caused over an eightmonth deadlock over the issue of forming the next government. Recently, the Iraqi Prime Minister appealed to these political factions to work together and unite following his acceptance of thePresident’s request to form the next government. Senior officials admitted that a Herculean tasknow lay before them, that of forming a government comprising of members of all possible politicalfactions. The task has been made harder by the month long deadline to form the governmentwhich will preside over the country’s affair as US troops move out and power is handed back tothe Iraqi people. The new government is expected to have members from all the political factionssuch as the Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis. Prime Minister Designate al-Maliki called upon al Iraqicitizens and politicians to help him in this difficult task.

• Friendly neighbor ChinaRising concerns over China’s assertive and aggressive attitude in the Asian continent hasprompted China’s President Hu Jintao to assure all nations that China is committed to being afriendly and helpful neighbor. China has been in the news recently over its spats with neighboringnations over international borders and territories. The reason for this has been said to be China’sinterests in a group of potentially resource rich islands in the Asian Pacific. Speaking to leaders atthe Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Japan, President Hu said that China wascommitted to the regional policy of building good neighborliness and friendship.

• Rolls Royce sued by QantasAustralian flight safety officials have recently warned that manufacturing defects have been foundin the Rolls Royce Trent 900 engines. Officials further urged airlines using these engines to carryextensive checks before using them because defects present in them could lead to catastrophicfailures. In the meanwhile, Qantas began court proceedings against Rolls Royce and was grantedan injunction by the federal court of Australia which ensured that the airline could pursue legalaction against the engine manufacturing giants.

• Myanmar polls called fake

The first democratic polls in Myanmar after several years of military rule were held amongcomplaints of threats, intimidation and accusations of the polls being a charade. In mostconstituencies, the poll was a competition between the Union Solidarity and Development Party(USDP) and the National Unity Party (NUS). Several accusations were made by oppositionparties against the USDP, claiming that they illegally collected advanced ballots. USA and UKofficials also voiced their concerns about the transparency and fairness of these polls.

• China’s slowest growthChina had its slowest rate of economic growth in a year during the September quarter. In additionto this, a World Bank report hinted at a further decrease in its economic growth. One of thereasons for this has been the long term inflation that China has faced for almost two years.China’s industrial growth has also fallen considerably in recent times. This slow growth in China’seconomy has gotten many people to believe that India might be the next economic superpower torise because of its high levels of industrial and economic growth in recent times. Though not

immediately, but experts predicted India’s rate of growth to exceed that of China’s by aconsiderable margin in the next five years.

National Current Affairs [November 2010]

• Sensex drops 458 pointsThe Bombay Stock Exchange recently fell by a total of 458 points. The reasons for theunderperformance of the Indian Equity market have been said to be the series of scams that wereunearthed from mid November. Just last month, CBI officials discovered a bribe for loan scandal



that involved several officials from financial firms and a few state run banks. The 10.8% rise inindustrial growth since last month could not help and several indices ended with huge losses.Major loses were mainly suffered by PSUs, realty, consumer durables and healthcare.

• Satyam Trial CaseThe examination of the first witness in the infamous multi crore Satyam Computer accountingscam would begin from the first of November Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court. CBI

officials submitted a list of six witnesses to the courts who were officials of a number of differentbanks. All ten accused including company founder B Ramalinga Raju were present in courtduring the hearing of the case. The DIG of police who operates under the department of CBI saidthat the agency requested permission to set up LCD projectors and screens in the court so thatboth parties could observe and take notes on all the documents that would be brought up in court.Since cases in the Supreme Court need to be resolved at the earliest, CBI officials submittedclose to a thousand documents to the court to speed up the prosecution. The bail of the owner of company and the other 5 individuals associated has been rejected.

• Baba Ramdev Temple under threatAn anonymous letter was received at the Ramdev Baba temple in Jaisalmer that containedthreats to blow up the temple on November 9th. District Collector G S Kushwaha received thisletter by normal post. Following this letter security around the temple and the surroundingcomplex was tightened by posting additional number of policeman around the temple complex.Around 5 million devotees are said to visit the temple every year.

• Ashok Chavan’s fateDisgraced Chief Minister of Maharashtra Ashok Chauhan’s would be decided after the Diwaliholiday season, i.e. after November 8th said the Congress party. Recently Chief Minister AshokChauhan’s name had come in the Adarsh Housing Society scam. Following this allegation, Mr.Ashok Chauhan immediately offered to resign from his post. No mention of either the AdarshHousing Society scam or the commonwealth Games fiasco was made by the Congress in itsAICC session. Also present at the meeting were Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dixit, CommonWealth Games Organizing Committee Chaiperson Suresh Kalmadi, Heavy Industries Minister and former Maharashtra chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and Maharashtra PCC PresidentManikrao Thakre.

• Adjournment of Ajmer Dargah blast caseThe hearing of the Ajmer Gargah blast case was recently adjourned to November 8 by a sessionscourt due to leave taken by the presiding judge. Over an 800 page charge sheet was produced

before the court of the Additional Chief Judge Magistrate on the 22nd of October by theRajasthan ATS. The five accused in the case have alleged links with the radical Hindu groupAbhinav Bharat. Only one accused was brought to the court while the other two are beingquestioned about the Hyderabad Mecca blast case. The accused have been booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code like conspiracy to murder, attempt to murder andmurder. Over one hundred and thirty witnesses have been cited by the prosecution of the case.

• Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s concernThe finance minister of the country Pranab Mukherjee recently raised his fears over the rising of inflation in the country. Minister Mukherjee said that the Reserve Bank of India would take stepsat its next monetary policy review to check rising prices because of increased inflation. He further added that rising food prices were solely the reason for this sudden inflation. Inflation for themonth of September was estimated to be close to 8.6% much above the acceptable rate of 5%.As said by Finance Minister Mukherjee, food prices had the highest amount of inflation which in

Mid October was estimated to be over 13%. Recently, Minister Pranab Mukherjee was in talkswith the Reserve Bank of India Governor over the the possible rate hike action by the CentralBank. The global financial crisis, which was worsened by the total collapse of financial firmLehman Brothers, is being said to be the reason behind the RBI’s recent reversal of its softmonetary policy that it started back in September 2008. Adding to these has been the suddendrop in industrial growth from 15.2% to 5.6%. To combat the aforementioned rise in inflation, theReserve Bank of India has hiked its key short term lending and borrowing times several times thisyear.



• Protest during Obama visit by Bhopal Gas tragedy victimsVictims of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy are said to be planning to stage a protest at Jantar Mantar onthe 8th of November, during the time of US President Barrack Obama’s visit to the capital.Several tonnes of the poisonous gas methyl iso-cyanide, leaked from the Union Carbide Plant inBhopal in 1984, killing over 3000 people the same night and causing the deaths of over 25000people over the subsequent years. Five different voluntary organizations working for the gas

tragedy victims recently held a press conference where they stated that they would be requestingto President Obama to use his Presidential powers to bring the Union Carbide Corporation toIndian Courts and be answerable to them. The verdict of this case many years back had foundseven top officials of this corporation to be guilty but as these guilty persons were bailed outwithin minutes of the verdict, many people till date question the justice imparted in the case. Thevoluntary organizations further added that hundreds of people regularly fall sick and die everymonth due to the long term poisonous effects of the leaked gas on the soil and water. Theyfurther plan to ask President Obama for his help as the US government has been largelyunhelpful these last few years. The sit in protest organized by the voluntary organizations is saidto be comprised of over 5000 gas tragedy victims.

Sports Current Affairs [November 2010]

•

Chelsea lose third match out of fourthBirmingham City defeated Chelsea by a score of 1-0 at Birmingham City making this the thirddefeat to be suffered by Chelsea in the four matches that it has played so far. This win helpedManchester United to move up in the English Premier League rankings. Birmingham gained threepoints in the rankings thanks to the one and only winning goal scored by its player Lee Bowyer.Newcastle lost 5-1 to Bolton while West Ham lost 3-0 to Liverpool alongside Blackpool and Stokewho claimed their respective victories. In their game against Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea let slippast their initial lead of 2-0, to finally lose the game at a score of 3-2. The game was at a score of 2-0 till half time with Chelsea winning but a combination of lack of concentration in players andsimple bad luck cost Chelsea the match.

• Cricket in 2014 Asian GamesRumors recently originated that cricket had been removed from the list of proposed sports andevents of the 2014 Asian games. The reason for these rumors has been said to be the decision of

the Olympic Committee of Asia to limit the number of sporting events in the Asian games to amaximum of 35. However, these fears proved out to be false as the OCA recently confirmed theinclusion of cricket in the list of sporting events for the Asian games 2014. For the time beingcricket and karate have been confirmed as two out of the seven non Olympic events in thesegames while the other five are still to be decided. However, South Korean organizers are said tonot be in support of this decision.

• Nadal and ClijstersRafael Nadal continues to hold the top spot in the ATP rankings with his score being close to11900 points while Roger Federer holds the spot of number two. On the other hand Kim Clijstersfell to the third position in the WTA rankings released recently followed by Serena Williams on thefourth position.

• Abu Dhabi Grand PrixFollowing his win in the Korean Grand Prix, third position in Brazil and third position in thequalifiers of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Fernando Alonso of Ferrari looked like the possiblewinner. However the title slipped out of his hands, much to his surprise and landed into the handsof Vettel making him the youngest Formula One champion in the history of F1 racing aged just 23years.

Persons in News November 2010

• Leslie Nielson passes awayBeloved actor Leslie Nielson best remember as bumbling police detective Lt. Frank Drebin of the



Naked Gun series of movies, passed away recently aged 84 from complications arising as aresult of Pneumonia. He was surrounded on his death bed y his loving wife, friends and long timeagent. Leslie Nielson had over a 60 year long career in motion pictures which started back in the1950s. He was initially cast as a leading man in serious movies such as The Forbidden Planetand Poseidon Adventure. The former flopped while the latter was a big success in its time.However, Nielson soon found his forte in comedy movies when he first acted in the 1980 comedymotion picture, Airplane. The movie was a huge hit and Nielson’s popularity as a comedy actor soared. He then appeared in a number of comedy movies, the most famous of them being theNaked Gun series, all of which were big hits. Some of these were repossessed, Dracula- deadand loving it and Spy hard. Leslie was married thrice in his lifetime and has two daughters withhis second wife.

• I-phone versus Google AndroidSteve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Inc. recently praised the operating system on Google’s smartphones. The operating system called Android was further praised by Mr. Wozniak who said thatthese phones had more features to offer as compared to the I-phone. He however, further addedthat while Google’s smart phones offer people more number of choices, Apple I-phones on theother hand were much better in terms of quality.

International Current Affairs 2010

• Sri Lanka abandons Tamil version of its national anthemThe Sri lankan government has decided to scrap the tamil version of the national anthem in itsofficial and state functions. This move may possibly further alienate the tamil minorities in thecountry. A directive to use only the Sinhalese version as been sent by the ministry as presidentRajapakse pointed out that no country uses two versions of the anthem.

• China reveals world’s fastest trainChina unveiled its new high speed train CRH380 that can clock a maximum speed of 486.1kmph. It is said to be much faster than even the bullet trains of Japan. At a cruising speed of 380this is certainly a major accomplishment. China on its part has gone ahead and is now working ona model that is expected to clock 600kmph.

• Mark Zuckerberg, Times Person Of The Year Times magazine has named Mark Zuckerberg as the person of the year . Mr Zuckerberg is the

founder of thesmash hit social networking site Facebook and is also the world youngest billionairecurrently. Although, Julian Assange the editor in chief of wikileaks was the pick of the timereaders, but Zuckerberg won because of the scope and reach his website and how it has touchedand remodeled our thoughts on social networking bringing the world that much more closer.Facebook has reached 500 million users this year all around the globe and the numbers are stillcounting.

National Current Affairs 2010

• CBI seeking closure in Arushi Talwar case.CBI has sought closure after being unable to comprehensively solve the Arushi Talwar murder case which has hogged the limelight for over two years now. The report claims that they have hit

a road block and lack of evidence as main reasons for not being able to solve the case. However the report as named the victims father Dr Rajesh Talwar as a possible suspect.

• Chandra Babu Naidu ends fastTelugu Desam Party president finally ended his hunger strike of eight days on the insistence of visiting leaders like Thambi Durai, Arunkumar, Amba Durai, Maitreya, Prakash Karat, Bardan, OmPrakash Choutala, Sharad Yadav and Ajit Singh. Mr Naidu undertook the fast citing that theAndhra Govt should revise its compensation package for the rain hit farmers of the state. Thevisiting leaders promised Mr Naidu that they would bring the issue to the notice of the PrimeMinister Mr Manmohan Singh by taking an all party delegation to New Delhi.

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• Congress blames Sanjay Gandhi for the emergency excessesThe congress party which is celebrating its 125th birthday this month has accused Sanjay Gandhifor many of the excesses committed during the emergency of 1975-77. Sanjay Gandhi receivednotoriety for many ruthless measures like slum clearance and mass sterilization programs. Thecongress has always had to walk a tight rope when it comes to defending Indira Gandhis decisionto enforce emergency which led to one of the most turbulent times in Indian history since

independence.• Citibank employee Shivraj Puri accused of fraud surrenders

Citibank employee Shivraj Puri who is said to be involved in a massive fraud, finally surrenderedto the police after almost 48 hrs since the incident came to light. Mr Puri who works as arelationship manager has been accused of siphoning of money to the tune of 400 crores fromatleast 20 clients to other fictitious accounts.

• Opposition unrelenting on its demand in JPC probeThe opposition has been steadfast in its demand for the JPC with regard to the 2G scam. The PMDr Manmohan Singh had earlier offered to appear himself before the PAC headed by BJPstalwart Mr. Murali Manohar Joshi. The opposition still feels the JPC would be the best option thatwould help to bring this case to its logical conclusion.

• Human rights activist Dr Binayak Sen convicted, gets life termThe session’s court of Raipur has convicted Dr Binayak Sen and three others on grounds of sedition and conspiracy thereby sentencing them for life due to their links with the Maoists. Dr Sen has been held guilty under Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act 2005, Unlawful Activities(Prevention) Act 1967, of being a conduit between Naxals and of meeting Narayan Sanyal in jail.The trio has also been convicted under provisions of section 124 IPC (sedition) and 120 B IPC(conspiracy). Dr Sen is a pediatrician and alumni of Christian medical college. The 58 year olddoctor has provided over 28 years of selfless service to the poorer sections of Chattisgarh.

• Prices of onions hit through the roof The prices of onions have undergone a steep rise with a kg costing close to Rs 80 in the nationalcapital and its surrounding areas. Other parts of India too have started feeling the pressure andthe prices are continuously shooting up. The Government on it part has suspended the export of onions until January in an attempt to bring down the prices. According to traders, they areattributing the supply crunch due to torrential downpours in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Southernstates which has lead to a poor yield.

• Indias GSLV vehicle fails during launch.ISRO suffered a serious setback when its Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-F06)failed on its course, forcing the team at SriHarikota to abort the mission and self destruct thelaunch vehicle. The vehicles on board computer lost control of the actuation system raisingserious questions about ISROS other ambitious projects that includes a mission to the moon. TheGSAT-5P satellite which the launch vehicle was supposed to send into orbit was one of theheaviest and cost ISRO 125 crores. Had it been successful, the satellite would have served theneeds of the telecommunication sector and the weather department. It would have eventuallyreplaced the INSAT-2E satellite that was sent up in 1999.

• India and China set $100bn trade target by 2015India and China have agreed upon a new $100billion trade target by 2015 which is more than the$6 billion agreed upon in 2010.With the arrival of Chinese PM Wen Jiabao accompanied by 400Chinese business leaders in India, the two countries signed around 50 deals in power,steel ,windenergy , food and marine products and telecommunications worth $16 billion. This overtakes the

$10bn of agreements signed between Indian and American businesspeople during the recent visitof US President Barack Obama.

Sports Current Affairs 2010

• Saina Nehwal wins Honk Kong Open Super Series.Indias star sportswoman Saina Nehwal rallied around from a one game deficit to win 15-21, 21-

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team headed by Arabinda Rajkhowa met Chidambaram at his North Block office for a first roundof peace talks. This is a highly significant development considering ULFA has been trying since1979 to carve out an independent homeland of Assam. While ULFA has not put up any demandsor finalised any agenda for talks, the beginning of talks itself is being seen as a very positive stepto restoring peace in the state.

PM announces JPC on 2G spectrum scam

• Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced that his government would set up the JointPariamentry Committee (JPC) to investigate the 2G spectrum scam. The government finallyagreeing to introduce the JPC does not come about as unexpected. With the opposition beingabsolutely unrelenting in their demands for the introduction of the probe, the Congress had tofinally give in. The previous years winter session in parliament ended with only ten working hourson record. In order to ensure that the budget session does not get similarly affected, severalmeetings with the different political parties were set up and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjeetried to bring about a compromise, which in the end proved to be futile. In the Lok Sabha, on thefirst day of the budget session the PM said “On account of the controversy relating to allocation of 2G spectrum, the winter session of Parliament was lost. Our country can ill-afford this...inparalyzing Parliament, we all do disservice to those who have elected us.” Later on he also

announced the introduction of the probe when he went on to add “It is in these specialcircumstances that our government agrees to a JPC...we are a functioning democracy and musttry to resolve our difference is the spirit of collaboration not competition.”

Govt to release Rs. 150 coin soon

• With the Income Tax Department celebrating 150 years of taxation in the country the governmentwill issue coins of Rs. 150 in denomination. The special coins which also includes Rs 5denomination would be released by the Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee ahead of his budgetspeech. The Rs 150 coin is prepared from an alloy of copper, nickel, silver and zinc. ‘SathyamevaJayathe’ and ‘India’ would be engraved on the front side of the coin while the back side willfeature a portrait of portrait of 'Chanakya and lotus with honeybee'. The Rs 5 coins will also beminted in a similar fashion. This is a special occasion with the IT department having completed

150 years of taxation from 1860 to 2010.

HC upholds Death Penalty for Kasab

• The Bombay High Court on Feb 21 confirmed the death penalty to 26/11 terrorist Ajmal Kasaband termed the case being the rarest of rare and held that there was "no scope of reform" of theconvict. This comes nine months after the lone 26/11 terrorist who was captured alive wasordered to be sent to the gallows by the trial court on May 6, 2010. Kasab, an LeT operative wascaptured alive at Girgaum Chowpatty in Mumbai on November 26, 2008 while none other operatives who has come with him were gunned down by the security forces at the terror sites.Justice Ranjana Desai told Kasab through video conferencing "Aapko saza-e-maut yeh adalatbarkarar karti hai. Aap Supreme Court mein appeal zari kar sakte hain (Your death sentence isupheld. You can appeal before the Supreme Court,"

Godhra verdict: Ahmedabad court convicts 31, acquits 63

• A special court in Ahmedabad on February 22nd convicted 31 people and acquitted 63 includingmain accused Maulvi Umarji, in the 2002 Godhra train burning incident that left 59 people deadmostly Kar Sevaks who were returning from Ayodhya on the Sabarmati Express. This triggeredthe 2002 Gujarat communal riots which left over 1200 people dead mostly Muslims. The courtwas the first one to pronounce a judgment, among the nine trying the 2002 Gujarat riots cases.The court accepted the prosecution’s contention that there was a conspiracy behind the incident.



Apart from the charges of murder, attempt to murder and criminal conspiracy, the accused wereconvicted under IPC sections 147, 148 (rioting with deadly weapons), 323, 324, 325, 326(causing hurt), 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on religious grounds), varioussections of the Indian Railways Act, Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act and BombayPolice Act.

Kidnapped Malkangiri Collector, junior engineer released

• Malkangiri District Collector RV Krishna and Junior Engineer Pabitra Majhi were finally releasedby the Maoists after being kept for a week in captivity. The two were abducted by the Maoists onFeb 16th and the Maoists in a letter to the government, listed 14 demands for the safe release of the two hostages. These included halting anti-Maoist operations by security forces, release of allpolitical prisoners, scrapping of accords with MNCs for land transfer and projects, andcompensation for the families of Maoist sympathizers killed in police custody. DandapaniMohanty and academicians G. Haragopal and R. Someswar Rao were chosen as mediators andhad discussions with the Maoists. The negotiators had made the government agree to 14 keydemands including the release of Ganti Prsadam, Padma (wife of top Maoist Ram Krishna), andSriramulu Srinivas, another top Maoist. After intense round of negotiations the government finallyrelented and made arrangements to secure bails for the jailed Maoists. A further twist in the tale

occurred when the Maoists released only Majhi and held back the Collector making a fresh list of demands. However after another round of discussion, common sense prevailed and the Maoistsreleased the collector a day later.

Sports News

Cricket World Cup 2011 Officially Opened

• The 10th edition of the ICC cricket World Cup, was officially launched on 17th Feb with a grand

opening ceremony being held in Dhaka, Bangaldesh. The stadium was filled with spectators andevening proved to be visual spectacle with colourful fireworks, songs and dance routines to markthe start of the eagerly awaited event. Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina declared theevent open amid thundering cheers while the fourteen participating Captains were revealed to thepublic being carried in tricycles. Shankar Ehsaan Loy and other popular artists performed at thevenue with the show stopper being Bryan Adams.

National Games Held in Jharkand

• The 34th National Games, was finally held in Jharkand and the event turned to be verysuccessful. The games were held from 12th February 2011 to 26th February 2011.Many athletesall over the country took part in various disciplines and quite a few records were broken in theprocess. The long-postponed 34th National Games was originally scheduled for 2007. The

Games have been deferred six times – four times due to delay in developing infrastructure andthen postponed again due to the coming of Assemble Elections.

India start their Word cup campaign on a bright note

• India played Bangladesh at Mirpur in the first WC match of the tournament on Feb 19. Indiastarted with a bang scoring 375 with both Virender Sehwag and Virat Kohli hitting sensationalhundreds to take the match away from the hosts. Sehwag particularly looked murderous. TheIndian team was expected to be under pressure to perform well against Bangladesh as their





was one of the many buildings that got significantly damaged, while cars lay in a mangled heapunder a pile of rubble and roads cracked open with fissures as a result of the tremors. Dazed,bleeding residents could be seen wandering through streets strewn with debris and piles of concrete.

Libyan people take to the streets in their demand for freedom

• Inspired by the outcomes of Tunisia and Egypt over the past few weeks the people of Libya havealso taken out to the streets in their cries for freedom against their autocratic leader Muammar Gaddafi. Thousands of people have joined the struggle and there have been continuous reportsof frequent clashes with the Muammars loyalists and the protesting public. Scores of people havebeen reported killed in continuing violence in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, amid escalating protestsagainst Muammar Gaddafi's 40-year rule across the North African nation. With each passing daythe leader seems to be losing support from people working in his own government and is alsounder increasing pressure from International powers to step down.

The Kings Speech Wins Best Picture at the 83rd Annual Academy Awards

• ‘The Kings Speech’ had a great outing at this years Oscars winning four awards. The film won in

the best picture category and its director Tom Hooper received Best Director. Colin Firth receivedthe award for best actor for his central role in Kings Speech while best female actor went toNatalie Portman for Black Swan. ‘The Best Supporting Actor’ and The Best Supporting Actress’awards were bagged by Christian Bale and Melissa Leo for their performances in film, ‘TheFighter’. Indian musician AR Rahman missed out on his two nominations for his score in ‘127hours.’

Current Affairs For March 2011

National

Godhra verdict: 11 get death, 20 get life term

• A Sessions Court in Ahmedabad awarded death sentence to 11 people and life term to twentyothers on 1/3/2011. The sentence was pronounced by Additional Sessions Judge PR Patel whohad earlier convicted them of criminal conspiracy in the Sabarmati Express train burning case onFeb 22nd.

The court had accepted the prosecution's contention that there was a conspiracy behind theincident and convicted 31 under various sections of Indian Penal Code (IPC) like 302 (murder),307 (attempt to murder) and 120B(criminal conspiracy).

They were convicted under IPC section 147, 148 (rioting with deadly weapons), 323, 324,325,326(causing hurt), 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on religious grounds), varioussections of the Indian Railways Act, Prevention of Damages to Public Property Act and BombayPolice Act.

The court had acquitted 63 others out the total 94 for lack of evidence including the allegedmastermind Maulavi Hussain Umarji. Fifty nine Kar Sevaks traveling in the S6 coach of SabarmatiExpress were burnt alive near the Godhra railway station on February 2002. This incident caused





wide spread communal riots in the State of Gujarat that resulted in the deaths of over 100 people,most of them Muslims. Justice Patel termed the case as “rarest of rare” and the court has giventhe accused 90 days to appeal in the High court.

SC strikes down CVC PJ Thomas' appointment

• The Supreme Court on 3/3/2011 struck down on the appointment of Chief Vigilance Commisioner PJ Thomas after a three-judge bench headed by the Chief Justice of India SH Kapadia deliveredits verdict on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) that sought his removal. The apex court hasobserved Thomas is a person who is tainted as he was an accused in the palmoline export scam.CVC PJ Thomas soon thereafter submitted his resignation. This has come about as big blow tothe UPA government which is already facing several allegations of corruption. FurthermoreThomas is the country's 14th CVC and was selected by a three member panel that included thePM and the Home Minister. The opposition BJP had been highly critical all along and following hisresignation demanded even the PM to step down. The PM took responsibility for the incident andcited the reason as error in judgement. An IAS officer of 1973 batch of Kerala cadre, PJ Thomasis the eighth accused in the palmolien case. He served as food secretary in Kerala in the early90’s during which time he had aggressively campaigned for the import of 1500 tonnes of palm oilfrom Malaysia. Reports later emerged that price paid for the oil- palmolein was unjustifiable high.

He has since been fighting allegations of corruption, while the case is still pending in court.

Delhi court accepts CBI's closure report against Quattrocchi

• A Delhi court on 4/3/2011 accepted CBI’s closure report seeking to drop all charges againstItalian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi in the two decade old Bofors case. The CBI was lookingat closing all criminal cases against Italian businessman Quattrocchi, who is allegedly one of therecipients of kickbacks in the controversial Bofors gun deal of 1986 which ended up resulting inthe fall of the Rajiv Gandhi government in 1989. Many influential figures were accused of receiving payoffs in the deal which involved the purchase of Bofors guns for the Indian army. Theagency has been seeking withdrawal of the case against him as he has never appeared beforeany Indian court to face trial due to lack of evidence, even though a tax tribunal had ruled in Dec2010 that illegal commissions were indeed paid in the deal. The agency had said that its plea to

withdraw the case has been filed with bonafide intention as it has spent a huge amount of moneyon the investigation but has not been able to arrest the Italian businessman. Chief MetropolitanMagistrate Vinod Yadav observed: "At this moment we have to end the case therefore I allow theCBI plea to close the case. I think the CBI has moved this application to close this case after applying their minds, therefore there is no need of wasting public money in continuing theinvestigation." Advocate Ajay Aggarwal, who objected to CBI’s application in the court, said hewould challenge the order in the Delhi High Court.

Delhi University student Radhika Tanwar shot outside college

• Radhika Tanwar (21) a student of Ram Lal Anand College (Delhi University) was shot dead by anunidentified man on the Dhaula Kuan foot-over bridge near South Campus at around 10.30 AMon 8/3/2011. Radhika a second year BA student who lives with her family in Naraina locality of

West Delhi was shot point blank by the assailant who fled the scene after shooting her in thestomach. Passersby took the girl in an autorickshaw to Safdurjung Hospital where she wasdeclared brought dead. The incident has caused outrage in the Capital which has beenwitnessing increasing episodes of crimes against women, while the world was celebratingInternational Womens Day. The assailant has been identified as 25 yr old Ram Singh alias Vijaywho hails from Sitapur in Uttar Pradesh. He was caught a few days later and Delhi PoliceCommissioner B K Gupta said “Vijay suffers from psychopathic obsession. He used to followwomen. He followed Radhika regularly. The immediate trigger was the snubbing of Radhika whenhe tried to speak to her”. The police also went on to add Vijay “nurtured deep grudge” against the



victim after he got beaten up for harassing her and often told his friends that he would avenge thehumiliation whenever he got the opportunity. On 11/3/2011 another student Monica Kirnapurewas stabbed by four people in Nagpur while she was on her way to class from her hostel. Thetwenty two year old girl lay in her pool of blood for ten minutes, a knife sticking out of her back,asking for water. No help came about from the bystanders until Sumedh Wanjaari hired arickshaw to take her to the hospital where she died en route.

SC dismisses Aruna Shanbaug's euthanasia plea

• Aruna Shanbaug a former nurse at Mumbai’s KEM hospital has been in a vegetative state for thelast 38 years after she was assaulted by a ward boy. A Bench of Justices Markandey Katju andGyan Sudha Misra rejected on 7/3/2011 the euthanasia plea filed by Aruna’s friend Pinky Viranideclaring ‘the petition stands cancelled’. They also added Pinky was not allowed to appeal for themercy killing of Aruna as she was not the staff of KEM hospital. The bench in its 110-page

judgement saw the nursing staff of KEM hospital who have been looking after Aruna for the past38 years as the real next friend of Aruna and declared the patient didn’t have a single bed soreduring the period. The apex court however allows passive euthanasia in appropriate cases whichhave been permitted by the concerned high courts. They also added there is no law in the countrypresently in the country on euthanasia and clarified unless the Parliament drafts a law, its stand

on active and passive euthanasia will stay enforced. Aruna Shanabug was sexually assaulted onNovember 27 1973 by Sohanlal Walmiki who used a dog chain to subdue her which ended upcutting the oxygen supply to her brain damaging vital functions like sight, memory and normalmovement.

Congress, DMK seat-sharing deadlock ends

• After lot of political drama the DMK and the Congress have come to a mutual seat sharingagreement ahead of the upcoming Tamil Nadu assembly elections. The DMK party announcedon 8/3/20011 that it will contest for 121 seats while the Congress will contest for 63 under theseat sharing deal for the April 13 Assembly polls. The Congress demand of 63 seats marks anincrease of 15 seats in allocation of what they got during the 2006 Assembly elections. DMK chief Karunanidhi was initially ready to give 60 seats to the Congress but the Congress unrelenting

demand on having 63 made him unhappy and he threatened to pull out his ministers from thegovernment. The Congress refused to blink this time and after quite a few rounds of discussionsthe DMK finally relented to the Congress demands. The DMK has agreed to allocate 61 seats, up1 seat from what they previously agreed and another two seats would be allocated to theCongress from the other allied parties of the DMK. Under the seat sharing formula, DMK willcontest 121 seats, Congress 63, PMK 30, VCK 10, KMK 7, IUML 2 and MMK 1 for the 234-member assembly.

A.Raja’s close aide Sadiq Batcha found dead

• Sadiq Batcha, a close aide of former telecom minister A.Raja committed suicide and was foundhanging at his residence in Chennai on 16/3/2011. Sadiq Batcha (37) who is the ManagingDirector of Greenhouse Promoters has been under the CBI scanner for his suspected

involvement in the 2G spectrum case and was questioned by the agency on February 22nd.Green House Promoters, initially a nondescript company with an equity base of Rs.100,000 in2004, is said to have grown to over Rs.600 crore revenue company within a very short timeframe. Raja’s wife Parameshwari is said to have served as a director in the firm but quit during2008. Batcha hails from Raja’s constituency Perambalur in Tamil Nadu and initially worked as asari seller until his friendship with the former telecom minister happened in the early1990’s.According to the post mortem reports the cause of death has been ascertained asasphyxia while the forensic reports are still awaited. This may come as blow to the CBI in their investigations into the 2G scam.



TN Polls: Parties promise freebies to woo voters

• Ahead of upcoming assembly polls, the political parties of Tamil Nadu have promised a host of freebies to woo the voting public. Top warring parties DMK and ADMK have taken the war of freebies to a new high. While DMK in their manifesto have announced 35 kg of free rice everymonth for below-poverty line families, AIADMK has promised 20 kg of free rice for all ration-card

holders. The ruling DMK party has promised laptops to students in their first year of college whileJayalalitha’s ADMK party promises them one as early as eleventh standard. While the DMK plansto give women free mixes, grinders its rivals have promised additional fans along with mixies andgrinders. Furthermore Jayalalitha in her bid to woo female voters has promised 4gms of gold for 'Thali' (mangalsutra) free of cost to poor, besides offering cable TV connections at subsidisedrates. Some of the other freebies include four sets of uniform and footwear for students, a hike inscholarship upto Rs 5000 from class 10 onwards, women self help groups get Rs10Lakh with 25% waiver, 20 litres of mineral water a day to Below Poverty Line families, six months' maternityleave for women and Rs 12,000 as pregnancy allowance and a host of other promises weremade. This does came as surprise since Jayalalitha was a staunch critic of populist measureswhen the DMK party which came in power in 2006, promised to offer free colour TV’s to thepublic and also kept up on its electoral promise. The partie’s efforts in trying to gain an upper hand over each other by making such steep electoral promises does raise a lot of concerns. Itdoes make one wonder if the State Treasury would be left with any money if such populistmeasures are left unchecked.

WB polls: Cong, TMC reach seat-sharing deal

• The Congress and the Trinamool Congress reached a seat sharing agreement ahead of the WestBengal Assembly Polls. Mamta Banerjee of Trinamool has agreed to offer 65 seats after her rounds of discussion with the Congress party. She had earlier agreed to give 64 seats againstCongress demand of 98. The alliance will fight against CPM led Left Front which has been inpower for almost 35 years now.Congress spokesperson Shakeel Ahmed said “In West Bengal,Congress will contest 65 seats and TMC will contest 229. We will work in close cooperation to winthe election to defeat the Left from the state.”West Bengal will be voting in 6 phases. The firstphase voting is on April 18, second phase on April 23, third phase on April 27, fourth phase on

May 3, fifth phase on May 7 and sixth phase is on May 10th.

Cash for votes scam creates uproar in Parliament

• With the revelations by Wikileaks about the Congress buying MPs to win the vote-of-confidenceover the crucial Indo-US nuclear deal in 2008 came back to haunt party when a united oppositioncreated an uproar in Parliament. On 17/3/2011 they were demanding the resignation of PrimeMinister Manmohan Singh in view of the fresh charges that bribe was paid during the trust vote.The government on its part was dismissive questioning the credibility of the leaks. Also FMPranab Mukherjee said “Each Lok Sabha is sovereign in its time. What happened in the 14th LokSabha cannot be decided in the 15th Lok Sabha...Government of the day is accountable to the15th Lok Sabha and not to the 14th Lok Sabha. Whatever happened in the 14th Lok Sabha hascome to an end with the end of the tenure”. On 23/3/2011 Leader of the Opposition Sushma

Swaraj made a stinging attack on the Prime Minister and said “It is the habit of the Prime Minister to blame others. If it is price rise then (Agriculture Minister) Sharad Pawar is responsible, if it is2G then (former Telecom Minister) A Raja is responsible and if it is Commonwealth Games thenSuresh Kalmadi is to blame.” The Wikileaks cable suggests that the Congress bought the supportof MPs during a vote of confidence during the controversial nuclear deal in 2008. Three BJP MP’swalked into the Lok Sabha with Rs 3 crores in cash and claimed that they had been offered thatmoney to vote for the nuclear deal and that they had planned a sting operation to prove it.Following that a Lok Sabha committee, headed by Congress MP KCS Deo, was set up toexamine their allegations in which was found there was no evidence of the allegations made bythe BJP MP’s.



Aarushi murder case: Talwars surrender passports

• Rajesh and Nupur Talwar, parents of murdered teen Aarushi Talwar have surrendered their passports to a local court following a direction by the Supreme Court which also stayed their trialin the Noida double murder case. On 19/3/2011 the SC had stayed the CBI court order summoning the Talwars to appear before it on 22/3/2011. The Allahabad High Court on

18/3/2011 dismissed the couples plea seeking quashing of criminal proceedings initiated by thelower court which not only refused the closure report filed by the CBI but also summoned thecouple as accused in the case. The HC declared that it could not prohibit the magistrate fromtaking cognizance of a case if prima facie it appears that there is sufficient evidence against aperson. Earlier the CBI had file a closure report pleading closure citing lack of incriminatingevidence, however the CBI has pointed a needle of suspicion to the parents and as a result leftthe option of proceeding against the Talwars with the Trial Court. The couple had challenged theorder of the Allahabad High Court which the Supreme Court stayed on 19/3/2011 but asked theTalwars to surrender their passports. Satish Tamta, the counsel for Rajesh and Nupur Talwar,submitted the passports in the court of additional chief judicial magistrate Puspendra Kumar Singh. Fourteen-year-old Aarushi was found murdered at her home in Noida on May 16, 2008. Aday after, Hemraj's body was found in the same building.

India revokes licenses of 14 'fake pilots'

• Directorate-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on 23/3/2011 revoked a total of 14 commercial pilotlicenses (CPL) which means it brings an end to the flying careers of the those accused of havingsubmitted fake training records from Rajasthan State Flying School to procure their licenses. Thediscovery of frauds in the issuing of licenses is a worrying development to the safety of air travelfor the passengers and the industry. The fake pilot scam began unraveling when female CaptainParminder Gulati landed her airliner on the nose instead of the rear wheels which set the alarmsringing across many quarters. DGCA, the airline regulator stepped in and discovered she hadsubmitted forged mark sheets to procure her license. Since then more pilots have been caughtguilty of the same crime. The DGCA admits there was a lapse, and now says as much as 4000pilot licences are now under fresh scrutiny. On 26/3/2011 a DGCA official Pradeep Kumar(48),pilot Pradeep Tyagi(35) and two of his touts Lalit Jain (34) and Pankaj Jain (23) were arrested by

the Delhi Police. Tyagi along with his touts used to forge mark sheets for the fake pilots for hugea fee and also bribed Pradeep Kumar of the DGCA for expediting those files. A person is eligibleto fly a commercial aircraft only when he or she secures a CPL, which is given out after a personcompletes 200 hours of flying during the training.

Hasan Ali Remanded In Judicial Custody

• Hasan Ali is a Pune bases stud farm owner who has been accused of allegedly stashing away 8billion dollars in Swiss banks. It is speculated that the major portion of the money in offshoreaccounts belong to some politicians and industrialists and that Ali acts as a conduit for them andallegedly facilitates transfer of black money from India on a commission basis. He has beenunder the radar of the Income Tax (IT) department and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for afew years now while his premises were raided in 2007. According to Hasan Ali’s statements he is

scrap dealer with an annual income of Rs 30 Lakh which does not tally with kind of lifestyle Ali isknown for. He is known to throw lavish parties, has a penchant for race horses and own quite afew of them and also own an expensive fleet of cars. A little ironic for a man with humblebeginnings, whose father worked as an excise officer. Hassan Ali has been declared the highesttax defaulter in the country with dues allegedly over Rs 70,000 crores. Ali was arrested by the EDon 7/3/2011 under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002. But a Mumbai Courton 11/3/2011 rejected ED’s plea for custodial interrogation of Hasan Ali on the grounds that theagency had not gathered sufficient evidence and Ali was released on bail. The Supreme Court on17/3/2011 stayed the trial courts order, directed custodial interrogation of Hasan Ali to ED andwas also critical of Mumbai Court Judge M L Tahaliyani's order of granting bail to Ali, saying it



was "deeply disturbed" as to the manner in which the trial court judge rejected the ED'scontention and had given a lengthy order for it. On 21/3/2011 the apex court extended hiscustody with the ED for an additional three days and when that duration came to a close asession’s court remanded Hasan Ali in judicial custody till April 8, 2011.

Wikileaks: 'Hindutva an opportunistic issue for BJP'

• After the Congress it was the BJP’s turn to be hit by the Wikileaks phenomenon when a USdiplomat reported in the cable that senior leader of BJP declared to him that Hindu Nationalismwas an ‘opportunistic issue’ for the party. "Pressed on the question of Hindutva, Jaitley arguedthat Hindu nationalism 'will always be a talking point' for the BJP. However, he characterized thisas an opportunistic issue," a cable by Robert Blake, the Charge at the US Embassy, to hisgovernment, had said after a meeting with Jaitley on May 6, 2005. "Pressed on the question of Hindutva, Jaitley argued that Hindu nationalism 'will always be a talking point' for the BJP.However, he characterized this as an opportunistic issue," a cable by Robert Blake, the Charge atthe US Embassy, to his government, had said after a meeting with Jaitley on May 6, 2005. Jaitleya senior leader of the BJP and also leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha , whom the cabledescribed as "one of several aspirants to direct the next generation of BJP leadership", said in astatement that the word opportunistic in reference to Hindutva could be the "diplomat's own

usage". He said the cable by the diplomat in 2005 makes a reference to his conversation withhim. "The cable reflects my views on cross-border terrorism, illegal infiltration from Bangladeshand the unfair denial of US Visa to the Gujarat Chief Minister (Narendra Modi). “However, the useof the word "opportunistic” in reference to nationalism or Hindu nationalism is neither my view nor my language. It could be the diplomat's own usage,” he said. Congress on its part was quick togive it back to the BJP. “Chickens are coming to roost, what goes out wrongly hits back like aboomerang. People living in glass houses are taught in this manner that they were to throwstones at others,” Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said.

PM Manmohan Singh and PM Gilani of Pakistan engage in cricket diplomacy

• The relations between India and Pakistan had soured post Mumbai 26/11 blasts. With theongoing world cup when India defeated Australia in the quarters it became apparent that it was to

face off against Pakistan in the semifinal. The clash between the two countries generatedtremendous hype in the media of both countries. The match even took on political turns when PMManmohan Singh invited his counterpart Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani and President Asif Ali Zardarito the cricket match. The invite was accepted by the PM of Pakistan who then along with Dr Manmohan Singh reached the cricket venue on 30/3/2011 where they shook hands with playersand also engaged in diplomatic talks which has now leased a fresh breath of air to the relationsbetween the two countries. As per the joint statement released in the capital on 29/3/2011 thePakistani delegation updated India on the ongoing trial and investigation and agreed to allow anIndian Commission to come to Pakistan to investigate 26/11 attacks. The Pak delegation assuredthat India's National Investigative Agency (NIA) and Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency(FIA) will cooperate in the 26/11 investigation. India on its part provided Pakistan information withregards to the Samjauta blast case and agreed that they would update them once the chargesheet was filed. According to the joint statement released in New Delhi on Tuesday, the Pakistani

delegation updated India on the ongoing trial and investigation and agrees in principle to allow anIndian commission to investigate 26/11 attacks in Pakistan. The two countries have also agreedto hold home secretary-level talks bi-annually.

Census 2011: Indian population increased by 181 million

• India’s population has risen to 1.21 billion in the last ten years, which is an increase of 181 millionaccording to the new census released on 31/3/2011. India’s population is now bigger thanpopulation of USA, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan and Bangladesh, says the Census report. On the



positive side the overall population growth rate is 17.6 in 2011, significantly lower than 2001 whenit was 21.15 per cent. Coming to the sex ration India has 623.7 million males and 586.5 millionwomen. A matter of concern is that child sex ratio has slipped to its lowest since India'sindependence. For every 1000 male infants, there are 914 girls. The most populous state of Indian continues to be Uttar Pradesh with 16.49 per cent share in the total population, followed byMaharashtra with 9.29 per cent, while, the least populous state is Sikkim with 0.05 per cent sharein the total population. This is the 15th Census conducted since 1872. It was carried out in twophases, covering 640 districts and 5924 sub-districts.

Sports News

ICC WC 2011 off to spectacular start

• The ICC cricket world cup is on in full swing. The fourteen teams have all played their groupstages and 8 teams qualified to the knockout stages. The teams that played in quarterfinals were

West Indies, India, England, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.Among these only four teams made it to the Semis where Pakistan and India played each other at Mohali and Srilanka and New Zealand played against each other in Colombo. The semi finalmatch between India and Pakistan created unprecedented hype as the two teams have not facedoff against each other since Mumbai 26/11 attacks. There was a never before seen rush to getthe tickets for the match and people were selling their tickets in black market at astronomicalamounts. India and Sri Lanka went on to win their semi finals respectively and face each other inthe final on April 02 , 2011.

Levon Aronian wins Amber Blindfold and Rapid Chess Championship

• Levon Aronian has won the 20th and final edition of the Amber Blindfold and Rapid ChessChampionship held at Monaco. He had earlier also won in 2008 and 2009 respectively. The

Armenian grandmaster tied his last round game against Sergey Karjakin and still maintained aone point lead over runner up Magnus Carlsen of Norway. Indian chess grandmaster and WorldChampion Vishwanath Anand came in at third position. With the 2011 edition the 20 year run of one the Worlds favourite chess events comes to an end and Aronian having won three of the lastfour editions does come across as a significant achievement.

Saina clinches Swiss Open Grand Prix

• India’s badminton ace Saina Nehwal won her first title of 2011 with a 21-13, 21-14 victory over South Korean Sung Ji Hyun in the Wilson Swiss Open Grand Prix Gold badminton at Basil on20/3/2011. It was her second win against the Korean in as many meetings whom she earlier defeated in the Indonesia Open Super Series as well. She reached the quarters of the AllEngland Championship also held earlier this month where she lost to Eriko Hirose of Japan.

Riding on her Swiss Open triumph Saina has regained her number three ranking with 69721.2637points. At first place and second place are Shixian Wang (83506.4) and Yihan Wang(73988.9106) of China respectively.

Djokovic beats Nadal to win Indian Wells title

• Novak Djokovic beat Rafael Nadal 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 to win the BNP Paribas Open title at Calirfonia on20/3/2011. The Serbian remains undefeated this year whose victories include Australian andDubai open, has struck a purple patch notching up an impressive 18-0 record in 2011. He now





jumps to number two in the ATP rankings pushing Roger Federer to the third place while RafaelNadal is still at number one with a 14-3 record. Djokovic said "It definitely says good things. I amplaying with a lot of confidence. I'm feeling the ball well on the court. I'm very dedicated. I have abig will to win each match. I want to keep on going and keep on playing good tennis."

Sebastian Vettel wins Australian GP

• Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel drove a flawless race to win the season opening Australian GrandPrix at Melbourne on 27/3/2011. Starting from pole position Sebastian drove superbly to openmore than a two second gap over runner up Lewis Hamilton of Mclaren following the first lap. Atthird place was Renaults Vitaly Petrov who made his first ever podium finish. Fernando Alonsocame in fourth with Australian Mark Webber finishing fifth at the race. They used three stopsstrategies which was one more than the podium finishers. It was not a good start to the year for Mercedes with both their drivers Michael Shumacher and Nicco Roseberg being forced to retire.

India crowned World Champions

• The Indian team defeated Sri Lanka win the final of the ICC World Cup becoming the first team tolift the cup after 28 years on April 02,2011. Srilanka won the toss and elected to bat and posted a

daunting 274 on board following a superb century by Mahela Jayawardhene. The Indian teamhad begun their bowling on a bright note with ace spear head Zaheer Khan bowling a superbinitial spell but the end power over proved to be a costly affair and helped the Lankans post avery challenging total. Indian batting started on patchy note when both the dangerous openerslost their wickets early to Lasith Malinga who came up with an inspired spell of fast bowling. Thestadium had gone quiet but the Indian innings was resurrected when Virat Kholi and GautamGambhir formed a respectable partnership but the star of the innings was Indian Skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni. He promoted himself up the order ahead of the inform Yuvraj Singh tookIndia home with an unbeaten 91. The Captain criticized throughout the tournament for his lack of form stepped up at the most crucial moment with a crucial innings and hit the last ball straightdown the ground for a huge six. The nation erupted with joy and there wild celebrations all over India. Sachin Tendulkar was given a lap of honour when his team mates took him on their shoulders and a happy Sachin could be seen waving at the crowds. This is the highest successful

run chase made in a World cup final and what makes the victory sweeter is India is the first teamto win a World Cup on home soil.

International News

Earthquake and Tsunami strike Japan

• A powerful earthquake of 8.9 magnitude struck Japan on its north eastern coast on 11/3/2011.The earthquake resulted in a massive tsunami that caused wide scale destruction and loss of

thousands of lives. Cars, ships and buildings were all swept away by the rampaging waters of theTsunami which struck about 400km (250 miles) north-east of Tokyo. The port city of Sendai inMiyagi prefecture was one of the worst affected. Ten metre waves struck the city delugingeverything that was part of it-farmlands, cars, buildings, houses etc. Fires broke out in the cityfollowing the deluge. A cluster of two to three hundred bodies were found in one part of this cityalone. This is the most powerful natural disaster to have struck Japan in its recorded history andis considered 8000 times more powerful than what struck Christchurch in New Zealand earlier this year.As of March 30th 2011 according to official estimates the death toll now stands at 11,257 while





another 16,344 people are still missing. Many of the survivors who have been displaced have lostall their property to the Tsunami. More than 173,200 people are living in the 2000 evacuationcentres in the 17 prefectures mostly in the northern side of the country. Among the worst affectedprefectures which are Miyagi, Fukushima and Iwate 146,628 displaced people have been housedin close to 1,245 evacuation centres.

Nuclear Crisis

• The massive earthquake that struck the north east coast of Japan has resulted in a catastrophicsituation at the Fukushima Nuclear power plant. When the earthquake struck they switched off the reactor and where about to use the onsite diesel back up power. The tsunami then struck andthe back up power also failed. Hence after losing electric power, that system could not be used.Instead the operators are dumping seawater into the vessel and letting it cool the fuel by boiling.But as it boils, pressure rises too high to pump in more water, so they have to vent the vessel tothe atmosphere, and feed in more water, a procedure known as "feed and bleed." Thousands of people residing in areas close to the plant were evacuated. Over the following days there havebeen many instance of radiation exposure traced in the vicinity. Radioactive water found in andoutside reactor buildings is delaying work to restore cooling functions of the Fukushima Daiichinuclear power plant.

Libyan Uprising

• Having received inspiration from the revolutions of Egypt and Tunisia the next country tovehemently protest against government autocracy is the North African country of Libya. Thepublic are fighting to bring down Muammar Gaddafi's 41-year rule and are demanding newleadership and democratic elections. What actually began as a series of peaceful demonstrationstook ugly turns when Gaddafi’s army tried to crush protests by using force eventually turning intoan all out civil war in the days to come. In a matter of days the uprising had spread to other partsof Libya and Gaddafi was having trouble retaining control over many parts of the country. Gaddafia harder nut to crack than Mubarak has continued to be on the offensive and refuses to give uppower in spite of all the diplomatic pressure, much to the chagrin of his own country men. On19/3/2011 a multi-state coalition began a military intervention in Libya to implement United

Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, which was taken in response to the uprising in Libya.The military operations began, with US and British forces firing over 110 Tomahawk cruisemissiles, the French Air Force and British Royal Air Force[ undertaking sorties across Libya and anaval blockade by the Royal Navy. Air strikes against Libyan Army tanks and vehicles by French

jets have since been confirmed. The situation is far from peaceful and remains to be seen whatwould be the outcome of the situation in the days to come.

Elizabeth Taylor passes away

• One of Hollywood’s greatest icons Dame Elizabeth Taylor breathed her last on 23/3/2011 due tocongestive heart failure. The 79 year old actress has been in the public eye for six decadeshaving won three academy awards and has acted in over 50 films. The Cleopatra star's stunninglooks, including her famed violet eyes, earned her fans around the globe and her stormy personal

life that included eight marriages received as much press interest as some of her best works. Shewon two Oscars for her performances in “Butterfield 8”(1960) and "Who's Afraid of VirginiaWoolf?" (1966) and a third Oscar for her humanitarian work in 1993. The actress has also battledmany health ailments undergoing as much as 20 surgeries during the course of her life. In her later years she was a spokeswoman for several causes, most notably AIDS research.

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