Current Affairs For SSC CGL Exam - 03 January, 2014

Current Affairs For SSC CGL Exam

The National Green Tribunal, Southern Bench here ordered notice to the Union government and the Kerala government on applications challenging the recent notification of Union Ministry of Environment and Forests for the implementation of the suggestions made by Kasturirangan panel on Western Ghats conservation.
The NGT Bench comprising its judicial member, Justice M.Chockalingam and expert member, Prof.R.Nagendran said the applications raised a substantial question concerning ecology and environment which required an enquiry by the Tribunal.
The applicants contended that before submitting its report, the high-level working group (HLWG), headed by Dr.Kasturirangan, had not conducted any study on the consequential impacts of quarrying and stone crushing units.
They also argued that even though certain number of quarries and stone crusher units were functioning within 123 villages included in the notification, absolutely no damage was caused to the environment and ecology.
The applicants also added that before issuing the notification, no opportunity of being heard was provided to them as well as to those similarly affected.

With both Congress and NCP holding a closed-door meetings of their ministers just before the Cabinet meet and deciding to back their colleagues indicted in the Adarsh probe panel's report, Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan had little choice in absolving the politicians of any wrongdoing in connection with the Adarsh Cooperative Housing Society.
During their meeting, all NCP ministers rallied behind Water Resources Minister Sunil Tatkare and Higher and Technical Education Minister Rajesh Tope, who were named in the report by the two-member judicial commission that probed alleged irregularities in the housing society.
The Adarsh commission has not held any of our former chief ministers on a criminal charge. The commission has merely accused them of political patronage.
The ministers were of the view that former CM (late) Vilasrao Deshmukh had clarified that he used his discretionary powers, which could not be challenged. They also said that charges against former CM Sushilkumar Shinde could not be justified and that the CBI had already submitted its report to the government of India when he was made the Union Home Minister.

Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi is campaigning to scrap India's single time zone, which causes problems for easterners who face summer sunrise as early as 4:30am.
Despite India's vast size, it has one time of +5:30 from Greenwich Mean Time for its 1.2-billion population, spread from points further east than Bangladesh to the western Arabian Sea.
At this time of year the sun rises in the east shortly before 6am, more than 90 minutes earlier than in the west, while daybreak in the east comes as early as 4:30am around the summer solstice.
Mr Gogoi says sticking to Indian Standard Time means a loss of daylight hours and an attendant decrease in productivity for his state. For instance, a farmer in Assam can start work one hour before her or his counterpart in a state like Gujarat
He points out that tea gardens in Assam have for years set their clocks an hour ahead of the rest of the country.
The proposal for a different time zone will have to be cleared by the Centre.

Former Great Britain No.1 Tim Henman will be in India to spearhead a new initiative aimed at boosting the development of junior tennis in the country. India will host the first Wimbledon tennis event outside the UK as 11-time-Tour winner Henman will be in Delhi and Mumbai later this month to launch ‘The Road to Wimbledon’ with a series of coaching clinics and events offering local children the chance to play at Wimbledon next August. The clinics are part of two Under-14 National singles events in Delhi (RK Khanna Tennis Centre) and Mumbai (MSLTA Tennis Centre). The top sixteen boys and girls from these two events are invited to the Wimbledon Foundation Junior Masters in Delhi in April with the two boys and two girls finalists invited to compete in the UK HSBC National Finals on the grass at Wimbledon.
Henman, who kick-started his career in India in 1994 with three successive tournament wins on the Indian satellite circuit, will be joined by All England Club Head Coach Dan Bloxham, for the activity in Delhi and Mumbai between January 6-14.The Wimbledon Foundation, the community, charitable and development arm of the All England Club and The Championships, Wimbledon, and HSBC have linked with All India Tennis Association (AITA) on this pilot scheme as the first phase of a long term plan to support the development of Indian tennis.

In a move to forestall former IPL czar Lalit Modi from staging a comeback on the Indian cricket scene, the Indian cricket board moved the apex court against his election as the Rajasthan Cricket Association president.The elections to the Rajasthan Cricket Association were held Dec 19, 2013, under the watch of the apex court appointed former judge N.M. Kasliwal.
Modi contested for president of the RCA as the state cricketing panel rejected the objection of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to his candidature.The result of the RCA elections are likely to be announced on Jan 6, when the court may take up for hearing RCA former secretary Kishore Rungta’s plea challenging the Rajasthan Sports Act, 2005, that was read by Modi’s supporters in his favour to contest the election.
The act had taken away the individual voting rights of the members, and Modi’s supporters said the RCA elections were governed by it and not by the BCCI tules.The BCCI Dec 28, 2013, in a statement said that it would implead itself before the apex court in Rungta’s plea challenging the Rajasthan Sports Act, 2005.
The BCCI, which had imposed a life ban on Modi in September 2013, has contended that his association with the cricketing body would affect the image of the popular sports and the apex cricketing organisation.Modi was banned for life for financial irregularities while he presided over the IPL during 2008 to 2010.