1. Govt. of India declared Year 2013 as Water
Conservation Year
i. The Union Cabinet of
India today gave its approval to declare the year 2013 as Water Conservation
Year 2013.
ii. Following the theme of the year,
the Government has proposed to come up with several mass awareness activities
with an emphasis on sensitizing the masses on water issues and to encourage
them to use water judiciously and conserve it.
iii. The Policies and programs of the
Ministry of Water Resource for the year will be to create a sustainable society
and economy.
iv. The national awareness programs
launched by the Government will aim towards achieving the identified objectives
of the National Water Policy 2012 and National Water Mission.
2. Siddaramaiah elected Karnataka's new
chief minister
i. Congress leader
Siddaramaiah has been appointed as Karnataka's new chief minister today.
ii. The 121 Congress MLAs elected by
the people of Karnataka voted via secret ballot to elect him this evening.
iii. This comes after secret balloting
route was adopted by the Congress to select the new chief minister for the
state after the party's thumping victory in the assembly elections.
iv. Mr Siddaramaiah is a
backward caste leader with a big support base in the state.
v. He has been the Opposition leader,
is among those who scripted the Congress' successful campaign.
vi. A five-time MLA from Varuna in south
Karnataka, Mr Siddaramaiah is from the Kuruba community and was virtually the
face of the Congress in these elections. Once part of the JD (S) and an HD Deve
Gowda protege, Mr Siddaramaiah has been a Congressman for only about six years.
3. Roberto Azevedo appointed Head of W.T.O
i. Roberto Azevedo from
Brazil
on 8 May 2013 was named as the head of the World Trade Organisation.
ii.
His appointment to
the office came up at the time when the organization is struggling to identify
ways to revive the talks on freeing global commerce and to help poorer nations
in development.
iii. He will take charge of his office
from Pascal Lamy of France
in the Geneva-based Body in September 2013.
iv.
After being into
the office, his journey will start with the 9th ministerial in Bali, Indonesia
from 3 to 6 December 2013.
NOTE:
i. Azevedo is the
first Latin American to be appointed as the head of the WTO since it was
created in 1995
ii.
The process of
electing the WTO Head took a period of about six months. A total of nine people
were competing for the post.
About Roberto Azevedo
i. Since
2008, the 55 years old, Roberto Azevedo has been serving WTO as the Permanent
Representative of Brazil to
WTO and other International Economic Organisation in Geneva
ii. He was the Deputy Chief of Staff for
Economic Affairs to the Foreign Minister from 1995 to 96
About WTO
i. WTO
was established with the signing of the Marrakesh
Agreement/ Marrakesh Declaration at Marrakesh,
Morrocco in 1994.
ii. WTO came up as a replacement of the
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). GATT was overseeing the rules of
commerce since 1948.
iii. GATT covered trade in goods,
whereas WTO deals with trade of inventions, designs and services
too.
4. I&B Minister Manish Tewari hands
over Phalke award to Pran
i. Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari handed over the
Dadasaheb Phalke Award, the highest honour in Indian cinema, to legendary
Bollywood actor Pran at his residence in Mumbai on Friday.
ii.
Pran, 93, could not make it to the
60th National Film Awards
ceremony held in New Delhi last
week for health reasons.
iii. It is probably for
the first time that an artiste was given the Phalke award at his home. The
brief ceremony was telecast live.
iv.
"It's a great
honour to present the honour to Pran saab. His contribution to the Indian
cinema has been huge and the greatness of the award gets bigger after honouring
Pran with Dadasaheb Phalke," Tewari told reporters at Pran's residence.
v.
Pran is known for
acting in over 400 movies in a career spanning over six decades and played a
vast range of roles - from a hero to a villain to a character artist.
vi. Apart from Pran's
family members, well-known filmmaker Karan Johar's mother Hiroo Johar was
present at his residence for the ceremony. TV and film actor Vishal Malhotra
was also seen there.
5. Minister for Women & Child Development Launched
the World Bank Assisted ISSNIP
i. The
Minister for Women & Child Development, Krishna Tirath on 9 May 2013
launched the World Bank assisted ICDS Systems Strengthening and Nutrition
Improvement Project (ISSNIP).
ii. The aim of the programme is
improvement of child development and nutritional outcomes for children in
selected districts having higher proportional of child under nutrition.
iii. The project is worth 2893 crore
Rupees with 70 percent IDA share of2025 crore Rupees over the time duration of
7 years.
iv. The project received an initial
support of 106 million US dollar by World Bank, which is payable over the time
of 25 years.
v. This will be followed by the
support for second phase of 344 million US dollar, which will be subject to
assessment of phase
Features of ICDS Systems Strengthening and Nutrition Improvement Project
(ISSNIP):
i. ISSNIP
is designed to supplement and provide value addition on the existing ICDS
programme, through systems strengthening for better service delivery, as well
as to allow the selected States and Districts to experiment, innovate and
conduct pilots of potentially more effective approaches for ICDS in order to
achieve early childhood education and nutrition outcomes.
Four
major components under the project are:
(i) Institutional and systems
strengthening in ICDS
(ii) Community mobilization and
behaviour change communication
(iii) piloting multi-sectoral nutrition
actions,
(iv) Project Management, Technical
Assistance and Monitoring & Evaluation.
6. Ustad Zia Fariduddin
Dagar, Dhrupad Vocalist Passed Away
i. Ustad Zia Fariduddin
Dagar (1932-2013), the dhrupad vocalist passed away on 8 May 2013 following
brief illness at his Gurukul near Panvel.
ii. He was 80 years of age. Drupad is
the oldest existing north Indian classical music form.
About Ustad Zia Fariduddin Dagar
i. Ustad
Zia Fariduddin Dagar was born in Udaipur,
Rajasthan on 15 June 1932.
ii. He was also the court musician of
Maharana Bhupal Singh of Udaipur.
iii. He was the master of srutis. He
was renowned for his drupad vocal in not just India, but also across the world.
iv. He won various prestigious honours
and awards such as Tagore Ratna Award, Tansen Samman and Sangeet Natak Academy
Fellowship.
v. He was also conferred upon with the
Padma Shri- India's
fourth highest civilian honor in 2012, but he turned it down.
vi. He also remained a distinguished
guest faculty at the Dhrupad Sansar of IIT Bombay for 5 years.
7. SC dismisses Sanjay Dutt's review
plea
i.
Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt's hope of getting relief in 1993 Mumbai
blasts case was on Friday dashed with the Supreme Court dismissing his plea
seeking review of its judgment on his conviction and five-year jail term.
ii. A bench of justices P Sathasivam and
BS Chauhan, which had delivered on 21stMarch verdict, refused to review its
verdict on Dutt's plea.
iii. Dutt, who was granted four weeks
more time to surrender to undergo remaining three-and-a-half-year jail term,
will have to surrender before jail authorities on 16th May.
iv.
With the dismissal
of review plea, 53-year-old Dutt has got only one option of getting relief from
the court by filing a curative petition.
v. The apex court had on 21st March upheld his conviction in
the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case which it said was organized by underworld
don Dawood Ibrahim and others with the involvement of Pakistan's ISI.
NOTE: Dutt was convicted by the
TADA court for illegal possession a 9-mm pistol and an AK-56 rifle which were
part of a consignment of weapons and explosives brought to India for
coordinated serial blasts that killed 257 people and injured over 700 in 1993.
8. Former Congress MLA Rukminibai Waje
no more
i.
Rukminibai Vithal Waje, a former Maharashtra MLA, died after a prolonged
illness at Sinnar near Nashik on Thursday night.
ii.
She was 79 and is survived by a son and four daughters.
iii.
Waje was elected to
the Assembly from Sinnar constituency in North Maharashtra
on Congress ticket in 1967.
iv. She was the first woman MLA of
Congress from Sinnar. Her son Hemant Waje is a former Sinnar Municipal Council
President.
9. Hindi story writer and playwright
Surendra Tiwari died
i. Hindi story writer and playwright
Surendra Tiwari died due to brain haemorrhage .
ii. He was 64 years of age. He is
survived by his wife, two sons and a daughter.
About Surendra Tiwari
i. Surendra
Tiwari wrote and edited 25 books in all.
ii. He also edited 51 stories of Nobel
Prize winners as well as 10 volumes of stories of 251 female storytellers
iii. He
was born on 8 October 1948
in Ballia, Uttar Pradesh.
iv. His renowned novels included
Agniparv and Antatah.