General Awareness

NATIONAL AFFAIRS - December 2016

Dec 2016

Jan 22, 2019

Museum on Netaji Bose at Red Fort

A new digitised museum that brings to the fore some unknown and interesting facts about Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, as a narrative from his childhood days, to the trials of the personnel of the Indian National Army (INA) — a force Bose had put together to fight the British — is ready for inauguration at Red Fort in the national capital.
The museum is slated to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 23, on the occasion of the 123rd birth anniversary of Bose.
The first floor of the Red Fort barracks, on which the museum is built, is the place from where soldiers of the INA were court martialed and tried by the British. The trials started on November 5, 1945, and continued till January 3,1946.
Four barracks at the Red Fort have been converted into museums for visitors. Besides the museum on Bose, three more museums, including one on the 1857 Revolt, the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre, and contemporary paintings, have come up.
There is also a redesigned museum named Azadi Ke Deewane.
The Red Fort Complex is managed directly by the ASI, which is also responsible for the protection of all national heritage sites in India and Indian cultural properties classified as World Heritage Sites.

Jan 21, 2019

Govt Likely to Auction PM Modi's Gifts at National Gallery

The National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) in New Delhi may this month auction gifts and mementos received by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the proceeds from the auction will be used for a noble cause.
Proceeds of the auction will go to Namami Gange, a mission undertaken by the Union Government for conservation and rejuvenation of the Ganga river.
The more than 1,800 items on offer include paintings, photographs, 'pagadis'(turbans), shawls, sculptures and other gifts given to the Prime Minister.
There will be a physical auction that can spread over two days followed by an e-sale of three days.
NGMA, which functions under the ministry of culture, maintains galleries for permanent display and also organises special exhibitions of art. In October last year, NGMA had organised an exhibition of the gifts given to Modi.
A similar auction was held in Gujarat in 2015 with the proceeds going to Namami Gange.

Aadhar Cards Valid for Travelling to Nepal and Bhutan

Aadhaar cards are now valid travel documents for Indians under 15 and over 65 travelling to Nepal and Bhutan, according to a Home Ministry communique.
Indians other than those in the two age brackets will not be able to use Aadhaar to travel to the two neighbouring countries, for which no visas are needed.
Indian citizens going to Nepal and Bhutan don't need a visa if they have a valid passport, a photo identity card issued by the Government of India or an election ID card.
Earlier, persons over 65 and under 15 could show their PAN card, driving licence, Central Government Health Service (CGHS) card or ration card, but not the Aadhaar, to prove their identity and visit the two countries.
The Aadhaar card has now been added to the list.Teens between 15 and 18 years will be allowed to travel between India and Nepal on the basis of an identity certificate issued by the principal of their school in a prescribed form.

Jan 20, 2019

Rail Survey: Shatabdis Cleanest Among Premium Trains

Three Shatabdi trains, including Pune-Secunderabad and Howrah-Ranchi, are the cleanest among 77 premium trains that were surveyed in 2017 by railways while three Duronto trains finished last.
Among 23 Rajdhani trains, Mumbai-New Delhi Rajdhani was ranked the cleanest while New Delhi-Dibrugarh placed at the bottom.
The 'Train Cleanliness Survey 2018', which covered 210 premium and non-premium trains, showed passengers rating all trains poorly on two parameters — cleanliness of the toilets and cleaning of coaches.
The survey results, which included feedback of over 15,000 passengers, has not been made public so far while the ranking of stations on Swachhta parameters have been publicised by the government.
This was the first such survey by the environment and housekeeping management wing of railways and it had engaged two entities to independently conduct the study.
The assessment methodology included process audit, direct observation and passenger feedback.
Passenger feedback was aimed at assessing the perception on a scale of zero to five and this included cleanliness of toilets, working of housekeeping staff, cleanliness of bed rolls, effectiveness of pest management, availability and cleanliness dustbins.
In the Shatabdi trains category, passenger feedback was low primarily on the parameters of "cleanliness of toilets".
In the case of Duronto trains, passengers gave it a low score for the same reason.

Jan 19, 2019

New Delhi appoints new envoys for Israel, South Africa, Bhutan, Maldives

In a major reshuffle of ambassadorial appointments, the Ministry of External Affairs has decided on sending new Ambassadors to Israel, Mexico, South Africa, Argentina, New Zealand and Vietnam. There will also be two significant changes in the neighbourhood coinciding with new governments being elected in Bhutan and the Maldives.
India's High Commissioner to South Africa Ruchira Khamboj is expected to be posted to Thimphu after completing the visit of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa who will be the Chief Guest for the Republic Day parade this year.

4 skip Karnataka CLP meet; Congress shifts remaining MLAs to resort

The Congress on January 18, 2019 swiftly shifted all its Karnataka MLAs to a resort on the outskirts of Bengaluru to foil any poaching bid by the BJP after four lawmakers skipped the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) in a show of defiance.
Ramesh Jarkiholi (Gokak), Mahesh Kumathalli (Athani), B Nagendra (Ballari rural) and Dr Umesh Jadhav (Chincholi) did not show up, despite the party warning all lawmakers that their absence could lead to disqualification as MLAs.
The Congress leadership decided to keep its MLAs together after hearing about the BJP allegedly making 'irresistible' offers to its MLA.

Jan 18, 2019

Congress's Income Lowest in 11 Years

The Congress party has declared Rs.199 crore of income for 2017-18, a 12% decline from the previous year and its lowest in 11 years, according to the annual audit report filed by the party with the Election Commission of India (ECI) and data compiled by election watchdog Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).
The ECI made the audit report public. ADR data is available on its website. The Congress party's income for the year is a fifth of the Rs.1,027 crore declared by its key opponent, the ruling BJP.
The Congress party earned more income than the BJP every year between 2001-02 and 2012-13.
The Congress party's income for the year is a fifth of the Rs. 1,027 crore declared by its key opponent, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

India's First Cinema Museum

PM Narendra Modi will inaugurate the country's first National Museum of Indian Cinema (NMIC) on January 19.
This state-of the-art museum, built at a cost of over Rs 140 crore, aims to take its visitors through an absorbing journey of over a century of Indian cinema with the help of visuals, graphics, artifacts, interactive exhibits and multimedia expositions.
The museum is housed in two buildings — the five-storey New Museum Building and the 19th century Victorian Gothic bungalow Gulshan Mahal — on the Films Division campus in Mumbai.
After decades of being used as the home of a Khoja merchant, a hospital for World War II soldiers, the Jai Hind College campus and the Films Division office, Gulshan Mahal will now house quaint artifacts of India's pre-cinema history, like 'chitrapat' — an unravelling scroll of pictures — and Magic Lantern, which shows a successive projection of glass slide images creating the illusion of movement.
It will also showcase over a hundred years of Indian cinema through nine sections, ranging from the origins of Indian cinema to silent films to the studio era to the New Wave.

SC Strikes Down Ban on Dance Bars in Maharashtra

Five years after it first upheld a 2006 Bombay high court order striking down the ban on dance bars in Maharashtra, the Supreme Court set aside most of the stringent conditions imposed by the state that hampered grant of licences and led to the closure of most bars.
The Maharashtra government has since 2005 made three attempts to ban dance bars, and this is the third time the SC has intervened to
protect the interest of bar owners and bar girls. This time, the court quashed provisions to bring the bars under CCTV surveillance and to ban serving of liquor, noting the regulations were totally disproportionate, unreasonable and arbitrary. It also said separation of dancing area from the bar area by placing a non-transparent partition was not required.
The court, however, agreed with the state in allowing dance bars to operate only between 6pm-11.30pm and to ban the practice of showering notes and coins on the dancing stage.
The SC said there cannot be complete prohibition from serving alcoholic beverages, and other measures have to be adopted to check any nuisance.

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