General Awareness

NATIONAL AFFAIRS - March 2018

Mar 2018

Feb 18, 2022

Congress Expels Ex-Punjab MLA Dhillon for 'Anti-party Activities'

The Congress expelled former Punjab MLA Kewal Singh Dhillon from the party for alleged anti-party activities.
Dhillon, a two-time former MLA from the Barnala constituency, was denied ticket by the Congress for the February 20 state Assembly polls.
The party has fielded former Union minister Pawan Bansal's son Manish Bansal from the Barnala seat.

Yuva Telangana Party Merges with BJP to Take on Telangana Rashtra Samithi in the State

The Yuva Telangana Party (YTP) merged with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to consolidate the voter base against Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) party in the state. YTP`s founder J. Balakrishna and leader Rani Rudramadevi formally merged with BJP, in the presence of BJP General Secretary Vinod Tavde and BJP state president B. Sanjay Kumar.

Feb 17, 2022

Supreme Court Collegium Clears 16 Names for Bombay, Madras HCs

The Supreme Court Collegium recommended the names of 16 candidates for appointment as judges of Bombay and Madras High Courts. Of the 16 names recommended, 10 are for the Bombay High Court, while six are for the Madras High Court.
Ten advocates recommended for judgeship of the Bombay HC are: Kishore Chandrakant Sant, Valmiki Menezes SA, Kamal Rashmi Khata, Sharmila Uttamrao Deshmukh, Arun Ramnath Pednekar, Sandeep Vishnupant Marne, Gauri Vinod Godse, Rajesh Shantaram Patil, Arif Saleh Doctor and Somasekhar Sundaresan
The advocates recommended for judgeship at the Madras HC are Nidumolu Mala, Sunder Mohan, Kabali Kumaresh Babu, S. Sounthar, Abdul Ghani Abdul Hameed and R. John Sathyan.

Uddhav Thackeray Extends Support for Unified Opposition to KCR

Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray extended support to his Telangana counterpart K. Chandrasekhar Rao for the latter's efforts to unite political organisations against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
Senior Sena leader Sanjay Raut had called KCR's initiative an important step in the direction of forming a stronger Opposition against the BJP-led government.

Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link Project

In a breakthrough development, the main tunnel of the Katra-Banihal section, T-49, was successfully connected between Sumber and Arpinchala stations.
Once completed, the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link (USBRL) mega project will be the longest tunnel of the Indian Railways.
Tunnel T-49 of the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramula Rail Link project is 12.75 km long.
T-49 tunnel has two tubes: the main tunnel and an escape tunnel. It has been constructed by new Austrian tunneling method (NATM), which uses a modern drilling and blast technique. The cross-section profile of the tunnel is a modified horseshoe-shaped.

Feb 16, 2022

Cabinet Approves Setting Up of G20 Secretariat

The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved the setting up of a G20 Secretariat which will be responsible for implementation of overall policy decisions and arrangements needed for steering India's upcoming G20 Presidency.
G20 is the premier forum of the 20 largest economies of the world for international economic cooperation that plays an important role in global economic governance. India will hold the Presidency of the G20 for the first time from December 1, 2022 to November 30, 2023, culminating with the G20 Summit in India in 2023. The country has been a member of the G20 since its inception in 1999.
The G20 Secretariat will be manned by officers and staff from the Ministry of External Affairs, Ministry of Finance, and other relevant line Ministries/Departments and domain knowledge experts. The Secretariat will be functional till February 2024.

Andhra Pradesh Govt. Names K. V. Rajendranath Reddy as DGP

Andhra Pradesh Government transferred Director General of Police (DGP) Gautam Sawang and appointed K. V. Rajendranath Reddy as new DGP. Reddy belongs to the 1992 batch of IPS officers and had served as commissioner of police in Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada earlier. The transfer of Sawang, who is slated for retirement in July 2023 came as a surprise though there were rumours in the official circles about displeasure of Chief Minister Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy over the `inability' of the police machinery in foiling `Chalo Vaijayawada' rally of the government employees who were protesting against the `reduction' in their salaries in the new pay revision a couple of weeks ago. Swang was not given any posting and was asked to report in General Administration (GAD) Deparement. He was appointed as DGP in May 2019 after the victory of the YSR Congress Party in state assembly elections.

Debashis Mitra Takes over as ICAI President; Aniket Sunil Talati Becomes VP

Debashis Mitra took over as the President of Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) for the 2022-23 term.
Aniket Sunil Talati was elected as Vice President of the institute, which has more than 340,000 members and over 700,000 students.
Mitra, who is serving his third term in ICAI Council, has been in the accounting profession for more than 34 years. Apart from being a Chartered Accountant, he is also a Cost Accountant and a Company Secretary.
He holds a master's degree in commerce and is also a law graduate as well as a qualified Information Systems Auditor.
Talati, who has a master's degree in commerce, served as Chairman of Ahmedabad Branch of ICAI for the year 2014-15 and as Secretary, WIRC for the year 2017-18.

Feb 15, 2022

Goa Reports 79 per cent Voting in Assembly Polls

Goa registered a very high voter turnout of 78.94 per cent in polling for the 40 Assembly seats which passed off peacefully with no untoward incident reported from any part of the state which witnessed a multi-cornered contest.
As per Chief Electoral Officer Kunal, the highest voting was registered in the Sankhalim constituency in North Goa at 89.61 per cent, while the lowest voter turnout was 70.20 per cent at Benaulim in South Goa.

Party Hopper MLA Balwinder Singh Laddi Back with BJP

Congress MLA Balwinder Singh Laddi from Sri Hargobindpur constituency of Gurdaspur district shifted loyalty to BJP and then again come back to Congress but only to go back to the saffron party within a period of less than two months.
In December 2021, the sitting MLA from Sri Hargobindpur Balwinder Singh Laddi along with the Fatehjang Singh Bajwa, sitting MLA of Congress from the Qadian assembly defected the party to join BJP.
Fatehjang Bajwa is the younger brother of Member Parliament Partap Singh Bajwa. Fatehjang Singh is now BJP's candidate from the Batala assembly constituency.

Ashwani Kumar, Ex-minister, Quits Congress

Former Union Minister Ashwani Kumar quit the Congress, his party of more than four decades, calling it a decision that was "consistent with my dignity".
Ashwani Kumar was Law Minister in the Manmohan Singh-led Congress government between 2009 and 2014.
This is the latest exit from the Congress, weeks after the party lost RPN Singh, another former Union Minister and a big leader in Uttar Pradesh.

Feb 14, 2022

Govt. Approves Rs. 26,275 cr Scheme for Continuation of Police Modernisation

The Modi government approved the continuation of a mega police modernisation scheme for five years up to 2025-26 with a financial outlay of Rs. 26,275 crore.
The Union Home Ministry said that the scheme includes security-related expenditure in Jammu and Kashmir, northeastern states and Maoists-affected areas, for raising new battalions, developing high-tech forensic laboratories and other investigation tools.
This scheme comprises all relevant sub-schemes that contribute to the modernisation and improvement with a total central financial outlay of Rs. 26,275 crore.

Mamata Dissolves TMC National Office-bearers' Committee, Forms 20-member Panel

Trinamool Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee dissolved the party's national office-bearers' committee, which included her nephew Abhishek Banerjee—the national general secretary, and formed a 20-member working committee to oversee the affairs amid a growing rift.
Asserting her firm control over the party, Banerjee packed the working committee with party veterans who were facing criticism publicly from the TMC's next-generation leaders, backed by Abhishek Banerjee, over holding multiple posts—within the party and the administration.
Banerjee will later name the new office-bearers of the party.
Among the leaders who found a place in the new national working committee are Amit Mitra, Partha Chatterjee, Subrata Bakshi, Sudip Bandopadhyay, Abhishek Banerjee, Anubrata Mondal, Aroop Biswas, Firhad Hakim and Yashwant Sinha.

Hijab Row Erupts in Madhya Pradesh's Satna

The hijab controversy that erupted in a pre-university college in Karnataka hit a college in Madhya Pradesh.
As per report, the fresh controversy over wearing hijab-burqa erupted at an Autonomous PG College in Madhya Pradesh's Satna district after an M.Com student Rukshana Khan arrived at the college wearing hijab to appear in the exam.
In the mean time, students from other groups, including some associated with Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), students' wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), opposed the woman wearing hijab-burqa during the examination.
Sensing that the matter could snowball into a major controversy, the college's principal-in-charge, Shivesh Pratap Singh swung into action. He not only advised Rukshana Khan not to wear hijab again in the college, but also took a written undertaking from her that she will wear only college uniform like other students in future.
The political controversy over hijab in Madhya Pradesh had erupted after School Education Minister Inder Singh Paramar supported banning of hijab in schools and also announced that new dress code will be strictly enforced from the next academic year.
Some Congress leaders who belonged to Muslim community opposed the minister's remarks and said that they would oppose MP government's proposal to ban hijab-burqa.

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