22nd April 2015 - Important Current Affairs updates

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International Affairs

• International Mother Earth Day‬ is being observed today (22nd April).
• • This day is observed to create awareness and to support environmental protection.
  • The Day marks the anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970.
  • The idea came to Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson, then a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, after witnessing the ravages of the 1969 massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California.
• Ministry of External Affairs, India Sushma Swaraj is on 5-day visit to Jakarta.
• • In this visit, she will attend the  60th anniversary of  Bandung Conference.
  • She will also attend the 10th anniversary celebrations of the New Asian-African Strategic Partnership. 
  • Bandung Conference : 
  • • The Bandung Conference was the first global meeting of African and Asian states to promote cooperation along economic and cultural lines, and opposition to colonial and neocolonial politics. 
    • The conference was hosted in Bandung, Indonesia by President Sukarno, in April 1955, and included delegates from 25 countries representing more than one-half of the world’s population.
    • Bandung spawned the Non-Aligned Movement, a vibrant coalition of countries that created a non-western set of alliances and politics, in opposition to the cold war politics of the U.S. and Soviet Union.  

National Affairs

• Cabinet clears amendment in Juvenile Justice Act.
  
• • This amendment lowers the age of Juveniles from 18 to 16 years for heinous crimes.
  • The proposal will empower Juvenile Justice Board to decide on whether a juvenile above 16 years involved in heinous crimes such as rape is to be sent to a observation home or tried in a regular court.
  • However, according to the bill, in no case the juvenile involved in a heinous crime will be sentenced to death or life imprisonment either when tried under the provisions of JJ Act or under the provisions of IPC.
  • The proposed amendments also included facilitating faster adoption of children and setting up foster care homes.
• International news channel Al Jazeera was today forced to go off air in India for five days as the government penalized it for repeatedly showing wrong maps of India.
• The Indian Railways launched "utsonmobile", a mobile application for paperless unreserved tickets.
• • Developed by Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS), ‘utsonmobile’ — the paperless unreserved ticketing feature in mobile application aims to eliminate the need for printing of unreserved tickets.

People in News

• Two Indians, Rahul Pandita and Zeena Johar are among 16 scholars selected for the 2015 Yale World Fellows in the US for their exemplary mid-career work.
• Rahul is an Indian conflict reporter and Zeena is an health care founder. The global Yale World Fellows network now includes 17 Indian Fellows, more than any other country since the programme was established in 2002.

Awards & Honors

• Pakistan today conferred its top civilian award ‘Nishan-e-Pakistan’ on Chinese President Xi Jinping for his outstanding contribution in promotion of relationship between the two countries.
• • Pakistan President : Mamnoon Hussain

Business & Economy

• Make My Trip has made another move to expand its travel services, with the acquisition of a travel startup named Mygola today.

Sports

• The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has confirmed that Zimbabwe will be the first Test team to tour Pakistan since 2009.

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