19-20 April

20 April

Kerala government launched Subodham project to end liquor abuse

State Government of Kerala on 19 April 2015 launched Subodham project, to help people in the state to overcome addiction to liquor. 

The project was launched by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and Art of Living Foundation founder Sri Sri Ravishankar in Kochi.

Subodham Aims at
• To wipe out the menace of substance addiction from society
• To free one lakh people each year from alcohol addiction, through comprehensive, systematic awareness campaigns

The project seeks to achieve the ambitious target of making the state totally alcohol free over the next ten years.

The Subodham is envisaged by the excise department of the state and will be implemented by a high-level committee comprising experts from various fields. Excise Minister K. Babu is the chairman of Subodham. 

The Subodham is supported by the UNICEF, as well as, several religious leaders, non-governmental organisations and other stake holders. It is the first step towards Punarjani 2030 Project an initiative of Kerala government to completely eradicate the menace of substance abuse in the state. 

Besides, the government has also decided to introduce anti-drug and alcohol awareness content in the curriculum from the next academic year.

Chhurim Sherpa, first woman to climb the Everest summit twice in a week

Chhurim Sherpa, first woman to climb the 8850 metre (29035 feet) Mount Everest summit twice in a week was in news on 19 April 2015. Sherpa was in news as during her third ascent to Mount Everest she will take a cricket bat and two jerseys of deceased Australian cricketer Phil Hughes.

The belongings of Hughes are being carried to the summit as a mark of tribute to the player. He died in November 2014 after he was hit on the back of his head by a ball while batting during a domestic match in Sydney.

Chhurim under this expedition will carry the items to the top and back to Kathmandu, where they will be kept at the Australian embassy.

Chhurim Sherpa is a Nepali mountaineer, who became the first woman to climb Mount Everest twice in the same season, a feat which was verified by the Guinness Book of World Records in March 2013. She accomplished this feat in 2012, by climbing Everest on 12 May 2012 and 19 May 2012.

Carzonrent India acquired car-pooling startup firm Ridingo

Car rental firm, Carzonrent India (CIPL) on 20 April 2015 acquired car-pooling startup firm Ridingo. The acquisition is aimed at achieving 6000 crore rupees revenue by having presence in 250 Indian cities in the next five years.

The acquisition is part of the strategy of company to build leadership into evolving sharing economy.

The company has decided to make investments into technology, infrastructure and people to build a safe and sustainable ecosystem for car owners and passengers enabling use of the available resources to deliver cost benefits.

CIPL has aggressive growth plans and aims to build a fleet of 100000 vehicles for its car sharing business.

Ridingo is a mobile and cloud-based solution provider of ride sharing. It was founded by Vardhan Koshal and Srivatsan Mohan.

Rajiv Vij is Managing Director (MD) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Carzonrent.

Three Indian race walkers Khushbir, Manish, Sandeep qualified for 2016 Rio Olympics

Three Indian race walkers, Khushbir Kaur, Manish Rawat and Sandeep Kumar on 19 April 2015 qualified for 2016 Rio Olympics. They qualified for the Olympics during the IAAF Race Walking Challenge at Rio Maiorin Portugal.

Khushbir Kaur, the National women's 20km walk record holder clocked 1 hour 33 minute and 58 seconds to better Rio Olympic qualification time of 1 hour and 35 minutes. She finished 13th in the race.

Manish Rawat, in the men’s 20km race walk clocked his personal best performance with a timing of 1 hour 22 minutes and 50 seconds. He finished in top 10 in the list.

Sandeep, the National 50km race walk record holder, in the men’s 20km race walk category clocked 1 hour 23 minute and 32 seconds. He finished 14th-place finish in the race.

Manish Rawat and Sandeep Kumar who qualified for Rio Games were well above qualification time of 1 hour and 24 minutes.

Maharashtra Government constituted taskforce on farm development, poverty alleviation

The State Government of Maharashtra on 17 April 2015 constituted a taskforce on agriculture development and poverty alleviation to address the issues.

A Government Resolution (GR) said that the 12-member taskforce on agriculture development will be headed by the Additional Chief Secretary (Agriculture). Secretaries of the departments of finance, planning, cooperation, water resources, water conservation, forest, and dairy development are the members of the taskforce on agriculture.

A separate GR said that the taskforce on poverty alleviation will be headed by Principal Secretary (Social Justice Department). Other members of this taskforce comprises secretaries of departments of tribal development, rural development, finance, housing, urban development, labour and public health.

Background
The taskforce was formed in line with the suggestion of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Modi on 8 February 2015 at the first meet of the National Institution for Transformation of India (NITI) Aayog had suggested to all state governments to set up such panels.

UN released a report titled Global E-Waste Monitor 2014

United Nations (UN) on 19 April 2015 released a report titled Global E-Waste Monitor 2014. The report has been compiled by the United Nations University (UNU), the UN’s think tank. The report offers a wealth of insights into the location and composition of the world’s fast-growing e-waste problem.

As per the report, in the year 2014 volume of e-waste is estimated around 41.8 million metric tonnes (Megatonnes – Mt) and it is expected to rise by 21 percent to 50 million Mt in 2018.

Also, e-waste contained 52 billion US dollars in resources, large volumes of toxic material out of which most is not collected for recovery or treatment.

Main Highlights of the Report

• The US and China produced the most e-waste overall in 2014 at 32 percent. India came in fifth, behind the US, China, Japan and Germany.
• The top per capita producers by far are the wealthy nations of northern and western Europe, the top five being Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, Denmark, and the UK.
• The lowest amount of e-waste per inhabitant was generated in Africa (1.7 kg/inhabitant). The continent generated 1.9 Mt of e-waste in total.
• Most world e-waste in 2014 was generated in Asia: 16 Mt (3.7 kg per inhabitant).
• The highest per inhabitant e-waste quantity (15.6 kg/inhabitant) was generated in Europe; the region (including Russia) generated 11.6 Mt.
• The lowest quantity of e-waste was generated in Oceania (0.6 Mt), however, per inhabitant the e-waste generated was nearly as high as Europe’s (15.2 kg/inhabitant)
• In 2014, only 7 per cent of e-waste was made up of mobile phones, calculators, personal computers, printers, and small information technology equipment
• Almost 60 per cent was a mix of large and small equipment used in homes and businesses, such as vacuum cleaners, toasters, electric shavers, video cameras, washing machines, electric stoves, mobile phones, calculators, personal computers, and lamps
• The e-waste generated in 2014 contained an estimated 16500 kilotons of iron, 1900 kilotons of copper, 300 tonnes of gold (equal to 11% of the world’s total 2013 gold production), as well as silver, aluminum, palladium plastic and other resources with a combined estimated value of 52 billion US dollar.

• Toxins in that e-waste, meanwhile, include 2.2 Mt of lead glass, 0.3 Mt of batteries, as well as mercury, cadmium, chromium and 4400 tonnes of ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbon (CFCs).

• Health problems associated with such toxins include impaired mental development, cancer, and damage to liver and kidneys.

• In 2014, approximately 4 billion people were covered by national e-waste legislation (though not all laws cover the full range of e-waste and are not all enforced).

Comment
The global e-waste problem is escalating and it is mainly driven by the rising sales and shortening life cycles of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) EEE is essentially, any device with a battery or an electric cord.

On the one hand, e-waste constitutes a valuable urban mine, that is, it is a large potential reservoir of recyclable materials. On the other, the hazardous content of e-waste constitutes a toxic mine that must be managed with extreme care.

India and South Korea held high level defence talks in Seoul

India and South Korea on 18 April 2015 held high level defence talks in Seoul. The talks were held on the sidelines of four day visit of Indian Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar to South Korea.

The meeting was held with South Korean Defence Minister Han Min-koo at the Ministry of Defence of Korea in Seoul.

Parrikar also met Admiral Choi, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Minister Chang of the Defence Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA); National Security Advisor Kim Kwan-jin.

In all his meetings, the Defence Minister offered sincere condolences on the first anniversary of the Sewol ferry disaster that happened in April 2014, in which over 300 lives were lost.

During the meeting with Admiral Choi, the two sides discussed existing bilateral defence relations.

Both sides recognized that the relationship was one in which there are no obstacles to realizing the significant potential for military to military ties.

Also, the two sides recognized that their shared perspectives on regional and international issues created a firm foundation for cooperation in defence production, research and development.

Parrikar and Defence Minister Han focussed in particular on ways of expanding contact between the defence establishments on both sides, and ways of building deep partnerships between Indian and Korean defence industries.

Shah Rukh Khan, Zayn Malik honoured at the 5th Asian Awards

Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan and teen idol Zyan Malik on 17 April 2015 were honoured at the 5th Asian Awards held at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London.  

Khan was awarded with the prestigious Outstanding Contribution to Cinema award. The 49-year-old actor received the award by Indian-origin British filmmaker Gurinder Chadha.

Previous winners in the cinema category included Irrfan Khan (2014), Anupam Kher (2013) and Yash Chopra (2011).

On the other hand, 22-year-old Malik was awarded with the Outstanding Contribution to Music. He is an English singer and songwriter, and a previous member of the boy band One Direction. 

List of Awardees

Category	Winners
Founders Award		Dr. Amar Bose, Founder of Bose Corporation
Entrepreneur of the Year		Jack Ma, Founder & CEO of Alibaba
Outstanding Achievement in Cinema		Shah Rukh Khan, Bollywood actor
Chivas Regal Social Entrepreneur of the Year		Gopi Gopalakrishnan, President, World Health Partners
Outstanding Achievement in Sport		Kumar Sangakkara, Cricketer of Sri Lanka
Business Leader of the Year		The Hinduja Brothers
Outstanding Achievement in Television		Sanjeev Bhaskar, Comedian, actor and broadcaster
Outstanding Achievement in Art & Design		John Rocha, Designer
Outstanding Achievement in Science & Technology		Sir Tejinder Singh Virdee, Experimental particle physicist
Outstanding Achievement in Music		Zayn Malik, English singer and songwriter

About Asian Awards
It was launched in 2010 by Paul Sagoo, entrepreneur and Founder of the Lemon Group to recognise and reward exemplary achievement from within the Asian community across 14 categories that include business, philanthropy, entertainment, culture and sport. 

In 2010 and 2011, the awards were only open to those born in or with direct family origin from India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, or Bangladesh, however, in 2013, the Awards were opened to all people of both South and Eastern Asian origin.

Sitaram Yechury elected as General Secretary of CPI (M)

Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPI (M) on 19 April 2015 unanimously elected Sitaram Yechury as the general secretary of the party. He is the fifth general secretary of the party. 

He succeeded Prakash Karat, who was the General Secretary of the party from 2005 to April 2015.

He was appointed as the general secretary by 91-member Central Committee (CC) following the withdrawal of S. Ramachandran Pillai from the race. Pillai’s name was proposed by the outgoing general secretary Prakash Karat.

The new CC also elected a 16-member Polit Bureau of which four are new faces and they are Hannan Mollah, Mohd Salim, Subhashini Ali and G Ramakrishnan. 

Besides, names of three party veterans V.S. Achuthanandan, Budhhadeb Bhattacharya and Nirupam Sen were dropped from the CC along with K Vardha Rajan.

Centre Party won the Parliamentary Elections of Finland

Finland’s opposition Centre Party led by Juha Sipila on 19 April 2015 won the General Election. Centre party, the advocates of wage freeze and spending cuts to regain Finland’s competitiveness, defeated the centre-right National Coalition party of incumbent Prime Minister Alexander Stubb.

In the General elections held for 200 seats Parliament, Centre Party won 42 seats, anti-immigration and anti-bailout Finn’s party under Timo Soini won 38 seats, pro-European Union (EU) and pro-North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) National Coalition party of Stubb won 37 seats and the centre-left Social Democrats party won 34 seats.

Percentage wise, the Centre party won 23.2 percent of the total votes which was 7.4 percent more than what it won in 2011 elections. With 17.9 percent of total vote won, Stubb’s National Coalition party came at second place which was 2.4 percent less compared to 2011 elections.

These two parties were followed by the Social Democrats with 17.7 percent and Finns Party with 15.8 percent votes.

The win of opposition Centre party means that Finland, which has been facing the economic slowdown during the four-year Alexander Stubb rule, may now get an economic revamp that could rescue Finland. However, he may likely need coalition support from Finn’s party which is Eurosceptic party and critical of further Greek bailouts

13th UN Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice held in Doha

The 13th UN Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice was held from 12 April 2015 to 19 April 2015 at Qatar National Convention Centre in Doha, Qatar. The Summit concluded with the adoption of Doha Declaration.

The Doha Declaration aims at integrating crime prevention and criminal justice into the wider United Nations (UN) agenda to address social and economic challenges and to promote the rule of law at the national and international levels, and public participation.

During the conference, delegates pledged action to promote justice for all, underline link between rule of law, sustainable development and by adopting a statement to that effect participants committed themselves to integrating crime prevention and criminal justice into the wider UN agenda.

The Doha Congress in 2015 coincided with the 60th anniversary of the Crime Congress. The summit was attended by a large group of policymakers, academicians working in the field of crime prevention and criminal justice to contribute to the drafting of the United Nations agenda and standards on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice.

The UN conference on crime control is held at every five-year intervals. The first Congress was held in Geneva, Switzerland in 1955 while the 12th Congress was held in Salvador, Brazil in 2010.