National News
1. J&K Govt. formation stalemate which was lingering for the past over three months after the death of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed has come to an end with PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti and BJP state leader Nirmal Singh jointly meeting the J&K Governor N.N. Vohra to stake their claim to form a coalition Govt. The breakthrough had come after a meeting between Prime Minister Modi and Mehbooba Mufti.
2. The Congress Govt. of Harish Rawat in Uttarakhand has run into trouble with 9 of its MLAs withdrawing support, thus throwing the Govt. into a minority in the state assembly. The speaker of Uttarakhand State Assembly has disqualified the 9 Congress MLAs of their status as members of the legislative assembly.
The Governor, K.K. Paul has asked theUttarkhand Congress Govt. to test its majority on the floor of the House.However before that could be done the Centre has imposed Presidents rule in the State on ground of breakdown of constitutional machinery.
3. The Union Govt. has cleared the visit of the Pakistan joint investigation team to probe the Pathankot terrorist attack on New Year’s eve.The Pakistani team has arrived in India.
4. Former Haryana Chief Minister B.S. Hooda skips to appear before justice S.N. Dhingra commission probing Congress leader Sonia Gandhi’s son in law Robert Vadra’s company Skylight Hospitality’s land deals in Haryana.
5. The Enforcement directorate, government of India claims to have enough evidence against Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh in a disproportionate assets case. The Himachal CM had revised his income tax returns showing a income range of Rs. 47.35 lakhs to Rs. 6.57 crores for the years 2008-9 and 2011-12.
6. The Haryana assembly has passed a bill recommending grant of OBC status to Jats in Haryana providing for 10% reservation in class III and IV and 6% in class I and II posts of the State Govt. and also giving them 10% reservation in educational institution admissions.
7. The Uttarkhand Congress government hangs in with a doubtful majority in the state assembly after the defection of 9 of its MLA’s. The speaker of Uttarkhand assembly has disallowed them to cast their votes in any trial of strength. The High Court of Uttarkhand has allowed the 9 defected MLA’s to cast their vote. President’s rule has been promulgated under Article 356 of the Constitution anda Division bench ofthe High Court has suspended the trial of strength in the State Legislature for the time being.
8. Maoists blow up a CRPF vehicle in a land mine ambush killing 7 CRPF men in Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh.
9. PM Modi has commenced his 3 nation tour with the 1st stop at Brussels in Belgium. Talks with Belgian counterpart Charles Michel held. Acts of terrorism strongly condemned by the two leaders. PM Modi has also remotely launched from Brussels, Asia’s biggest telescope at the Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences at Devasthal near Nainital in Uttarkhand.
International News
1. The Prime Minister of Nepal K.P. Sharma Oli and his team sign ten agreements with China in Beijing , the major one being of providing a transit point to land locked Nepal. The Nepalese relation with India have been on a downhill path because of theNepalese Indian origin people Madhesis in a crisis mode for Constitutional reforms in Nepal .
2. U.S. President Barrack Obama is on a historic visit to Cuba, 88 years after the last visit by the U.S. President. In between, in the early sixties because of the Bay of Pigs crisis, the World was literally in the throes of the Third World War between USA and communist USSR backed Cuba.
President Obama has a meeting with President Raul Castro, son of Fidel Castro the architect of Cuban revolution. The Guantanamo bay (known for holding prisoners of war and interrogations) on the Cuban peninsula was leased by Cuba in 1903 to USA which Cuba wants USto revert back to them.
3. Terrorist suicide bombers attack Brussels’s Zaventemairport and a Metro station in Belgium. At least 35 people have been killed and two hundred hurt. The ISIS has claimed it as a retaliatory strike against the arrest of Paris bombing master mind in Belgium.
The Belgium security agencies have made arrest of the suspects involved in the attack.
Brussels is the head quarter of European Union and NATO besides being abusiness hub and a transit point for various airlines connecting Europe to America and Asia.
4 ISIS number 2 in command, Abad al-Rehman Mustafa the finance minister of ISIS has been killed in US bombing attacks in Syria. The US regards it as a major success.
Syrian troops with the backing of Russians have taken theancient city of Palmyra back into its fold from ISIS occupation.
5. A suicide bomber strikes at a group of people mainly Christians in a park at Lahore on the occasion of Easter holiday. The bomber blew himself up killing 72 and injuring over 300 people.
6. In the American presidential elections the race amongst the democrats sharpens as Bernie Sanders takes the 3 primaries of Washington, Alaska and Hawaii cutting into the lead of his party rival Hillary Clinton.
7. US FBI manages to unlock the Apple Iphone used by terrorist SyeedRizwanFarook, a gunman in San Bernardino shooting in California killing 14 people.
The Apple Iphone is backed by IOS 8 files encrypted by default. The 256 – 1bit-AES encryption used by the system is considered as the most secure. The device self erases all the data after 10 attempts have been made to get the password right have failed. The FBI wanted photos, videos, contacts, messages, call history and the GPS positions of the terrorist SyeedRizwanFarook.
Science and Technology
1. The latest to join the smart revolution is an Umbrella designed by a French company which when connected to a smart phone application can predict the weather. The Umbrella is fitted with sensors of air pressure,humidity, temperature and light which indicate whether it will rain in the next 15 minutes or not. It shall also indicate its position, in case of being left behind.
2.The Indian defence research organization DRDO has built and tested a 10 KW Directed Energy Weapon system(DEW) based on high energy lasers and microwaves to target unmanned aerial vehicles.It is for the first time that a research and development of such a system has been carried out in India.
3. The British firm Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV) air vehicle, The Air lander 10 which is a part plane, part airship and part helicopter has taken flight. It is 92 meters long, 26 meter high and 44 meters wide. It can stay air borne for 3 weeks using helium gas and has a maximum speed of 148 km/hour and it can land on water and ice also.
4. Researchers in San Francisco state university have spotted a extra solar planet 117 light years away from Earth, with the most eccentric orbit seen about its star. Usually as in our solar system planets have a near circular orbit. The planet moves in an elliptical path far from its star and has a furious sling short around the star at its closest approach.
5. Rain makers in Thailand spray the clouds and their underneath with calcium chloride and calcium oxide to enlarge the size of the clouds so as to make them rain faster. This prospect of rain making dates backs to 1960 under the agesis of Thai monarchy.
Commerce
1. FII’s have invested over dollar 2.2 billion during the current month after the presentation of the Union Budget on 29 Feb 2016. The market has seen a sharp rebound with Nifty,the Indian Stock Exchange indice trading past 7700,after having dropped to below 6900 on the budget day.
2. Former Infosys co- founder NandanNilekani leads a round of funding of Rs. 50 cr. to a startup run by a group of IITians from IIT Bombay (his alma mater) engaged in running and building of controls for automobile small engines and power trains.
3. Public Sector Banks Steel loans worth Rs. 50000 crores are under scanner. The stressed companies Essar,Bhushan , VISA , and Electro steel in the steel sector have been asked to pump in additional capital or alternatively get ready for the change of management to run their steel sector enterprises.
4. The Supreme Court of India has directed SEBI to start selling Sahara properties immediately as Sahara group chief Subrata Roy under detention has failed to raise Rs. 10,000 crores as bail amount vide bank guarantees. 86 Sahara Properties can fall under the hammer to ensure the return of Rs. 25000 crores raised by 2 Sahara companies from over 30 million small investors by way of fully convertible debentures.
5. Tata Steel puts up its England and Europe steel plants brought from Anglo Dutch Company Corus on block. The 17 thousand employees of Tata Steel Europe call for nationalization of the loss making steel units.
6. The Tata sons Air Asia India stake goes upto 49%. They already have a 51% stake in another Airline Vistara.
Sports
1. T20 Cricket tournament
In a league match at Mumbai, South Africa defeat Afghanistan.
At Bangalore in two different matches, West Indies defeat Sri Lanka and Australia beat Bangladesh.
New Zealand enters the semifinal by beating Pakistan at Mohali. Pakistan also loose to Australia at the same venue in another match.
At Bangalore a nail biting finish extended to the last bowl of the match, India defeat Bangladesh.
West Indies enters the semifinals by beating South Africa at Nagpur.
England also enters the semifinals in group 1 by defeating Sri Lanka at New Delhi.
India enter the semi finals by beating Australia convincingly at Mohali from group2.
2. India’s Gurmeet Singh has won a gold medal at the Asian 20 km Race Walk Championship in Nomi (Japan ).
3. The Grand Prix for this year has started with the Australian circuit in Melbourne and the first race of the year has been won by Nico Rosberg of team Mercedes.
Lewis Hamilton the World champion coming from the same team came at number second.
4. India lose the soccer world cup qualifiers 6th time in a row. They have lost this time to Turkmenistan 1-2 at Kochi.
5. The first semi final of the T-20 Cricket World Cup between England and New Zealand has been won by England.
India lose the 2nd semi final against the West Indies at Mumbai even after scoring 192/2 wickets in 20 overs.
Misc.
1. The national award for best actor has been won by Amitabh Bachchan for his role in the film Piku. KanganaRanaut has won the best actress award for the film Tanu Weds Manu Returns. The best director award goes to Sanjay LeelaBhansali for film BajiraoMastani. The best film award was won by the film Baahubali.
2. The Padma Vibhushan awards conferred on Reliance industries founder DhirubhaiAmbanipostmothously. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and Former J&K governor Jagmohan also honoured with Padma Vibhushan. The Padma Bhushan award presented to Saina, former CAG Vinod Rai and AnupamKher. The Padam Shri awards went to film director MadhurBhandarkar and actor Ajay Devgan.
