Current Affairs - 5 May 2015

Supreme Court declared Section 66A of IT Act is Unconstitutional

• 
  

  The Supreme Court (SC) of India on 24 March 2015 declared Section 66A of the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000 as unconstitutional and struck it down.

  • The law had been challenged first by a law student named Shreya Singhal after two young women were arrested in 2012 for posting comments critical of the total shutdown in Mumbai after the death of Bal Thackeray, the Shiv Sena chief.

  • Section 66A reads: "Any person who sends by any means of a computer resource any information that is grossly offensive or has a menacing character; or any information which he knows to be false, but for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and with fine."

India’s first Polar Remotely Operated Vehicle (PROVe) successfully operationalised in North Antarctica

• 
  India’s Polar Remotely Operated Vehicle (PROVe), indigenously built by National Institute of Ocean Tec

  hnology, was operationalised for research on 25th March 2015 in North Antarctica.

  • Union Minister for Earth Sciences Harsh Vardhan made the symbolic launch of the PROVe from the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) headquarters in Chennai.
  • The results of PROVe’s findings will contribute vastly to mankind’s understanding of climate besides enhancing the capability to predict the Monsoon.

  • ESSO-NIOT is part of an Indo-US initiative under the Monsoon Mission program of the Union Ministry of Earth Sciences.

BJP became world's largest party, overtakes Communist Party of China

• 
  

  

  Overtaking Communist Party of China BJP becomes world’s largest party  which has increased its membership to three fold than earlier.
  

  • BJP now has 8.8 crore members so far while the last date of membership drive is still two days ahead while second largest party -Communist party of China has 8.26 members as per official data of last year 2014.
  • Uttar Pradesh party has s recorded a membership of 1.47 crore till  now which is very close to ts initial target of 1.5 crore but party president Amit Shah has  raised the target by another 50 lakh.
  • In West Bengal  BJP membership  has now increased from 1.25 to 37 lakh giving severe warning to communist forces.

Indian-origin Nobel laureate Sir Venkatraman Ramakrishnan to head Royal Society in UK

• 
  India-born Nobel laureate Sir Venkatraman Ramakrishnan has been confirmed as president elect of Britain's prestigious Royal Society on 18 March 2015. he  will take up the post on December 1, 2015.

  • Ramakrishnan, who will be the first Indian-origin scientist to hold the post, was born in Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu, and studied biology in the US.
  • Ramakrishnan will succeed geneticist Sir Paul Nurse, also a Nobel laureate.
  • He is currently deputy director of the British Medical Research Council's Laboratory of Molecular Biology at Cambridge University.
  • He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2003 and was knighted by Britain's Queen in 2012.

  • Previous presidents of the Royal Society have included Isaac Newton, Christopher Wren, Samuel Pepys, Joseph Banks, Humphry Davy, and Ernest Rutherford.

Balbir Singh Senior awarded with Major Dhyan Chand Lifetime Achievement Award

• 
  

  The legendary Balbir Singh Senior, member of three Olympic gold medal winning teams, was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the inaugural Hockey India Awards on 28 March 2015.

  • He received a trophy and a cash prize of 30 lakh rupees.
  • In his hockey career, Balbir Singh Senior had represented Indian team in three Olympics games including London Olympics (1948), Helsinki Olympics (1952) and Melbourne Olympics (1956).

LIST OF JNANPITH AWARD WINNERS

• 
  

  
  

  
  

  LIST OF JNANPITH AWARD WINNERS
  	NAME	LANGUAGE	YEAR
  1	G. Sankara Kurup	Malayalam	1965
  2	T.S. Bandyopadhyaya	Bangla	1966
  3	Uma Shankar Joshi	Gujarati	1967
  4	K.V. Puttappa	Kannada	1967
  5	Sumitranandan Pant	Hindi	1968
  6	Firaq Gorakhpuri	Urdu	1969
  7	V. Satyanarayana	Telugu	1970
  8	Bishnu Dey	Bangla	1971
  9	Ramdhari Singh ‘Dinkar’	Hindi	1972
  10	D.R. Bendre	Kannada	1973
  11	Gopinath Mohanty	Oriya	1973
  12	V.S. Khandekar	Marathi	1974
  13	P.V. Akilandam	Tamil	1975
  14	Ashapurna Devi	Bangla	1976
  15	K.S. Karanth	Kannada	1977
  16	S.H.V. Ajneya	Hindi	1978
  17	B.K. Bhattacharya	Assamese	1979
  18	S.K. Pottekkatt	Malayalam,	1980
  19	Amrita Pritam	Punjabi	1981
  20	Mahadevi Varma	Hindi	1982
  21	Masti V. Iyengar	Kannada	1983
  22	Thakazhi S. Pillai	Malayalam	1984
  23	Pannalal Patel	Gujarati	1985
  24	Satchidanand Rautroy	Oriya	1986
  25	V.V.S. ‘Kusumagraj’	Marathi	1987
  26	C. Narayana Reddy	Telugu	1988
  27	Qurratulain Hyder	Urdu	1989
  28	V.K. Gokak	Kannada	1990
  29	Subhash Mukhopadhyaya	Bangla	1991
  30	Naresh Mehta	Hindi	1992
  31	Sitakant Mahapatra	Oriya	1993
  32	U.R. Anantha Murthy	Kannada	1994
  33	M.T. Vasudevan Nair	Malayalam	1995
  34	Mahasveta Devi	Bangla	1996
  35	Ali Sardar Jafri	Urdu	1997
  36	Girish Karnad	Kannada	1998
  37	Nirmal Verma	Hindi	1999
  38	Gurdial Singh	Punjabi	1999
  39	Indira Goswami	Assamese	2000
  40	Rajendra Shah	Gujarati	2001
  41	D. Jayakanthan	Tamil	2002
  42	Vinda Karandikar	Marathi	2003
  43	Rahman Rahi	Kashmiri	2004
  44	Kunwar Narain	Hindi	2005
  45	Satyavrat Shastri	Sanskrit	2006
  46	Ravindra Kelekar	Konkani	2006
  47	O. N. V. Kurup	Malayalam	2007
  48	Akhlaq Khan Shahryar	Urdu	2008
  49	Shrilal Shukla	Hindi	2009
  50	Amarkant	Hindi	2009
  51	Chandrasekhar Kambar	Kannada	2010