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. 
• Note : 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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