5th April 2015 - Important Current Affairs updates

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International Affairs

• Iran has partially lifted a ban on women attending men's sports matches, days after a court pardoned Ghoncheh Ghavami, an Iranian-British woman, who had been jailed for protesting against the law.
• India is going to host the 5th meeting of the SAARC Health Ministers at New Delhi on 8 April, 2015. 
• Union Minister of Health & Family Welfare, Mr. J. P. Nadda, will chair the meeting of the SAARC Health Ministers. 
• Other Participants of the meeting are, 
• Mr. Firozuddin Feroz, Minister of Public Health, Government of Afghanistan
• Mr. Zahid Maleque, MP, State Minister for Health & Family Welfare, Government of Bangladesh
• Mr. Lyonpo Tandin Wangchuk, Minister of Health, Royal Government of Bhutan
• Mr. Ahmed Zuhoor, Minister of Health, Government of Maldives
• Mr. Khaga Raj Adhikari, Minister of Health & Population, Government of Nepal
• Ms. Saira Afzal Tarar, Federal Minister of State for National Health Services, Regulation and Coordination, Government of Pakistan 
• Dr. Rajitha Senaratne, Minister of Health & Indigenous Medicine, Government of Sri Lanka
• Note : The 4th meeting of the SAARC Health Ministers was held at Maldives in April 2012.
• Prior to the Health Ministers’ meeting, 
• the 7th Meeting of SAARC Expert Group on HIV/AIDS, 
• 5th Meeting of the SAARC Technical Committee on Health and Population and 
• the 5th Meeting of the SAARC Senior Officials (Health Secretaries) will be held during 6-7 April, 2015.

National Affairs

• Christian community in India and across the world is celebrating Easter with religious fervour
  
  and enthusiasm today.
• Delhi government re-launched the anti-corruption helpline to curb corruption in government offices. 
• Inaugurating the helpline number 1031, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal said, the new service will be used by people to lodge complaints, if they are harassed for bribe by the government officials.
• The helpline is a revival of the service which the AAP government had launched during its earlier 49-day stint after the 2013 Assembly elections.
• A group of volunteers has been trained to run the 24/7 helpline and attend the calls in English and Hindi. 
• The executives will also direct the callers on how to conduct sting operations. 
• All the calls will be divided into two categories - serious and non-serious.
• RJD Chief Lalu Prasad Yadav announced the merger of 6 parties of Janata Parivar.
• These parties are,
• Samajwadi Party, 
• Janta Dal (U), 
• RJD, 
• Janta Dal (S), 
• Indian National Lok Dal &
• Samajwadi Janta Party (Chandrashekhar).
• 6 parties under one flag and one symbol will fight election in the country.
• The government is mulling blocking mobile taxi-hailing apps of Uber, Ola and TaxiForSure all over the country, with the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DEITY) seeking views from the Transport Ministry for the same.
• The Delhi government had requested DEITY to block such apps, but the department found it technically impossible to do so for one particular State, and therefore, it sought “concurrence” of the Transport Ministry for all-India execution.
• It is technically not possible to block an application only in Delhi and the execution can only happen at the national level.

Science & Technology

• Scientists at Europe's physics research center CERN today restarted their "Big Bang" Large Hadron Collider (LHC), , embarking on a new bid to resolve some mysteries of the universe and look for "dark matter".
• The machine had been shut for two years for a refit. 
• Hopes for the second run lie in breaking out of what is known as the "Standard Model" of how the universe works at the level of elementary particles, and into "New Physics".
• That includes searching for the dark matter that makes up about 96 per cent of the stuff of the universe but can only be detected by its influence on visible matter like galaxies and planets.
• CERN - Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire (European Council for Nuclear Research) 

People in News

• The Crime Branch-CID of the Tamil Nadu police has arrested former Agriculture minister S S Krishnamoorthy in connection with the suicide of senior engineer S Muthukumarasamy in Tirunelveli on February 20.

Sports

• World number one ‎Serena Williams‬ lifts the Miami Open title for the eighth time.
• She beat Spain's Carla Suarez Navarro to claim her third consecutive title.
• This was Serena's 66th Singles trophy. 
• She is sixth in the overall rankings, the first in the list being Martina Navratilova with 167 titles.
• Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis to play in Women's Doubles final in Miami Tennis Open tonight.
• 24th Sultan  Azlan Shah Cup‬ Men's Hockey tournament kicks off in Ipoh, Malaysia today.
• The Indian team, which is already assured of a place in the Rio Olympics next year, begin its campaign against Korea today.
• The match ended in draw.

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