The Daily Brief – 30th September, 2016

The Daily Briefs are a comprehensive update of current affairs for the day. To know more about them, read this. If you’d like to receive updates for current affairs every day, you’ll need to subscribe by entering your email address at the right side of this page. The previous Briefs can be accessed at the archives here. Also, check out our mock tests!

• The Indian Army announced that it had carried out strikes on eight terror launch pads, in a night long operation across the Line of Control in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, which, officials claimed, exacted casualties in the double digits. The operation to hit terrorist bases in a “pre-emptive counterstrike” were given the go-ahead a week ago, days after the attack on the Uri army base in which 19 Indian soldiers were killed. The strikes were in locations spread over 200 kilometres, and were carried out by Para Special Forces and ‘Ghatak’ platoons of the local units. High alerts have been sounded at the borders in Rajasthan and Gujarat, in light of the surgical strikes.
• The Supreme Court has set aside a Patna High Court order granting bail to former RJD MP Mohd. Shahabuddin in a murder case. A Bench of Justices P.C. Ghose and Amitava Roy ordered the Bihar government to take Shahabuddin back into custody.
• The Patna High Court declared Bihar’s amended prohibition law illegal. The new stringent prohibition law allowed police or excise department officials to send anyone found with a liquor bottle in his house or residential compound, to jail for 10 years.
• For the first time outside of the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad, 42 rare pictures of Mahatma Gandhi, taken by his grand-nephew Kanu Gandhi, will be showcased in Bangalore. The exhibition titled ‘Kanu’s Gandhi’ will be displayed at the National Gallery of Modern Art from October 1, ahead of Gandhi Jayanti. The exhibition will also travel to Goa, Mumbai and Dhaka.
• Riyadh Mathew, Director of Malayala Manorama , and Viveck Goenka, Chairman and Managing Director of Indian Express , were unanimously elected Chairman and Vice-Chairman respectively of the Press Trust of India (PTI).

  

• The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet approved the appointment of retired IAS officer Shakti Sinha to the post of the director of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. Mr. Sinha who has served in the PMO during Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s tenure, was also director in India Foundation, a think tank aligned to the RSS.
• President Pranab Mukherjee appointed  15 judges to the Madras High Court two months after the Supreme Court Collegium recommended their names to the government.
• The victims of the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots have demanded an apology from the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) for its report on the alleged “exodus” of Hindu families from Kairana town in Uttar Pradesh. They have also demanded immediate withdrawal of the report. Citing 24 unnamed witnesses, the report, released on September 21, 2016, stated that youth of the Muslim majority community taunted women of the minority community.
• The Indian Motion Picture Producers Association has passed a resolution banning Pakistani actors from the industry. Last week, Raj Thackeray-led MNS issued a 48-hour ultimatum to Pakistani artistes, including Fawad Khan and Ali Zafar, to leave India by September 25.
• Noted Dalit voice, poet and Telugu writer Prof. Kalakaluri Enoch has been conferred with the prestigious Moortidevi Award of Bharatiya Jnanpith for the year 2015.
• Indian women’s beach kabaddi team has won the gold medal at the 5th Asian Beach Gamesheld in Danang, Vietnam, by defeating Thailand.

• The government has appointed S. Sivakumar, professor at the Indian Law Institute in New Delhi, as afull-time Member of the 21st Law Commission of India. The Commission has several important references pending with it, including one on the viability of the Uniform Civil Code and amendments to the Advocates Act to effectively curb misconduct by lawyers. The mandate of the 21st Law Commission also includes recommending obsolete laws to be repealed.

Today’s Quiz