12th May, 2022 Current Affairs

Sakshi Education

NATIONAL
Lokpal to have Permanent Office at World Trade Centre Building in Delhi

The Lokpal of India will finally move into a swanky office at World Trade Centre in south Delhi’s Nauroji Nagar, four years after being appointed as the country’s first anti-corruption ombudsman to investigate complaints against public functionaries, including the Prime Minister, and almost a decade after the Act was passed by Parliament.
According to the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), the administrative Ministry for the Lokpal, the office, which spans two storeys and covers 59,504 square feet, was purchased for Rs. 254.88 crore.
On March 19, 2019, Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghosh, along with eight other members, was appointed as India’s first Lokpal.
The appointment came five years after the Lokpal and Lokayukta Act of 2013 was passed to probe accusations of corruption.
The Lokpal and Lokayukta Act, which was passed in 2013 to investigate charges of corruption against certain types of public workers, were made five years later.
Anyone who is or has been Prime Minister, a Minister in the Union government, or a Member of Parliament, as well as officers of the Union government in Groups A, B, C, and D, can be investigated by the Lokpal.

ECONOMY
GoI releases Rs. 7,183.42 crore to 14 states as revenue deficit grant

The central government has released Rs 7,183.42 crore as a revenue deficit grant to 14 states including Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Punjab, Assam and Kerala.
The Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance released the money. This is the 2nd monthly installment of Post Devolution Revenue Deficit (PDRD) grant to states. The grant has been released as per the recommendations of the Fifteenth Finance Commission.
The States which have been recommended Post Devolution Revenue Deficit grant by the Fifteenth Finance Commission during 2022-23 are: Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Punjab, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tripura, Uttarakhand and West Bengal.
Fifteenth Finance Commission recommended Post Devolution Revenue Deficit (PDRD) grant to states. Post Devolution Revenue Deficit (PDRD) grant is provided under Article 275 of the Indian Constitution.
The Fifteenth Finance Commission has recommended a total Post Devolution Revenue Deficit (PDRD) Grant of Rs. 86,201 crore to 14 states for the financial year 2022-23.
The Department of Expenditure (Ministry of Finance) will release the grant to the recommended states in 12 equated monthly installments (EMIs). With the recent release, the total amount of Revenue Deficit Grants released to the States in 2022-23 has gone up to Rs. 14,366.84 crore.

APPOINTMENTS
Hungary elects Katalin Novak as first female President of the country

In Hungary, Katalin Novak has taken over as the first female President of the country.
Her predecessor, Janos Ader, greeted the new president at the entrance to the Sandor Palace, the residence of the Hungarian president.
The Parliament elected Novak as President of Hungary on March 10. Following her election, Novak said that she wanted to be a “President of peace.” The official inaugural ceremony will take place on Saturday morning at the Kossuth Square in front of the Parliament.

OBITUARY
World’s oldest chess grandmaster Yuri Averbakh passes away

Russian chess grandmaster, Yuri Averbakh who was among the world’s best players for a decade, trained world champions and was the last surviving participant in one of the greatest competitions in history, has died in Moscow at 100.
He won the Moscow Championship in 1949 and earned the Grandmaster title in 1952. In 1954, he became the champion of the USSR. He also chaired the Chess Federation of the USSR from 1972 to 1977.

Santoor maestro Shiv Kumar Sharma cremated with full State honours in Mumbai

Santoor maestro Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma was cremated with full state honours in Mumbai on Wednesday afternoon. His wife Manorama, sons Rahul and Rohit, and friends from the fraternity, including long-time collaborator Pandit Hari Prasad Chaurasia and tabla maestro Zakir Hussain were present for the last rites.
Earlier in the day, celebrities like Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bachchan, Shabana Azmi, lyricist Javed Akhtar, music composer duo Jatin-Lalit and singer Ila Arun and numerous others paid their last respects at the legendary musician’s home.
Born on 13th January 1938, Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma started learning santoor at the age of 13. He gave his first performance in Mumbai in 1955. A year later, he composed the background music for one of the scenes in 'Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baje'. He recorded his first solo album in 1960.
Pandit Sharma collaborated with Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia and guitarist Brij Bhushan Kabra for one of the greatest hits in Indian classical music, ‘Call of the Valley’ in 1967. In the 1980s, Pandit Sharma’s collaboration with Pandit Chaurasia, prominently known as ‘Shiv-Hari’ duo gave the Hindi film industry memorable gems from films like 'Silsila', 'Lamhe', 'Chandni' and 'Darr'.
Pandit Sharma had also been honored with Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1986, followed by the Padma Shri in 1991 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2001.

SPORTS
India's Jyothi Yarraji smashes national record to clinch gold medal in 100m hurdles in Cyprus meet

In Cyprus International Athletics Meeting 2022, India's Jyothi Yarraji smashed the national record to clinch a gold medal in the women's 100m hurdles in Limassol.
22-year-old Jyothi clocked 13.23 seconds for the top step of the podium, shattering the 20-year-old national record held by Anuradha Biswal since 2002. With this, Jyothi also breached the Asian Games 2022 qualifying standards of 13.30 seconds.
Another Indian athlete Lili Das won gold in the women's 1500 meter race. While in the men's 200m, India's Amlan Borgohain won bronze medal.

AWARDS
Romain Rolland Book Prize

The Bengali translation of the French novel “Meursault, contre- enquête” (The Meursault Investigation) was awarded the Romain Rolland Book Prize 2022. This year’s award is the 5th edition of this book prize.
This is Algerian journalist and writer Kamel Daoud’s debut novel.
This prize was awarded to publisher Esha Chatterjee and translator Trinanjan Chakraborty of Patra Bharati.
It is one of the leading publishers of prestigious Bengali books. Patra Bharati has received this award for the first time. Both the publisher and translator will be visiting the Paris Book Fair 2023 (Livre Paris 2023) as part of this prize.

REPORTS
World Bank’s World Governance Indicators (WGI)

According to a presentation prepared in 2020, by the then Principal Economic Advisor in the Ministry of Finance, Sanjeev Sanyal, inputs that go into the making of the World Bank’s World Governance Indicators (WGI) are arbitrary.
The Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) project reports governance indicators for over 200 countries for the following six dimensions of governance:
1. Voice and Accountability
2. Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism
3. Government Effectiveness
4. Regulatory Quality
5. Rule of Law
6. Control of Corruption
These aggregate indicators are based on over 30 individual data sources produced by a variety of survey institutes, think tanks, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), international organizations, and private sector firms such as Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project and Freedom House, etc.