1) Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad launches Probono Services, Legal Aid Schemes, Nyaya Mitra
Minister of Law and Justice Ravi Shankar Prasad inaugurated three welfare initiatives of the Department of Justice. The services launched are-
1. Pro-bono legal services- Through the Pro bono legal services, lawyers who want to provide legal services free of cost can register themselves on a web-based platform.
2. Tele-law service- It aims to connect marginalized communities with lawyers through video conferencing facilities, to be set up at Common Service Centres (CSCs).
3. Nyaya Mitra Project- It aims to reduce pendency in lower courts, with a special focus on cases which are more than ten years old.
2) NDMA conducted first mock exercise on forest fire in Uttarakhand
•The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) conducted its first-ever mock exercise on forest fire in Uttarakhand to help improve the preparedness and response mechanism in the event of a forest fire.
•The mock exercise was conducted on the principle of Incident Response System (IRS), which identifies stakeholders and clearly attributes roles and responsibilities to each one of them. It also generated awareness among the local population about the Do's and Don'ts to be followed to prevent and respond to a forest fire.
3) World Earth Day being observed today
•The World Earth Day is being observed all over the world on 22 April with the message to protect the environment.
•The campaign theme for 2017 is 'Environmental and Climate Literacy'. The day is celebrated worldwide to demonstrate support for environmental protection. The day was proposed at the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) conference in 1969. The first Earth Day celebrations took place in 1970.
4) India, South Korea sign MoU for Defence Industry
•India and South Korea have signed an Inter-governmental Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for Defence Industry cooperation between their shipbuilding yards.
•The Indian side was represented by Secretary of Defence Production A K Gupta and South Korea was represented by his counterpart Chang Miyung Jin, in New Delhi. India has nominated Hindustan Shipyard at Vishakhapatnam whereas South Korea is yet to nominate its shipyard. This MoU is part of the 'Make in India' initiative of the Central government.
•Indian engineering conglomerate Larsen & Toubro (L&T) and Hanwa Techwin of South Korea have also recently signed a contract to manufacture the K9 Vajra-T tracked self-propelled artillery guns for the Indian Army.
5) Reliance Industries Ltd. become most-valued Indian company
•The Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL) regained its status as India’s most valued firm by market capitalisation.
•RIL overtook Tata Group’s crown jewel TCS. TCS had replaced RIL as the most valued firm more than four years ago but a sharp rally in the shares of the Mukesh Ambani-led firm in the recent past has helped the company close the gap.
6) PV Sindhu moves to 3rd position in world ranking
•Five Indian shuttlers were upgraded in the latest BWF rankings released on Thursday. Rio Olympics silver medallist P.V. Sindhu moved to number 3. Slipping to number five last week, Sindhu earned two spots in the latest ranking on the basis of making the quarterfinals of the recently concluded Singapore Open Super Series. London Olympics bronze medallist Saina Nehwal also jumped up a place to be ranked eighth.
•In the men’s singles, Ajay Jayaram moved a place to 13th position to remain as the highest-ranked Indian. Kidambi Srikanth and B Sai Praneeth both jumped as many as eight positions each. Srikanth is now placed at 21st and Praneeth at 22nd position.
