04 April 2016 Current Affairs
Mehbooba Mufti Sworn In As First Woman CM of J&K
Mehbooba Mufti of the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) was on 4 April sworn in as the Chief Minister (CM) of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). She was administered oath to the office by Governor NN Vohra at Raj Bhawan in the winter capital city of Jammu. With this, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti became the first woman CM of J&K. Bharathiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator Nirmal Singh took oath as Deputy Chief Minister. Mufti, the daughter of PDP founder Mufti Mohammad Sayeed is the second Muslim woman to become the Chief Minister of a state in India. Syeda Anwara Taimur was the first Muslim woman CM in Assam in 1980 and continued to hold the chair till 30 June 1981.
Bengaluru’s IISC Tops India’s Best University List
“The Union Minister for Human Resource Development Smriti Zubin Irani on 4 April released the India Rankings 2016 under National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) in New Delhi. The Indian Institute of Science at Bengaluru (IISc) in Karnataka has been ranked the best in university category of ‘India Ranking 2016’ by the union HRD ministry. The Institute Of Chemical Technology, Mumbai, follows in second place. Jawaharlal Nehru University was ranked third, followed by the University of Hyderabad and Tezpur University, Assam. The Indian Institute of Management in Bengaluru was ranked the top management institute while Indian Institute of Technology-Madras was the top engineering institute in India. The Manipal College of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Manipal in Karnataka topped among the pharmacy (research and teaching) institutes, followed by the University Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences in Chandigarh and Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi. NIRF Survey was the first of its kind of indigenous ranking framework for higher education institutions in the country. NIRF ranking covers six categories of institutions including universities, engineering, management, pharmacy, architecture and colleges.”
New Planet with Triple-Star System Found
A research team of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics published a paper in The Astronomical Journal on 4 February 2016 on their findings of a stable orbit planet with a triple-star system. The team described how they came to see that a binary system once thought to be a single star, was actually a pair of stars orbiting one another, and how that led to the revelation of the triple-star system.
Philippines Launches World’s First Public Immunization Program For Dengue
The Philippines on 4 April launched the first public immunization program for dengue fever, seeking to administer to a million school children the world’s first licensed vaccine against a mosquito-borne disease that the World Health Organization estimates infects 390 million people a year globally. Mexico was first country in the world to approve first-ever Dengvaxia Dengue fever vaccine for the public use and Philippines was the first county in Asia to allow it. However with the launch of first public dengue vaccination programme, Philippines became first country to introduce, adopt and implement the first-ever dengue vaccine through the public health system and under public school settings.
Union Government Notified new Hazardous Waste Management Rules
Union Environment Ministry released the Hazardous and Other Wastes (Management and Transboundary Movement) Rules, 2016. The new rule for management of hazardous wastes was released by Minister of State (Independent Charge) of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Prakash Javadekar. This is the first time that the rules distinguish difference between hazardous and other wastes. The other wastes include waste tyre, paper waste, metal scrap, used electronic items, etc. and are recognized as a resource for recycling and reuse. These resources supplement the industrial processes and reduce the load on the virgin resource of the country.