Current Affairs 15th April 2014

Current Affairs 15th April 2014 - Important Points

• Fishing ban imposed in East Coast for 45 days

• SC give recognition to Transgenders as third category of sex

• LIC trims stake in infosys

• Pulitzer Prize 2014 in poetry category bagged by Vijay Seshadri

Current Affairs 15th April 2014 - Details

Fishing ban imposed in East Coast for 45 days

As a part of annual exercise to facilitate fish breeding, commenced along the east coast, a 45 day ban on deep sea fishing has been imposed.

Official sources said to preserve the marine wealth along the entire East Coast of the country including Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, West Bengal and Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the ban had been imposed on fishing through mechanized fishing trawlers from April 15 to May 29.

However, conventional fishing with traditional catamaran and country boats has been exempted from the ban order.

SC give recognition to Transgenders as third category of sex

The Supreme Court of India, in a landmark judgment on 15th April 2014, created the "third gender" status for transgenders. Earlier, they were forced to write male or female against their gender.

The SC asked the Centre to treat transgender as socially and economically backward.

The apex court said that transgenders will be allowed admission in educational institutions and given employment on the basis that they belonged to the third gender category.

The SC said absence of law recognizing transgender as third gender could not be continued as a ground to discriminate them in availing equal opportunities in education and employment.

This is for the first time that the third gender has got a formal recognition. The third gender people will be considered as OBCs, the SC said.

The SC said they will be given educational and employment reservation as OBCs.

The apex court also said states and the Centre will devise social welfare schemes for third gender community and run a public awareness campaign to erase social stigma.

Important to note : 

India became the first country in the world to recognize Transgenders as third gender.

LIC trims stake in infosys

With the share sale of estimated at over Rs 850 crore, Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) has reduced its stake in Infosys to 3.25 per cent in the last quarter. Eariler it hold 3.71 per cent stake in Infosys during the October-December quarter. 

Pulitzer Prize 2014 in poetry category bagged by Vijay Seshadri

  In the 98th Annual Pulitzer prize in Journalism, Letters, Drama and Music in Columbia University in New York on 14th April 2014, Vijay Seshadri, a poet of Indian origin won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize of 2014 in the poetry category for his collection of poems, "3 Sections".

"3 Sections" examines the human consciousness from birth to dementia. As a winning prize he will receive 10000 Dollars.

Read Important Current Affairs