Important Current Affairs 25th May 2016

Sonowal Sworn in as CM of Assam

• Sarbananda Sonowal took oath as the Chief Minister of Assam.
• He has become the first BJP leader to hold the post.
• Sarbananda Sonowal resigned as Union Minister of State for Sports after his party’s win in the recent Assembly elections in Assam.
• BJP has won 60 of the 126 seats in the Assam assembly elections.
• The Congress ended up with just 26 seats.

Govt Renames Disability Dept

• The Dept. of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities will now be known as ‘Divyangjan’ Sashaktikaran Vibhag in Hindi, dropping the word ‘viklangjan’ from its previous nomenclature.
• The Centre had proposed the change in name of the department by amending the Government of India (Allocation of Business) Rules, 1961.
• The department works under Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment.

IT Dept to Name & Shame Defaulters

• The Income Tax department has decided to name & shame’ all category of taxpayers who have a default of Rs one crore & above.
• The earlier exercise was restricted to people with huge defaults to the tune of about Rs 20-30 crore.
• Now the new measure will bring to the fore those names who have defaulted a tax of Rs 1 crore or more.
• The names will be published before July 31 next year.

Twitter relaxes 140-character limit

• Twitter is overhauling some of its rules to try to make itself simpler to use & more attractive to newcomers.
• Members will be able to add multimedia to tweets – including pictures and videos – without eating into the 140-characters-a-post limit.
• @names in reply to tweets will not be counted.
• The changes announced are the latest put in place with hopes of spurring growth.

Arjun Vajpai scales fifth-highest peak

• Arjun Vajpai scaled Mount Makalu – the fifth-highest peak in the world,
• He becomes one of the youngest climbers to achieve this feat.
• He scaled the 8481-metre high mountain in Nepal.
• There are 14 peaks in the world which are higher than 8,000 metres.Arjun has scaled four of them so far.
• He climbed Mount Everest at an age of 16 years in 2010.
• Mount Makalu is located on the Nepal and China border.

INS Tarmugli Commissioned in Indian Navy

• The Navy y commissioned INS Tarmugli, the highly manoeuvrable fast attack craft, at the Eastern Naval Command (ENC).
• The ship was commissioned into the Navy by ENC’s Flag Officer Commanding in Chief Vice Admiral HCS Bisht.
• It would be based in Visakhapatnam & deployed for coastal patrol & surveillance operations along the eastern coast.
• It is named after an island in the Andaman group.

Gujarat Launches Smart Village Program

• Gujarat Chief Minister Smt. Anandiben Patel launched Smart Village program.
• 300 villages will be selected under the Smart Village program.
• Villages will be shortlisted by the state-level committee consisting of experts
• The program is aimed towards making villages smart on the lines of Smart Cities that will help them become self-reliant, clean and hygienic.

Union HRD Ministry to Launch ASMITA

• The Union Ministry of Human Resource Development has decided to launch ASMITA, a student tracking system programme.
• ASMITA is acronym for All School Monitoring Individual Tracing Analysis and shall be launched under Shala Asmita Yojana (SAY).
• SAY aims to track the educational journey of school students from Class I to Class XII across the 15 lakhs private and government schools in the country.

Veteran CPI (M) leader K Anirudhan Dies

• CPI(M) veteran and former MLA and MP K Anirudhan has  passed away.
• Anirudhan was elected to the state assembly in 1963, 1965, 1979 and 1980.
• Anirudhan, also an active trade union leader, had represented the then Chirayinkeezhu constituency in Kerala in Lok Sabha.
• He was known for his significant contribution to build the Communist party movement in southern parts of the state.