Current Affairs 31st May

1. The National Advisory Council of India is an advisory body set up to monitor the implementation of the UPA government's manifesto, the Common Minimum Programme(CMP). It was set up on 4 June 2004 by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
Number of members:11
The members are:
economist-activist Jean Dreze,
Right to Information campaigner Aruna Roy,
Retired bureaucrat N.C. Saxena and
Economist A.K. Shiva Kumar
women's rights and minority rights activist Farah Naqvi,
businesswoman and philanthropist Anu Agha,
agricultural scientist M.S. Swaminathan,
Planning Commission member, the former Reserve Bank of India economist and noted Dalit writer Narendra Jadhav,
social worker Deep Joshi,
ecologist Madhav Gadgil and
former bureaucrat-turned-rights activist Harsh Mander.

2. NATIONAL COMMISSION FOR HIGHER EDUCATION AND
RESEARCH BILL, 2010:

AN ACT to provide for the determination, co-ordination, maintenance of standards in,
and promotion of, higher education and research, including university education,
technical and professional education other than agricultural [and medical] education,
and for that purpose, to establish the National Commission for Higher Education and
Research.

Recently proposed amendments to the bill:
(a) Constituttion of a general council for giving wider representation to the States and educational and research institutions across different areas.
(b) Every decision of the proposed commission will have to be placed before the general council for approval.

3. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has granted $5 million to the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) to strengthen the National Tobacco Control Programme in Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, over a three-year period (2009-2012).
Project name: Strengthening of Tobacco Control Efforts Through Innovative Partnerships and Strategies (STEPS)

4. New species of bird discovered in the western Andean montane cloud forests of Colombia:
Name: The Fenwick's Antpitta - Named after American Bird Conservancy President George Fenwick
Area inhabited:a highly restricted area of montane cloud forest in Colombia which is rich in gold, copper. Hence it is perennially under danger from human interference. It is also one of the biodiversity hot spots in the world.
Features: “medium-sized, cinnamon and gray colored, thrush-like bird”

5. Perestroika - is the Russian term (now used in English) for the political and economic reforms introduced in June 1987 by the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Its literal meaning is "restructuring", referring to the restructuring of the Soviet political and economic system
Perestroika is often argued to be one reason for the fall of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and for the end of the Cold War.

6. Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) measurement of GDP: India's economic growth measured in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) accelerated to 8.6 per cent during the last quarter of the 2009-10 fiscal helped by increased spending despite a spike in inflation
7. Bangladesh has blocked access to Facebook as the website featured satirical images of prophet Muhammad and the country's leaders

8. World's smallest transistor with just 7 atoms:Scientists have literally taken a leap into a new era of computing power by making the world's smallest precision-built transistor - a "quantum dot" of just seven atoms in a single silicon crystal. Despite its incredibly tiny size - a mere four billionths of a metre long - the quantum dot is a functioning electronic device, the world's first created deliberately by placing individual atoms.

9. While India struggles to provide every citizen with an identity card, its erstwhile colonist and political tutor the United Kingdom is doing away with the system of personal IDs altogether