News Roundup - 12 October 2014

1. PM Narendra Modi unveiled a blueprint for the Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY) on Jayaprakash Narayan’s birth anniversary i.e. October 11. The scheme encourages Members of Parliament from both Houses to identify and develop one village from their constituency as a model village by 2016, and two more by 2019, covering over 2,500 villages of the 6 lakh villages country-wide.
2. Vayalar Literary Award - Novelist and short story writer K.R. Meera for her novel ‘Aaraachaar’ (Hangwoman).
3. A cafe opened this week in the English city of Bristol, dishing up meals made from thrown-away supermarket food rescued from waste skips. Discarded food from some of the city’s restaurants is also being recycled at Bristol’s newest eatery, Skipchen, a play on the word kitchen. Skipchen is being run as a not-for-profit cafe by campaigners who want to highlight the amount of edible food thrown away every day.
4. A British former army Major, Major Robert Armstrong, who was awarded a top bravery medal for service in Afghanistan has had it withdrawn by Queen Elizabeth II after an investigation.
5. Uttarakhand to develop 42 sq km Tehri reservoir for adventure tourism.
6. The Director-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the country’s aviation regulator, is acting tough, months ahead of the arrival of a U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) team to check if India qualifies for a safety upgrade. Three aircraft were grounded this week for “significant and substantive” safety lapses. As many as 131 Jet Airways pilots were issued show-cause notices last month as the validity of their pilot proficiency checks expired.

Credits: The Hindu, Google