Current Affairs - 24.08.2010

• THANJAVUR: The Centre has proposed to spend Rs 25 crore for various renovation and development works in Brihadeeswara Temple in Thanjavur in view of its millennium celebrations.
• BANGALORE: Elections to zilla and taluk panchayats will see 50% reservation for women.Governor H R Bhardwaj has approved the Panchayat Raj Act (Amendment) Bill, 2010, paving the way for enhancing women's reservation from the existing 33% to 50%, and use of electronic voting machines (EVMs) in elections to panchayat raj institutions.
• The West Bengal government has allocated Rs. 400 crore for 2010-11 for construction of new dwelling units and renovation of the existing ones for all homeless slum-dwellers and those who were not beneficiaries of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission.Of this amount, about Rs. 50 crore has already been granted.
• Kolkata:Arrested Lashkar-e-Toiba operative David Headley has indicated to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) that the “Karachi set-up”, sponsored by an al-Qaeda arm that aims to target India by “using militants of local origin”, was responsible for the July 11, 2006 serial train blasts in Mumbai and the attack on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Srinagar rally on November 17, 2004.
• World chess champion Viswanathan Anand has refused to accept the honorary doctorate, which was to have been conferred on him by the University of Hyderabad (UoH) at a special convocation at the ongoing International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) 2010 here on Tuesday.
• Responding to the concerns of exporters and the sudden decline in exports last month, the UPA government on Monday announced sops worth Rs.1,052 crore to the labour-intensive textile, handicrafts and leather sectors to help them cruise through the fragile global economic recovery phase.
• The government today extended sops worth Rs 1,052 crore to exporters, particularly for the labour-intensive textile, handicrafts and leather sectors, to help them see through the fragile economic recovery."We are not yet out of the woods," Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma said while extending the schemes like DEPB, under which taxes are reimbursed to exporters, subsidised interest and sops for import of capital goods. Releasing the annual supplement to the Foreign Trade Policy 2009-14, he said the revenue implication of these measures would be Rs 1,052 crore. 
• An Indian-origin scientist-led team claims to have discovered a culprit in breast cancer - a master control switch with the power to set off a cascade of reactions orchestrated by a cancer-causing gene named Wnt1.Although the cancer-causing gene (or oncogene) Wnt1 has been connected with breast cancer for over 30 years, the signals that trigger it remain largely unknown. 
• CHANDIGARH: After Bhakra dam brimming to its capacity, rising water levels in Pong Dam have now become a cause for concern. The dam has crossed 1375 feet mark against its capacity of 1390 feet compelling authorities to release water, after over a decade. The dam saw its inflow increase by 10 times compared to last year even as uninterrupted heavy inflows compelled Bhakra Beas Management Board to release over 60,000 cusecs of water in Sutlej on Monday. 
• SINGAPORE: The yen struck a 15-year high against the dollar  and a nine-year peak against the euro on Tuesday as investors and speculators tested the resolve of Japanese authorities to stem the yen's steady rise.