25-31 Dec : News
- Pak to lift ban on YouTube after over three months ban.
- Guidelines say that no new tourism infrastructure should be permitted in core and critical tiger habitats.
- BeiDou Navigation Satellite System : Chinese Navigation system (like GPS) launched in China and Asia-Pacific region.
- C/2012 S1 (ISON) : Supercomet to outshine moon in 2013.
- According to McKinsey & Company report : Internet currently contributes a modest 1.6 per cent to India's GDP. This could grow to 2.8 to 3.3 per cent by 2015,this would increase Internet’s contribution to GDP from $30 billion now to nearly $100 billion in 2015 and around 2.2 crore jobs will be generated by 2015.
- Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act — equipped the U.S.
government to act against any website hosting content that it believes
infringes copyrights, even those hosted overseas.
- SARAL, a satellite meant for studying the ocean currents and sea surface heights launched postponed: 400-kg SARAL (Satellite for Argos-3 and Altika) has two payloads:
Argos-3 for data collection and Altikameter for measuring the height of
the sea surface. These payloads from French space agency CNES.Others which accompany SARAL : 148-kg Sapphire and the 82-kg NEOSSAT, both from Canada(NEOSSAT (Near-Earth Object Surveillance Satellite) is “the world’s first
space telescope dedicated to detecting and tracking asteroids and
satellites.); two
nano-satellites for astrophysics, BRITE and UniBRITE, from Austria; and
AAUSAT from Denmark.
- SMS completed 20 yrs.
- K-15(underwater missile) set to join Arihant(India’s nuclear-powered submarine)(which is powered by an 80-MWt reactor that uses enriched uranium as fuel and light water as coolant and moderator)
- Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), on Friday, appointed S. Raman as its whole-time member for five years.
- Putin signs Anti-US adoption Bill : banning Americans from adopting Russian children.
- Myanmar will allow private daily newspapers starting in April for the first time since 1964 : freedom of expression.
- India pays more to UN budget.
- The United Nations ended its peacekeeping mission in East Timor(island in S Asia under Indonesia) on Monday, leaving the country.
- New constitution has been signed into law by President Mohamed Morsy in Egypt.
- Shinzo Abe (shin-zoh ah-bay) as Japan’s new Pime Minister.
- China launched service on the world’s longest high-speed railway with trains scheduled to run 2,298 kilometres between Beijing
and Guangzhou in about eight hours at 300km/hr.
- Inventor at IBM, Rangaswamy Srinivasan, has been nominated by U.S.
President Barack Obama for the prestigious National Medal of Technology
and Innovation.(discovered that an ultraviolet excimer laser could etch living tissues
in a precise manner with no thermal damage to the surrounding area now used in Lasik surgery to correct lenses)
- State Bank of India (SBI) has launched State Bank MobiCash Easy with Oxigen in Delhi Mumbai only, a
mobile wallet which offers facilities such as fund transfer, bill
payment, balance inquiry, mini statement, mobile top-ups and DTH
recharge.
- India has emerged the world’s largest rice exporter, displacing Thailand
from its leadership position, with rice exports in marketing year
2011/12 (October-September) placed at a record 10.4 million tonnes.
- Parliament passed -- Banking Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2012, and Enforcement of Security Interest and Recovery of Debts Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2012, so that corporate houses to enter the banking sector and India will have 2-3 world sized banks.
- Wheat MSP raised to Rs. 1,350 a quintal.
- The government announced additional incentives for
exporters, hit hard by the global slowdown, that include extension of
two per cent interest subsidy for one more year till March 2014.
- Indian Coast Guard Station Mayabunder, the first CG Station in the North Andaman Islands was commissioned.
- Asia’s First Bio-Safety Level-IV Laboratory established by ICMR with support from Department of Science & Technology at Pune
