May 2, 2013

News for Nov 2012



  • CRR reduced from 4.5 to 4.25 to infuse liquidity by RBI
    • Also cut down the growth rate from 6.5 to 5.8%
  • Australian schools to teach atleast one Asian Language Mandarin, Hindi, Indonesian, japanese. Australia releases the Asian Century White Paper to consider the likely economic and strategic changes in the region and what more can be done to position Australia for the Asian Century
  • India, U.K. amend convention on DTAA : Features 
    • Provide tax stability to the residents of the two countries.
    • Provisions for effective exchange of information b/w the tax authorities of the both sides. 
    • Exchange of banking information and supplying of information irrespective of domestic interest. 
    • Sharing of information to other agencies with the permission of the supplying state.
  • Sistema issue : 
    • Sistema is a Russian telecom company
    • It has a joint venture with and it holds a major  stake in Sistema Shyam Teleservices Ltd.  whose 21 out of 22 licences were cancelled by the Supreme Court in February, 2012 (when SC cancelled 122 licences). 
    • Mobile TeleSystems or simply MTS India is a subsidiary of Russian conglomerate Sistema
    • Russia had previously asserted it will not let Sistema’s USD 3.1 billion investment (in its Indian telecom venture) go waste due to "internal problems" in India. 
  •  The Supreme Court asked the Cauvery Monitoring Committee (CMC) to examine all the issues b/w Tamil Nadu and Karnataka regarding Cauvery water sharing dispute b/w the two states. Karnataka has assured that it will comply with the CMC’s recommendations.
    • Earlier Refused to comply to release 9000 cusecs of water from sep 20 2012 to oct 15 2012 order by CMC headed by PM arguing that it has been hit by a worst drought in 40 years.
  • Indian Women Cricket Team lifts first ACC(Asian Cricket Council) T20 Asia Cup 2012 against Pakistan held in Guangzhou city in China.Indian skipper : Harmanpreet Kaur
  • "European Golden Boot" to Lionel Messi(footballer of Barcelona) for his 50 goals in Europe's domestic football league.
  • Uttarakhand (scored 0.8123) topped the list of best-performing States and Union territories in terms of environmental performance followed by HP,Chandigarh,Sikkim and Andhra Pradesh. As per the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) released by Planning Commision.
    • Best State in terms of air quality : Mizoram, Kerala, Goa, Sikkim, Tripura, Puducherry and Andaman and Nicobar (all with average score of 1)
    • UK does not meet the prescribed national ambient air quality in respect of SO2 with 20micro grams per cubic meter.
    • HP : 100% sewage treatment capacity
  • As per a UN expert on right to food, ‘Ocean-grabbing’ is as serious a threat as ‘land-grabbing’.  
    • Ocean grabbing : An aggressive industrial fishing by foreign fleets. 
      • It is a threat to food security in developing nations
      • Excessive and aggressive fishing threatens the fish ecosystem and makes this practice unsustainable. 
    • Land Grabbing : Land grabbing is the contentious issue of large-scale land acquisitions: the buying or leasing of large pieces of land in developing countries, by domestic and transnational companies, governments, and individuals.
    • Water Grabbing : Water grabbing involves the diversion of water resources and watersheds by domestic and transnational companies, governments, and individuals, which deprives local communities who depend on the water and ecosystems for their livelihoods. 
    • Suggestions by UN : 
      • Create exclusive artisanal fishing zones for small-scale fishers and clamp down on incursions by industrial fleets
      • Support small-scale fishers’ cooperatives and help them rise up the value chain
      • Refrain from undertaking large-scale development projects, e.g. sand extraction, that adversely affect the livelihoods of small-scale fishers
      • Make fisheries and small-scale fishers an integral part of national right to food strategies.
  • As per the first edition of Ernst & Young’s Fraud Indicators in India , different types of frauds may have caused Rs 6,600 crore loss to Indian economy in the last fiscal and banks were the most common victim in scamming cases.
  • BCCI will honor Sachin Tendulkar(for 100th century) and Virat Kohli(top international cricketer 2011-12) with Polly Umrigar Award at its Annual Awards ceremony to be held on November 21, 2013 in Mumbai.
    • Sunil Gavaskar  will be receiving the prestigious Col CK Nayudu Lifetime Achievement Award.
  • Primitive Tribal Groups (PTGs) have been denied of sterilization facilities for three decades. It was happening due to misinterpretation of an order issued in 1979 by the then Madhya Pradesh government during the period when targets were set to attain population control. 
    • However, 26 blocks were exempted from this, which had a high population of PTGs, now re-named Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs), as the infant mortality rate was very high in the tribal areas and their numbers were fast declining.. These groups are Behor, Pahari Korvas, Abhujmadias, Kamar and Baiga.
  • Gulzar honored with Indira Gandhi National Integration award.
  • As per scientists, people with schizophrenia showed well-documented deficits in the ability to track slow moving objects smoothly with their eyes. Their eye movements tend to fall behind the moving object and then catch up with the moving object using rapid eye movements called saccades.
  • The Union Cabinet approved amendments made to the Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996 and Building and Other Construction Workers’ Welfare Cess Act, 1996.
    • Features :
      • Removing the clause that construction workers should have worked a minimum of 90 days to register with the labour welfare boards set up in various States
      • Eliminating the upper age limit of 60 years for availing benefits under the scheme.
  • Mineral rich Keonjhar district having mines in Odisha
  • The Cabinet submitted to protests and withdrew a set of amendments it had proposed to the RTI Act.
    • Withdrawn amendments : 
      • Restrict the disclosure of file notes to social and development issues.
      • Exemption of examination papers and selections to the Union Public Service Commission
      • Disallowing information on ongoing executive decisions.
    • The RTI Act already exempts ongoing Cabinet decisions from its ambit and extending the exemption to executive decisions would have provided the government virtually immunity to RTI queries.
  • Scientists have discovered that a new synthetic molecule named “DARP E2-79”  could pave the way for quick-acting remedies for a number of acute allergic reactions.
    • Allergy is a hypersensitivity disorder of immune system. These reactions occur when a person’s immune system  reacts to normally harmless substances in the environment. The substance which incites such a reaction is called an allergen. These reactions are acquired, predictable, and rapid. When exposed to the allergen, the immune system produces a type of antibody (IgE). IgE incites certain cells in our body (mast cells and basophils) to produce chemical called histamine. Histamine is what is responsible for the symptoms of your allergy.
    • In order to trigger an allergic response, antiboby IgE needs to bind with a specific receptor called FcR. FcR is a protein found on the surface of certain cells including mast cells, immune cells present in the nasal lining and in the eyelids, along with IgE. Here works DARP E2-79, which detaches IgE from its partner FcR, thereby turning the process off.
  • U.K. to slash aid £280 million to India from 2015.
  • Ruchir Sharma bags Tata Literature First Book Award for his book Breakout Nations: In Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles.
  • National Electronics Policy 2012 : approved by Union Cabinet.
  • India was ranked at 40th  position in the World Economic Forum’s Financial Development Report 2012, down four spots from last year. The index ranked 62 leading financial systems and capital markets.As per Financial Development Report 2012, the rankings were as follows:
    • Hong Kong
    • US
    • UK
    • Singapore
  • Amendments in the Foreign Exchange Management (Transfer or Issue of Security by a Person, Resident outside India) Regulations, 2000, allow foreign direct investment in retail sector. It permits 100% FDI in single-brand product retail and 51% in multi-brand .
    • Petitioner to the court : Govt already issued licences without approval from Parliament under section 48 on FEMA act.
      • Section 48 of FEMA says “Every rule and every regulation made under this Act shall be laid, as soon as may be after it is made, before each house of parliament, while in session…that any such modification or annulment shall be without prejudice to the validity of anything previously done under that rule and regulation."
  • NASA to start SMS/email service to detect ISS : Spot the Station
    • The International Space Station is the third brightest object in the sky after the Sun and the Moon, but people often get confused with other heavenly bodies in the sky.
  • China made carbon nanotubes soon to replace silicon chips :
    • Carbon nanotubes are allotropes of carbon (like diamond, graphite, grapheme etc.) with a cylindrical nanostructure
    • Nanotubes have been constructed with length-to-diameter ratio of up to 132,000,000:1, considerably larger than for any other material. 
    • They have unusual properties, which are valuable for nanotechnology, electronics, optics and other fields of materials science and technology
    • In particular, owing to their extraordinary thermal conductivity and mechanical and electrical properties, carbon nanotubes find applications as additives to various structural materials. For example, nanotubes form only a tiny part of the material(s) in (primarily carbon fiber) baseball bats, golf clubs, or car components. 
  • "Orion" Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) 
    • A planned beyond-low-earth-orbit manned spacecraft.
    • The first manned mission is expected to take place after 2020.
    • The MPCV is being developed for crewed missions to the moon, an asteroid and then to Mars. 
    • The MPCV’s debut unmanned multi-hour test flight, known as Exploration Flight Test 1 (EFT-1), is scheduled for a launch aboard a Delta IV Heavy rocket in 2014.
  • Banks to introduce new CTS-2010 by December 31, 2012
  • Aakash 2 : commercially called Ubislate 7+
  • ‘Project Lakshya’ for streamlining LPG supply  launched by the The Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry. 
    • Objective:
      • Reduce waiting time for delivery 
      • Track duplicate connections
      • Preventing fake additional connections for getting more subsidized cylinders.
    • Software by : NIC and C-DAC
    • Customers would be free to opt for fully non-subsidised cylinders on the basis of self-declaration.
    •  Verification will be done after release of connection as in the case of passports under the “Tatkal” regime. 
    • A Domestic Gas Consumer Card (DGCC) will be issued, which will have to be signed by the delivery boy after cross-checking DGCC number in cash memo acknowledgement slip.
    • The LPG cylinder receipts will carry serial numbers like 1/6, 2/6 and 3/6. 
    • Whenever delivery is made, the customer will be required to sign on acknowledgement slip of cash memo.
    • SMS would be sent to the customer to know if the actual delivery of the cylinder has been made or not.
  • The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012  – was passed by Parliament in May, 2012 to address the evil of child sexual abuse,now comes into force.
  • Finance Minister P.Chidambaram informed that the State-owned banks have been asked to strictly adhere to the March, 2014 time-line for converting all Kisan Credit Cards (KCCs) to ATM cards.
  • MACS0647-JD : possibly the oldest and farthest galaxy ever seen from Earth.
    •  Distance :13.3 billion light years that created the Universe 13.7 billion years ago.
    • Lensing / gravitational lensing is an effect of Einstein’s theory of general relativity – simply put, mass bends light
    • The astronomers, grouped under the joint American-European CLASH project(Cluster Lensing And Supernova survey with Hubble) , use the orbiting Hubble and Spitzer telescopes  as well as employing massive galaxy clusters as cosmic magnifiers to find distant galaxies. 
  • The Finance Ministry has relaxed the investment norm for Life Insurance Corporation of India. LIC can now invest up to 30% of a company’s paid-up capital. Earlier it could invest up to 10%. 
  • Autar Kaw, an Indian born professor of mechanical engineering at the University of South Florida, is among the four recipients of the 2012 US Professor of the Year award.
    • Kaw is known to tens of thousands of engineering students around the world as the "Numerical Methods Guy" via his Holistic Numerical Methods Institute website, his blog and YouTube video lectures.
    • The US Professor of the Year award is the highest honor in the nation for undergraduate teaching.
  • The government has approved the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Policy (NPPP). 
    • The move will bring 348 essential drugs under price control and also lead to reduction in prices earlier it was only 74 drugs
    • NPPP also debars the companies from using the WPI (Wholesale Price Index) to increase the prices of the essential medicines on their own each year. The companies will now have to seek approval from the NPPA whenever they want to increase the prices of the items covered under the Drug Price Control Order. 
    • NPPP is expected to cover up to 30% of the total drugs sold in India. 
    • India’s domestic drug market valued at around $13 billion is the 4th-largest in the world by volume. 
  • Infrastructure Lending : Sub catergory as revised by RBI
    • infrastructure lending
  • “Makemake”: A dwarf planet in our solar system discovered by astronomers. 
    • Orbits in the outer solar system 
    • Has no atmosphere 
    • About two thirds the size of Pluto 
    • Travels around the Sun in a distant path that lies beyond that of Pluto but closer to the Sun than Eris, the most massive known dwarf planet in the Solar System. 
  • M23 =March 23 Movement
    • Gets its name from the March 23, 2009 peace accord. 
    • M23 is a rebel military group based in eastern areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). 
    • M23 is at present involved in an armed conflict with the DRC government. 
    • November 20, 2012: M23 took control of Goma, a provincial capital. 
  • “Sandy Island” a pacific island shown on world map does not exist: Australian Scientists
    • The sizeable phantom island in the Coral Sea is shown as Sandy Island on Google Earth and Google maps and allegedly sits b/w Australia and New Caledonia in the Coral Sea in the south Pacific. 
    • It is actually a phantom island
    • Phantom Island : Islands that were believed to exist, and appeared on maps for a period of time (sometimes centuries) during recorded history, but were later removed after they were proved to be nonexistent. 
    • Lost Island :  Islands or continents believed by some to have existed during prehistory, often linked with ancient myths and legends; and 
    • Vanishing Island :  Islands that are submerged during high tide. 
  • Australia approved a plan aimed at saving vital Murray-Darling Basin river water sytem.
    • It is a river network sprawling for one million square kilometres (400,000 square miles) across five Australian states.
    • . The two main rivers in this basin are the Murray River and the Darling River
    • The major threat to the basin is overexploitation and draught which has caused increase in concentration of salt and depletion of water. 
    • Plan :
      •  Around 2,750 gigalitres of water will be returned annually as environmental flows to the system.
      • 2 million tonnes of salt will also be flushed out each year.
  • Joaquim Barbosa  became the only black ever to become President of Supreme Court Justice of Brazil.
    • Barbosa will have a 2-year tenure as Supreme Court president. The election of the President of Supreme Court is done on the basis of the length of period a justice has served on the bench. The justice who has served on the bench the longest is elected.
  •  National AIDS Control Programme-IV (NACP-IV) has targeted to reach zero infection, zero stigma and zero deaths. India has registered 56% decline in new infections.
    • National AIDS Control Programme-I (1992-1999): main objective of the project was to slow the spread of HIV to reduce future morbidity, mortality, and the impact of AIDS by initiating a major effort in the prevention of HIV transmission.
    • National AIDS Control Programme Phase II (1999-2004) had the main objectives to reduce the spread of HIV infection in India; and Strengthen India’s capacity to respond to HIV/AIDS on a long-term basis.
    • NACP-III, launched in 2007, had set the goals of Halting and Reversing the epidemic by 2012.
  • The Ministry of Rural Development finalized the draft of Land Acquisition bill. As per the draft bill the government will require consent from 80% of the land owners for acquiring land for any project, be it owned by state or the private industry or under a PPP. 
  • The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is developing a new missile launch site in Machilipatnam in Andhra Pradesh at an estimated cost of Rs 1,000 crore.
    • Currently the launch facilities are at Chandipur and Wheeler Island locations in Balasore in Odisha.
  • Aflibercept: Drug that can halt cancer growth
  • Drip irrigation or trickle irrigation or micro irrigation or micro irrigation , is an irrigation method deployed to save water and fertilizer by allowing water to drip slowly to the roots of plants, either onto the soil surface or directly onto the root zone, by using a network of valves, pipes, tubing, and emitters. It is done through narrow tubes that deliver water directly to the base of the plant.
    • Usually operated at lower pressure than other types of pressurised irrigation, reducing energy costs.
    • Foliage remains dry, reducing the risk of disease.
    • Weed growth is minimized.
    • Soil erosion is minimized.
  • China successfully conducted first landing of a fighter jet on its first aircraft carrier ‘the Liaoning’. China purchased the aircraft carrier from Ukraine
    • The successful flight landing also marked the debut of J-15 as China’s first generation multi-purpose carrier-borne fighter jet. 
      • J-15 : designed and made by China
        • can carry multi-type anti-ship, air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles, as well as precision-guided bombs.
  • Vietnam does tit for tat by issuing stapled visas on seperate papers to Chinese passport holders on counter to China's map on new e-passports.
    • India has also stamping India's official map on chinese passports.
  • D8 or Developing 8 is the group of 8 developing nations with large Muslim populations that have formed an economic development alliance.
    • Members : Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey.
  • The Select Committee’s report on the Lokpal and Lokayukta Bill, 2011 was tabled in Rajya Sabha recently.
    • Makes it compulsory for States to enact a Lokayukta law within a year of the notification of the Central Act. 
    • Gives states the freedom to decide the contours of their legislation. 
    • Enables the States to use the choice of not including Chief Ministers or legislators within the scope of the Lokayuktas. 
  • ONGC Videsh Ltd. (OVL) has finalized agreements for the acquisition of 8.40% Participating Interest (PI) of ConocoPhillips in the North Caspian Sea Production Sharing Agreement (NCSPSA), which included the Kashagan field in Kazakhstan.
    • Kashagan Field is an offshore oil field located in the northern part of the Caspian Sea close to the city of Atyrau in Kazakhstan. It is the world’s largest current development project. 
  • As majority of the business of Ratnakar Bank comes from cities in and around the 1,235-km-long National Highway-4 (NH-4) that connects four of the 10 most populous cities in India hence it is called  "NH-4" bank.
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