Current Affairs 20/7/13 to 31/7/13

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1.Jagdish Raj (85), a noted veteran actor passed away. Raj had the record of playing a police officer 144 times in various Bollywood films.

2.The government gave a conditional clearance to Jet Airways to sell 24% stake to Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways for Rs. 2,058 crore after Etihad submitted an amended Shareholders Agreement (SHA) and Commercial Co-operation Agreement (CCA). Now, Jet-Etihad will have to submit new articles of association before the deal is put before Finance Minister P. Chidambaram for approval and then brought before the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA).

3.The British government decided to go ahead with Rs 2.7 lakh Visa bond despite Prime Minister David Cameron’s gave assurance to exempt India from the controversial visa bond scheme though the Home Office insisted that it was meant to target only high risk applicants.
Under this scheme that is to be introduced in November, 2013 for the first time visitors from six Commonwealth countries including India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Ghana and Nigeria will need to deposit a cash bond of £3,000 for a British visa. It will apply only to those seeking a six-month visitors’ visa.
As per the UK government, the citizens of these six countries pose the major risk of abuse of visas. So they are interested in a system of bonds that deters overstaying and recovers costs if a foreign national has used their public services.

4.India has offered $ 100 million credit line to Vietnam for the purchase military equipment. It will be used for purchasing four patrol boats.
India’s interests in Vietnam
India aims to remain involved in oil exploration activity in the Phu Kanh basin of the South China Sea. But China has to claim that it is its zone of influence. Earlier, Vietnam and India have focused on strategic ties that include cooperation in the civil nuclear sector, training slots for Vietnamese military officers and frequent exchange of visits.
India seeks to expand its defence ties with Vietnam to military hardware and Brahmos missile is one of the key items on Vietnam’s wish-list. India has co-produced the missile with Russia, which, however, has close ties with both Vietnam and China. Indian wants to enhance security ties with all countries beyond its eastern end as a key component to its East Look Policy.

5.Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is cogitating to modify the guidelines of SatCom Policy related to allocation and pricing of satellite transponders for public and non-government users.
The guidelines are being revised after consulting ISRO’s stakeholder departments and the multi-ministry ICC (Insat Coordination Committee) chaired by DoS Secretary. Typically the ICC allocates satellite transponders to user groups depending on their availability and urgency of use.
After the approval by the government ISRO will be able to allocate to different users by percentages and charge for capacity on its INSAT/GSAT satellites in a much more rational way than now.

6.India’s newest satellite INSAT-3D which was put in orbit on a European rocket is expected to increase the weather observation and forecasting, disaster warning systems and also enhance land and sea surface monitoring over the sub-continent and the Indian Ocean region.
About INSAT-3D:
ISRO spent around Rs. 200 crore to build the satellite and around Rs. 350 crore on its launch and insurance costs.
The metsat supplements the decade-old and fading Kalpana-1 and INSAT-3A with four sophisticated payloads.
The six-channel imager takes weather pictures of the Earth with better resolution.
The 19-channel sounder gives layered vertical profiles of temperature, humidity and integrated ozone.
The data relay transponder picks and relays met, moisture and sea related information from automatic data collection platforms placed at remote uninhabited locations on to a processing centre for generating accurate forecasts.
SAR device: The Search And Rescue device picks up and relays distress alert signals from users on sea, land and air to an ISRO centre in Bangalore and enables speedy detection and rescue of such people.

7.The Union Health Ministry is considering a new “National Antibiotics Policy” to handle increasing antibiotics resistance. The policy is on anvil at a time when India has failed to respond to the urgent need to regulate the sale and use of antibiotics, track the incidence of resistance or improve sanitation.

8.India’s K Jennitha Anto won the 13th IPCA World Women’s Individual Chess Championship title organised by the Interntional Physically Disabled Chess Association, at Velke Losiny in the Czech Republic.


9.European Union (EU) has issued an instruction that will bar all 28 member states from funding projects connected to Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, including annexed east Jerusalem.
From 2014 the guiding principle adopted by the European Commision (EC) will affect all EU grants, prizes and funding, with no further funding available to Israeli entities beyond the 1967 Green Line.

10.As per IHS Automotive, a global market information provider India will become the 3rd largest automotive market in the world by 2016 ahead of Japan, Germany and Brazil with its domestic automotive sales. China, the US and Japan were the top three global automotive markets and India was ranked 6th after Brazil and Germany in the 4th and 5th positions respectively in 2012. India is expected to recover strong growth trend from 2014 onwards.

11.Giving a significant relief , especially its 12 % poor, India has decided to restore the subsidy on cooking gas and kerosene by the first week of August 2013. The Ministry of External Affairs claimed that the Petroleum Ministry misinterpreted the Foreign Office’s request for review of subsidies and there was no political consideration behind this.

12.Bradley Manning has been prosecuted by the U.S. government for being the whistleblower behind Wikileak’s publication of confidential State Department cables and video evidence of U.S. military attacks in Afghanistan and Iraq.

13.K.D. Singh who is presently one of the vice-presidents of Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) will now be its president. He will take the charge from Dinesh Reddy who stepped down as the president of the due to his inability to continue with the responsibility.

14.The International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved 1.72 billion Euros bail out to Greece after reviewing the country’s performance under the international rescue program.
This payout means Greece has received around 8.24 billion Euros from the IMF under the bailout coordinated with the European Union and the European Central Bank in March 2012.The IMF Executive Board is about to complete the fourth review of Greece’s performance and has also altered some of the criteria for the troubled nation.
IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde noticed the commendable progress of Greek authorities in reducing fiscal and external imbalances. Greece still needs to work towards bringing more institutional and structural reforms in the public sector.

15.Mamnoon Hussain, the candidate of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has been elected as the 12th President of Pakistan. Members of the national Parliament and provincial assemblies in Pakistan voted for the country’s new President.
Hussain, born in Agra, India, is also a textile businessman. He also tenured as the Governor of Sindh for a very short period when his appointment was dismissed by a military coup d’état in 1999. He will take over the President office on September 8, 2013 succeeding Asif Ali Zardari who did not seek re-election and is retiring.

16.As per the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), the poverty line declined from 37% in 2004-05 to 22% in 2011-12. A significant reduction in poverty levels is a result of high economic growth rates. Between 2005 and 2010, the country’s GDP grew at an average of 8.5 % and the poverty rate showed an average annual decline of 1.48%.
Major statistics:
Rural poverty has declined faster than urban poverty during this period.
The total number of people below the poverty line in the country is 26.89 crore as against 40.73 crore in 2004-05. In rural areas, the number has reduced from 32.58 crore to 21.72 crore.
Bihar, Orissa, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh have witnessed a sharp decline.
Bihar shows the biggest decline coming down 55% in 2004-05 to around 35% in 2011-12.
Gujarat was 31% in 2004-05 and 16% in 2011-12.
In Rajasthan 0.6 crore were lifted out of poverty in the same period.
Andhra Pradesh showed a decline in urban poverty from 23 % in 2004-05 to 6% in 2011-12.

17.10 South and Southeast Asian countries including India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka have come forward to ban smokeless tobacco products. Smokeless forms of tobacco including use of areca nuts cause serious health problems. The countries decided to introduce strong legislation for the purpose at the regional meeting of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

18.The government will bring a constitutional amendment Bill in Parliament during the forthcoming session for implementation of the Indo-Bangla land boundary agreement. India intends to ratify the 1974 Indira-Mujib pact for demarcation of boundaries and for exchange of 161 adversely held enclaves with a population of about 50,000 people.
Both the countries have discussed the modalities for implementation of the extradition treaty signed that will give the way for deportation of ULFA general secretary Anup Chetia, currently lodged in a Bangladeshi jail.

19.A notebook containing two patriotic Ghazals written by legendary patriot Veer Savarkar has been discovered by a Dadar based institute. The Ghazals in Urdu were written by the freedom fighter during his 11-year imprisonment in the Andaman Cellular Jail.
About Veer Savarkar:
Born on 28 May, 1883 in village Bhagur, near Nashik, Maharashtra , Vinayak Damodar Savarkar commonly known as Swatantryaveer Savarkar was a freedom fighter.

20.Larsen & Toubro (L&T) and its associated partners have received an order valued at Rs 8,250 crore to develop a metro project in Saudi Arabia. The contract is a part of Rs 35,000 crore-project which is to be completed in 4 years. Larsen & Toubro won its biggest ever overseas order in Saudi.

21.Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication Commission has been conferred with the Ramon Magsaysay Award for its successful campaign against corruption in Indonesia.Other Magsaysay Award winners for 2013:
Ernesto Domingo: A pioneering doctor from the Philippines
Lahpai Seng Raw: Aid worker in Myanmar
Habiba Sarabi: Afghanistan’s only female governor
Shakti Samuha: Anti-trafficking organization in Nepal.

22.Julian Assange (42), an Australian citizen and founder of WikiLeaks has launched his Australian political party WikiLeaks via a video link from the Ecuadorian embassy in London. The party was created in part to support Julian Assange’s bid for a Senate seat in Australia in the 2013 election.

23.FDI in multi-brand retail sector is allowed after the agreement from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB). With the growing demands from the overseas retails the government decided to liberalise Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) limits in 13 sectors including telecom, insurance, retail and defence. The government also cleared the much awaited 100 % FDI in the telecom sector from the existing 74%. Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma stated that the foreign direct investment limit in insurance sector will be increased to 49% from the existing 26%. In multi-brand retail, up to 49% overseas investment would now be allowed through automatic route. There is no decision yet taken on Foreign Direct Investment in media.
Key points in FDI stated by Anand Sharma
Petroleum and Natural Gas the sectoral cap remains unchanged at 49%
Power exchanges route changed to automatic; cap remains same as 49%
In insurance sector FDI cap will be 49% through automatic route
Asset reconstruction companies: FDI cap upto 49% through automatic route. From 49% to 100 % it will be through FIPB route
In tea sector, condition of divestment to Indian partners deleted
In single brand retail, FDI upto 49% it will be under automatic route; beyond 49% it will be through FIPB route
No change of route in civil aviation sector for now
In defence sector, 26% through FIPB route stays; for state-of-art technologies, FDI beyond this to be approved through CCS.

24.In a move toward creating a market oriented financial system to support economic growth, the People’s Bank of China and its Central Bank promulgated to lift the controls on bank lending rates.

25.Swiss tennis legend Martina Hingis (32) was inducted in Tennis Hall of Fame. She has become the fourth youngest member to be inducted in the Tennis Hall of Fame after Tracy Austin (30), Bjorn Borg (31) and Hana Mandlikova (32).

26.Goods and Services Tax (GST) report was finalized by the Parliamentary Standing Committee (PSC) on Finance which will be tabled in Lok Sabha in August 2013 session. The GST Bill introduced in Parliament in 2010 is being examined by the Standing Committee on Finance. The states and the Centre now jointly would finalize the draft and bring it back to Parliament.

27.With the rapid growing electricity demand, and increasing reliance on imported sources of fossil fuel the Government of India and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) signed an agreement for a $100 million ADB loan (A LIBOR based loan from ADB’s Ordinary Capital Resources which has a term of 25 years including 5 years of grace period) to develop a transmission system that will distribute 500 megawatts of solar power from the Charanka Solar Park in Gujarat.
ADB is committed to generating 3,000 MW of solar power by 2013 under its Asia Solar Energy Initiative.

28.The International Lunar Observatory Association and Moon Express announced first mission to the south pole of the moon in 2016 at NASA Lunar Science Institute conference at NASA ‘s Ames Research Center.

29.Pi Approximation Day was celebrated worldwide on July 22 (as the date is written 22/7). As we know that the value of Pi is 22/7 and it is said to be the common approximation of Pi (π).
Background:
The Pi Day started in the year 1988 when Larry Shaw, a physicist at the Exploratorium, the San Francisco science museum disclosed that the date was March 14 (as the day is 3/14 which represents the value 3.14).
Pi Approximation Day is quite closely related to the Pi Day which is celebrated on March 14 every year (representing the value 3.14)
Pi Approximation Day is celebrated in order to mark the Pi or approximation of EMBED Equation 22/7.

30.The Supreme Court gave an interim direction and has totally banned the counter sale of the chemical taking into the account acid attacks. A Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) should also be laid down for management and handling of acids.
Objective: To prevent acid attacks.
The Supreme Court has directed all States to pay acid attack victims Rs. 3 lakh towards medical treatment and after-care rehabilitation — Rs. 1 lakh within 15 days of an incident and the balance within two months thereafter.