1. The Solar Impulse:Solar powered plane, The solar plane project got underway in 2003 under the guidance of Bertrand Piccard, the first person to fly around the world nonstop in a balloon.
This is a very significant step in the sense that flying by night using solely solar power is a stunning manifestation of the potential that clean technologies offer today to reduce the dependency of our society on fossil fuels
2. India, Iran sign six new agreements:
- agreement on air services : The air services agreement includes enhancement in the capacity entitlement for the designated airlines of each nation from 23 services per week to 31 per week.
- transfer of prisoners
- Iran has also agreed to hold technical-level meeting over the issue of Chabahar port, which is strategically important for New Del
- MoUs have also been signed for cooperation in renewable energy, small scale industries and science and technology. Yet another MoU was signed for mutual ties between the Central Pulp and Paper Research Institute of India and Iran's Gorgan University of Agricultural Science and Natural Resources.
Chabahar Port:
Chabahar is an Iranian city and a free port (Free Trade Zone) on the coast of the Gulf of Oman.
Chabahar is situated on the Makran Coast of the Sistan and Baluchestan province of Iran and is officially designated as a Free Trade and Industrial Zone by Iran's government. Due to its free trade zone status, the city has increased in significance in international trade
India is helping develop the Chabahar port, which will give it access to the oil and gas resources in Iran and the Central Asian states. This is done by India to compete with the Chinese, who are building Gwadar Port, in Pakistani Baluchistan.
3. According to a recent study conducted by Indian researchers, Homoeopathic medicine `Belladonna' has a probable role help in preventing Japanese encephalitis (JE) virus infection
4. NP1 - India's first indigenous naval Light Combat Aircraft,
The LCA is equipped with state-of-the-technology and the GE-F-IN20 engine and is designed for Ski-jump Take Off But Arrested Recovery (STOBAR) operations.
The Naval LCA would operate with a wide variety of operational weapons and equipment on board, including the Beyond Visual Range (BVR) missile, anti-ship missiles, conventional bombs, air defence guns, counter-counter measures and drop tanks
5. 8 Indian firms on Fortune 500 list are:
Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) - Ranked 125
Reliance Industries Limited (RIL)Tata Steel - 175
State Bank of India (SBI) - 282
Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) - 307
Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) - 354
Oil & Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) - 413
Tata Motors - 442
6. 1GOAL : is a campaign seizing the power of football to ensure that education for all is a lasting impact of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. 1GOAL is bringing together footballers, fans, charities, corporations and individuals to lobby and achieve the ambitious aim of education for everyone
In 2000, 164 world governments came together to create the Education for All goals, 189 governments also created the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. Two of the eight goals involve ending poverty through education:
* to ensure that all boys and girls complete primary schooling by 2015
* to ensure that girls have the opportunity for education at all levels by 2015.
They promised to make sure there was enough money and that the policies were in place to make it a reality. Since then many countries have abolished school fees, spending was increased by $4 billion and an extra 40 million children are now going to school
7. Naadam festival- the biggest sports and entertainment event in Mongolia, has been celebrated in summer for centuries as a test of courage, strength, horsemanship and marksmanship, culminating with “the three men's games” — wrestling, archery and horse racing. In the Mongolian language, Naadam means game.
8.Jabulani bladders are manufactured in Enkay (India) Rubber Co, New Delhi
Enkay bladders have been inside the Azteca, used in the 1986 world cup in Mexico, the Etrusco Unico in Italy in 1990, the Questra in the US in 1994, the Tricolore in France in 1998, the Fevernova in Korea/Japan in 2002 and the Teamgeist in Germany in 2006. These balls have variously been produced in factories in Pakistan, France, Morocco and Thailand, and Enkay has delivered its bladders to all these countries
9. India's defence research agency DRDO has developed an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) specifically for anti-terrorist and counter insurgency
operations, which will be inducted into the armed forces by the year-end.
The 1.5 kg UAV, called 'Netra', is a collaborative development project between ideaForge, a company formed by a group of Indian Institute of Technology, Powai, alumni and one of Defence Research and Development Organisation's Pune-based labs, Research and Development Establishment (Engineers) (R&DE) Pune.
10. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has conferred Tulsi R Tanti, chairman and managing director of Suzlon Energy Limited, with the title of `Wind Visionary of Asia'. The award was presented at an international consultation - `Quantum Leap in Wind Power in Asia' - held at the ADB headquarters in Manila, the Philippines.
The award is in recognition of Suzlon's commitment to building the case for wind across the world and highlights a decade of tremendous work in key markets of Asia
11. The polar satellite launch vehicle PSLV-C-15 carrying remote sensing Cartosat-2B along with four other satellites has been launched successfully
The four other satelites re:
Alsat from Algeria,
two nano satellites from Canada and Switzerland, and
a pico (very small) satellite, Studsat, built by seven engineering students of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka
Cartosat-2B is India's 17th remote sensing satellite and is meant to augment ISRO's remote sensing data services
The satellites' imagery can be used for preparing detailed forest maps, tree volume estimation, village / cadastral level crop inventory, town / village settlement mapping and planning for development, rural connectivity, canal alignment, coastal land form, mining monitoring and other fields
12. The union cabinet approved a symbol for the Indian rupee. This symbol will be used by all individuals/entities within and outside India after its incorporation in `Unicode Standard', 'ISO/IEC 10646' and 'IS 13194'.
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. Developed in conjunction with the Universal Character Set standard and published in book form as The Unicode Standard, the latest version of Unicode consists of a repertoire of more than 107,000 characters covering 90 scripts, a set of code charts for visual reference, an encoding methodology and set of standard character encodings, an enumeration of character properties such as upper and lower case, a set of reference data computer files, and a number of related items, such as character properties, rules for normalization, decomposition, collation, rendering, and bidirectional display order (for the correct display of text containing both right-to-left scripts, such as Arabic or Hebrew, and left-to-right scripts)
13.Archaeologists in Jerusalem have uncovered an ancient clay fragment dating back some 3,400 years, the oldest-ever sample of writing found in Jerusalem
The clay chip is a key find which indicates the importance of the city in the Bronze Age, around 1,400 BC
14. The 22-year-old Patna-born prodigy Tathagat Avtar Tulsi is all set to become the country's youngest faculty at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Powai in Mumbai
In 2003, he was named as one of the world's “seven most gifted youngsters” by Time magazine
15. Vostok-2010 :Russia's largest military exercise since the breakup of the Soviet Union. More than 20,000 troops, 75 combat aircraft, 40 warships from the Pacific, Northern and Black Sea Fleets, and 5,500 pieces of heavy weapons were mobilised for 10-day war games
16. Multidimensional poverty index:
- India ranks 63rd in the new poverty index, after Togo, before Haiti
- Quarter of the world lives on $1.25 a day or less: World Bank estimate
- More than 410 million people live in poverty in the Indian States, including Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal
17. Leh berries:
- extracted from the Seabuck Thorn Berry, a local shrub
- Seabuckthorn, also called the “Wonder plant” and “Ladakh gold” has multi-purpose medicinal and nutritional properties, and also helps in soil conservation and nitrogen fixation
- Hardy, drought-resistant and tolerant to extreme temperatures from – 43º C to + 40º C, the plant has an extensive root system which can fix atmospheric nitrogen, making it ideal for controlling soil erosion and preventing desertification.
- The Ministry of Environment and Forests and the Defence Research and Development Organisation have launched a major national initiative for seabuckthorn cultivation in the high-altitude, cold desert ecosystems
18. Desmond Symes, a Royal Air Force veteran of World War II, who met Mahatma Gandhi and took Lord Louis Mountbatten across British India, has died at the age of 86.
19.World's biggest solar power station opens in Spain:
The new La Florida solar plant takes Spain's solar output to 432MW, which compares with the US output of 422MW. The plant, at Alvarado, Badajoz, in the west of the country, is a parabolic trough. With this method of collecting solar energy, sunlight is reflected off a parabolic mirror on to a fluid-filled tube. The heated liquid is then used to heat steam to run the turbines. The mirror rotates during the day to follow the sun's movement. The solar farm covers 550,000 square metres (the size of around 77 soccer pitches) and produces 50MW of power
Spain is now the fourth largest manufacturer of solar power technology in the world
20. Defensin-1 :a protein made by bees that they add to honey. This could one day be used to treat burns and skin infections and to develop new drugs that could combat antibiotic-resistant infections.
21. Serum Institute of India (SRI), the largest vaccine manufacturer in India, has launched an indigenously developed intra-nasal vaccine, Nasovac, for prevention of H1N1 (swine flu) infections
22.Three Chancellors - Book on Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, who in their capacity as Prime Minister have served as Chancellor of Visva-Bharati – the book has been compiled by Nilanjan Bandopadhyay, curator of the university's museum at Santiniketan.
It is part of 150th birth anniversary celebrations of Tagore
23. Argentina has become the first country in Latin America to legalise same-sex marriage, following a landmark Senate vote carried live on national television.
24. The World Bank Group has sanctioned two loans worth around Rs1,185 crore for environment management projects in India.
Of this, Rs897crore will go for the Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) project and the remaining for Capacity Building for Industrial Pollution Management (CBIPMP) project.
The Capacity Building for Industrial Pollution Management Project (CBIPMP) project aims to reduce pollution levels in ten highly polluted industrial areas - two in Andhra Pradesh and eight in West Bengal - on a pilot basis.
Goals of ICZM:
- mapping, delineation and demarcation of the hazard lines and delineation of coastal sediment cells all along the mainland coast of India;
- mapping, delineation and demarcation of environmentally sensitive areas;
- capacity building of the MoEF and the state coastal zone management authorities, and
training programme for coastal zone management as also setting up of a National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM). The NCSCM will be set up at Anna University in Chennai with an outlay of Rs116 crore
25. Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA), the apex body set up to regulate and develop the pension sector in the country, has introduced two new schemes - `NPS-Lite', which aims at financial inclusion and `Swavalamban Scheme' which is an add-on product for NPS account holders who meet certain criteria.
NPS-Lite specifically targets the economically disadvantages sections of society and promotes small savings during their productive life.
The scheme will help the economically weaker sections to build a corpus sufficient enough to buy an annuity for their old age
The `Swavalamban Scheme,' which grants an incentive of Rs1,000 to all eligible NPS accounts, will be available to all NPS-Lite accountholders as well, provided they meet the prescribed criteria.
Distinguishing features of NPS Lite are:
Voluntary - Open to eligible citizens of India, in the age group of 18-60 years. Subscriber is free to choose the amount he/she wants to invest every year.
Simple - Eligible individuals in the unorganised work force can open an account through their `aggregator' and get an Individual subscriber (NPS - Lite) account.
Safe - Regulated by PFRDA, with transparent investment norms and regular monitoring and performance review of fund managers by NPS Trust.
Economical - Ultra-low cost structure with no minimum amount required per annum or per contribution.
Portable - Subscriber can operate account from anywhere in the country, even with change of location, employment or `aggregator
26. Raku-Raku - meaning "easy-to-use" in Japanese - new one-touch internet-access mobile handset from Fujitsu
The new Raku-Raku Phone 7 is designed to make the internet more accessible to senior citizens by introducing a one-touch access button to the i-mode mobile internet system.
27. Two new bacterial species that produce enzymes which could have application for biotech industry have been discovered in the Arctic region by a senior scientist from the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB).
The bacteria which can grow at 2 degrees Celsius and produce enzymes such as protease and lipase
28. Milon Kumar Banerjee, the former Attorney-General of India, passed away
Mr. Banerjee, as Attorney-General, had the rare honour of being called upon to address the Parliament regarding the powers of the Election Commission on August 5, 1993, a request that had not been made to the Attorney-General for decades, and the Padma Awards case, where he argued before the Supreme Court that these awards were not titles and as such were not violative of Article 18 of the Constitution
He was awarded the second highest national award, the Padma Vibhushan, in 2005
29. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said India would emerge as the third largest recipient of foreign direct investment (FDI) for the three-year period ending 2012
India broke into the top 10 destinations for FDI for the first time in 2009, when the world battled to emerge from a brutal financial crisis and FDI flows slowed dramatically. The country rose to the ninth place in 2009 from 13th in the previous year in the list of FDI destinations, according to the UNCTAD report.
30. In a move that will bring about a sweeping change in education across the country, the ministry of human resource development unveiled a low-cost computer with a price tag of Rs1,500 or $35
The single unit system has a touch screen and a built-in keyboard along with a 2 GB RAM memory, wi-fi connectivity, USB port and is powered by a 2-watt system to suit poor power-supply areas.
The device is the product of a collaborative effort involving the ministry, institutes like the IITs, IISc and VIT, Vellore
31. New inflation index from August:
The government will introduce a new system of inflation measurement from August that would cover price changes of about 250 extra items.
The monthly inflation measurement system in use currently, is based on the wholesale price index that reflects the price variations of 435 items.
The new index is likely to include a host of new products, including consumer goods such as mobile phones and LCD televisions, while out of use items such as typewriters and video cassette recorders would likely be dropped from the new inflation measurement mechanism.
The base year of the new index would also be changed from 1993-94 to 2004-05.
32. Now, map details height of the globe's forests:
Using satellite data, scientists have produced a first-of-its kind map that details the height of the world's forests.
The map, based on data collected by NASA's ICESat, Terra, and Aqua satellites, should help scientists build an inventory of how much carbon the world's forests store and how fast that carbon cycles through ecosystems and back into the atmosphere.
Some findings:
This new global depiction shows the world's tallest forests clustered in the Pacific Northwest of North America and portions of Southeast Asia, while shorter forests are found in broad swaths across northern Canada and Eurasia.
Temperate conifer forests – which are extremely moist and contain massive trees such as Douglas fir, western hemlock, redwoods, and sequoias – have the tallest canopies, soaring easily above 40 meters (131 feet). In contrast, boreal forests dominated by spruce, fir, pine, and larch had canopies typically less than 20 meters (65 feet). Relatively undisturbed areas in tropical rain forests were about 25 meters (82 feet), roughly the same height as the oak, beeches, and birches of temperate broadleaf forests common in Europe and much of the United States.
33. Researchers have found that sulforaphane, a chemical found in broccoli, interacts with cells lacking a gene called PTEN to reduce the chances of prostate cancer developing
34. The Boeing Company unveiled the hydrogen-powered Phantom Eye unmanned airborne system, a demonstrator that will stay aloft at 65,000 feet for up to four days.
Phantom Eye is powered by two 2.3-liter, four-cylinder engines that provide 150 horsepower each. It has a 150-foot wingspan, will cruise at approximately 150 knots and can carry up to a 450-pound payload.
Key Phantom Eye suppliers and partners include Ford Motor Company (engines); Aurora Flight Sciences (wing); Mahle Powertrain (propulsion controls); Ball Aerospace (fuel tanks); Turbosolutions Engineering (turbochargers); the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; and NASA.
A unit of The Boeing Company, Boeing Defense, Space & Security is one of the world's largest defense, space and security businesses specializing in innovative and capabilities-driven customer solutions, and the world's largest and most versatile manufacturer of military aircraft. Headquartered in St. Louis, Boeing Defense, Space & Security is a $34 billion business with 68,000 employees worldwide.
35. Yet ANother Indian in the Obama administration:
Gururaj ‘Desh' Deshpande, entrepreneur, philanthropist and Chairman of Tejas Networks, A123 and Akshaya Patra, USA, had been appointed Co-Chairman of the U.S. National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (NACIE).
36. This year's Lokmanya Tilak Award will be given to Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit in recognition of her contribution to politics. It consists of a gold medal, a memento, a citation and Rs.1 lakh
37. A big rock art site has been discovered at Kovanur, Perianaickenpalayam taluk, 30 km northwest of Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu.
The site has about 60 paintings, both group compositions and individual images. The paintings portray the hunting of an elephant and a herd of deer, and images of a tiger, herds of bisons, a monitor lizard and hunters with bows and arrows.
38. The eight-legged ‘oracle' Octopus Paul was declared an “honorary friend” of a Spanish town in a ceremony at his German aquarium
39. Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act:
It is a federal statute in the United States that was signed into law by President Barack Obama on July 21, 2010.The Act is the product of the financial regulatory reform agenda of the Democratically-controlled 111th Congress and the Obama administration.
The Act is categorized into sixteen titles, and by one law firm's count, it requires that regulators create 243 rules, conduct 67 studies, and issue 22 periodic reports.The stated aim of the legislation is:
To promote the financial stability of the United States by improving accountability and transparency in the financial system, to end "too big to fail", to protect the American taxpayer by ending bailouts, to protect consumers from abusive financial services practices, and for other purposes
40. The Reserve Bank of India will allow take-out financing through external commercial borrowings (ECB) for refinancing of rupee loans availed of from domestic banks
What is exisitng norm?
refinancing of domestic rupee loans with ECB is not permitted
What's the change?
Keeping in view the special funding needs of the infrastructure sector, it has been decided to review the ECB policy and put in place a scheme of take-out finance
41.After years of discussions Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus have launched a customs union as a first step towards forming a broader EU-type economic alliance of former Soviet states.
42. The Spitzer infra-red telescope has uncovered 14 of the coldest stars known in our universe. These failed stars, called brown dwarfs, are so cold and faint that they'd be impossible to see with current visible-light telescopes
43. Evidence of early humans who lived in colder climate found:
early humans had indeed ventured beyond 45 deg. N latitude some 7,00,000 years ago and reached Pakefield, Suffolk in the U.K that lies at 52 {+o} N latitude
44. The government has approved the release of Rs4,868 crore as interest subvention to public sector banks (PSBs), regional rural banks (RRBs) and cooperative banks as also NABARD for refinance to RRBs and cooperative banks for lending at concessional rate to farmers.
This is to ensure that farmers get short-term crop loans at a concessional rate of 7 per cent per annum (5 per cent for prompt payers)
What is Interest Subvention?
A subvention is a subsidy, so an interest subvention is a subsidy on interest. If the government is offering 5 % interest subvention on an farm loan which otherwise would have cost 10 % then the farmers can get loans at 5% interest rate.
44.The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) raised its short-term lending and borrowing rates by a higher than expected 0.25 per cent and 0.50 per cent respectively in an avowed attempt to bring the double-digit inflation down to six per cent by March 2011, in a move that would put pressure on banks' interest rates.
The increase in short-term lending rate (repo) to 5.75 per cent and short-term borrowing rate (reverse repo) to 4.5 per cent will be effective immediately
45. President Pratibha Patil appointed Election Commissioner (EC) Shahabuddin Yaqoob Quraishi as the next Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) under Clause 2 of the Article 324 of the Constitution.
46.Mahela Jayawardene now has the most Test hundreds at a single venue. He overtook the legendary Don Bradman's nine centuries in Melbourne, when he reached the three-figure mark and notched up his 10th century at the Sinhalese Sports Club ground
47. The international flavour of the week seems to be the WikiLeaks expose of the documents concerning the operations against the Al Qaeda and its allies in Afghanistan.
The New York Times reported on Sunday, July, 18, 2010, that military field documents included in the leak suggest that Pakistan has been allowing "representatives of its spy service to meet directly with the Taliban in secret strategy sessions to organise networks of militant groups that fight against American soldiers in Afghanistan, and even hatch plots to assassinate Afghan leaders".
48. China stakes sovereign claim over entire South China Sea:
Reiterating historical claims the Chinese military declared that China had "indisputable sovereignty" over the South China Sea, but back-pedalled somewhat by saying it would continue to allow others to freely navigate what is one of the busiest waterways in the world. These remarks, in part, are a reaction to a move last week by the United States, Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries to challenge China's claims to the whole sea
The South China Sea
Part of the Pacific Ocean, the South China Sea encompasses an area from the Singapore and Malacca Straits to the Strait of Taiwan of around 3,500,000 km². It is considered as the largest or the second largest body of water after the five oceans depending on measurement.
Located south of China it has Taiwan, Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, Singapore and Vietnam as the littoral countries. It has hundreds of small islands scattered on its surface all of which are claimed by the various littoral nations on its rim.
This body of water has great geo-political significance being the second most used sea lane in the world. In terms of world annual merchant fleet tonnage, it is estimated that over 50 per cent passes through the Strait of Malacca, the Sunda Strait, and the Lombok Strait.
49. The Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMSc) at Chennai unveiled India's seventh-fastest supercomputer, Annapurna, to provide a boost to simulations and numerical calculations in the areas of statistical mechanics and condensed matter physics.
Annapurna is a high-performance computation (HPC) cluster having 1.5 Tera Byte (TB) memory and 30 TB storage space cluster capacity.
Among broad-based scientific institutions in India, the Annapurna cluster is the third fastest, ranking below the IISc Bangalore and Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai.
Vindhya, Aravalli and Kabru - the other supercomputers built by the institute
49.Tata Chem's low-cost water purifier Tata Swach in WSJ's best Asian innovations shortlist. The fact that the purifier, branded Tata Swach, doesn't require electricity and running water unlike existing water purifiers is what makes the purifier really innovative.
50. The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has selected three biometric solution providers and awarded contract to consortiums led by Accenture, Mahindra Satyam-Morpho and L1 Identity Solutions to implement the core biometric identification system in for the `Aadhaar' programme
51. Apple's glitches and antenna issues with iPhone 4 notwithstanding, the $57.4-billion brand that raced past Microsoft in May as the largest technology company, has topped the 'The World's Most Valuable Brands' list compiled by Forbes
Brand Microsoft comes in second with $56.6 billion, followed by Coca Cola ($55.4 billion), IBM ($43 billion) and Google ($39.7 billion) which bagged the third, fourth and fifth spots on the list.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Monday, July 5, 2010
1st week of July - CA
1. India's growing trade deficit
April-May 2010:
country exported goods and services worth $33.03 billion (Rs149,111 crore) while cumulative value of imports for April-May 2010 stood at $54.75 billion (Rs247,211 crore), recording an increase of $21.71 billion (Rs125,100 crore).
2. Net International Investment Position
The difference between a country's external financial assets and liabilities is the net international investment position (NIIP)
A country's international investment position (IIP) is a financial statement setting out the value and composition of that country's external financial assets and liabilities.
International Investment Position = domestically owned foreign assets - foreign owned domestic assets.
In layman's terms, it means the difference between the amount of foreign investment in India and Indian investment abroad
So what is India's NIIP?
As of end-March 2010 increased by $94.8 billion over the previous financial year, primarily due to increase in net inflow of portfolio and direct investment in India.
India's total external financial liabilities went up by $127.5 billion to $536.5 billion as of end-March 2010 over the previous year.
Total external financial assets increased by $32.6 billion to $378.8 billion as of end-March 2010 from $346.2 billion at end-March 2009
3. India's Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is partnering Swedish company Saab in fitting its CARABAS (Coherent All RAdio BAnd Sensing)
radar on the HAL-developed Dhruv Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH). This would allow the scanning of wide swathes of territory to detect deep buried IEDs well in advance.
Recently Naxal IEDs have been playing havoc in parts of central India causing extensive casualties amongst para-military personnel.
The CARABAS radar is designed to detect metallic components of an IED, even when it is buried deep below the ground. A computer scan of fresh images of a particular area, compared to previous images of the same area, allow the detection of any new metallic objects recently embedded. With such information in hand the IEDs can be defused of by bomb disposal squads.
4.After nearly a five-year wait, India has finally become a full-fledged member of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an inter-governmental body responsible for setting global standards on anti-money laundering (AML) and combating financing of terrorism (CFT).
With its induction as the 34th member-country of the global body that chalks out policies to counter financial frauds, India will have access to information on suspicious financial transactions in Switzerland, China, the U.S. and the U.K. The development marks a significant step towards tracing the source of terror financing and black money stashed away in tax havens abroad.
5. Ending six decades of hostility, China and Taiwan signed a historic trade pact under which Beijing generously granted tariff cuts and concessions to hundreds of products to export dependent Taipei.
The Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) pact, which was finalised after months of excruciating negotiations signed by both sides in China’s Chongqing city . The new deal was expected to boost their $110 billion bilateral trade to a new high with Taiwan expected to make the most of it.
6. Access to Medicine Index:
- The companies are graded on many factors, including whether they offer lower prices or donate drugs in poor countries, whether they license generic versions of their products or fight to prevent them, whether they donate expertise or money to struggling health systems and whether they do research on neglected diseases
- GlaxoSmithKline, Merck and Novartis have taken the top three spots again on the Access to Medicine Index, which ranks pharmaceutical companies on how readily they make their products available to the world's poor. It was the second time the rankings, which were created in 2008, have been issued. This time, 95 per cent of the brand-name companies approached by the Dutch foundation that started the index agreed to provide information; two years ago, only about half did
- The index is supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Dutch and British governments, Oxfam and other donors
- For the first time, generic drugmakers were ranked separately. Three Indian companies, Ranbaxy Laboratories, Cipla and Dr. Reddy's, took the top three spots.
7. Steps taken by government in the textile sector:
- scheme for integrated textile park (SITP) - to supplement the efforts of the industry by providing state-of-the-art infrastructure facilities in textile growth centres. Forty parks have been sanctioned throughout the country
- Recent inaguration of Dodballapur Integrated Textile Park at Benguluru
- subsidy of Rs912 crore to 7,383 beneficiaries within 3 working days under the Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme (TUFS)
- inclusion of sericulture and allied activities in the central government's Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY), extending the various benefits to the silk industry.
- The Central Silk Board, Bengalure in association with Indian Space Research Organisation intends to take up remote sensing imagery rogramme in eight sericulture districts to assess mulberry acreage in the country
8. Aditya Puri, managing director of HDFC Bank Limited and Sam Ghosh, CEO of Reliance Capital, have won nominations as `Asian Captain of Finance 2010' in a poll conducted by `Institutional Investor' magazine
9. Resveratrol — found in red wine — stops out-of-control blood vessel growth in the eye
10.Induction of two new warships to Indian Navy:
- The Indian Navy inducted two indigenously built fast attack craft, INS Cankarso and INS Kondul
- Fitted with a 30-mm CRN-91 gun and Igla missiles and light and heavy machine guns, the warships will be tasked to detect, locate and destroy small but fast-moving enemy surface craft engaged in covert operations
- INS Cankarso and INS Kondul, named after two islands off Goa and in Nicobar, have a displacement of 325 tons each and reach a speed of 35 knots.
11. Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) announced its seventh oil discovery in exploration block CB-ONN -2003/1 (CB 10 A&B) in the Cambay basin off the Gujarat cost, at a distance of 130 km from Ahmedabad
- The block, awarded under the NELP-V round of exploration bidding, covers an area of 635-sq km in two parts, viz. Part A and Part B. RIL, as operator, holds 100 per cent participating interest (PI) in the block.
12. Research on effects of oil spill:
Oil spills can increase levels of toxic arsenic in the ocean, creating an additional long-term threat to the marine ecosystem
Arsenic is a poisonous chemical element found in minerals and it is present in oil. High levels of arsenic in seawater can enable the toxin to enter the food chain. It can disrupt the photosynthesis process in marine plants and increase the chances of genetic alterations that can cause birth defects and behavioural changes in aquatic life
For their research, the team analysed a mineral called goethite, one of the most abundant ocean sediments in the world, which is an iron bearing oxide.
13. Rana Kapoor, founder, managing director and CEO of YES Bank, has been conferred with the `Indian Business Leader of the Year' award at the Global Indian Business Meeting held in Madrid
14. The Banker magazines' annual survey
four UK-based banks figure in the top 15 in the list of biggest 1,000 global lenders
In terms of size:
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) - 4th
HSBC - 1st
Barclays Bank - 4th
Lloyd's - 12th
The US, home to Bank of America Merrill Lynch, is the most powerful banking centre in the world, followed by the UK at the second spot, according the survey.
The Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, the China Construction Bank and Goldman Sachs are the most profitable banks in the world according to the survey.
15. foundation of Rohtang tunnel near Manali
The idea of constructing a tunnel beneath the Rohtang Pass at 13,000 feet was envisaged in 1983 and its construction received an impetus after the Kargil conflict
16. Indian-American Nisha Desai Biswal - has been nominated to the post of Assistant Administrator for Asia in the United States Agency for International Development (USAID),
17. scientists have discovered the oldest fossils of a multi- cellular organism Shaped like biscuits, the specimens are 200 million years older than for any previous claim
The ancient macrofossils were discovered near Franceville in Gabon two years ago.
After analysing their structure and chemical content, it emerged the specimens were not rock formations, but the remains of living organisms.
The first traces of life were simple "prokaryotic" organisms, which appeared 3.5 billion years ago, while 600 million years ago the Earth underwent The Cambrian Explosion - where oxygen levels in the atmosphere soared alongside a huge proliferation in the numbers of different species of life.
18. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) proposed limiting annual salary increases of CEOs or wholetime directors of private banks to 10-15 per cent, besides a provision for slashing remuneration in case of poor financial showing.
19. India's external debt as of end-March 2010 increased by $36.9 billion to $261.4 billion, recording an increase of 16.5 per cent over the end-March 2009 level even as the external debt to GDP ratio stood at 18.9 per cent. The increase is attributed to a significant increase in IMF liabilities due to additional allocations of SDR, commercial borrowings, NRI deposits and short-term trade credits
20. Key component identified that helps plants go green
Plants have an array of photoreceptors that are tuned to different wavelengths of light. One type, called phytochromes, are sensitive to red and far-red light and play a major role in the making of chloroplasts and the growth of the stem
One of the first things that happens when the plant detects light is that these phytochromes move from the cell's cytoplasm to its nucleus, where the genes are kept. The photoreceptors gather in discrete spots known as phytochrome nuclear bodies
Identification of a new gene called HEMRA(named after Greek goddess of daylight, Hemera), that seems to be required for both the localization and the signaling of phytochrome.
21. Arunachal Pradesh, home to 570 species of orchids, half the number available in the country, is facing problems because of numerous hydro projects, roads, airports and other infrastructure coming up under the Prime Minister’s package.
Over 80 species of orchid, including some rare ones, have been relocated by the forest department in the same climatic zone from the project area of the 2000 MW Lower Subansiri hydro power project being constructed at Gerukamukh by the CPSU major NHPC
- The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Fauna and Flora (CITES) stipulates protection of orchids in their natural habitat and prohibits their export.
Even tourists are not allowed to disturb orchids habitats, which is is punishable under law
April-May 2010:
country exported goods and services worth $33.03 billion (Rs149,111 crore) while cumulative value of imports for April-May 2010 stood at $54.75 billion (Rs247,211 crore), recording an increase of $21.71 billion (Rs125,100 crore).
2. Net International Investment Position
The difference between a country's external financial assets and liabilities is the net international investment position (NIIP)
A country's international investment position (IIP) is a financial statement setting out the value and composition of that country's external financial assets and liabilities.
International Investment Position = domestically owned foreign assets - foreign owned domestic assets.
In layman's terms, it means the difference between the amount of foreign investment in India and Indian investment abroad
So what is India's NIIP?
As of end-March 2010 increased by $94.8 billion over the previous financial year, primarily due to increase in net inflow of portfolio and direct investment in India.
India's total external financial liabilities went up by $127.5 billion to $536.5 billion as of end-March 2010 over the previous year.
Total external financial assets increased by $32.6 billion to $378.8 billion as of end-March 2010 from $346.2 billion at end-March 2009
3. India's Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is partnering Swedish company Saab in fitting its CARABAS (Coherent All RAdio BAnd Sensing)
radar on the HAL-developed Dhruv Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH). This would allow the scanning of wide swathes of territory to detect deep buried IEDs well in advance.
Recently Naxal IEDs have been playing havoc in parts of central India causing extensive casualties amongst para-military personnel.
The CARABAS radar is designed to detect metallic components of an IED, even when it is buried deep below the ground. A computer scan of fresh images of a particular area, compared to previous images of the same area, allow the detection of any new metallic objects recently embedded. With such information in hand the IEDs can be defused of by bomb disposal squads.
4.After nearly a five-year wait, India has finally become a full-fledged member of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an inter-governmental body responsible for setting global standards on anti-money laundering (AML) and combating financing of terrorism (CFT).
With its induction as the 34th member-country of the global body that chalks out policies to counter financial frauds, India will have access to information on suspicious financial transactions in Switzerland, China, the U.S. and the U.K. The development marks a significant step towards tracing the source of terror financing and black money stashed away in tax havens abroad.
5. Ending six decades of hostility, China and Taiwan signed a historic trade pact under which Beijing generously granted tariff cuts and concessions to hundreds of products to export dependent Taipei.
The Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) pact, which was finalised after months of excruciating negotiations signed by both sides in China’s Chongqing city . The new deal was expected to boost their $110 billion bilateral trade to a new high with Taiwan expected to make the most of it.
6. Access to Medicine Index:
- The companies are graded on many factors, including whether they offer lower prices or donate drugs in poor countries, whether they license generic versions of their products or fight to prevent them, whether they donate expertise or money to struggling health systems and whether they do research on neglected diseases
- GlaxoSmithKline, Merck and Novartis have taken the top three spots again on the Access to Medicine Index, which ranks pharmaceutical companies on how readily they make their products available to the world's poor. It was the second time the rankings, which were created in 2008, have been issued. This time, 95 per cent of the brand-name companies approached by the Dutch foundation that started the index agreed to provide information; two years ago, only about half did
- The index is supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Dutch and British governments, Oxfam and other donors
- For the first time, generic drugmakers were ranked separately. Three Indian companies, Ranbaxy Laboratories, Cipla and Dr. Reddy's, took the top three spots.
7. Steps taken by government in the textile sector:
- scheme for integrated textile park (SITP) - to supplement the efforts of the industry by providing state-of-the-art infrastructure facilities in textile growth centres. Forty parks have been sanctioned throughout the country
- Recent inaguration of Dodballapur Integrated Textile Park at Benguluru
- subsidy of Rs912 crore to 7,383 beneficiaries within 3 working days under the Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme (TUFS)
- inclusion of sericulture and allied activities in the central government's Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY), extending the various benefits to the silk industry.
- The Central Silk Board, Bengalure in association with Indian Space Research Organisation intends to take up remote sensing imagery rogramme in eight sericulture districts to assess mulberry acreage in the country
8. Aditya Puri, managing director of HDFC Bank Limited and Sam Ghosh, CEO of Reliance Capital, have won nominations as `Asian Captain of Finance 2010' in a poll conducted by `Institutional Investor' magazine
9. Resveratrol — found in red wine — stops out-of-control blood vessel growth in the eye
10.Induction of two new warships to Indian Navy:
- The Indian Navy inducted two indigenously built fast attack craft, INS Cankarso and INS Kondul
- Fitted with a 30-mm CRN-91 gun and Igla missiles and light and heavy machine guns, the warships will be tasked to detect, locate and destroy small but fast-moving enemy surface craft engaged in covert operations
- INS Cankarso and INS Kondul, named after two islands off Goa and in Nicobar, have a displacement of 325 tons each and reach a speed of 35 knots.
11. Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) announced its seventh oil discovery in exploration block CB-ONN -2003/1 (CB 10 A&B) in the Cambay basin off the Gujarat cost, at a distance of 130 km from Ahmedabad
- The block, awarded under the NELP-V round of exploration bidding, covers an area of 635-sq km in two parts, viz. Part A and Part B. RIL, as operator, holds 100 per cent participating interest (PI) in the block.
12. Research on effects of oil spill:
Oil spills can increase levels of toxic arsenic in the ocean, creating an additional long-term threat to the marine ecosystem
Arsenic is a poisonous chemical element found in minerals and it is present in oil. High levels of arsenic in seawater can enable the toxin to enter the food chain. It can disrupt the photosynthesis process in marine plants and increase the chances of genetic alterations that can cause birth defects and behavioural changes in aquatic life
For their research, the team analysed a mineral called goethite, one of the most abundant ocean sediments in the world, which is an iron bearing oxide.
13. Rana Kapoor, founder, managing director and CEO of YES Bank, has been conferred with the `Indian Business Leader of the Year' award at the Global Indian Business Meeting held in Madrid
14. The Banker magazines' annual survey
four UK-based banks figure in the top 15 in the list of biggest 1,000 global lenders
In terms of size:
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) - 4th
HSBC - 1st
Barclays Bank - 4th
Lloyd's - 12th
The US, home to Bank of America Merrill Lynch, is the most powerful banking centre in the world, followed by the UK at the second spot, according the survey.
The Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, the China Construction Bank and Goldman Sachs are the most profitable banks in the world according to the survey.
15. foundation of Rohtang tunnel near Manali
The idea of constructing a tunnel beneath the Rohtang Pass at 13,000 feet was envisaged in 1983 and its construction received an impetus after the Kargil conflict
16. Indian-American Nisha Desai Biswal - has been nominated to the post of Assistant Administrator for Asia in the United States Agency for International Development (USAID),
17. scientists have discovered the oldest fossils of a multi- cellular organism Shaped like biscuits, the specimens are 200 million years older than for any previous claim
The ancient macrofossils were discovered near Franceville in Gabon two years ago.
After analysing their structure and chemical content, it emerged the specimens were not rock formations, but the remains of living organisms.
The first traces of life were simple "prokaryotic" organisms, which appeared 3.5 billion years ago, while 600 million years ago the Earth underwent The Cambrian Explosion - where oxygen levels in the atmosphere soared alongside a huge proliferation in the numbers of different species of life.
18. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) proposed limiting annual salary increases of CEOs or wholetime directors of private banks to 10-15 per cent, besides a provision for slashing remuneration in case of poor financial showing.
19. India's external debt as of end-March 2010 increased by $36.9 billion to $261.4 billion, recording an increase of 16.5 per cent over the end-March 2009 level even as the external debt to GDP ratio stood at 18.9 per cent. The increase is attributed to a significant increase in IMF liabilities due to additional allocations of SDR, commercial borrowings, NRI deposits and short-term trade credits
20. Key component identified that helps plants go green
Plants have an array of photoreceptors that are tuned to different wavelengths of light. One type, called phytochromes, are sensitive to red and far-red light and play a major role in the making of chloroplasts and the growth of the stem
One of the first things that happens when the plant detects light is that these phytochromes move from the cell's cytoplasm to its nucleus, where the genes are kept. The photoreceptors gather in discrete spots known as phytochrome nuclear bodies
Identification of a new gene called HEMRA(named after Greek goddess of daylight, Hemera), that seems to be required for both the localization and the signaling of phytochrome.
21. Arunachal Pradesh, home to 570 species of orchids, half the number available in the country, is facing problems because of numerous hydro projects, roads, airports and other infrastructure coming up under the Prime Minister’s package.
Over 80 species of orchid, including some rare ones, have been relocated by the forest department in the same climatic zone from the project area of the 2000 MW Lower Subansiri hydro power project being constructed at Gerukamukh by the CPSU major NHPC
- The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Fauna and Flora (CITES) stipulates protection of orchids in their natural habitat and prohibits their export.
Even tourists are not allowed to disturb orchids habitats, which is is punishable under law
