Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 24 March 2017

:: National ::

TenkuThittu a dancer of Yakshagana school died

• Well known artiste of the TenkuThittu school of YakshaganaGerukatteGangaiah Shetty died. He was 63. He is survived by his wife and three sons.

• Gangaiah Shetty collapsed on the stage while performing the role of Arunasura in the Yakshaganaprasanga, KateeluKshetraMahatme, at Yekkar near Kateel. He died on the way to hospital in Mangaluru.

• Gangaiah Shetty hailed from Gerukatte near Guruvayanakere in Belthangady taluk in Dakshina Kannada. He performed in the DurgaparameshwariPrasaditaDashavataraYakshagana Mandali. He began to perform in 1970 in the Kateel mela and continued to perform in the same mela till he breathed his last.

Traditional Knowledge Database Library will cease to exist

• The Traditional Knowledge Database Library (TKDL), a marquee organisation of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research that has fought biopiracy for decades, will cease to exist in its current form.

• It has no committed funds,  most of its workforce has been removed and these staffers are litigating against CSIR.

• It will no longer be an organisation that once pro-actively scouted for intellectual property infringements by Indian and foreign companies on traditional knowledge in areas.

• TKDL is an online repository of about 300,000 formulations from Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani systems. Over two decades, the body translated, scanned and digitised texts from their Sanskrit, Arabic and Urdu originals.

• This was then made searchable, allowing patent offices in India, Europe, the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Japan to check if patent applicants of herbal concoctions, creams and drugs were basing their claims on available traditional knowledge.

• Even before TKDL opened, India overturned patents in the U.S. and Europe on neem and turmeric products.

• Between 2009 and 2015, 219 patents were denied to Indian and foreign companies based on TKDL’s challenges, including Unilever, Colgate-Palmolive, Avesthagen, the government’s Central Council For Research in Unani Medicine, and Yale University in the U.S.

• Since 2016 there have been no patent challenges by TKDL. The 100-odd employees — on project contracts — including Ayurveda experts, intellectual-property analysts and IT staff are down to about 50.

AI to set up aviation varsity in Hyderabad by 2020

• Air India, after having installed a brand new second A320 simulator costing about Rs. 65 crore at the Central Training Establishment (CTE) at Balanagarfor training pilots, is preparing a blueprint to establish an Aviation University.

• ATR simulator  costs between Rs. 60 crore to Rs. 65 crore and is to be imported. It will be the first modern one in the country and without this, trainee pilots are forced to go to Bangkok or Singapore for advanced training for flying the turbo-prop short haul aircraft.

• While there is an ATR simulator at Gurugram in Delhi in the private sector, the upcoming facility here will be the first in public sector.

• Air India’s subsidiary Alliance Air flies eight of these planes manufactured by the French-Italian aircraft manufacturer ATR and has plans to acquire 30 more soon.

• 2016, CTE had trained a total of 200 pilots with the help of its two A320 simulators (AI flies 70 A320s including four brand new) and 50 have already undergone training in 2017.

Rajasthan government’s move to provide vitamin-enriched food to help children (Register and Login to read Full News)

Significant change to electoral funding norms (Register and Login to read Full News)

Treatment of people with tuberculosis is “sub-optimal” in Indian prisons says study (Register and Login to read Full News)

:: International ::

Indian fishermen arrested by Navy of Sri Lanka

• After arresting 10 fishermen, Sri Lankan Navy arrested 16 more fishermen – eight each from Rameswaram and Jagadapattinam in Pudukottai district – in two separate incidents on the charge of poaching in Lankan waters.

• The fishermen from the two places were fishing on the high seas when the Lankan navy arrested them and the arrests were confirmed.

•  Reports received said the navy personnel from Sri Lanka’s Northern Naval Command arrested eight fishermen from Jagadapattinam when they were fishing northwest of Analathivu.

• In another incident, the naval personnel from North Central Naval Command arrested eight Rameswaram fishermen when they were fishing on the high seas north of Mannar.

• The Rameswaram fishermen were produced before the court in Mannar and sent to judicial custody in Vavuniya prison, U. Arulanandham, president of Alliance for the Release of Innocent Fishermen (ARIF)

• The Jagadapattinam fishermen were produced before the court in Kayts and lodged in Jaffna prison till April 4, along with 10 other fishermen arrested on March 20

• Royappu (35), one of the arrested fishermen, who suffered a head injury after he was allegedly attacked by the Lankan navy personnel, was admitted to the Government Hospital in Jaffna, Mr. Arulanandham said.

Khalifa Masood named as responsible for attack on Westminster

• Khalid Masood, a lone, British-born attacker, who was known to police, was named as responsible for the attack on Westminster. The attack left four persons, including the alleged assailant dead, and around 40 others injured.

• Details of the 52-year-old attacker, who had been known by a number of aliases, emerged, as reports suggested that the Islamic State (IS) had claimed responsibility, describing the assailant, who was shot dead just within the parliamentary security cordon, as one of its soldiers.

• Masood was known for a range of offences dating back as early as 1983, when he was convicted for criminal damage, the Metropolitan Police said.

• Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Theresa May described Masood as a “peripheral figure,” who had been investigated several years ago in connection to concerns about violent extremism.

• Khalid Masood, considered a peripheral figure by MI5, had been arrested earlier for violent crimes. The attack left four persons, including the alleged assailant dead, and around 40 others injured.

Sri Lanka gets two more years for accountability mechanism for war crimes (Register and Login to read Full News)

:: Science and Technology ::

Rapid pace of melting of earth’s polar ice

• Scientists are alarmed at the rapid pace of melting of the earth’s polar caps.

• The sea ice cover in the Arctic and the Antarctic hit new record lows for this time of year, marking the smallest polar ice caps in the 38-year satellite record, U.S. government scientists said.

• In March, the Arctic ice sheet should be at its biggest, but on March 7 the ice cover reached “a record low wintertime maximum extent,” said a statement by NASA.

• Data from the NASA-supported NSIDC in Boulder, Colorado, also showed that on March 3, “sea ice around Antarctica hit its lowest extent ever recorded by satellites at the end of summer in the Southern Hemisphere”.

• The disappearing sea ice comes as the planet has marked three years in a row of record-breaking heat, raising new concerns about the accelerating pace of global warming and the need to curb burning of fossil fuels which spew heat-trapping greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.

• The ice floating in the Arctic Ocean grows and shrinks on a seasonal cycle, reaching its largest size in March and its smallest at the end of the summer melt in September.

• This year’s Arctic maximum spanned 14.42 million sq.km. That is 95,829 sq.km. below the previous record low in 2015. When scientists take account of the average sea ice extent for 1981-2010, this year’s ice cover is 12,19,884 sq.km. smaller.

• The ice in the Antarctic also follows a seasonal cycle but its maximum comes in September and its minimum around February.

• For the past two years, however, Antarctica saw record high sea ice extents.

:: Business and Economy ::

India pressed for expediting the negotiation process for a global services pact

• India pressed for expediting the negotiation process for a global services pact, that among other things, aims to ease norms for movement of skilled workers across borders.

• India had, in February, submitted to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) a legally-vetted proposal for a Trade Facilitation in Services (TFS) Agreement.

• The proposal was taken up by an expert committee at the WTO headquarters in Geneva recently, and it will be considered for discussion by all the WTO members.

• The proposed TFS, among other things, aims to ensure portability of social security contributions and cross-border insurance coverage to boost medical tourism.

• According to India, the proposed pact is similar to the WTO’s Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) in Goods, that recently came into force, and aims to ease customs norms to boost global goods trade.

• India had specified that the proposed TFS pact is also about ‘facilitation,’ that is “making market access ‘effective’ and commercially meaningful and not about ‘new’ (or greater) market access.”

NCLT gives nod for Cairn-Vedanta merger

• The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) approved the metals and mining firm Vedanta’s merger with its cash-rich oil subsidiary Cairn India, paving the way for the formation of the fourth-largest resource company in the world.

• The initial deal terms, announced in June 2015, were revised in July 2016 in order to address the concerns of the minority shareholders in Cairn India.

• According to the revised deal, minority shareholders in Cairn India will receive, for each equity share held, one equity share, and four redeemable preference shares with a face value of Rs. 10 in Vedanta Limited.

• Following the merger, Vedanta Plc.’s ownership in Vedanta Limited is expected to fall to 50.1% from its current 62.9%.

• Cairn India minority shareholders will own 20.2% and Vedanta Limited minority shareholders will own a 29.7% stake in the enlarged entity.

Centre is working on a ‘compliance report” of its flagship ‘Make In India’ (Register and Login to read Full News)

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