Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 03 January 2015

:: National ::

India & U.S. to work on new proposals

• Indian and U.S. officials are expected to meet in Delhi next week to discuss two proposals made by India to clear the nuclear logjam, with an added push coming from U.S. President Obama’s impending visit on January 24.

• The proposals were put forward during the first contact group meeting on civil nuclear issues held on December 16-17 that had been tasked by President Obama and Prime Minister Modi with finding a way around U.S. objections to India’s supplier liability law.

• According to one official present at the meeting, India put up a revised proposal of an “insurance pool” using General Insurance Company (GIC) to alleviate the risk to U.S. suppliers.

• An earlier proposal had been made during the UPA government’s tenure in March 2014, but had been rejected. Officials say the new offer would include a pool of GIC, New India Assurance, Oriental Insurance, National Insurance and United India, that would generate a risk cover of about $242 million.

• A second proposal, that US officials have taken back to discuss with lawyers and representatives of American companies GE-Hitachi and Westinghouse, would entail a “clarification of Section 46” of the law that has been described as “vague” .

• At present, Section 46 says that nothing in the law will “exempt the operator from any proceeding which might, apart from the act, be instituted against the operator.” This has been read to mean that U.S. suppliers could face tort claims, that is, be sued by victims of an accident where the nuclear parts are deemed faulty. U.S. officials will bring both proposals back to Delhi next week.

Racial remarks against people from N-E to be punishable

• Violence, racial remarks and gestures against people from the Northeast are likely to be made punishable offences. The government move is in accordance with the M.P. Bezbaruah Committee report on discrimination against the people of the Northeast.

• It was set up following the murder of a 19-year-old from Arunachal Pradesh, Nido Tania, in South Delhi about a year ago.

• “The proposal for insertion of Section 153-C [cognisable and non-bailable] and Section 509-A [cognisable and bailable] in the Indian Penal Code is under consideration,” Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said.

• The proposed Section 153-C makes acts causing or likely to cause fear or feeling of insecurity among the community punishable with up to five years’ imprisonment. The proposed Section 509-A provides up to three years’ imprisonment for words, gesture or act intended to insult a member of any race.

‘NITI Aayog’ a threat to federal structure says Congress (Register and Login to read Full News..)

Excavation conducted at Harappan site by ASI reveals house plan (Register and Login to read Full News..)

:: Persons in News ::

V. Gowarikar passes away

• Vasant Ranchhod Gowarikar, a stalwart who played a key role in India’s space programme, passed away in Pune after catching dengue. He was 81.
• A chemical engineer with a doctorate from Birmingham University, Dr. Gowarikar joined the Indian Space Research Organisation in 1967, settling down in Thiruvananthapuram.
• A determined leader, who was a hard taskmaster and yet won the loyalty of subordinates, his group developed the binders and other key ingredients that went into solid propellants required for the country’s rockets.
• The ability to make these ingredients indigenously protected the rocket programme when the U.S. imposed sanctions. The Solid Propellant Space Booster Plant at Sriharikota, where solid motors for launch vehicles are cast, was conceived by him.
• Dr. Gowarikar was director of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, the lead agency for the rocket programme, before leaving ISRO in 1986 to become Secretary for the Department of Science & Technology. He is survived by his wife, three daughters and two grandchildren.

Kiran Vadodaria elected as INS president for 2014-15 (Register and Login to read Full News..)

:: International ::

‘AirAsia’ tragedy over 30 bodies recovered

• Indonesia Rescue officials said that they had recovered 30 bodies and identified three as the sixth day of search operations for the missing Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 continued but that stormy seas had prevented them from deploying sophisticated sonar equipment.

• Marsma Supriyadi, director of operations for the National Search and Rescue Agency in Indonesia, said eight of the bodies that had been recovered were sent to Surabaya, the capital of East Java.

• With luck we will find more, because search operations are continuing, he told reporters in Pangkalan Bun, close to the site where wreckage from the airliner was discovered on Tuesday.

• The plane, en route to Singapore, crashed into the Java Sea about an hour after leaving Surabaya. Three bodies were positively identified after extensive forensic examination, including DNA and dental tests, Mr. Supriyadi said. The three were an AirAsia flight attendant and two passengers, he said.

Nepal will join ‘Silk Road’ Economic Belt

• China has taken a firm step to extend the Silk Road Economic Belt to South Asia, by working out a blueprint of connecting Nepal with the Eurasian transport corridor.

• Last month, Nepal formally signed a four-point document endorsing the Silk Road Economic Belt — a pet project of President Xi Jinping for connecting Asia with Europe along a land corridor, with China as its hub. The agreement was signed during a meeting in Beijing of the Nepal-China Inter-governmental Business and Investment Coordination.

• A local media report in Nepal quoted an embassy official in Beijing as saying that Nepal and China “have agreed to revive the old Silk Road that runs from Lhasa to Kathmandu to Patna”.

• Analysts point out that Nepal has joined a project that China has marshalled along with Russia as its core partner, to counter the Washington-led “Asia Pivot” doctrine, which has the containment of a rising China at its heart.

• Under the new Silk Route blueprint, the Chinese want to open up the transportation channel from the Pacific to the Baltic Sea, from which would radiate rail and road routes, which would also connect with East Asia, West Asia, and South Asia.

• China wants to connect with Nepal and South Asia through an extension of the Qinghai-Tibet railway. The rail line from Lhasa has already been extended to Shigatse, Tibet’s second largest city, 253 km away.

• The Chinese plan to build two lines from Shigatse. One would lead to Kerung, the nearest Chinese town from Nepal, from where it would be extended to Rasuwagadhi in Nepal. The other line would head to Yadong on the India-Bhutan border.

• The website ekantipur.com of Nepal reported that visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi urged his Nepalese hosts last week to conduct a feasibility study so that the railway could be extended to Kathmandu and beyond.

China’s 3 Gorges dam breaks record for hydropower (Register and Login to read Full News..)

:: Business & Economy ::

Public sector banks need more autonomy says FM

• India needs to “conceive” several reforms in the banking sector, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told reporters on the sidelines of a two-day banking retreat.

• Mr. Jaitley added that there is a need to give greater autonomy to banks and that non-performing loans in some cases was “unacceptable”. “There is a need to get the best talent into the system. There is a need for far greater autonomy being given to them (Public Sector Banks),” Mr. Jaitley told reporters in Pune.

• PSBs recorded the highest level of stressed loans at 12.9 per cent of their total advances in September 2014, while the same ratio for private sector banks was at 4.4 per cent, according to RBI data.

• India's top bankers have gathered in Pune to discuss long-pending reforms vital to improving the health of ailing public sector banks in Asia’s third-largest economy.

WB to woo investors at Global Business summit

• Projecting itself as an ideal investment destination, the Government of West Bengal is organising Bengal Global Business Summit — Bengal Leads 2015 — on January 7 and 8 to attract investment from foreign and domestic companies.

• Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari are expected to attend. Chief Minister Mamta Banerjee will speak on the occasion besides interacting with investors.

• The State is seeking investment in sectors such as urban infrastructure and housing, IT software and hardware, food processing, horticulture and floriculture, MSME and textiles, health care, education and skills development, manufacturing, energy and infrastructure, hospitality and tourism and business of entertainment and financial services.

• “This business summit will ride on growth achieved in the past three years. Since formation of our government, radical fiscal reforms have been done and massive capital formation is underway,” said West Bengal Finance and Industry Minister Amit Mitra.

Transport Ministry to launch e-approval for heavy vehicles (Register and Login to read Full News..)

:: Sports ::

Saina Nehwal disappointed by Padma Award snub

• Olympic bronze-medallist Saina Nehwal has been left disappointed after the Sports Ministry decided to reject her application for the prestigious Padma Bhushan award this year, citing norms.

• Badminton Association of India (BAI) had recommended Saina’s name for the award to the Sports Ministry in August last year but the ministry picked two-time Olympic medallist wrestler Sushil Kumar as it felt he was a more deserving candidate.

• “I heard that Sushil Kumar’s name was sent for Padma award as a special case, while my name was not sent to Ministry of home affairs by sports ministry.

• The ministry guidelines say that there needs to be a gap of five years between two Padma awards. So if they can send his name, why they didn’t recommend my name as I have completed the five years gap. I felt bad about it,” Saina, who was awarded the Padma Shri in 2010, told PTI.

• The 24-year-old claimed that her application was rejected last year also on similar grounds but this year, the ministry decided to recommend Sushil’s name even though he has not completed the five—year norm after being bestowed with the Padma Shri in 2011.

• “Last year when I had sent my file for the Padma Bhushan award, the ministry said ‘No Saina you can’t apply this year because you have to complete five years for this.’ So I again applied this year for the award. So why my name was not recommended this year?,” she asked.

:: Science & Technology ::

New compound identified to kill cancer cells

• A small molecule that resets the ‘biological clock’ of cancer cells can help shrink tumour growth and lead to potential new therapy to treat cancer, says a research.

• The molecule called 6-thio-2’-deoxyguanosine (6-thiodG) can stop the growth of cancer cells, the findings showed. “We observed broad efficacy against a range of cancer cell lines with very low concentrations of 6-thiodG,” said Jerry Shay, professor at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Centre in the US.

• The researchers did not observe serious side effects in the blood, liver and kidneys of the mice that were treated with 6-thiodG. The molecule acts by targeting a unique mechanism that is thought to regulate how long cells can stay alive, a type of ageing clock.

• This biological clock is defined by DNA structures known as telomeres, which cap the ends of the cell’s chromosomes to protect them from damage and which become shorter every time the cell divides.

• Once telomeres have shortened to a critical length, the cell can no longer divide and dies though a process known as apoptosis.

• However, cancer cells are normally protected from this death by an RNA protein complex called telomerase, which ensures that telomeres do not shorten with every division. But 6-thiodG can be used to disrupt the normal way cells maintain telomere length.

• “Since telomerase is expressed in almost all human cancers, this work represents a potentially innovative approach to targeting telomerase-expressing cancer cells with minimal side effects on normal cells,” Mr. Shay pointed out.

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Sources: Various News Papers & PIB

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