(Current Affairs) National Events | June : 2017

• Widening its sanitation drive, the Indian Railways will now carry out a cleanliness survey of tracks on busy routes and rank its 16 zones based on performance.
• The railways had recently released results of a similar survey of 407 stations, carried out by the Quality Council of India.
• All-out efforts will be made to keep the tracks clean as part of the government’s ongoing cleanliness campaign, said a senior railway ministry official.
• Railway tracks at many stretches resemble garbage dump with leftover food, plastic bottles and paper boxes strewn all over. Discharge of human waste from trains is also a cause for concern.
• In fact, several railway divisions have pressed into service a mechanised system for cleaning of tracks near stations. Besides, installation of bio-toilets in several trains has reduced discharge of human waste on the tracks.
• The Indian Railways is the third largest rail network in the world, covering 66,000 km and having more than 8,000 stations.
• It was after the launch of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan on October 2, 2014, by Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the railways launched ‘Swachh Rail, Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’.
• The railways has also made operational a ‘Swachh Rail’ portal to showcase cleanliness rankings of various stations.

• Scientists have developed a low-cost, disposable sensor that can detect disease markers in one’s breath, giving patients an early warning sign to call the doctor.
• The device is made of a thin square of an organic plastic. “We developed this method to directly print tiny pores into the device so we can expose these highly reactive sites,” said Ying Diao, professor at University of Illinois.
• For example, monitoring the change in ammonia concentration in the breath could give patients a warning sign to go for a kidney function test.

• The government is unlikely to meet its much-publicised target of 175 GW of renewable energy by 2022 due to the poor progress of the rooftop solar programme.
• The Ministry is also considering increasing the contribution of other sources like biogas and small hydro to make up the difference.
• The policy issue is that the tariff structure right now is such that it is just not remunerative for people to set up rooftop solar. The cost of doing so higher than the money they stand to make.
• Most roofs in India are flat, and people find several alternative uses for these such as drying clothes, and even hosting parties or meals. There are parts of India where people even sleep on their roofs.
• The government is aware of these issues and is considering a new plan to incentivise rooftop solar, he said.
• The government had a announced a target of 40 GW of rooftop solar by 2022, but had achieved only about 1.3 GW as of December 2016, which is a little more than 3% of the target.
• The second issue, Mr Ghosh said, was the de-risking of investment in the rooftop space. While this has been done for commercial solar projects, it has not been done for rooftop solar.
• The third problem is that there is no regulatory clarity on guaranteed payment by utilities on the net metering basis.

• RBI Governor Urjit Patel will appear before a parliamentary panel for a second briefing on demonetisation on June 8, and not on May 25 as scheduled, as work on framing the monetary policy will be under way at that time.
• The Standing Committee on Finance, which had questioned Mr. Patel on January 18 on the move to ban notes of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 denominations, allowed him to appear at a later date after he made a request expressing his inability.
• Mr. Patel has been asked to appear on May 25 after former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh prevailed upon the BJP MPs on the panel, who were opposed to summoning the RBI Governor again.
• It was Mr. Singh who had rescued Patel from a tough grilling during the January meeting when he intervened to say the Reserve Bank and the Governor’s position as an institution should be respected.
• He should not be put to odd questions, Mr. Singh, who himself was RBI Governor once, is believed to have told the standing committee.
• Instead of Mr. Patel, all secretaries from the Finance Ministry will be present on May 25 to update the panel about digital economy. The panel is chaired by Congress leader M. Veerappa Moily, .
• The members are now likely to question Mr. Patel on how much money has come back into the system.

• EC invited recognised political parties to an “Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) Challenge” beginning June 3 to demonstrate that the machine can be, or were, during the five recent Assembly elections, tampered with.
• Only Indian experts are allowed to participate in the event. The challenge will be open for four to five days, for the political parties that participated in the Assembly elections in Goa, Punjab, Manipur, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh.
• An independent team of experts will supervise the proceedings, which will be video-recorded.
• Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi said the political parties, each of which can nominate three experts, had to confirm their participation by 5 p.m. on May 26.
• Each party will be assigned four EVMs of their choice, picked up from EC warehouses in any Assembly constituency.
• They can also accompany the EVMs from warehouses to the venue at the EC headquarters, at their own cost.
• Although the parties’ experts will be allowed to open and inspect the machine, they will not be allowed to tweak its components, as the EC said changing the internal circuit was like changing the whole device itself.

• Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani was re-elected by a wide margin. The victory gave the moderate cleric a second four-year term to see out his agenda pushing for greater freedoms and outreach to the wider world.
• The 68-year-old incumbent secured a commanding lead of 57% in a race that drew more than seven out of every 10 voters to the polls.
• His nearest rival in the four-man race, hardliner Ebrahim Raisi, secured 38% of the vote.
• Better forecast from Earth Science System Organisation
• The Union Ministry of Earth Sciences’ premier agency — INCOIS will soon be operating through a brand new high-powered super computer enabling quicker computations and thereby more accurate forecasts for ocean waves and tsunami alerts.
• The new high-powered supercomputer of 34 teraflops capacity, estimated to have cost Rs. 4 crore, including five years maintenance period, is being currently shipped from Singapore.
• This one will be replacing an older version which has a capacity of just 7.8 teraflops.
• The existing high-powered computer has completed its life cycle of eight years and is ‘coming apart’ inside the INCOIS’ sprawling facility at Pragatinagar near Kukatpally necessitating the procurement of a new one.
• The new supercomputer is to be made operational within a month of arrival after feeding the available forecasting model that INCOIS has developed over the years as in tracking the ocean wave currents, real time Tsunami alerts and so on, in a more precise manner with a higher resolution and for a larger terrain.
• The agency is currently able to predict the estimated tsunami landfall for up to three metres of wave heights only.

• GST Council finalised tax rates for all services, except lottery, under the new indirect tax regime to be rolled out from July 1. Those services already exempted from tax, such as healthcare and education, will continue to enjoy the concession.
• The tax rate on non-AC restaurants will be 12%. It will be 18% on AC restaurants and those with a liquor licence. Restaurants in 5-star hotels will attract a 28% tax, the same as that applicable to these hotels itself.
• A tax of 18% will be levied for financial services and mobile services. While hotels and lodges with tariff below Rs. 1,000 have been exempted, those with room tariff of Rs. 1,000-Rs. 2,500 will attract 12%.

• Newborns in India have a lesser chance of survival than babies born in Afghanistan and Somalia, according to the latest Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study published in the medical journal The Lancet.
• In the GBD rankings for healthcare access and quality (HAQ), India has fallen 11 places, and now ranks 154 out of 195 countries.
• Further, India’s healthcare index of 44.8 is the lowest among the sub-continental countries, as Sri Lanka (72.8), Bangladesh (51.7), Bhutan (52.7), and Nepal (50.8) all fared better.
• The top-ranked nation was Andorra with an overall score of 95 and the lowest-ranked nation was Central African Republic at 29.
• India’s downward slide in the rankings indicates that it has failed to achieve health care targets, especially those concerning neonatal disorders, maternal health, tuberculosis, and rheumatic heart disease. Last year, India was ranked 143 among 188 countries.
• In the case of neonatal mortality, on a scale of 1 to 100, India scored 14 in the HAQ index, while Afghanistan scored 19/100 and Somalia, 21/100.
• Access to tuberculosis treatment in India was scored 26 out of 100, lower than Pakistan (29), Congo (30) and Djibouti (29). For diabetes, chronic kidney diseases, and congenital heart diseases, India scored 38, 20, and 45, respectively.

• ICJ stayed the execution of former Indian naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav, in a move swiftly welcomed by the government but dismissed by Pakistan as a “basic ruling” that said nothing about the merits or maintainability of the case.
• “We will leave no stone unturned to save #Kulbhushan Jadhav,” tweeted Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj, who hailed the MEA’s “tireless efforts,” on the case.
• The ICJ, popularly known as the ‘world court’, ordered Pakistan to “take all measures at its disposal” to prevent the execution of Mr. Jadhav, pending its final judgment.
• ICJ ruling made a legal milestone in the Indian government’s efforts to save Mr. Jadhav from execution. The decision was adopted unanimously.
• The court accepted India’s argument that the failure by Pakistan to provide required consular notification and access fell under the scope of Article 1 of the Optional Protocol of the Vienna Convention of Human Rights.

• The government has invited comments on a Bill that seeks to deter economic offenders from fleeing the country by attaching and confiscating properties owned by them in India.
• The proposed ‘Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill, 2017’ comes against the background of India seeking the extradition of liquor baron Vijay Mallya from the U.K. for defaulted loans to banks.
• The issue of loan defaults has been stressed as a critical issue burdening the Indian economy by senior government officials like the Finance Minister and Chief Economic Advisor, and private sector economists alike.
• The Bill makes provisions for a special court under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act to declare a person a ‘Fugitive Economic Offender’.
• A Fugitive Economic Offender is a person who has an arrest warrant issued in respect of a scheduled offence and who leaves or has left India so as to avoid criminal prosecution, or refuses to return to India to face criminal prosecution.

• The Army took delivery of two M777 ultralight howitzers from the U.S. under a contract signed in 2016. The guns will be put through trials before induction into the Indian arsenal.
• These are the first modern 155-mm artillery guns to be inducted after the Swedish Bofors guns in the 1980s, the deal for which kicked up a major controversy and left the Army’s artillery modernisation programme stalled for years.
• The Bofors guns, which was found effective during the Kargil war, continue to be the mainstay.
• Last November, India entered into a contract with the U.S. government under the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) programme for buying 145 BAE Systems-built M777 A-2 artillery guns in a $737-million deal.
• Twenty-five of them will be imported and 120 assembled in India in partnership with the Mahindra group.
• As the 39-calibre towed artillery gun made of titanium and aluminium alloys weighs only four tonnes, they can be transported under-slung on helicopters.
• Dhanush, an upgraded and indigenous version of the Bofors gun, is in the final stage of trials and induction is slated to begin soon.
• Development of a new gun, the Advanced Towed Artillery Gun System (ATAGS), under a public-private partnership (PPP) model jointly by the public and the private sector is progressing well.

• Ransomware cyberattack has hit several hundred computers of various departments of the Gujarat government. Computer systems crashed in some Regional Transport Offices, several district collectorates and police stations.
• As a precaution, the government issued an alert to switch off the computers and IT networks till anti-virus systems are installed.
• According to Gujarat’s IT secretary Dhananjay Dwivedi, 120 computers across the State were affected. A few police stations and the Ahmedabad civil hospital were also affected.
• The State IT department and State Crime Record Bureau have issued advisories to all departments and agencies to install a security patch and upgrade the systems before using them.
• No private company in the State has so far complained of cyber intrusion in their networks. However, cyber experts said the private firms have avoided reporting complaints and have instead been upgrading their networks.
• Meanwhile, the Ahmedabad Crime Branch has developed an anti-virus software which once installed protects all data and systems.

• Mars rover Opportunity has reached the main destination of its current two-year extended mission — an ancient fluid-carved valley incised on the inner slope of a vast crater’s rim, NASA has said.
• As the rover approached the upper end of ‘Perseverance Valley’ in early May, images captured by its cameras began showing parts of the area in greater resolution than what can be seen in images taken from the orbit above the Red planet.
• “The science team is really jazzed at starting to see this area up close and looking for clues to help us distinguish among multiple hypotheses about how the valley formed,” said Opportunity Project Scientist.

• The government will organise two-day training camps for cooks engaged in providing midday meals for children in schools so that they cook better food.
• This was announced by Human Resource DevelopmentMinister, as he presented the three-year report card of his Ministry.
• On Tuesday itself, there was a report of a dead lizard being found in midday meals in Jamui district of Bihar, the latest among a series of such complaints.
• India has the world’s largest midday meal scheme, serving 10 crore students in 11.5 lakh schools with nutritious food,” Mr. Javadekar said, adding that while any instance of problem in the meals was reported — as it should be — the scheme’s scale was seldom discussed.
• The economic cost involved for wheat-based meals is Rs. 8.2 per day for a secondary level student, and it is Rs. 9.6 for rice-based meals.

• Chinese President proposed five principles of peaceful co-existence or Panchsheel — the brainchild of China, India and Myanmar in the 1950s — as the mantra for advancing the Belt and Road Initiative (B&RI), and as a vehicle for achieving sustainable globalisation.
• Despite India’s decision to skip the two-day Belt and Road Forum (BRF), the once special relationship between New Delhi and Beijing echoed during the opening session of the conclave.
• In his keynote address, President Xi highlighted that China “will enhance friendship and cooperation with all countries in the world on the Belt and Road Initiative on the basis of the five principles of peaceful coexistence”.
• Mr. Xi emerged as the new defender of globalisation, countering the resistance to open economic borders in the U.S. and parts of Europe, with a solid integrative plan.
• India’s decision to boycott the BRF, as a mark of protest against the infringement of its sovereignty by the China- Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), provided Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif an opportunity to appear magnanimous at the conclave.
• In his address, he signalled Islamabad’s openness for a dialogue with India, and offered to accommodate “all countries” in the CPEC.
• India’s decision to stay away has raised eyebrows here, as other countries such as Japan and Vietnam, which have serious maritime disputes with China, have sent high-level official delegations, to the BRF.

• The Peace Palace, home of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, will hold public hearings on the case of Kulbhushan Jadhav, who was arrested and sentenced to death by Pakistan in April over allegations of espionage and abetting terror.
• The one-day hearing will involve two sessions of an hour and a half, according India and Pakistan an opportunity to make their case, starting with India in the morning. Pakistan’s session will follow in the afternoon.
• The court’s judgment, which could follow as early as in a few days or take several months, is binding with no appeal.
• ICJ President Ronny Abraham directed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to “act in such a way as to enable the court to enforce any decision it takes on the India plea,” effectively staying Jadhav’s execution until the court was able to hear and deliberate on the matter.
• The Indian team, led by former solicitor general Harish Salve who won the stay at the ICJ last week, is expected to focus on the violations of the Vienna convention by Pakistan on the issue of consular access.
• Also on the lack of transparency in the Pakistani military court, which India has said, in its 12-page appeal, qualifies for the trial to be pronounced “illegal”.

• There are two broad mechanisms at work. Heat trapped in the atmosphere due to rising sea levels makes water expand and separately, melting ice sheets begin to add water to the world’s oceans.
• Since 2004, it has been known that the Indian Ocean has been rising particularly rapidly.
• However, it turned out that this was specific to a smaller stretch called the North Indian Ocean, which consists of the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea and a large part of the Indian Ocean until the 5 degree S latitude. This is an imaginary line cutting through Indonesia, central Africa and Peru.
• More surprisingly, as a team of oceanographers observed, the North Indian Ocean sea levels actually dipped between 1993 and 2004, at about 0.3 mm per year, but after 2004, the rise was 6 mm annually.
• Unlike the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean, the North Indian Ocean is hemmed in on all sides, except an outlet on the southern side. This influences the rate at which heat is absorbed and flushed out from within the system.
• According to their calculations, heat was moving out slower after 2004 than during the 1990s. Moreover, wind flows, which led to warm water welling up on the Indian Ocean surface, changed directions every decade and probably influenced sea level patterns.
• This means a rise in average global temperature doesn’t mean a concurrent rise in sea levels everywhere.
• Every year in the last decade has broken temperature records that have held for over a century but researchers associated with this study are willing to wager that North Indian Ocean levels may see a fall over the next decade.
• It doesn’t challenge it but certainly complicates it. Researchers use various models to extrapolate future trends on sea level rise and quantify the risk it poses to coastal populations.
• Several of these model, however, lack the resolution power to capture the vagaries of local climate and it is assumed that what is true for one sea will broadly apply to the others too.
• More micro-level data with improved computing power would mean better local-level forecasts.

• A day after India got a stay on Pakistan’s death sentence to arrested former Navy official Kulbhushan Jadhav at an international tribunal, the government defended going to the tribunal, as a “carefully considered decision.”
• The Ministry of External Affairs said the decision to resort to arbitration at the International Court of Justice, after a gap of 46 years, was appropriate as the ultimate aim is to save Mr. Jadhav’s life.
• “Despite requesting the government of Pakistan, we did not get the documents on the case. We do not know the status of the petition and the appeal filed by the mother of Mr. Jadhav.
• The visas sought for by his family have not been granted. In this situation to save the life of an Indian who was kidnapped and who was not given a fair trial, we have approached the International Court of Justice,” said spokesperson of MEA
• India had repeatedly sought consular access to Mr. Jadhav and had been repeatedly denied it. The spokesperson said the ICJ had informed New Delhi about the steps it has initiated in response to India’s request.
• The ICJ stated in a press release that India seeks suspension of the death sentence that has been given to Mr. Jadhav by a Pakistani military tribunal. India is expected to take up the case on May 15 when senior advocate Harish Salve will represent it.

• Home Ministry will seek the Attorney-General’s opinion to amend the repealed Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) 1976, which barred foreign donations to political parties.
• The Representation of the People Act and the FCRA bar political parties from receiving foreign funds.
•  government had amended the FCRA through the Finance Bill route, which allowed foreign-origin companies to fund NGOs here and also cleared the way for donations to political parties by changing the definition of “foreign companies.”
• The glitch was that although the amendment was done retrospectively it only made valid the foreign donations received after 2010, the year when the 1976 Act was amended.
• The retrospective amendment did not apply to donations prior to 2010 and the Association for Democratic Reforms, a political watchdog, moved a contempt petition against the Home Ministry.
• The ADR filed a PIL plea against the two parties for violating the FCRA. The Delhi High Court had held that the donations were illegal in 2014, but the two parties challenged the order in the Supreme Court but later withdrew the petition.

• In a major breakthrough in the case of Kulbhushan Jadhav, the former naval officer sentenced to death in Pakistan, New Delhi won a stay order from the International Court of Justice at The Hague.
• In its petition, India had accused Pakistan of gross violations of international laws.
• Ordering the stay, President of the ICJ directed Pakistan Prime Minister to “act in such a way as will enable any order the Court may make on the request for provisional measures to have its appropriate effects,”.
• Team of lawyers, led by senior advocate Harish Salve, listed the details of the case and the “egregious violations” of the Geneva convention that deals with consular relations, including Pakistan’s refusal to give any details of Mr. Jadhav’s arrest and trial until after the death sentence was passed.
• Failure to provide consular access to India despite 15 requests, and suggesting that access would be given only in exchange for information about Mr. Jadhav from India.
• A committee experts recommended a tax on “highly-processed” foods
• A committee of medical experts and nutritionists has recommended a tax on “highly-processed” foods and sugar-sweetened beverages.
• The body, tasked by the Food Standards and Safety Authority of India (FSSAI), has also advocated a ban on advertisements promoting foods high in FSS (fat, salt, sugar) during TV shows and channels aimed at children.
• “In fact, we should progress towards a total ban, as being done in a few other countries like Chile. Celebrity endorsements of such foods need to be discouraged,” says the report on the FSSAI website.
• Committee has compiled existing scientific literature on the consumption of fats, sodium and sugar in foods, across socio-economic groups in the country, and endorsed that the proportions of these food constituents not exceed guidelines by the WHO and the ICMR.
• A salient finding was that Low Income Groups (LIG) reportedly consumed more fried snacks and sweets than High Income Groups (HIG) and, the highest consumption of bakery items was in slums, said a study on urban populations.
• The panel also recommended that all packaged food carry detailed labels specifying the energy value in kcal (kilo calories); the amounts of protein, carbohydrates and fat; and the amount of any other nutrient for which a nutrition or health claim is made.
• If relevant, the label should also specify the amount or type of fatty acids or the amount of cholesterol, saturated fatty acids, monounsaturated fatty acids and polyunsaturated fatty acids in gram (g) and cholesterol in milligram (mg), the panel said.
• While many companies provide a breakdown on the nutritional constituents, they are not systematically enforced.

• The Government has accelerated efforts to finalise the ambitious Strategic Partnership (SP) model, which would give a major boost to private sector participation in defence manufacturing.
• As part of the stepped up efforts, the Defence Ministry has scheduled consultations with the industry to get their feedback in the next couple of days.
• The policy, which is part of the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) 2016, will set out guidelines on how major Indian private sector companies can tie up with global Original Equipment Manufacturers in critical military systems and platforms.
• An interaction between the defence ministry and industry representatives was scheduled for May 11. It would be attended by Mr. Jaitley and Defence Secretary G. Mohan Kumar.
• Major industry bodies and Indian private sector companies which would take the lead in the SP model had been invited. The final clearance would be accorded by the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) and the meetings had been slotted.
• Centre plans to tap MGNREGA to recharge remnants of ancient rivers
• The Centre plans to tap rural employment guarantee funds to recharge remnants of ancient rivers — including the mythical Saraswati — in a bid to boost groundwater reserves.
• Committee had been constituted to see how the Rs. 48,000 crore MGNREGSfund could be harnessed. “Reviving such palaeo-channels may not be useful for irrigation but it could improve groundwater storage,” said Ms. Bharti.
• Palaeo-channels are old rivers that have dried up and filled with sediment. Last October, a committee of hydrologists, geologists and archaeologists — as part of study commissioned by the Water Resources Ministry — reported evidence on the course of the Saraswati, mentioned in the Rigveda and Hindu mythology.
• The Markanda and the Sarsuti (now called the Ton-Yamuna rivers) watered the eastern branch of the river. The branches met in Shatrana, 25 kilometres south of Patiala and “flowed as a large river” emptying into the Rann of Kutch, the report said.
• Building on this, a committee was tasked with scouting palaeo-channels across the country.
• Wherever these channels were located, the soil was generally soft and therefore, it was easy to direct surface waters towards them and raise the water table, Ms. Bharti added.

• The Centre plans to tap rural employment guarantee funds to recharge remnants of ancient rivers — including the mythical Saraswati — in a bid to boost groundwater reserves.
• Committee had been constituted to see how the Rs. 48,000 crore MGNREGSfund could be harnessed. “Reviving such palaeo-channels may not be useful for irrigation but it could improve groundwater storage,” said Ms. Bharti.
• Palaeo-channels are old rivers that have dried up and filled with sediment. Last October, a committee of hydrologists, geologists and archaeologists — as part of study commissioned by the Water Resources Ministry — reported evidence on the course of the Saraswati, mentioned in the Rigveda and Hindu mythology.
• The Markanda and the Sarsuti (now called the Ton-Yamuna rivers) watered the eastern branch of the river. The branches met in Shatrana, 25 kilometres south of Patiala and “flowed as a large river” emptying into the Rann of Kutch, the report said.
• Building on this, a committee was tasked with scouting palaeo-channels across the country.
• Wherever these channels were located, the soil was generally soft and therefore, it was easy to direct surface waters towards them and raise the water table, Ms. Bharti added.

• China is prepared to consider renaming the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) if it would end India’s reservations over its One Belt One Road (Or Belt and Road Initiative) passing through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK)
• The Chinese Ambassador to India said, insisting that the OBOR has no connection to “sovereignty disputes.”
• Mr. Luo outlined a 4-point solution to “manage differences” between India and China, including a new treaty on cooperation, restarting talks on a free trade agreement (FTA), an early resolution to the border issue and aligning the B&R with India’s “Act East policy.”
• “The CPEC is for promoting economic cooperation and connectivity. It has no connections to or impact on sovereignty issues. Even we can think about renaming the CPEC,” Mr. Luo said, referring to India’s public opposition to the inclusion of projects that lie in PoK’s area of Gilgit-Baltistan.
• According to the Chinese government more than 100 countries will participate, and all SAARC countries minus India have already signed on to the 60-nation infrastructure initiative first proposed in 2013.
• No official Indian participation has been indicated so far.

• After a wait of about eight months, military personnel are likely to receive their revised pay recommended by the Seventh Pay Commission with arrears in May’s salary, say the general instructions issued by the three Services to their personnel.
• The Union Cabinet issued orders last week for implementing the recommendations for military personnel. Following this, the three Services issued the general instructions stating the various recommendations that were approved.
• The recommendations approved include extension of pay stages for junior commissioned officers (JCO) and other ranks from 24 to 40 to prevent stagnation, increase in index of rationalisation for Colonels and Lieutenant-Colonels from 2.57 to 2.67 and extension of pay stages for Brigadiers by two.
• On the pension front, two recommendations approved are restoration of the percentage-based disability pension and an additional option for pension by pay fixation method in addition to the consolidation method, whichever is higher.
• However, some of the core anomalies raised by the services are yet to be addressed, top among them are Non-Functional Upgrade (NFU) and higher Military Service Pay (MSP) for JCOs.
• NFU entitles all officers of a batch who are not promoted to draw the salary and grade pay that the senior-most officer of their batch would get after a certain period.
• In a reference to that the instructions notes: “Pay comparison between defence services, all India services and Group A services must be understood in totality and explained to rank and file to dispel apprehensions about discrepancies.

• Japan is keen on collaborating with India on projects in Asia and Africa as a counter to China’s Belt and Road initiative (B&RI), Tokyo’s Ambassador to New Delhi said.
• Ambassador Kenji Hiramatsu revealed that the Japanese government was in talks with Tehran and New Delhi for a role in the Chabahar port project along with India.
• India, Iran and Afghanistan signed a trilateral agreement in May 2016 to build trade and transit routes from the strategically located Iranian port into Afghanistan and Central Asia, a $20-billion investment for India, and will be seen as a rival to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor’s Gwadar port.
• The Ambassador’s statement points to the growing discussions on strategic convergence between India and other “Indo-Pacific” powers for whom China’s recent economic moves like the BRI as well as an aggressive maritime stance in the South China Sea have been a matter of concern.
• Backing Australia’s request to join the trilateral “Malabar” naval exercises between India, Japan and Australia, Ambassador Hiramatsu said.
• “We cherish the cooperation with Australia, and we have just had a Japan-Australia-India strategic dialogue and a political dialogue between these three countries, and we will have to see how it develops.”

• Union government aims to make northeast India a gateway to Southeast Asia and is making huge investments for the overall development of the region, but lack of cleanliness can hamper this dream, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said.
• Addressing the centenary celebrations of the voluntary organisation Bharat Sevashram Sangha in Shillong through video conferencing, he said “only Gangtok had found a place among the first 50 clean cities” out of the 12 cities from the region surveyed as part of the recent nationwide cleanliness survey.
• While four northeastern cities found a place between 100 and 200 clean cities, seven were positioned between 200 and 300, with Shillong being the 276th, he said, while stressing that cleanliness was a major challenge for everyone in the region.
• He said the major thrust was to improve connectivity and develop the region for tourism purposes.
• While an investment of Rs. 40,000 crore is being made to improve the road infrastructure in the entire region, 19 big railway projects have also been started, he said.
• Announcing that the region would soon be connected with UDAN (UdeDesh ka Aam Nagarik) scheme, he said small airports were also being developed, while the extension of the runway at Shillong airport has been approved.

• Holding a pile of billions of demonetised notes, the Reserve Bank of India has a problem — it is unable to destroy them quickly. At the current pace, the process could take nearly two years.
• Keen on completing the task on a war footing, the RBI’s central office in Mumbai is seeking the Army’s help for the job.
• It has asked its regional offices to requisition the services of Army personnel, wherever necessary, through the central office. The help of soldiers is being sought due to the ‘sensitivity and secrecy’ required.
• As of March 31 last year, there were 15.7 billion Rs. 500 notes and 6.3 billion Rs. 1,000 currency notes in circulation, before demonetisation.
• According to a Bloomberg report, if one stacked up all the defunct notes, they’d form a column 30 times the height of Everest.
• When the deadline for depositing the scrapped notes expired, 16.4 billion were with banks and the Reserve Bank of India.
• These masses of notes, now lying in 19 RBI offices, are being sorted, counted, verified and then sent to the shredder.
• Not all RBI offices have enough manpower explaining the quest for more hands. An initial count of the notes has been completed, which is being followed up with recounts, since the presence of fake currencies was strongly suspected.
• Another reason is to ascertain the exact number of demonetised notes that came back, a figure that the RBI has not yet confirmed. Shredding is undertaken only after verification.
• Most demonetised notes were deposited; the RBI’s annual report for 2015-16 says fake notes are but a small fraction of the total.

• In the third year of the Narendra Modi government, one of its flagship programmes, the ambitious Namami Gange, is set for a rebranding exercise, and pitches from top advertising agencies.
• The move, powered by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, aims at a more participatory approach to the Namami Gange (National Mission for a Clean Ganga-NMCG) programme.
• While there is no questioning the reverence in which the river is held, the emotional connect with the Ganges, for most Indians tends to be restricted to personal ritualistic moments and becomes passive once it is over.
• Invoking this reverence [ aastha ] towards the river — without however giving it religious overtones — could be an entry-point towards mass awareness and action towards river clean-up.
• The proposed campaign therefore needs to evoke a strong soul connect with the Ganga and leverage associated emotion to drive active participation to keep the river clean and healthy.
• Ideas like a Ganga Jyoti Yatra (like an Olympic torch run) starting from Kolkata and ending in Varanasi, and roping in brand ambassadors like former Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar are some of the things being discussed.
• In spite of being a marquee project of the government, the Namami Gange is yet to show visible progress.
• Out of a Rs. 20,000-crore clean-up programme, only Rs. 2,000 crore has been sanctioned to the NMCG, the executive authority tasked with commissioning treatment plants, cleaning and beautifying the ghats and setting up improved crematoria.
• To treat the 12,000 million litres per day (MLD) of sewage emptying into the river, that meanders through 11 States from Uttarakhand to West Bengal, only capacity worth 4,000 MLD exists and of them, only plants with 1,000 MLD capacity are working.

• The U.S. is keen on expanding Malabar trilateral exercises but it will be a decision based on discussion and consensus with the partner countries.
• The next edition of Malabar is scheduled to be held in July in the areas “surrounding India in Bay of Bengal” for which the planning conferences are under way.
• Australia has requested India for observer status at this year’s Malabar exercises and is awaiting a final decision.
• However, India has been reluctant to let expand the exercises further from the trilateral format which included Japan due to sensitivities from China.
• Malabar, which began in 1992 as a bilateral naval exercise between India and the U.S., has since grown in scope and complexity acquiring considerable heft in recent times.
• In 2015, it was expanded into a trilateral format with the inclusion of Japan. Japan and the U.S. are keen on expanding the games to include Australia which was expressed by officials from both countries on various occasions.
• This year’s exercises are expected to focus on anti-submarine warfare (ASW) with increasing Chinese submarine presence in the Indian Ocean.
• Indian and U.S. Navies operating the P-8 long-range patrol aircraft, they are keen to expand the ASW component in the coming exercises.

• A night cruise on the Haihe river — the waterway that runs through Tianjin — is much more than a glittery after-dinner trip set alight by a glitzy concrete jungle that flanks the water on its either side.
• It takes one through the layers of history that the city has encountered, especially after the advent of the second Opium War.
• The war, fought in the mid-19th century, prised open the city as well as the country to a heady and contradictory combination of western exploitation, cultural dominance, modern education, and technological advance.
• The seeds of a modern nationalistic uprising that was to sprout in several forms in the years to come.
• If the left bank of the Haihe is about the transient power and wealth of colonial Europe, the opposite side showcases the story of China’s post-colonial rise.
• Hahei is an artery that leads to the busy Tianjin port. The port’s vast rail-and-road connected hinterland covers six provinces, including Tibet and Xinjiang, the gateway to central Asia and Europe, as part of the ambitious One Belt One Road (OBOR) connectivity initiative, woven around the ancient Silk Road.
• In total, Tianjin’s hinterland sweeps across half of China’s area, covering 17% of the country’s population.
• The port’s importance is only going to rise as a $290 billion mega-city in the form of the Xiongan New Area is set to emerge 160 km from Beijing.
• The mega city is President Xi Jinping’s pet project. Once complete, the project is expected to add 0.4 percentage points to China’s annual economic growth. Tianjin port is already at the heart of an integrated plan to develop the Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei national capital region.

• “The accused found an object for enjoyment in her... for their gross, sadistic and beastly pleasures... for the devilish manner in which they played with her dignity and identity is humanly inconceivable.”
• These were the final words with which Justice Dipak Misra concluded the pronouncement of the Supreme Court judgment confirming the death penalty to the four convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case of 2012.
• Justice Banumathi, the woman judge on the Bench, said “There is not even a hint of hesitation in my mind” in sending the men to their deaths.
• “If at all there is a case warranting award of death sentence, it is the present case,” Justice Banumathi wrote in her separate concurring judgment.
• The pronouncement concluded the marathon hearings held in the Supreme Court for about a year after the four accused — Mukesh, Pawan Gupta, Akshay Kumar Singh and Vinay Sharma — appealed against their death penalty.
• The three-judge Bench had subjected the evidence of the case to the minutest scrutiny. At one point, its own amicus curiae and senior advocate Sanjay Hegde had suggested that death penalty would be “extremely harsh”.
• The defence lawyers had pressed for life imprisonment. They said the accused were first-time offenders, young, had young children and aged parents whose lives would be rendered “calamitous” if they were put to death.

• The Centre authorised the Reserve Bank of India to take tough actions to crack down on the rising bad loans on the books of public sector banks, after President signed off on an ordinance to amend the Banking Regulation Act of 1949.
• The RBI is expected to issue issue norms within a week to banks on resolving their bad loan accounts in a specified time frame through various strategies including asset sales.
• Where no breakthrough is imminent, invocation of insolvency and bankruptcy proceedings against the borrowers. The total stressed assets in the banking system are estimated to be Rs. 14 lakh crore.
• Explaining the ordinance route to enhance the central bank’s powers, the Minister said the existing provisions were not clear enough for the RBI to act on specific stressed assets.
• Justice R. Banumathisays women rights should not only remain in paper
• The Supreme Court's sole woman judge and a member of the Bench which confirmed the death penalty in the Nirbhaya case, Justice R. Banumathi, asked whether the much-touted gender justice will continue to remain only on paper.
• Justice Banumathi expressed dissatisfaction over how crimes against women continue to increase despite numerous laws to protect women.
• The judgement asked if laws punishing crimes against women are paper tigers, unable to serve their purpose.
• “Increased rate of crime against women is an area of concern for the lawmakers and it points out an emergent need to study in depth the root of the problem and remedy the same through a strict law and order regime,” Justice Banumathi wrote.
• Referring to the Nirbhaya case, Justice Banumathi observed that “human lust was allowed to take such a demonic form”.
• She said the case definitely belonged to the category of the rarest of rare and any punishment other than death penalty is “unquestionably foreclosed”.
• Justice Banumathi delved on how the case shocked the collective conscience of the society, and it was necessary to send the message across that the courts stand by the rights of the victims and their families for justice.
• The judge called the families of victims as “incidental victims” themselves.

• The Supreme Court passed a slew of directions, including setting up of a database of children living in orphanages and child care institutions to ensure their safety and welfare.
• A Bench comprising Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta directed the Centre, States and union territories (UTs) to complete the registration of all child care institutions by year-end.
• The court said the registration process should also include a database of all children in need of care and protection and update it every month.
• It asked the authorities concerned to ensure confidentiality and privacy in maintaining the database.
• The Bench said it was not necessary that every child in need of care and protection must be placed either in a child care institution and alternative option like adoption and foster care could seriously be considered.
• It said Centre’s schemes such as skill development and vocational training must be taken advantage of keeping in mind the need to rehabilitate such children.
• The Bench also directed the States and UTs to set up ‘Inspection Committees’ before July 31 to conduct regular inspections of child care institutions and prepare reports of such inspections so that the living conditions of kids there undergo positive changes.
• The first report after conducting the inspection should be filed before the government concerned by December 31.
• The court also directed that all vacancies in State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (SCPCR) be filled by the end of this year.
• The Bench said it was imperative that the process of conducting a social audit must be taken up in right earnest by the National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights as well as by each State Commission for the Protection of Child Rights.

• Scientists have developed a new bionic hand that can ‘see’ objects and allow amputees to grasp things ten times faster than currently available prosthetics.
• The bionic hand is fitted with a camera that instantaneously takes a picture of the object in front of it, assesses its shape and size and triggers a series of movements in the hand.
• Bypassing the usual processes that require the user to see the object, physically stimulate the muscles in the arm and trigger a movement in the prosthetic limb, the bionic hand ‘sees’ and reacts in one fluid movement.
• A small number of amputees have already tested the technology developed by researchers at the Newcastle University in the U.K.
• Responsiveness has been one of the main barriers to artificial limbs. For many amputees the reference point is their healthy arm or leg so prosthetics seem slow and cumbersome in comparison.
• Using neural networks — the basis for artificial intelligence — researchers showed the computer numerous object images and taught it to recognise the ‘grip’ needed for different objects.

• The Election Commission will hold an all-party meeting on May 12 to convince political parties that the electronic voting machines (EVMs) are tamper-proof.
• “The schedule for an ‘open challenge’, inviting experts to try tampering with the EVMs, will be finalised after the meeting,” an EC official said.
• In its communication to President Pranab Mukherjee and to the seven national and 48 State parties, the commission sent a status  paper on the EVMs and voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) machines.
• Apart from the issue of EVM security, the agenda includes making bribery in elections a cognisable offence, disqualification on framing of charges for the offence of bribery in elections and suggestions for VVPAT recount rules.
• At the meeting, experts are expected to give presentations on how the voting machines are manufactured and what are the administrative procedures adopted to secure them.
• The move comes days after several political parties alleged that the EVMs used in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab had been tampered with. A delegation of 16 parties also petitioned the President seeking his intervention.
• Dismissing the allegations, the Commission issued a series of statements to substantiate that the machines were tamper-proof, but to no avail.
• Under the current arrangement, the EVMs used in elections are randomised at five levels, till the booth level, after they are supplied to the Commission by the manufacturers.
• They also undergo testing at various stages, also in front of the representatives of political parties ahead of the polls and finally sealed, with their signatures on them.
• The machine buttons are paired with the name of election candidates, in an alphabetical order, and not as per that of political parties, making it virtually impossible for anyone to ensure that the votes cast through an EVM kept at a particular booth would only go to a particular party candidate.

• Endangered and hard-to-spot dholes, or Indian wild dogs, will soon test their fortunes in the Eastern Ghats.
• The Indira Gandhi Zoological Park (IGZP), running a conservation breeding centre for the species, plans to reintroduce a pack of 16 into the forests.
• A team will monitor the released animals and their progress for a season. Before they enter the forest, we will radio collar them,” he said.
• The Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad will map the genetic variability of the packs before they go into the wild.
• If the Rs. 1.5-crore conservation project works, it will be the third such zoo effort for the recovery and long-term survival of an endangered species.
• Earlier, Darjeeling’s Padmaja Naidu Himalayan Zoological Park had a programme for the red panda and a Pygmy Hog Conservation Programme was undertaken in Assam.
• Protected under Schedule 2 of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 and listed as ‘endangered’ by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the dhole was adopted by IGZP in 2014 under the Central Zoo Authority’s mandate.
• The Visakhapatnam zoo has, since, successfully bred wild dogs from two packs taking the number from just two to 40.
• Dholes, with a cinnamon-coloured coat, bushy tail and an alert gaze, are aggressive pack predators, covering long distances on a hunt.

• The National Institution for the Transformation of India (NITI) Aayog has recommended that faculty at “world class” institutions prioritise research and be allowed to “reduce their teaching responsibility,” if required.
• Such universities also ought to be allowed to recruit research staff from abroad and be encouraged to compete for research projects from industry.
• The so-called ‘world class universities’ are part of a government-outlined plan to raise funding for 10 public and 10 private universities and mould them into institutions that rank among the world’s best.
• The names of these institutions are expected to be made public later this year.
• The NITI Aayog suggestions stem from a three-year vision document that outlines targets and goals the Ministries — from railways to environment — ought to achieve by 2020.
• Universities ought to be ranked according to metrics such as teaching, research output and funding won from the private sector.
• The NITI Aayog also pitches for a new ‘National Science, Technology and Innovation Foundation’ headed by a distinguished scientist.
• This will coordinate with science and technology departments, ministries, governments and private sector bodies and deliberate on national issues and recommend interventions.
• Given the government’s “limited funds” the NITI Aayog recommends research priorities to water management, agriculture, energy, waste management, health, connectivity and security.

• India and Turkey called for collective fight against terrorism
• Turkey and India called for a collective fight against terrorism. Turkish President condemned the attack on CRPF personnel in Sukma, Chhattisgarh, and expressed solidarity with India.
• “We will never bow to terrorism that spreads tears and unhappiness. Terrorists will drown in their own blood,” said Mr. Erdogan
• However, Mr. Erdogan’s condemnation of the killing of security personnel in central India contrasted with his silence over the news of alleged cross-border attack by elements based in Pakistan.
• The issue of cross-border terrorism was strongly taken up by Prime Minister Narendra Modi who urged for a common strategy against states that use terrorism as an instrument of power.

• Global warming may be inching the oceans higher every year but researchers studying the seas around India report a paradox.
• From 1993 to 2003 — the first decade when satellites started to consistently track the rise and fall of ocean heights and global temperatures soared — the north Indian Ocean (NIO) sea levels fell.
• The NIO consists of the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal and part of the Indian Ocean up till the 5°S latitude. After 2004, sea levels began an unprecedented, accelerated spike till 2014.
• This rise and fall was even as global temperatures steadily climbed and registered their largest two-decadal jump in more than a century.
• Previous studies that had measured ocean heights based on traditional tide gauges found that the NIO —like the rest of the world’s seas — continued to rise between 1993 and 2004.
• The NIO went down about 0.3 mm a year and from 2004 gained about 6 mm annually. This was twice the global, annual average of about 3 mm.
• When temperature and sea level trends in the NIO were mathematically separated out from the other oceans, the fall was even more dramatic: nearly 3 mm per year and the Arabian Sea cooling off rapidly at 4 mm per year.
• Sea levels primarily rise due to water expanding from atmospheric heat and, more water being added from, for instance, melting ice sheets and glaciers. In this case, said Mr. Ravichandran, 70% of the NIO’s warming could be explained by expansion.
• Unlike the Pacific and Atlantic, the NIO was hemmed in all sides, except for an outlet on the southern side. This influenced the rate at which heat was absorbed and flushed out from within the system.
• According to their calculations, heat was moving out slower during after 2004 than during the 1990s.

• Jamia MilliaIslamia conferred the Degree of Doctor of Letters (HonorisCausa) to Turkish President RecepTayyip Erdogan who is on a two-day visit to India.
• Citing the commonness and familiarity between the Indian and Turkish cultures, he said that “culture and education” were potential areas which could take the relationship between both countries to the next level.
• In his address, he supported a permanent United Nations Security Council seat for India and called for reforms in the UNSC.
• “India, with a population of 1.3 billion is not a part of the UNSC. Over 1.7 billion people live in the Islamic world but they too are not a part of the UNSC. This is not a healthy sign,” President Erdogan said.
• Criticising the current structure of the Council as arbitrary, he said that it was set up to address the crisis emanating from the Second World War but now that situation had changed drastically.
• It therefore required thorough restructuring to address the current geo-political reality of the world. “Only five permanent members of the Council are deciding the fate of the entire world which is not fair”, he added.

• The ‘South Asia Satellite,’ which India has built for use by countries of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) will be launched on May 5.
• This was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Mann Ki Baat radio address.
• He said the capacities of the satellite and the facilities it offered “will go a long way in addressing South Asia’s economic and developmental priorities.”
• Natural resources mapping, telemedicine, education, deeper IT connectivity or fostering people-to-people contact — this satellite will prove to be a boon in the progress of the entire region.
• Mr. Modi announced the satellite project at the 2014 SAARC summit in Nepal, and all SAARC countries, except Pakistan, have joined it.
• The total cost of launching the satellite is put at Rs. 235 crore, and it will be met by the Government of India, Minister of State for Atomic Energy and Space Jitendra Singh had said in Parliament.
• The GSAT-09 offers a full range of applications and services in telecommunication and broadcasting: Television, Direct-to-Home (DTH), Very Small Aperture Terminals (VSATs), Tele-education, Telemedicine and Disaster Management Support.
• The 2,230-kg satellite was built by the Indian Space Research Organisation and has 12 Ku-band transponders. It is cuboid in shape and built around a central cylinder. It has a mission life of over 12 years.
• It will be launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota on the Geostationary Launch Vehicle Mk-II. The GSLV-F09 is about 50 metre tall and is the 11th flight of the GSLV.

• A study conducted across 13 States by the Union Agriculture Ministry throws up the all-too-familiar reasons that drive farmers to suicide.
• The Ministry’s agricultural economic research unit, investigated farmers’ suicides in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala, Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.
• The story behind each death points to frequent crop failure, vagaries of the monsoon, absence of assured water resources, attacks of pests and diseases, debts, farming and social causes.
• Nothing has changed on the ground for the farmer in the past two years, as is clear from the Union Home Ministry’s National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), which disseminates and compiles information on “suicides.
• NCRB reports up to 2015 reveal identical causes of suicides among farmers — bankruptcy, farming-related issues, family problems, illness, drug abuse or alcoholism.
• The court expanded the ambit of the petition to farmers’ suicides across the country and had asked the Centre on March 27 to provide an action plan to end the human tragedy.
• The affidavit suggests crop insurance, crop and enterprise diversification, government intervention through MSP covering cost of production plus a reasonable profit margin, establishing farmers’ welfare cells as support groups and regulating informal credit market as remedies.
• Besides, the Reserve Bank of India has allowed State and district level banks to take a lenient view on rescheduling of loans if crop loss is 33% or more.
• The government has highlighted the Kisan Credit Card scheme and the e-National Agricultural Market Scheme launched on April 14, 2016 to “create a single unified market for the State and ultimately for the nation for agricultural commodities.”

• With infiltration across the Line of Control (LoC) on the rise, the Army is all set to accelerate work on installing a smart fence to replace the existing border fence following successful trials.
• The existing one called the Anti-Infiltration Obstacle System (AIOS) is located about 700m from the LoC. The double-row fence consisting of concertina wire was constructed between 2003 and 2005.
• A proposal has been in the works for sometime to install a smart fence which will also enable round-the-clock real-time surveillance.
• The plan gained momentum after the Pathankot and Uri terror attacks last year in which terrorists crossed the LoC and attacked military installations.
• The fence has already been tested and installed along a 50km stretch on a trial basis. The project would be implemented by the Army Corps of Engineers, the officer stated.
• Infiltration across the LoC peaked last year in the aftermath of the surgical strikes by the Army on terror camps in September. Attacks on military installations have also gone up dramatically over the last two years.
• The border fence forms the first line of defence in the three-tier counter-infiltration grid. The new fence will be erected in place of the existing one and is expected to cost around Rs. 1000 crore.
• Under Phase-I, vulnerable areas and where most damage has occurred will be covered. The rest of the fence will be replaced in the second phase.

• The much-awaited Real Estate Regulatory Act, which promises to protect the rights of homebuyers and bring in transparency to the sector, comes into force.
• Though only 13 States and Union Territories have notified the rules so far, the Centre believes that within the next two months, others too will follow suit.
• Real estate developers shall get all the ongoing projects that have not received completion certificate and the new projects registered with regulatory authorities by July-end. This enables the buyers to enforce their rights and seek redress.
• Under these regulations, developers are required to display sanctioned plans and layout plans of at least 3X2 feet size at all marketing offices, other offices where properties are sold, all branch offices and head office of the promoters in addition to the site of project.
• As per the new act, 70% of the funds would have to be deposited in a separate bank account in case of new projects and 70% of unused funds in case of ongoing projects.
• Projects with plot size of minimum 500 sq.m or at least eight apartments shall be registered. Both developers and buyers will pay penalty for delays. The liability is on developers for structural defects for five years.

• China and Europe are planning to build the first-ever “moon village” that could serve as a launching pad for deep space missions such as one to Mars, or even as a spot for space tourism and lunar mining.
• Representatives of the Chinese and European space agencies have discussed collaborating on a moon-base and other possible joint endeavours. The plan was first revealed by Tian Yulong, the secretary general of China’s space agency.
• Director general of the 22-member ESA, has described its proposed “moon village” as a potential international launching pad for future deep space missions, such as to Mars, and a chance to develop tourism or even lunar mining.

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