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Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 10 March 2014

200 new low cost airports in India

With India poised to become the fastest growing aviation market in the world in the next two decades, the government plans to build nearly 200 low cost airports.
The government is keen to expand the sector to the smaller cities in a bid to improve air connectivity, especially to Tier-II and Tier-III cities. At least four to five smaller airports from Andhra Pradesh, including those at Kadapa and Rajahmundry, were likely to figure in the list.
At present, the non-metro airports accounted for about 30 per cent of the total air traffic, which was expected to rise to 45 per cent in the next few years.
The Airports Authority of India was planning to invest Rs.1,500 crore in developing non-metro airports in the 12th Plan.
Basically, the operation costs were very high and almost 70 per cent costs were “dollar-denominated.” Also, the cost of aviation turbine fuel (ATF) was quite high in the country with some States levying up to 30 per cent VAT.

Keen to import gas from the U.S. to meet its rising energy needs, India will ask Washington to ease restrictions on sales to countries with which it does not have a free trade agreement (FTA).
Washington has till now allowed conditional export of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from five of its projects to nations with which the U.S. does not have a free trade agreement, so-called ‘non-FTA’ countries. India does not have a FTA with the U.S. till now. The issue of LNG exports to non-FTA nations would figure at the Indo-U.S. Energy Dialogue .
U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia will lead the two sides at the talks, which were previously postponed due to row over treatment of Indian diplomat in US.
Indian companies led by state-owned GAIL have already signed agreements with U.S. firms to buy as much as 3.5 million tonnes a year of LNG.
Indo-U.S. collaboration in increasing efficiency of solar photovoltic cells by using local content and second generation bio-fuel production using non-edible oilseeds produced locally would also be discussed during the talks, they said.

Chain Singh and Heena Sidhu claimed gold medals in the seventh Asian Air Gun Championship in Kuwait City.
It was a dominant fare from both as they led from start to finish in clinching the men’s air rifle and women’s air pistol gold medals.
World record holder Heena Sidhu topped the qualification phase as well with a score of 386, following rounds of 94, 97, 97 and 98.
Chain Singh was equally impressive even though he had qualified in the seventh place with a modest score of 619.6, as against Liu Zhiguo of China, who had topped with an Asian record of 630.3.
Apart from the three individual gold medals, India has collected two silver and two bronze medals in team championships. The Youth Olympic quota places will be at stake over the next two days that will feature junior and youth events.

Elections to the 60-member Arunachal Pradesh assembly will be held along with Lok Sabha polls on April 9.
The decision of the poll body came days after state governor Lt Gen (Retd) Nirbhay Singh recommended dissolution of the state assembly on March 6.
Lok Sabha elections for the two seats in Arunachal Pradesh will also be held on April 9.
The tenure of the 60-member Arunachal assembly ends on November 4 this year.
The notification for the assembly polls will be announced on March 15 while nominations can be filed till march 22.
The Commission had on March 5 announced the schedule for elections to the 16th Lok Sabha and assemblies of Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Sikkim.

The Supreme Court asked the Centre to take a decision on Khalistani terrorist Devinderpal Singh Bhullar’s fresh mercy plea by March 27 or else it will decide on the issue of commuting his death sentence to life imprisonment on the ground of his mental condition.
A bench headed by Chief Justice P Sathasivam adjourned the case for hearing after the Centre contended that the mercy plea is still under consideration.
It also said that there have been recent cases where the government has not been taking the advice of its law officers seriously and pointed out that last week one Additional Solicitor General sent a detailed letter to Centre but it was rejected outright.
The court was hearing a curative petition filed by Bhullar’s wife Navneet Kaur seeking commuting of death sentence owing to his mental condition and because of delay on the part of the government in deciding his earlier mercy plea.
She pleaded the apex court for a relook at its verdict by which her plea to commute his death sentence to life imprisonment was rejected. Earlier, the Centre had assured the Supreme Court that death sentence of Bhullar will not be executed till it takes a decision on a fresh mercy plea on medical grounds.
The government had informed the court about the report sent by Delhi’s Lieutenant Governor in which he had not favoured execution of Bhullar’s death sentence.