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Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 11 May 2014

U.K. rich list

India-born Hinduja brothers have emerged as Britain’s richest, valued at £11.9 billion, in the Sunday Times’ annual list of the super rich.
Gopichand and Srichand Hinduja run the multinational Hinduja Group with interests across automotive, real estate and oil.
Arsenal shareholder and Russian tycoon Alisher Usmanov fell to second place after his estimated fortune dropped to £10.65 billion. He is followed by Laskshmi Mittal with £10.25 billion, registering a growth of £250 million.
London now has the most billionaires for any city with 72. The total number for U.K. has crossed 100 for the first time to reach 104 billionaires with a combined wealth of over £301 billion. The next most prosperous city in the world is Moscow with 48 billionaires, just ahead of New York and San Francisco.
The Duke of Westminster is the richest Briton with around £8.5 billion and is ranked 10th.

In line with the principles of sustainable development advocated in the Medellin Declaration, Gravity 2.0 Research Foundation recommended that a capital city region be considered rather than a single urban agglomeration for the location of a new capital for the State of Andhra Pradesh post bifurcation.
In a representation submitted to the Expert Committee on identification of location of new capital for the State of Andhra Pradesh , the Gravity 2.0 Research Foundation, suggested that the new capital be located in the Visakhapatnam-Rajahmundry-Vijayawada ‘Super City’ ensuring inclusive growth.
They also suggested that coastal shipping be promoted and the National Waterway 4 be extended to Visakhapatnam.

As they continue their efforts to clamp down on the menace of black money, India and other countries will have to wait at least till 2017 before the new global standard for automatic exchange of tax information comes into effect.
India, Switzerland and 45 other nations had agreed upon automatic exchange of tax information, which is seen as a major step forward in global efforts against banking secrecy practices.
Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) sets the global tax standards and frames conventions against tax frauds, among others.
The new standard, expected to be finalised in September this year, provides for exchange of information on bank account balances, interests, dividends, other financial income and sales proceeds to compute possible capital gains.
By becoming part of the declaration, these countries have committed to implementing automatic exchange of tax information. The declaration also comes as a boost for India, which is making efforts to get details from Switzerland on alleged illicit funds stashed away by Indians there.
Automatic exchange of information would allow for “collecting all bank information on non-resident to pass this information on to the countries of residence of these taxpayers so that they can no longer hide money on offshore accounts.
The standard was developed at the OECD and endorsed by the G20 Finance Ministers.

Hassan city is among three Indian cities with minimum air pollution, according to the latest World Health Organisation (WHO) study on ambient air quality. The study spanned over 1,600 cities in 91 countries.
Of the 123 Indian cities that were covered by the study, Hassan ranked third in terms of least concentration of dust particles in air. The other two cities are Kollam and Pathanamthitta in Kerala.
The WHO conducted the study and prepared a database of ambient air quality, considering the concentration of particulate matter in air. Particulate matter with a diameter of 10 micron (PM10) and 2.5 micron (PM2.5) were considered for the study. The collected daily measurements or data were aggregated into annual mean for the database.
As per the database, in Hassan, the annual mean of PM10 was recorded at 44 μg/m3 (micrograms per cubic metre of air) and PM2.5 at 19 μg/m3.
In Kollam, it was 39 μg/m3 and 17 μg/m3 respectively and in Pathanamthitta, it was 23 μg/m3 and 10 μg/m3 respectively.
The concentration of particulate matter recorded in Pathanamthitta is closer to the recommended level.

India is planning a year-long soft power push in more than a dozen Chinese cities by bringing classical dance troupes, Indian food festivals, first ever Bollywood events in China and even a social media campaign in an attempt to raise the country’s cultural profile, especially among younger Chinese.
The effort will be India’s biggest ever attempt to reach out directly to the Chinese public.
The initiative had received a very positive response on Chinese social media websites, where it has been advertised —India’s tourism office has around 43,000 followers on the Chinese Twitter equivalent Sina Weibo.
About 800 people, who were reached out to on social media, will attend the Poly performance, besides invited guests.
A quota limiting the screening of only two dozen foreign films in the mainland annually has seen Indian film companies show little enthusiasm in reaching out to the rapidly expanding domestic market despite wide interest, reflected in the millions of viewers who flock to watch Bollywood movies on popular Chinese film-sharing websites, which even subtitle every film.

People who have a variant of a longevity gene have improved brain skills such as thinking, learning and memory. Researchers found that increasing levels of the gene, called KLOTHO, in mice made them smarter, possibly by increasing the strength of connections between nerve cells in the brain.
The study was published in Cell Reports. Those who have one copy of a variant of the KLOTHO gene, called KL-VS, tend to live longer and have lower chances of suffering a stroke whereas those who have two copies may live shorter lives and have a higher risk of stroke.
The study also found that those with one copy performed better on cognitive tests regardless of age, sex or the presence of the apolipoprotein 4 gene, the main genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease.