Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 24 April 2014

Below normal monsoon

The Indian economy could be in for more trouble in the coming days, with weather experts predicting below normal rainfall this year during the south-west monsoon across the country barring the north-east and the eastern parts.
The outlook came at the end of a two-day brain storming session, attended by a panel of national and international experts, organised under the aegis of the World Meteorological Organisation.
Called the South Asian Climate Outlook Forum [SASCOM], the panel included experts from the US’s National Centers for Environmental Prediction, UK’s Met Office, the Japan Meteorological Agency, and the International Research Institute for Climate and Society, apart from the WMO and the meteorological agencies of various south Asian countries.
The India Meteorological Department hosted the event.
A map released along with the consensus statement shows that there is a 45 per cent possibility of rainfall being below normal for peninsular India and 40 per cent for central and north-west India.
The experts have come to their conclusion based on indications that there was a strong possibility of the development of El Nino phenomenon this year.
The El Nino condition, which is known to weaken the south Asian monsoon circulation and adversely impact rainfall over the region, develops when the waters in the equatorial pacific region becomes warmer than normal.

An RBI panel made a case for centralised bill payment system catering to different financial instruments, like cheques, debit cards and mobile banking.
In order to ensure uniform and efficient implementation of operations of the bill payments system in the country, standards have to be set for process standards, business standards for establishing the relationship between all entities, and information exchange standards for transactions as well as settlements.
The RBI has sought comments on the Report of the GIRO Advisory Group till May 25. This centralised bill payments system, it said will provide accessible services across all parts of the country through a strong network of operational units/agents who will ensure in making this service accessible in urban as well as rural areas.
The report further said the standard setting role/ function has to be distinct from the operational aspects of the bill payments system.
Currently, the payment system in the country offers a variety of payment instruments to the public, like cheques and various e-payment modes in the form of credit cards, debit cards, pre-paid payment instruments (including mobile wallets) issued by both banks and authorized non-bank entities.

Brazil’s president signed into law on a “Bill of Rights” for the digital age that aims to protect online privacy and promote the Internet as a public utility by barring telecommunications companies from charging for preferential access to their networks.
The law signed by President Dilma Rousseff at a global conference on the future of Internet governance puts Brazil in the vanguard of online consumer protection and what is known as “net neutrality,” whose promoters consider it profoundly democratic in part because it keeps financial barriers for innovators low.
The new law promotes privacy by limiting the data that online companies can collect on Internet users in this nation of 200 million people, deeming communications over the Internet “inviolable and secret.” Service providers must develop protocols to ensure email can be read only by senders and their intended recipients. Violators are subject to penalties including fines and suspension.
The law obliges Internet companies, however, to hold on to user data for six months and hand it over to law enforcement under court order.

Luck for the average pedestrian is happening upon a crisp dollar bill tumbling down the sidewalk. For European astronomers, it's happening to be looking at the right portion of sky at the exact moment a star is ripped apart by a giant black hole.
The auspicious discovery was made by the European Space Agency's orbiting X-ray observatory XMM-Newton. The cosmological providence revealed not one black hole, but two -- the first pair of supermassive black holes observed in a normal galaxy. Normal galaxies, or quiescent galaxies -- as opposed to active galaxies -- are no longer actively producing stars.
Black holes are much easier to locate in newer active galaxies. While black holes in active galaxies are constantly eating up gas clouds and star matter, giving off detectable X-rays as a result, similar activity is less frequent and more sporadic in normal galaxies.
Currently, the only way to find a normal black hole is by happening upon a "tidal disruption event," like the star consumption witnessed by ESA's XXM-Newton.
What makes the latest discovery even more unusual is that the two black holes were found together, orbiting each other -- the product of two galaxies having merged.

Indian politician Arvind Kejriwal has won the readers’ poll for the 2014 TIME 100, TIME’s annual list of people who influenced the world this past year for better or worse.
As the world's largest democracy votes in the ongoing elections, the key candidates obviously have made an impact internationally.
Narendra Modi, who is already being hailed as the leader at the helm of affairs by Goldman Sachs and other agencies, was expected to be the top candidate from India on TIME magazine's list. But Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Arvind Kejriwal has managed to edge past the BJP's prime ministerial candidate by a small margin.
Kejriwal has edged past international icons such as Malala Yousafzai, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Jared Leto, Vladimir Putin, Janet Yellen, and Michael Bloomberg among others. Narendra Modi, who has gained much prominence of late, has secured the third post. According to TIME, Modi may clamour past pop star Katy Perry to the second spot and give Kejriwal a run for his money.

Multiple Olympic champion Carl Lewis was confirmed as the event ambassador of the TCS World 10K 2014 recently. The event will be flagged off from Bangalore`s Sree Kanteerava Stadium on May 18.
In a career spanning from 1979 to 1996, Lewis won 10 Olympic medals including nine golds in disciplines as varied as 100m, 200m, 4X100m relay and Long jump. Besides the Olympic glory, he also won 10 World Championships medals, setting numerous records. The International Olympic Committee honoured him with the title, the Sportsman of the Century for his unrivalled achievement as a track and field athlete.