Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 26 March 2015

:: National ::

Now, a dedicated bay for good cinema

Mumbai will soon get a cinema space dedicated to good cinema movement where Rs. 100-crore star opuses will not be allowed to disrupt screenings of small, independent films.
In a unique collaboration between the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) and the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM), a new film centre titled “FilmBay” is set to be launched by the year-end in suburban Bandra which will provide dedicated exhibition space for alternative, independent art house cinema, as well as documentaries and children films.
Film-maker Kiran Rao has been named as the Creative Director of FilmBay, and will be supported by film critic Anupama Chopra, film-makers Anurag Kashyap, Zoya Akhtar, Dibakar Banerjee, and Rohan Sippy.
This is not the first time that a Mumbai will get a dedicated alternative cinema space. In the 1980s, when art house film-makers were caught between the commercial pressure, and the invasion of VCR-fuelled video home viewing rage, All India Radio’s Akashwani theatre in South Mumbai had become a haven for good cinema which gave much-needed space to Amol Palekar and Hrikesh Mukherjee’s middle-of-the road comedies.
FilmBay will be set up at an existing theatre at Sherly Rajan Village in Bandra which the municipal corporation had built years ago as an exclusive cinema hall for children’s films, but the project never took off. Now, NFDC will revamp the theatre and equip it with an exhibition hall, a 100-seater digital cinema, a reading and research library, a book shop and a cafeteria.
The municipal corporation has leased the theatre to NFDC for a period of 30 years from January to nurture educational and promotional activities pertaining to cinema.
Special screenings for children from municipal schools to inculcate good cinema values would also be held at this centre.
Film-maker Kiran Rao, who has also taken over as the chairperson of the financially-troubled Mumbai Academy of the Moving Image (MAMI) international film festival recently, said FilmBay is a dream come true for her.
“Mumbai, with its 100-year history of film, deserves a space for the encouragement and celebration of cinema, and we hope to further the conversation around cinema both for the film professional and the film enthusiast,” she said in a statement.
Nina Lath Gupta, Managing Director, who has helped turn around the fortunes of NFDC, said FilmBay is a brainchild of Rao, and a natural corollary to NFDC’s goals to facilitate the growth of good cinema.
Municipal Commissioner Sitaram Kunte said he was certain that that the venue would soon become an iconic cultural landmark in Mumbai.
Film-maker Rohan Sippy said multiplexes are commercial entities and serve Bollywood’s commercial cinema, and independent cinema needs its own dedicated space.
“It’s important to have a venue where you can showcase and watch alternative and independent cinema. It will provide young filmmakers a fantastic platform to exhibit their films and interact with the audience directly. And if a film is liked here then it opens many more venues for the film to be screened worldwide.”

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:: International :

China welcomes move for visa-on-arrival facility in India

China has welcomed reports about the possible visa-on-arrival facility for its nationals in India — a move that could set the tone for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Beijing in May, and churn greater revenues revenue for the tourism industry.
“We welcome this,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said, adding that China would consider reciprocation. “We are willing to work with the Indian side to facilitate the personal exchanges between the two countries and promote mutual understanding and mutual trust between two people and lay solid foundation for the bilateral cooperation,” she observed.
The Indian Tourism Ministry is advocating granting visa-on-arrival, to attract Chinese tourists who are leaving their home country in droves for travels abroad.
More than 100 million Chinese tourists visited overseas destinations, spending $ 165 billion last year. However, most Chinese skip India from their itinerary of their South Asian travel, preferring, instead, the more tourist friendly Sri Lanka and Maldives.
More than 400,000 visited Maldives last year, thrice the numbers that made it to Indian destinations.

India, Qatar sign prisoner exchange deal

In a deal of particular significance for the large expatriate community, India and Qatar signed an agreement on transfer of sentenced persons on Wednesday, allowing Indian convicts in Qatar to complete their remaining sentence in India and vice versa.
The agreement was one of the six signed during the State visit of Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the Emir of Qatar.
“Under this agreement, Indian prisoners convicted in Qatar can be brought to India to serve the remaining part of their sentence. Similarly, Qatari Citizens convicted in India can be sent to their home country to serve their sentence,” a statement by the Ministry of External Affairs said.
This will immediately benefit the 96 Indians currently lodged in Qatar jails. The six-lakh-strong Indians are the largest expatriate group in Qatar.
The two sides discussed Qatar’s participation in the “Make in India” programme in the defence sector and job-creation opportunities for Indians in the infrastructure projects Qatar is undertaking for the FIFA World Cup it is hosting in 2022.

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:: Business and Economy ::

ED arrests Rose Valley group chairman Gautam Kundu

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested Gautam Kundu, chairman of the Rose Valley group of companies, which, like the Saradha group, raised thousands of crores from small investors through its Collective Investment Scheme (CIS).
“Mr Kundu was arrested after several hours of questioning,” an ED official told. The official said Mr. Kundu was trying to “suppress facts and was not cooperating with the investigation.”
The group allegedly raised about Rs. 15,000 crores from the markets, several times more than the Saradha group collected. However, the Rose Valley group has always maintained that it raised only a few hundred crores.
Under CIS, a consortium of investors in a land parcel is formed. “As the price of the land parcel goes up, so do the returns on investment,” said a real estate analyst on condition of anonymity.
Associates of the Rose Valley group are confident that, unlike Saradha chief Sudipta Sen, it is “impossible” to keep Mr. Kundu behind bars. “There is a key difference between Mr. Sen and Mr. Kundu’s cases,” a former associate of the group told .
“While Mr. Sen could not return investors’ money and ran away, not one cheque of Rose Valley has bounced. Saradha’s cheques have bounced, making it a criminal case.”
However, Rose Valley is one of the largest companies to raise funds from the market without SEBI’s approval through various schemes.
It has more than one crore investors and 10 lakh agents, sources said. “Bengal’s economy will collapse if Rose Valley is shut down,” the associate said.
The problems between Rose Valley Group and market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) first surfaced in 2010, when the group was asked to furnish details of its earnings from its CIS, called Ashirwad.
While the group contested the allegations that it raised Rs. 15,000 crores through CIS, it eventually closed down the business of selling land parcels.
The group later floated a business called “Time Share,” under which clients could book a ‘time parcel’ in the hotels it owned.
The group collects a “hotel rooms booking” fee and returns the money with interest when the booking is cancelled. Many travel and tourism companies are in this business of ‘time share’ which is said to be illegal.
Sources in the group admitted that the ED had sealed more than 2500 bank accounts, “which includes salary accounts of more than 10,000 employees” of the group.

Cipla launches generic Hepatitis C drug Hepcvir

Cipla, announced the launch of generic drug Sofosbuvir for treating chronic Hepatitis C under the brand name Hepcvir.
“Following the non-exclusive licensing agreement signed with Gilead Sciences in September last to manufacture and market chronic Hepatitis C medicines, Cipla is now all set to make the drug Sofosbuvir available to Indian patients in a week’s time,” the company said in a statement.
“Cipla has always brought accessible and affordable medicines to fight against diseases like AIDS and Hepatitis B; hence, Cipla has made it a priority to bring Hepcvir to patients in India as well as the other developing nations,” Cipla Managing Director and Global CEO Subhanu Saxena said.
The availability of product in other markets is subject to approvals from the regulatory authorities in the respective countries, Cipla said.
“Sofusbuvir marks a new era of medicines in oral treatment of Hepatitis C, which reduce the need for injectables,” Cipla Chief Medical Officer Jaideep Gogtay said.
In India alone, around 12-18 million patients are estimated to be infected with Hepatitis C, which is several fold greater than those with HIV/AIDS, Cipla said.
Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories has entered into an agreement with Hetero to distribute and market generic version of U.S.-firm Gilead Sciences’ Hepatitis C drug under the brand Resof.

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:: Science and Technology ::

Coding must go hand-in-hand with app design, says expert

A common mistake that most start-ups make, according to experts, is that they dedicate a majority of their efforts towards writing the code in the belief that the end user is going to like it. However, what many start-ups tend to forget is the design part or ease of the user interface, based on which users take their decision whether to go ahead with a particular app or to delete it.
Experts in the field of start-ups pointed out that young developers can’t afford to only concentrate on developing a snazzy piece of code. They say that it doesn’t matter if they (developers) have a top-notch software for a concept!
The app will fail to click with the end user if it does not have an intuitive, user-friendly and sharp design interface.
Senior IT Gurus, however, acknowledged the fact that start-ups don’t have much financial grounding to hire a design team, which is usually an expensive affair.
To bridge this gap, the Hyderabad Software Enterprises Association (HYSEA) and Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Hyderabad, announced the launch ‘Dr. Design’, that will provide design help to serious start-ups in Hyderabad.
“The days of just innovating a product is gone. These days, you have to develop a product keeping the end user in mind.
Your coding or software writing skills have to go hand in hand with design. You have to keep the end user in mind from the very beginning of the product development cycle and not just in the end,” said Director, IIIT, Hyderabad, P. J, Narayan during the launch of ‘Dr. Design’.
The members of HYSEA said that there was a need to drill the importance of design into the minds of young developers.
“Our start-ups have been ignoring this aspect a lot. The fit and finish of the product is very important. Everything is customer-driven and developers should keep this in mind,” said president, HYSEA, Ramesh Loganathan.
The ‘Dr. Design’ programme launched by HYSEA and IIIT-Hyderabad will provide design support by a team of top designers, who are doing pro-bono work for start-ups in Hyderabad.
On the occasion, HYSEA also awarded IIIT-Hyderabad its annual award for best incubator category.

India takes delivery of upgraded Mirage fighters

Dassault handed over two upgraded Mirage 2000 fighter aircraft to the Indian Air Force at a formal ceremony at the Dassault Aviation Flight Test Centre in France, on a day when the government announced that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit France on April 9.
Mr. Modi will travel to Germany on April 12 and Canada on April 14 before returning on April 17.
In 2011, India signed a $2.4-billion grade deal with Thales and Dassault of France for upgrading its fleet of 51 Mirage-2000 fighters it acquired in the 1980s. A separate $1.23- billion deal was reached with the MBDA for equipping the aircraft with MICA air-to-air missiles.
“We are trusted partners of the Indian armed forces and have developed a strong local supply chain which helped us make the upgrade of the Mirage 2000 a real success story,” said Pierre Eric Pommellet, executive vice-president, Thales.
The upgraded aircraft would fill a crucial void as the fighter strength of the Air Force had been dwindling.
After the upgrade, the aircraft are “almost new” with their life extended by 10-15 years. Upgrades include state-of-the-art avionics, multi-mode radar, mission computers, glass cockpit, helmet-mounted display and electronic warfare suites.

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:: Sports ::

ICF men beat Western Railway

ICF men defeated Western Railway (WR) in the P. John memorial all-India volleyball tournament.

Sardar Singh to lead India

Sardar Singh will lead the 18-member Indian men’s hockey team at the Sultan Azlan Shah tournament in Ipoh, Malaysia, next month.
The tournament will be held from April 5 to 12. Korea, Australia, New Zealand and Canada are the other teams in the six-team event with India opening its campaign against Korea.
The selectors have included three youngsters in the side — Chinglensana, Satbir Singh and Mandeep Singh — for the event that will also be a testing ground for the players ahead of the Hockey World League semifinals in Belgium later this year.
Midfielder Danish Mujtaba, striker Lalit Upadhyay and defender Gurjinder Singh have been omitted from the squad that played at the Champions Trophy last year in Bhubaneswar.