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Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 30 May 2014

Sir C.V. Raman award

Satish Adiga, professor in Clinical Embryology at Kasturba Medical College (KMC), Manipal, and Dr. T.M.A. Pai Endowment Chair in Manipal University, has been selected for the Sir C.V. Raman State Award by the Karnataka government for excellence in medical research.
With a view to recognise and honour scientific and technological talent, the government has instituted this award for young scientists and engineers who have made significant contributions towards the development of the State in various fields of science and technology.

Nearly a century after Rabindranath Tagore mesmerized his audience at the Assembly Hall of Berlin’s Friedrich Wilhelm University, (today’s Humboldt University), his speech has been rediscovered in the University archive.
This speech was given on June 2, 1921. Tagore visited Germany twice more — in 1926 and 1930 when he also met Albert Einstein.
Tagore’s concept of ‘one world’ held his audience spell-bound.
Although India was under a colonial power at the time of the delivery of the speech, the great philosopher that Tagore was, he spoke in a different tenor saying that the idea of freedom to which India aspired, was based upon realisation of spiritual unity.
Incidentally, the German consulate here, which has circulated the sound clip, has described Tagore in glowing terms as a great Indian poet, a novelist, philosopher and ecologist.

Senior advocate Ranjit Kumar will be the next Solicitor-General as Mohan Parasaran resigned following the change of government at the Centre.
Mr. Kumar had been counsel for the Gujarat government and amicus curiae in several cases in the Supreme Court. He had represented Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa in the disproportionate assets case pending in a Bangalore court.
Top contenders for Additional Solicitors-General are the outgoing Additional Solicitor-General L. Nageswara Rao, senior advocates Maninder Singh, P.S. Narasimha, Neeraj Kishan Kaul and P.S. Patwalia, and Additional Advocate-General of Gujarat Tushar Mehta.

Japan’s consumer prices rose 3.2 percent from a year earlier in April to the highest level since 1991, largely due to a sales tax increase that is expected to dent growth this quarter.
Other April data for the world’s third-largest economy were largely in line with forecasts. Industrial production fell 2.5 per cent from a year earlier and household spending sank 4.6 per cent. Unemployment was 3.6 percent, the same as in March.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s policies aimed at ending a deflationary slump that has slowed growth for nearly two decades have made some headway, though the inflation rate remains well below the 2 percent target set by the central bank and government when the tax hike is factored out.
Prices in Japan rose partly due to higher costs for energy as the yen weakened against the dollar because of massive monetary easing. Many businesses raised prices or offered less for the same price to compensate for their own higher costs.

The timing and mode of continental crust formation is a controversial topic but geochemical analysis of a newly discovered rock unit from Canada has shown that the first continent on earth may have formed in a way modern-day Iceland came into existence.
The rocks about four-billion-year-old showed crust-forming processes that are very similar to those occurring in present-day Iceland.
These ancient rocks are among the oldest samples of protocontinental crust that we have, and may have helped jump-start the formation of the rest of the continental crust.
Continents today form when one tectonic plate shifts beneath another into the Earth's mantle and cause magma to rise to the surface, a process called subduction.
One theory is the first continents formed in the ocean as liquid magma rose from the Earth's mantle before cooling and solidifying into a crust.
Iceland's crust formed when magma from the mantle rises to shallow levels, incorporating previously formed volcanic rocks.

The 127th edition of Asia’s oldest cup competition, the Durand Cup, might take place in Goa this year.
Durand Cup was first held in 1888 in Shimla but since 1940 Delhi has been the venue of this prestigious tournament. However the interest in the competition has declined over the years with top clubs rarely taking part and as a result the organisers are considering Goa to be this year’s host.