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Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 07 January 2015

:: National ::

NGOs yet to get intimation

While the Home Affairs Ministry has directed the Reserve Bank of India to stop the flow of foreign funds to four non-governmental organisations, three of them are yet to get an official intimation of the order.
Bank Information Centre, Avaaz, 350.org and Sierra Club are engaged in work related to the social and environmental impact of coal projects. Sierra Club has denied any presence in India.
“We do not have any staff or offices in India, and we have not been contacted by the Indian government recently regarding the details of this issue,” John Coequyt, director of international climate programmes of Sierra Club, said in an e-mail.
“One of Sierra Club’s major goals is to promote the transition from dangerous fossil fuels to clean energy solutions that create jobs and reduce pollution. Therefore, we monitor U.S. government funding of projects and institutions that may affect those goals at home or abroad.”
A letter from the Director of the Ministry’s unit monitoring NGOs says it has “decided to keep a watch on all the activities funded by U.S.-based donor agencies,” listing the four groups. Every fund transfer from abroad to their activists in India will be held back, pending the Ministry’s clearance.
RBI records say the international NGOs have not been registered with the government. Nor had their employees in India applied for the Ministry’s Foreigners’ Division (FCRA wing) clearance. The Ministry is going to enquire into all remittances into India from these groups since January 2013.
BIC and Avaaz have not received any official letter stopping their funds. A leaked Intelligence Bureau report, “Concerted efforts by select foreign-funded NGOs to take down Indian development projects”, in 2014 alleged that several foreign-funded environmental NGOs were targeting development projects across the country. Greenpeace, Sierra Club and 350.org were mentioned in its annexure.
While the other three NGOs have been making online petitions and organising marches, BIC partners with civil society in developing countries to influence the World Bank and other international financial institutions to promote social and economic justice and ecological sustainability.

Coal workers’ strike enters 2nd day

The five-day strike by coal industry workers across the country entered its second day as negotiations between government officials and trade unions failed.
On its first day, the strike impacted 75 per cent of the 1.5 million tonnes of daily coal production, while fuel supplies to nearly 100 power plants across the country may also be impacted if the impasse continues.

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:: International ::

America’s oldest time capsule opened

Boston residents in the newly-formed United States valued a robust press as much as their history and currency if the contents of a time capsule dating back to a decade after the Revolutionary War are any guide.
When conservators at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston gingerly removed items from the box, they found five tightly-folded newspapers, a medal depicting George Washington, a silver plaque, two dozen coins, including one dating to 1655, and the seal of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
While some of the coins appeared corroded, other items were in good condition and fingerprints could be seen on the silver plaque.
The capsule was embedded in a cornerstone of the Massachusetts Statehouse when construction began in 1795. It was placed there by Revolutionary-era luminaries, including Paul Revere and Samuel Adams, Governor of Massachusetts at the time.
The contents were shifted to what was believed to be a copper box in 1855 and placed back into the foundation of the Statehouse. The box remained there until it was rediscovered in 2014 during an ongoing water filtration project at the building.
The oldest coin in the box was a 1652 “Pine Tree Schilling,” made at a time when the colony didn’t have royal authority to create its own currency.
The newspapers were folded in such a way that the names of the publications weren’t always visible, but one might have been a copy of the Boston Evening Traveller, a newspaper operation that was eventually absorbed into the current Boston Herald.
A portion of one of the papers that was visible showed a listing of the arrivals of whaling ships from various ports to Boston. Conservators didn’t try to unfold the papers.
Pam Hatchfield, the head of objects conservation for the museum, removed each item using a slew of tools, including her grandfather’s dental tool. Ms. Hatchfield said the paper in the box was in “amazingly good condition.”

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:: Business & Economy ::

Stocks crash on meltdown in oil price

Stocks tumbled with benchmark indices falling like a pack of cards over worries of a possible exit of Greece from the eurozone and a global recession indicated by the ongoing meltdown in oil prices. .
The Sensex (benchmark index of the BSE) dipped by 854.86 points or 3.07 per cent to close at 26987.46. The index was dragged down by oil & gas stocks with a fall of 4.17 per cent, followed by realty 3.66 per cent and metal 3.49 per cent.
Markets have fallen for a variety of reasons concerning local and international factors. While falling crude oil prices had a welcome relief for India, it is affecting those countries whose economy is surviving on crude oil.
Some of these countries, with large investible surplus, have been traditional investors globally. With crude prices at record low, funds from these countries would not flow to global markets.
Global oil prices fell by over 50 per cent since last June to below $50 per barrel on January 5, 2015, a dramatic drop reminiscent of the 1998 fall in oil prices, which led to Russian default, shaking the global financial system.
Further, the financial crisis in Europe concerning Greece seems to be escalating leading to global sell off. “The underlying fear is that Euro, as a currency union, may break up,” said Arun Kejriwal, a leading equity analyst.
According to him, markets needed a correction and it has happened. “Markets are likely to fall some more but important events like Vibrant Gujarat where the Prime Minister will play host along with the Gujarat Chief Minister for the first time, is less than a week away,” said Mr. Kejriwal, adding, “with global business leaders visiting the event, important announcements are expected,” which are likely to trigger markets.
While all sectoral indices fell sharply, broader indices too dipped as BSE 100 recorded a loss of 2.96 per cent and mid-cap and small-cap stocks lost 2.95 per cent each. On the National Stock Exchange (NSE), the 50-share Nifty lost by 251.05 points or three per cent at 8127.35.

Industry leaders demanded to focus on farm sector

In pre-Budget consultations with Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, industry leaders demanded priority for the farm sector to improve agriculture productivity, raise rural incomes and promote inclusive growth. Industry lobbies demanded that tax officers be appraised on performance parameters rather than the tax revenue raised.
“Since a large part of India’s population works in the farm sector, we impressed upon the Finance Minister that rural India needs due focus … and that farm incomes are very important for raising consumption spending in the economy,” Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) President Ajay Shriram told.
The Centre’s focus has largely been on the manufacturing sector, improving the ease of doing business and the “Make in India” campaign. Mr. Jaitley said in his opening remarks that ease of doing business was a high priority, an official release said.
The Minister said work was being carried out on a task given by the Prime Minister to improve India’s ranking on the ease of doing business index, the release said.
“We told the Finance Minister that Gujarat’s experience of bringing over nine lakh hectares of land under drip irrigation has to be taken pan-India, and the Centre should push for augmenting investment in agri-infrastructure and may be even use MGNREGS [Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme] funds for it,” Mr. Shriram said.
Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry President Jyotsna Suri urged Mr. Jaitley to “make earnest efforts to move away from an aggressive revenue approach and provide a genuine non-adversarial and conducive tax environment,” the release said.
She demanded that the government set tax revenue targets realistically and exclude tax revenue raised from the performance appraisal parameters of tax officers. The lobbies wanted the Centre to take up expenditure projects, especially in infrastructure for building new capacities in the economy.

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:: Sports ::

Axar & Jadeja get the nod for ICC World Cup

After obtaining the opinion of its NCA-attached physiotherapist Nitin Patel, the BCCI has selected all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja in its 15-member team for the ICC World Cup to be played in Australia and New Zealand in February-March.
The 26-year-old from Saurashtra, who has played 109 One-Day Internationals, returned home from Australia in the last week of December to remedy the damaged shoulder of his bowling hand.
He is undergoing rehabilitation at the BCCI’s NCA set-up with SRMC, Chennai. “He’s doing wonderfully well. He should be able to hit training after 10 days,” said BCCI secretary Sanjay Patel at the first team announcement press conference in six years.
Patel also said that fast bowler Ishant Sharma had been laid low by a minor knee niggle and hence was not included in the XI for the fourth and final Test at Sydney. Taking into account the heavy workload for the likes of Ishant,
Umesh Yadav and Mohammad Shami in the four-Test series and Bhuvneshwar Kumar (he’s just recovered from an injury), the BCCI has made available to captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni two additional seamers for the tri-series in which the third team will be England.

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:: Science & Technology ::

ISRO is gearing up to launch IRNSS 1D

After completing an eventful year, ISRO is gearing up for some satellite launches this year, with the IRNSS 1D being the first, which would put in place India’s own navigation system on par with the Global Positioning System of the U.S.
“The launch campaign for IRNSS 1D has come, which starts on January 16. Within two months, all components from other ISRO labs have to reach Sriharikota. The launch is likely after March 15,” a senior ISRO official told PTI.
IRNSS 1D is the fourth in the series of seven satellites, the national space agency is planning to launch to put in place the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS).
While four satellites would be sufficient to start operations of the system, the remaining three satellites would make it more accurate and efficient. The other launches also relate to the IRNSS series with the IRNSS1E and IRNSS1-F satellites to be launched before the year end, he said.
The first three satellites in the IRNSS series were launched from Sriharikota on July 1, 2013, April 4 and October 16 last year respectively.
The fully deployed IRNSS would consist of three and four satellites in GEO stationary and in inclined geosynchronous orbits respectively, about 36,000 km above the Earth.
The system would provide two types of services — Standard Positioning Service, which is provided to all the users and Restricted Service, which is an encrypted service provided only to the authorised users.
The IRNSS system was targeted to be completed by this year at a total cost of Rs. 1420 crore. IRNSS is designed to provide accurate position information service to users in the country as well as the region extending up to 1,500 km from its boundary, which is its primary service area.

Eight new planets found in Goldilocks zone

Astronomers with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) have discovered eight new planets within the so-called Goldilocks — or habitable — zone of their stars.
To be considered habitable, exoplanets must orbit within a distance of their stars in which liquid water can exist on the planet’s surface, receiving about as much sunlight as Earth.
“Most of these planets have a good chance of being rocky, like Earth,” lead author Guillermo Torres of the CfA said in a release. The discoveries of Kepler-438b and Kepler-442b are the latest in several advancements scientists have made to find signs of possible life in the universe.
At a panel held last summer at NASA headquarters in Washington, astronomers said they were “very close in terms of technology and science to actually finding the other Earth.”
That’s due in part to the Kepler Space Telescope. The planet-hunting Kepler probe, launched in 2009, finds planets by looking for dips in the brightness of a star as a planet transits, or crosses, in front of that star.
Christine Pulliam of CfA said the team of scientists monitored data from more than 160,000 stars, which led them to the eight new planets. The couple most likes Earth, Kepler-438b and Kepler-442b, both orbit red dwarf stars, which are cooler and smaller than the Earth’s sun.
Kepler—438b’s diameter is 12 per cent bigger than Earth and has a 70 per cent chance of being rocky, which means the surface of the planet appears to be like Earth’s.
Kepler—442b is about one-third larger than Earth with a 60 per cent chance of being rocky. Scientists give it a 97 per cent chance of being in the habitable zone, but caution that the estimations aren’t certain.