Current affairs- May 28, 2016
Land-attack version of BrahMos
The Indian
Air Force successfully test-fired a land-attack version of the supersonic
cruise missile, BrahMos, in the western sector.
Details:
- The missile system “has empowered all the three wings of the armed forces with anti-ship and land-attack capability,”
- This brings to light that the IAF too has been equipped with the land-attack version of BrahMos, which flies at a supersonic speed of Mach 3 (that is, three times the speed of sound). The Navy and the Army have already deployed the two-stage missile, which has a range of 290 km.
- BrahMos, two squadrons had already been equipped with the version. (One squadron has about 70 to 80 missiles).
- The IAF had deployed the missile in the border areas to take out the enemy’s communication towers, runways, and radar in case of a conflict.
Sudhir Mishra, Chief
Executive Officer and Managing Director of BrahMos
RTI gets a
memorial in Rajasthan
A unique memorial celebrating the Right to Information has
come up in the Beawar town of Rajasthan where the RTI movement had started 20
years ago.
Background:
·
The historic 40-day dharna of 1996 for RTI,
witnessed unveiling of the aesthetically-built memorial and demanded
restoration of chapters dealing with common people’s contribution to RTI in the
textbooks.
·
The dharna, which lasted 40 days, went on to
become a movement for transparency, accountability and participatory democracy
and led to the establishment of the National Campaign for People’s Right to
Information (NCPRI).
Memorial:
The dark blue memorial, is perhaps the only structure of its
kind in the country, giving recognition to peasants and labourers who launched
the campaign for their right to know about the way the government functioned
and spent the public money.
Tejas to replace
MiG as key fighter
Defence
Minister Manohar Parrikar said the indigenously developed Light Combat Aircraft
(LCA) Tejas would be the mainstay of the Indian Air Force and would likely
replace the entire MIG-21 fleet of almost 250 fighters.
- LCA is mainstay.
- There will be seven squadrons of it.
- It is 3-4 times better than MiG-21s,
- LCA being a single-engine, light-weight fighter.
- Functionally, the LCA is better than many other foreign fighters.
- It reacts very smoothly, fly-by-wire, its turn radius is very good, manoeuvrability is very good.
Limitations:
- it is a light combatant
- It cannot go into deep penetration.
- It is mostly good for dogfights in your own sky or to degrade the opponent Army’s command posts.
Tata Group enters e-commerce market
India's biggest conglomerate Tata
Group launched an e-commerce venture on Friday, as it seeks to cash in on
rising purchasing power in a market dominated by deep-pocketed international
retailers and startups backed by global tech investors.
- The 148-year-old Tata Group has made a foray into the Indian ecommerce market through TataCLiQ.com.
- The venture will sell apparel, electronics and footwear among other products.
- The site would act as a marketplace for its in-house and partner companies.
- The venture marks a new direction for the salt-to-steel conglomerate which has so far focused on physical retail stores.
- Customers can order online at TataCLiQ and get the items home-delivered or pick them up at designated stores, a model the company termed “phygital,” a combination of physical and digital.
- TataCLiQ.com services will be available in the unveiling phase in 6,856 pincodes across 689 cities and towns. It plans to scale up to more than 2,000 stores from 500 stores in the coming months.
North Eastern Council likely to be upgraded as resource centre
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during the recently held the North
Eastern Council Plenary meeting, hinted at the possibility of upgrading the
North Eastern Council (NEC) as a state-of-the-art resource centre capable of
meeting the aspirations of the people. The meeting was attended by Governors
and Chief Ministers of all North Eastern states.
- At the meeting, the PM also said that his government intends to connect all north-eastern States by rail and upgrade road, telecom and power networks.
- He also dedicated to the nation the Doppler Weather Radar at Cherrapunji.
About the North Eastern Council:
The North Eastern Council is the nodal agency for the economic and
social development of the North Eastern Region which consists of the eight
States of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland,
Sikkim and Tripura. The chief ministers and governors represent them.
- The headquarters of the council is situated in Shillong, and it functions under Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region.
- The North Eastern Council was constituted in 1971 by an Act of Parliament.
- The Council is an advisory body and may discuss any matter in which the north-eastern states have a common interest and advise the Central Government as to the action to be taken on any such matter.
- The funding of council mainly lies with the central government with small portions contributed by the state governments as well.
- The NEC act has been amended in 2002 to add Sikkim and restructure it as the regional planning body for the North Eastern Region.
Launching Aditya-L1 satellite for solar study underway- ISRO
chairman
ISRO chairman Kiran Kumar recently revealed that the scientific
mission of launching Aditya-L1 satellite for solar studies is underway.
Aditya-L1 is slated for lift-off in 2018-2019.
About the mission:
- It is India’s first solar mission. It will study the sun’s outer most layers, the corona and the chromospheres and collect data about coronal mass ejection, which will also yield information for space weather prediction.
- The project costs approximately Rs 400 crores and is a joint venture between ISRO and physicists from Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bengaluru; Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune; Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, and other institutes.
- The data from Aditya mission will be immensely helpful in discriminating between different models for the origin of solar storms and also for constraining how the storms evolve and what path they take through the interplanetary space from the Sun to the Earth.
- In order to get the best science from the sun, continuous viewing of the sun is preferred without any occultation/ eclipses and hence, Aditya- L1 satellite will be placed in the halo orbit around the Lagrangian point 1 (L1) of the sun-earth system.
What are Lagrangian points and halo orbit?
Lagrangian points are the locations in space where the combined
gravitational pull of two large masses roughly balance each other. Any small
mass placed at that location will remains at constant distances relative to the
large masses. There are five such points in Sun-Earth system and they are
denoted as L1, L2, L3, L4 and L5. A halo orbit is a periodic three-dimensional
orbit near the L1, L2 or L3.
Panel submits report on new education policy
A committee headed by the former Cabinet secretary T.S.R. Subramanian for the evolution of the soon-to-be-announced national education
policy has submitted its report to the Human Resource Development Ministry.
- The Committee has examined a large body of outcome documents, recommendations and suggestions received and also had several meetings with various stakeholders and undertook field visits to educational institutions.
Background:
The HRD Ministry had undertaken a consultation process for framing
a New Education Policy (NEP) and this process included online, grassroots and
national level thematic deliberations on 33 themes.
Sources: the hindu.
Facts
- Ministry of Power and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) have launched India’s first integrated web portal (www.nzeb.in) designed to promote and mainstream Net Zero Energy Buildings (NZEB) in India. A first of its kind, the portal provides complete information about Net Zero Energy Buildings – those that generate as much energy as they use – as well as how to achieve near-zero energy status through the use of efficient lighting and equipment, integration of renewable energy technologies, and best practice design strategies. In addition, the portal hosts the NZEB Alliance, an industry-wide body setup to drive the Indian markets toward highly energy-efficient buildings.
- Lakshadweep has become the first Union Territory (UT) to sign “24×7 Power for All” document. The document chalks out a plan to increase solar capacity of the region from 2.15 MW to 8.45 MW. At present, 10 inhabited islands of Lakshadweep are being fed by diesel mostly. The plan also envisions reduction of AT & C losses from current level of 21% to 6.7% till 2019 by increasing the collection efficiency up to 99 %. The ‘Power for All’ programme aims to provide each household access to electricity, 24×7 Power supply by 2019. As on date, 22 States have already signed the ‘24×7 Power For All’ Documents.
- Shrinking grasslands have become a cause of concern for the 344-sq km Nameri Tiger Reserve (NTR) in Sonitpur district in Assam. The latest assessment report on NTR’s predator and prey status has revealed that it has lost nearly 50% of its grasslands between 1973 and 2011. The assessment, carried out between 2012 and 2014, said NTR has around five to eight tigers, with a big cat density of 1.3 to 1.5 tigers per 100 sq km. The tiger reserve is bound by the Jia-Bhoreli river on its west and the Bor-Dikorai river on its east. The Naduar and Balipara reserved forests in Sonitpur, which forms NTR’s buffer zone, have also borne the brunt of encroachment over the years, leading to a further decline of grasslands. Located on the northern part of Sonitpur,NTR adjoins Arunachal Pradesh’s Pakke Tiger Reserve. Despite its small size, it is known for its rich flora and fauna.
- Gurgaon is all set to have a reserved forest zone for black bucks. An area of 140 hectares has been allotted by the forest department that will be the reserved forest zone for the endangered species. The area has been sanctioned in Sarbasirpur. NCR already has a Sultanpur national park and bird sanctuary which is providing a habitat for migratory birds. The reserve area will be developed over a period for four years and will provide a natural habitat for the black bucks. The animal prefers grassy plains and hot and humid environment.
- Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows into India increased by 29% to a record $40 billion during in the financial year ended March. If re-invested earnings, other capital and equity capital of unincorporated bodies are taken into account along with $40 billion worth equity inflows, the total FDI flows in FY’16 is the highest-ever at $55.4 billion. Of the FDI inflows (equity) in FY’16, services sector (including financial, banking, insurance, non-financial / business, outsourcing, R&D, courier, technology testing and analysis) attracted maximum investments of $6.88 billion followed by computer hardware and software ($5.90 billion), trading business ($3.84 billion) and automobile industry ($2.52 billion). Maximum inflows (equity) were from Singapore ($13.69 billion), followed by Mauritius ($8.35 billion), the US ($4.19 billion), the Netherlands ($2.64 billion) and Japan ($2.61 billion). The previous highest FDI inflow was in FY12 when the country received $46.55 billion, which was a 34 per cent increase over $34.8 billion it got in FY11.
Appointments
- New MD of Infosys BPO- Anantha Radhakrishnan
Visits
US President Visted Hiroshima
- US President Barack Obama visited Hiroshima of Japan on May 27,2016.
- He is the 1st serving US president visited Hiroshima.
Background:
- In 1945 World War-II , US dropped Atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
- Till now, No serving US president visited these places.
