Current Affairs - 15 September 2014

India gears up to put Mars mission in orbit

• 

  Three days later, it will be put to its ultimate test — firing for 24 minutes to slow down the MOM and inject it into the Martial orbit. Should they pull it off, India will be the first country to do so on debut.
  
  The US, Russia and the European Space Agency had got it right after repeated attempts.
  
  MOM, hurtling at a speed of 82,000kmph, has been idling for about 300 days since it left the Earth's influence on November 30, 2013.
  
  "We have to see if the engine is in shape, hence the test," said Isro chairman K Radhakrishnan. "It will also serve as a trajectory correction which will take MOM to a 515km arrival spot from Mars."
  
  On Sunday, scientists at Isro Telemetry Tracking and Command Network in Bangalore sent a bundle of commands to test-fire the liquid apogee motor (LAM) engine for four seconds.

CM Omar Abdullah was left with only two officials when floods struck J&K

• 

  SRINAGAR: Jammu & Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah had to virtually deal with the catastrophic floods alone. Omar was left with just chief secretary Iqbal Khanday and director general of police K Rajendra when river Jhelum breached its bank on September 7 and practically washed away the state government as well.
  
  The ministers, along with other top officials, were either marooned or in their constituencies. Communications failure added to the government's woes. Omar juggled with various things as he appeared on TV assuring all help. Such was the gravity of the situation that he was forced to airdrop food packets himself. Many people are said to have thrown the food packets in water angry over the delay in rescue work.

August WPI inflation eases to near 5-year low of 3.74%

• 

  NEW DELHI: India's wholesale price inflation in August eased to 3.74 per cent, its lowest level in nearly five years, government data showed on Monday. 
  
  The rise in the wholesale price index (WPI) compared with a 4.50 percent year-on-year jump forecast by economists in a Reuters poll. 
  
  In July, wholesale prices rose 5.19 per cent year-on-year, their slowest pace in five months.

US and India need to turn on the trillion-dollar tap, says Mumbai thinktank

• 

  WASHINGTON: A billion here and a billion there and pretty soon we are talking real money, a famous US Senator (Everett Dirksen) is believed to have joked at a time (1950s) a billion was big bucks even in the United States. A trillion is the number thrown out in the 21st century. Only a few countries (15) has trillion dollar economies (India's joined the ranks in 2007), and certainly no company, not even Apple, had hit that landmark. The world's largest trade relationship, between US and Canada, rolls over $650 billion annually, followed by US-China at around $600 billion.
  
  But in an audacious projection, a report from the thinktank Gateway House released on the eve of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to US is forecasting a $1 trillion partnership between the two countries by 2030, a ten-fold increase from the $100 billion mark that has just been reached. It's double the $500 billion target set by Vice-President Joe Biden during his visit to India in July last year, and the given the business boondoggles that have blighted the ties so far, it might well be a pie in the sky.
  
  Not so, maintains Nish Acharya, a former Obama administration official who authored the report for the Mumbai thinktank that aims to bridge the gap between business and foreign policy. Acknowledging that the short-term relations between the two countries have never been aligned, Acharya paraphrases President Kennedy to argue that the United States and India must strive to create a trillion dollar economic relationship "not because it is easy, because it is hard." It is also natural, Acharya said in an interview on Sunday, because the two countries have complementary strengths, primarily the systems thinking and deep knowledge of the US, and process innovation and human capital of India.

Visitors' diary at CBI chief's home: SC asks Prashant Bhushan to name whistleblower

• 

  NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday asked advocate Prashant Bhushan to reveal source of information regarding guest list at CBI director Ranjit Sinha's residence. 
  
  The apex court directed Prashant Bhushan to give the name of whistleblower in a sealed envelope. 
  
  The next hearing in the case would take place on September 24. 
  
  The CBI director denied all allegations of wrongdoing on his part and said he has filed the file notings in sealed cover as making them public will only help accused in 2G scam case.
  The CBI chief had on September 12 filed an affidavit in the SC in compliance of the order of the apex court which had on September 8 directed him to respond to the averments made against him, holding that they were 'serious' in nature. 

Apple's digital wallet: Will it kill the credit card?

• 

  NEW YORK: Apple wants the plastic credit card to become as rare as the paper check.
  
  On Tuesday, the company announced Apple Pay, a digital payment system that lets people pay for retail store purchases using their phones rather than cash or credit cards. The service, which will work both with iPhones and Apple's new Watch, is backed by a host of big retailers, along with most major banks and credit card issuers, including Visa, MasterCard and American Express.
  
  So-called contactless payment isn't new. Starbucks, McDonald's, PayPal, Google and Square offer their own services, but only a small portion of customers use them. Some experts believe Apple Pay — with its presence on millions of iPhones and its advanced security features — could be the service that leads to widespread adoption of the digital wallet.
  
  Citi Investment Research analyst Mark May believes the sum total of mobile payments could grow from $1 billion in 2013 to $58.4 billion by 2017.
  
  Payment digitization paints an enticing vision of shopping's future: Simply tap your device against a checkout screen and walk away with your new shoes.
  
  But despite the flashy Apple Pay launch, Apple faces challenges making that vision a reality. The company and other digital wallet providers must convince shoppers that the transactions are safe — especially in the wake of recent high-profile data breaches at Home Depot and Target. Meanwhile, the company must also make a case to retailers that it's worth it for them to invest in new point-of-sale systems.
  
  Many US merchants still aren't sold on the idea. About 220,000 stores are set up to accept Apple Pay. That's only 5.5% of the 3.6 million retail locations in the US, according to the National Retail Federation. The biggest US retailers, including Wal-Mart and Best Buy, are not participating in Apple Pay.
  
  The main reason is cost. Each point-of-sale device, which uses something called near-field communication technology, costs hundreds of dollars, plus hours of worker training. And there's been little customer demand for the systems.
  
  That may change now that Apple has entered the arena, says Gartner analyst Avivah Litan.
  
  "There's no doubt young people want to use phones to make payments, but they have to have a place to pay," says Litan. She predicts bigger retailers will see how well Apple partners like McDonald's do before they move into mobile payments.
  
  "If it goes well at other retailers, Wal-Mart and other companies may break down and start taking it," Litan says.