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Current Affairs - 14 March 2015

India, Sri Lanka sign 4 agreements

  • India and Sri Lanka today signed four agreements during Narendra Modi's maiden visit to the country, the first bilateral tour by an Indian premier in 28 years, with the Prime Minister announcing a slew of measures aimed at resetting ties with the strategic neighbour.   
  • Prime Minister Modi, who arrived here this morning on the final stop of his three-nation tour of Indian Ocean island nations, met Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena and discussed bilateral and issues of regional importance.
    "I am conscious of the significance of this visit. This is the first stand alone bilateral visit by an Indian Prime Minister since 1987," Modi said at a joint press meet with Sirisena, who was in India last month on his first foreign trip after assuming office in January.
    The Prime Minister said his meeting with Sirisena has been very productive. It "gives me confidence and optimism about the future of our relations," Modi said.
    The two sides signed four agreements on visa, customs, youth development and building Rabindranath Tagore memorial in Sri Lanka.
    "The agreement today on cooperation between our customs authorities is a step in that direction. It will simplify trade and reduce non-tariff barriers on both sides," he said.
    Modi said the progress made by two countries reflects "our shared commitment to stronger economic cooperation".

    "Our trade has seen impressive growth over the past decade. I am aware of your concerns about trade with India. As I said in Delhi, we will try and address them," he said.
    Modi said India stands ready to help Trincomalee become a petroleum hub and announced that New Delhi will provide a fresh Line of Credit of up to USD 318 million for the railways sector in Lanka.

    "This will be used to procure rolling stock, and to restore and upgrade existing railway track," he said.

    The Prime Minister also said that the Reserve Bank of India and the Central Bank of Sri Lanka have agreed to enter into a Currency Swap Agreement of USD 1.5 billion to help keep the Sri Lankan rupee stable.

    He lauded the efforts of newly elected President Sirisena and assured him of all help from India.

    "We stand with you in your efforts to build a future that accommodates the aspirations of all sections of society, including the Sri Lankan Tamil community, for a life of equality, justice, peace and dignity in a united Sri Lanka.

    "We believe that early and full implementation of the 13th Amendment and going beyond it would contribute to this process," said Modi, who is here as part of his three-nation tour of Indian Ocean island nations that took him to Seychelles and Mauritius.

India, U.S. researchers clash over swine flu strain mutation


  • India has disputed U.S. scientists' findings that the deadly swine flu virus has acquired more virulent mutations in the South Asian country and rejected their concerns over how authorities are monitoring an outbreak of the disease.

    H1N1 influenza, also known as swine flu, has killed more than 1,500 people in India this year, compared with 218 in 2014. India says the strain is the same as the one that killed an estimated 284,000 people in the global pandemic of 2009-10.

    Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) said in an article on Wednesday that the genetic information of two Indian strains, deposited in public databases in the past two years, revealed new mutations that could make the virus more deadly.

    But India's National Institute of Virology said in a statement late on Thursday that the findings were "incorrect".

    "We found that the strain analysed in the said publication and the sequence data of the original H1N1 virus ... did not show any of these mutations," the institute said.

    The government agency also said the strain analysed by the U.S. scientists had no relevance to the current outbreak.

    The MIT researchers called for greater surveillance to determine whether the mutations were currently present in India.

    "There is a real need for aggressive surveillance to ensure that the anxiety and hysteria are brought down," said Ram Sasisekharan, one of the research paper's authors.

    "When you do real-time surveillance, get organised ... then you can come up with a better strategy to respond to the virus."

    In recent weeks, India has placed orders to increase the stock of diagnostic kits and procured additional doses of anti-viral drug Oseltamivir. Officials are investigating the cause of the steep rise in deaths.

    Health Ministry officials were not immediately available to comment on the MIT article.

    Some other experts have also contested its findings.

    "There should be increased surveillance for influenza in India but at the same time we should not draw conclusions based on the sequence analysis of two strains," said Manish Kakkar of the Public Health Foundation of India.

Massive ocean found on Jupiter’s largest moon Ganymede

  • NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has found strong evidence of a massive saltwater ocean under the icy crust of Jupiter’s largest moon Ganymede that could potentially support life.

    The subterranean ocean is thought to have more water than all the water on Earth’s surface, researchers said.

    Identifying liquid water is crucial in the search for habitable worlds beyond Earth and for the search for life.

    “This discovery marks a significant milestone, highlighting what only Hubble can accomplish,” said John Grunsfeld, assistant administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.

    “A deep ocean under the icy crust of Ganymede opens up further exciting possibilities for life beyond Earth,” said Grunsfeld.

    Ganymede is the largest moon in our solar system and the only moon with its own magnetic field. The magnetic field causes aurorae, which are ribbons of glowing, hot electrified gas, in regions circling the north and south poles of the moon.

    Because Ganymede is close to Jupiter, it is also embedded in Jupiter’s magnetic field. When Jupiter’s magnetic field changes, the aurorae on Ganymede also change, “rocking” back and forth.

    By watching the rocking motion of the two aurorae, scientists were able to determine that a large amount of saltwater exists beneath Ganymede’s crust, affecting its magnetic field.

    A team of scientists led by Joachim Saur of the University of Cologne in Germany came up with the idea of using Hubble to learn more about the inside of the moon.

    “Because aurorae are controlled by the magnetic field, if you observe the aurorae in an appropriate way, you learn something about the magnetic field. If you know the magnetic field, then you know something about the moon’s interior,” said Saur.

    If a saltwater ocean were present, Jupiter’s magnetic field would create a secondary magnetic field in the ocean that would counter Jupiter’s field.

    This “magnetic friction” would suppress the rocking of the aurorae. This ocean fights Jupiter’s magnetic field so strongly that it reduces the rocking of the aurorae to 2 degrees, instead of 6 degrees if the ocean were not present.

    Scientists estimate the ocean is 100 kilometres thick — 10 times deeper than Earth’s oceans — and is buried under a 150-kilometre crust of mostly ice.

    Scientists first suspected an ocean in Ganymede in the 1970s, based on models of the large moon. NASA’s Galileo mission measured Ganymede’s magnetic field in 2002, providing the first evidence supporting those suspicions.

    The new observations were done in ultraviolet light and could only be accomplished with a space telescope high above Earth’s atmosphere, which blocks most ultraviolet light.

    The finding was published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics.

Major Highlights of the Insurance Laws (Amendment) Bill 2015

  • The Insurance Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2015 was passed by the Lok Sabha on 4th March, 2015 and by the Rajya Sabha yesterday i.e. on 12th March, 2015.The passage of the Bill thus paved the way for major reform related amendments in the Insurance Act, 1938, the General Insurance Business (Nationalization) Act, 1972 and the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) Act, 1999. The Insurance Laws (Amendment) Act 2015 to be so enacted, will seamlessly replace the Insurance Laws (Amendment) Ordinance, 2014, which came into force on 26th December 2014. The amendment Act will remove archaic and redundant provisions in the legislations and incorporates certain provisions to provide Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) with the flexibility to discharge its functions more effectively and efficiently. It also provides for enhancement of the foreign investment cap in an Indian Insurance Company from 26% to an explicitly composite limit of 49% with the safeguard of Indian ownership and control.

     

    2. Capital Availability: In addition to the provisions for enhanced foreign equity, the amended law will enable capital raising through new and innovative instruments under the regulatory supervision of IRDAI. Greater availability of capital for the capital intensive insurance sector would lead to greater distribution reach to under / un-served areas, more innovative product formulations to meet diverse insurance needs of citizens, efficient service delivery through improved distribution technology and enhanced customer service standards. The Rules to operationalize the new provisions in the Law related to foreign equity investors have already been notified on 19th Feb 2015 under powers accorded by the ordinance.

    The four public sector general insurance companies, presently required as per the General Insurance Business (Nationalisation) Act, 1972 (GIBNA, 1972) to be 100% government owned, are now allowed to raise capital, keeping in view the need for expansion of the business in the rural and social sectors, meeting the solvency margin for this purpose and achieving enhanced competitiveness subject to the Government equity not being less than 51% at any point of time.

     

    3. Consumer Welfare: Further, the amendments to the laws will enable the interests of consumers to be better served through provisions like those enabling penalties on intermediaries / insurance companies for misconduct and disallowing multilevel marketing of insurance products in order to curtail the practice of mis-selling. The amended Law has several provisions for levying higher penalties ranging from up to Rs.1 Crore to Rs. 25 Crore for various violations including mis-selling and misrepresentation by agents / insurance companies.  With a view to serve the interest of the policy holders better, the period during which a policy can be repudiated on any ground, including mis-statement of facts etc., will be confined to three years from the commencement of the policy and no policy would be called in question on any ground after three years.

    The amendments provide for an easier process for payment to the nominee of the policy holder, as the insurer would be discharged of its legal liabilities once the payment is made to the nominee.

    It is now obligatory in the law for insurance companies to underwrite third party motor vehicle insurance as per IRDAI regulations. Rural and Social sector obligations for insurers are retained in the amended laws.

     

    4. Empowerment of IRDAI: The Act will entrust responsibility of appointing insurance agents to insurers and provides for IRDAI to regulate their eligibility, qualifications and other aspects. It enables agents to work more broadly across companies in various business categories; with the safeguard that conflict of interest would not be allowed by IRDAI through suitable regulations.

    IRDAI is empowered to regulate key aspects of Insurance Company operations in areas like solvency, investments, expenses and commissions and to formulate regulations for payment of commission and control of management expenses.

    It empowers the Authority to regulate the functions, code of conduct, etc., of surveyors and loss assessors. It also expands the scope of insurance intermediaries to include insurance brokers, re- insurance brokers, insurance consultants, corporate agents, third party administrators, surveyors and loss assessors and such other entities, as may be notified by the Authority from time to time.

    Further, properties in India can now be insured with a foreign insurer with prior permission of IRDAI; which was earlier to be done with the approval of the Central Government.

     

    5. Health Insurance: The amendment Act defines 'health insurance business' inclusive of travel and personal accident cover and discourages non-serious players by retaining capital requirements for health insurers at the level of Rs. 100 Crore, thereby paving the way for promotion of health insurance as a separate vertical.

     

    6. Promoting Reinsurance Business in India: The amended law enables foreign reinsurers to set up branches in India and defines‘re-insurance’ to mean “the insurance of part of one insurer’s risk by another insurer who accepts the risk for a mutually acceptable premium”, and thereby excludes the possibility of 100% ceding of risk to a re-insurer, which could lead to companies acting as front companies for other insurers. Further, it enables Lloyds and its members to operate in India through setting up of branches for the purpose of reinsurance business or as investors in an Indian Insurance Company within the 49% cap.

     

    7. Strengthening of Industry Councils: The Life Insurance Council and General Insurance Council have now been made self-regulating bodies by empowering them to frame bye-laws for elections, meetings and levy and collect fees etc. from its members. Inclusion of representatives of self-help groups and insurance cooperative societies in insurance councils has also been enabled to broad base the representation on these Councils.

     

    8. Robust Appellate Process: Appeals against the orders of IRDAI are to be preferred to SAT as the amended Law provides for any insurer or insurance intermediary aggrieved by any order made by IRDAI to prefer an appeal to the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT).

    9. Thus, the amendments incorporate enhancements in the Insurance Laws in keeping with the evolving insurance sector scenario and regulatory practices across the globe. The amendments will enable the Regulator to create an operational framework for greater innovation, competition and transparency, to meet the insurance needs of citizens in a more complete and subscriber friendly manner. The amendments are expected to enable the sector to achieve its full growth potential and contribute towards the overall growth of the economy and job creation.

CERN's revamped Large Hadron Collider to restart

  • The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s largest and most powerful particle collider, will resume operations for its second 3-year run this month amid hopes of uncovering the Universe’s best kept secrets.

    The LHC, credited with uncovering the Higgs Boson particle and managed by the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), was on a 2-year break from smashing particles to undergo an upgrade and will now operate with higher energy.

    The machine is operated by CERN, a European research organisation that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world.

    Having finally nailed down the elusive Higgs Boson particle in 2013 — the elementary particle that has unlocked some of the universe’s longest-standing secrets — physicists are now on the trail of dark matter.

    Dark matter, which is still a hypothesis, will be one of the focuses of the experiments.

    “We are entering a new phase after two years of heavy maintenance and improvement of the infrastructure and to restart the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) now with higher energy opens new windows depending on the kindness of nature, of course. We are excited,” said Rolf Heuer, CERN Director General.

    Frederick Bordry, the Director for Accelerators and Technology, said, “We are turning into a new energy regime. CERN expects the LHC to open in another two weeks where the protons will start circulating in the LHC. Then it will take some time. We have learnt to be patient.”

    The LHC — which requires maintenance every three years — has been refurbished with new magnets, stronger connections, higher energy beams, superior cryogenics etc.

    CERN expects to take till the end of May to reach collisions at the highest energy levels at 13 TEV-the highest ever for the LHC.

    The first phase only saw energy levels reaching up to eight TEV, powerful beams of which can melt a tonne of copper.

    This is the second run of the LHC, the first having discovered the elusive Higgs boson particle in 2013 — a major find of elementary particle that revealed some of the universe’s best kept secrets-and a part of what particle physicists call Standard Model of particle physics.

    “It’s three years but people are still talking about it,” said Mr. Heuer.

    The LHC is a 27 kilometers circumference particle accelerator that occupies a tunnel with seven major ongoing experiments in the Franco-Swiss border. Of the total, four are major experiments.

    The ATLAS experiment-on the evidence for dark matter candidates in the universe, Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment-on extra dimensions and particles that could make up dark matter, the ALICE experiment-physics of matter at an infinitely small scale and the LHCb experiment — to explore what happened after the Big Bang, are the four experiments.

International Financial Services Centres to be Set up

  • The Government proposes to set up International Financial Services Centres (IFSC) in the country. The IFSCs are envisaged to be set up/operationalized in India to provide avenues to finest financial minds in India to fully exhibit and exploit their strength to the country’s advantage and enable India to become a producer and exporter of international financial services.

    The IFSCs will be set-up in the Special Economic Zones (SEZ). The first IFSC is proposed to be set up in Gujarat International Finance Tec-City, which is located in the notified Special Economic Zone. Appropriate regulations in this regard will be issued in March, 2015.

    This was stated by Shri Jayant Sinha, Minister of State in Ministry of Finance in written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha today.

NASA launches 4 spacecraft to solve magnetic mystery

  • NASA launched four identical spacecraft Thursday on a billion-dollar mission to study the explosive give-and-take of the Earth and sun’s magnetic fields.

    The unmanned Atlas rocket – and NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale spacecraft – soared into a clear late-night sky, right on time. Within two hours, all four observatories were flying free.

    ”Just picture-perfect,” launch manager Omar Baez said early Friday. ”Everybody’s cheering. … Can’t ask for any more.”

    The quartet of observatories is being placed into an oblong orbit stretching tens of thousands of miles into the magnetosphere – nearly halfway to the moon at one point. They will fly in pyramid formation, between 6 miles (10 kilometers) and 250 miles (402 kilometers) apart, to provide 3-D views of magnetic reconnection on the smallest of scales.

    Magnetic reconnection is what happens when magnetic fields like those around Earth and the sun come together, break apart, then come together again, releasing vast energy. This repeated process drives the aurora, as well as solar storms that can disrupt communications and power on Earth. Data from this two-year mission should help scientists better understand so-called space weather.

    Each observatory resembles a giant octagonal wheel, stretching more than 11 feet (3.35 meters) across and 4 feet (1.22 meters) high, and weighing 3,000 pounds (1,360.79 kilograms) apiece. Numbered and stacked like tires on top of the rocket for launch, No. 4 popped free first more than an hour after liftoff, followed every five minutes by another.

    ”They’re all healthy and turned on. Essentially, we’re all green and headed into our mission,” said NASA project manager Craig Tooley.

    Once the long, sensor-laden booms are extended in a few days, each spacecraft could span a baseball field.

    Principal investigator Jim Burch from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio said measurements will be made down to the electron scale, significantly smaller than previous heliophysics missions. In all, there are 100 science sensors. Primary science-gathering will begin this summer, following a five-month checkout.

    The findings from the $1.1 billion mission will be useful in understanding magnetic reconnection throughout the universe. Closer to home, space weather scientists along with everyone on Earth hopefully will benefit.

    ”We’re not setting out here to solve space weather,” Burch said. ”We’re setting out to learn the fundamental features of magnetic reconnection because that’s what drives space weather.”.

Goa revokes ban on iron ore transportation

  • Two days after Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar gave an assurance on commencement of iron ore mining, which has been banned for the last two-and-a-half years, the district administrations on Friday issued formal orders revoking the ban on iron ore transportation.

    Formal orders were issued simultaneously by the district collectors of North Goa and South Goa to revoke the ban on "movement and transportation of all types of iron ore laden vehicles" with immediate effect.

    Mining in Goa was stopped both by the state government as well as the central government in 2012 following a Rs.35,000 crore illegal mining scam which was unearthed by a judicial commission appointed by the union mines ministry, before the Supreme Court banned all mining activity in the same year.

    The ban was eventually lifted last year but mining still could not be restarted because of pending green clearances.

    The state government has now sent an interim proposal to the union ministry for environment and forests for quick resumption of mining in Goa, which Parsekar claimed is a lifeline for the state's economy.

    According to the chief minister, mining is expected to resume in a few days' time.
    "It won't be a matter of months now, or weeks, but it will be a matter of a few days wherein mining will commence," Parsekar said on Wednesday.

GENERAL AWARENESS PRACTICE QUESTIONS FOR ALL BANK EXAMS

  • 1. The new rates are effective from 24 December for fresh deposits as well as those being

    renewed on maturity. 

    a. 1 & 2 

    b. Only4 

    c. Only 3 

    d. 1 & 4 

    Answer: (c)

    1. 2.According to the RBI data, India's foreign exchange reserves fell by what amount to $302.1

      billion during the week ended 16 December 2011 on account of a fall in foreign currency assets? 

      a. $4.67 billion 

      b. $3.33 billion 

      c. $5 billion 

      d. $5.75 billion 

      Answer: (a)

    2.        3.According to the Tea Board data released in December 2011, tea imports declined by what per

      cent to 9.91 million kg in the April-October period of 2011? 

      a. 10% 

      b. 12.5% 

      c. 14% 

      d. 15.3% 

      Answer: (c)

      1. 4. Telecom Commission, the decision-making body of the Department of Telecommunications

        recommended a uniform licence fee of what per cent of adjusted gross revenues (AGR) as 

        against the prevalent rate of 6-8 per cent? 

        a. 10% 

        b. 8% 

        c. 5.2% 

        d. 9.3%

        Answer: (b)

        1. 5. As per the to Commerce Ministry data released on 2 January 2012, India’s exports recorded

          their slowest pace of growth in two years in November 2011. What was the per centage of 

          growth recorded? 

          a. 4.2% 

          b. 3.8% 

          c. 2.2% 

          d. 0.94% 

          Answer: (b)

        2. 6.Union government on 3 January 2012 approved Reliance Industries' (RIL) investment plan

          for developing four satellite fields in the flagging KG-D6 block. What was the proposed sum to 

          be invested for developing the satellites? 

          a. $1.500 billion 

          b. $1.692 billion 

          c. $1.529 billion 

          d. $1.375 billion 

          Answer: (c)

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