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C U R R E N T A F F A I R S & G E N E R A L K N O W L E D G E

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1st November, 2009 to 15th November, 2009

1. K. Radhakrishnan, Director, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, (VSSC), Thiruvananthapuram,took over as Chairman of the ISRO from G. Madhavan Nair. Dr. Radhakrishnan also assumed

office as chairman of the Space Commission and Secretary of the Department of Space. From2005 to 2008, he was the Director of the National Remote Sensing Agency, Hyderabad whichhas now been named the National Remote- Sensing Centre. During the tenure of Mr.Madhavan Nair there were 25 successful launch vehicle and space craft missions. The high

point of his career was the ISRO putting in orbit chandrayaan-1, Indias first scientific missionto the moon, on October 22nd , 2008. P.S. Veeraraghavan, a rocket technologist, took over asDirector, Vikra Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, from K. Radhakrishnan who has

been appointed Chairman, ISRO.

2. The National University of Defence Technology ( NVDT) unveiled Chinas fastestsupercomputer Tianhe ( meaning, milky way ) it will in theory do more than onequadrillion calculations per second ( one petaflop) at peak speed.

3. The South Asia Foundation (SAF) organized a peace festival in Amritsar with artists fromPakistan and India. The foundation is the brainchild of Madanjeet Singh, UNESCO GoodwillAmbassador, who dreams of forming a rainbow coalition of eight countries of South Asia-Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.

4. The Silent Valley National Park ( Kerala ), one of the few remaining rainforests in thecountry, gets one of the highest- or even the highest average annual rainfall in the WesternGhats, according to the data of the past 10 years.

The highest average annual rainfall received in the valley was 8,361.9 mm in 2001.

The average annual rainfall of the Western Ghats ranges from 6,000 mm at the crestof the ghats to as low as 600 mm in the valley portion.

The worlds wettest place is Mawsynram in the Khasi hills of Meghalaya.

5. In a major thrust to the Disinvestment Programme, the Cabinet Committee onEconomic Affairs ( CCEA) decided that all listed Central Public Sector Enterprises wouldoffload 10% of their holding in the public domain and all unlisted profitable state ownedentities should go public.

At present, there are 48 listed state-run companies, and 200 others, including BSLL,qualify for listing.

The government has also decided that all unlisted PSEs, which have made profit in

the past 3 years and have a positive net worth, should get listed on stock exchanges.

6. The RBI concluded the purchase of 200 tonnes of gold from the IMF at an estimated price of around Rs. 31, 490 Cr ( $ 6.70 billion ) under the IMFs limited gold salesprogramme.

Under the Funds Articles of Agreement, all gold sales must be conducted at prices based on market prices.

This was done as part of the RBIs foreign exchange reserve management.

India is the worlds biggest consumer of gold. China is the world biggest producer ofgold pushing US to second.

Training Tomorrows AdministratorsTODAY

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7. Ashok Chavan was sworn in CM of Maharashtra by Governor S.C. Jamir at the RajBhavan. Chagan Bhujbal took the oath office and secrecy as Deputy CM. The newly formedcouncil has 38 ministers 18 from the Congress and 20 from the NCP.

8. Britains Hindu leaders have launched Bhumi Project to fight climate change. The plan follows a conference of faith leaders organized by the Alliance of Religions andconservation, a charity set up by the Duke of Edinburgh to help religious groups developtheir own environmental programmes.

9. Going ahead with its objective of extending the scope of the NREGS throughconvergence with other departments, the Centre has accepted a number of recommendationsof the State governments as job works to be taken up under the scheme:

The scope of manual work has been enlarged.

Construction of Community centres for social activities, school buildings, PanchayatBhavans e.t.c., aiming at creation of social infrastructure.

As regards convergence, it has recommended taking up sanitation campaign withlabour component from the scheme and supported construction of houses under variousschemes as the Indira Awas Yojna, where the unskilled labour component and earthwork would be carried out under the NREGS fund as it would serve as a cushion toescalation of cost.

Similarly construction of houses for the Below Poverty Line ( BPL) families in ruralareas has been recommended by dovetailing with IAY and individual household latrinesfor the BPL under the Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC).

To speed up rural electrification and take power to the lowest levels the departmenthas permitted erection of poles under the Rajiv Gandhi Rural Electrification

programme.

10. Google Wave, was recently launched as one the Google products on Internet.Google Wave can be described as a communication / collaboration tool in which productslike e-mail, IM discussion board and Wiki are rolled into one. A great feature of GoogleWave is the extension facility that enables developers across the world to enhance itsfunctionality. Extensions come in two forms gadgets and robots:

A gadget is nothing but a small application that can be integrated with a wave -like the google maps gadget.

Robots are software based automated participants made for a specific purpose likeIM bots.

11. IBM has announced the creation of a new Business Analytics Centre of Competency inBangalore as part of efforts of strengthen its capabilities in the fast growing are ofanalytics and optimization.

12. Cyclone Phyan passed along the Mumbai and Konkan coast. The depression in theArabian sea gave way to a low pressure zone, accompanied by gusty winds.




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13. The Shipping Ministry has decide to set up a broad based committee, comprisingvarious agencies, for sharing into. On traffic, post and issues related to ship security.

1st

November, 2009 to 15th

November, 2009

14. The United States House of Representatives recently passed the Affordable Health Carefor America Act. The bill which is expected to cost $ 1.1 trillion over 10 years, constitutes thegreatest reform of U.S. Health care since 1965 ( in 1985 Medicare, a tax funded payer systemfor those aged 65 or over and those with particular medical conditions, was created as partof the Johnson administration Great society programme). If passed it will extend healthcover to 96% of legally resident Americans:

This, it will do by widening the federally funded Medicare system to include the 36million Americans who currently cannot afford health insurance or whose employersdo not provide it.

The law- paid will be able to buy subsidized insurance or get cover from a governmentplan.

Employers will have to provide insurance or pay a payroll tax of up to 8%.

Significantly, insurers will be banned from rejecting those with pre-existingconditions and from dropping those whose needs increase, age limits will also beabolished.

15. India and South Africa mutually agreed to widen the export basket and to work closelyfor the early conclusion of India South African Customs Union ( SACU), Preferential TradeAgreement ( PTA) and the Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement(BIPA).

This was decided between the Union Commerce and Industry Minister, Anand Sharmaand the Minister of International relations and cooperation of South Africa, Maite Knoana-Mashabane.

Anand Sharma said that India had identified South Africa and other African nations asthe priority destinations under the diversified market scheme and Indian exporters were

being encouraged to tap these potential markets.

Bilateral trade touched $ 7.41 billion in 2008-09.

o Indias imports from South Africa stood at $ 5.44 bn during this period and Indias

exports to South Africa were $ 1.97 bn.

o Indian investment were about $3 bn with many projects still under

implementation.16. Brazil has decided to impose a 2% tax on portfolio inflow. The move is aimed atarresting sharp appreciation of its currency, the real which since the beginning of the yearhas gained 36% against the dollar, undermining Brazils export competitiveness.

In 1998, during Asian currency crisis, Malaysia also imposed controls to curbcurrency speculation that had a devastating effect on neighbours.

Chile ( most successful of Latin American economies ) kept a portion of its foreigninvestment flows in an interest free account with its Central bank for a fixed period.

The intention behind such controls is to keep a check on footloose global capital that,given both its large volumes and propensity to move in and out of a country in a




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matter of seconds, threatens macroeconomic management. Over the medium-term, if properly implemented, these curbs could help governments prevent asset bubbles.

The intellectual basis for the tax is found in the work of the influential U.S.economist and Nobel prize winner, James Tobin, who in the early 1970s proposed

a small tax even as low as 0.1% - on foreign exchange transactions toreduce volatility in the markets. Recently, G-20 has asked the IMF to examine such


proposals. Well endowed with natural resources, Brazil is having a commodity boom and is among the first countries to come out of recession.

17. An important milestone in the path towards the Goods and Services Tax ( GST) has beenreached, with the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers deciding on a three tierduty structure for the goods component.

These will be a low rate for goods of mass consumption, a standard rate for mostother items and a premium rate for a small category of items.

In the budget it was announced that in effect these would be two sets of GST onefor the goods, and the other for the services, levied at two levels. These two would bemutually exclusive and operate across value chain.

Challenges of Implementing GST:

It is at the state level that the introduction of the new tax which will replace thestate-level Value Added Tax (VAT) that came into being in 2005, is going to bechallenging. The two issues that dominate are in the areas of i) compensating thestates for possible revenue losses ii) Revamping the legal architecture.

A multiple duty structure raises problems of classification and revenue leakages. States have to tackle with pressure groups for exemption or for levy at a lower rate.

18. The total set of Greenhouse Gas (GHG); carbon-di-oxide, methane, nitrous oxide andozone; emissions caused directly and indirectly by an individual, organization, event or productis commonly called carbon footprint. This is often expressed as tonnes of carbon-di-oxideequivalent (tCO2e). Virtually all human activities cause GHG emission, agriculture, industrial

production, deforestation, burning of any fuel, transport as well as disposal of waste. Tocalculate a reliable carbon footprint it is mandatory to follow a structured process to identify,classify and quantify all possible sources of GHG emissions thoroughly. Typically there are

three major categories of GHG emissions: Direct emissions that result from activities that

are controlled by the organization / individual.

Emissions from the use of electricity. Indirect emissions from the use of products and services.

19. Bhilwara in Rajasthan was in the news recently due to the social audit conducted their toassess the effectiveness of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment GuaranteeScheme. The Bhilwara social audit experiment draws its strength from the NREGA auditsconducted in Andhra Pradesh. Andhra Pradesh was the first State in India to institutionalizesocial audit by means of a Social Audit Directorate. Since then, the state government hasgone a further step with a committed budget for social auditing and provisions to host auditresults on its NREGA website. Experts feel that such social audits create awareness amongthe poor beneficiaries whose slowly and surely learn to hold the programme managers toaccount.




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