Doubt Classes

2nd June 2017

National 

India is a World leader in Milk Production for the past 15 years

• Union Agriculture & Farmers Welfare Minister Radha Mohan Singh stated that India is a World leader in milk production for the past 15 years and this achievement is primarily due to the contribution of smallholder dairy farmers, milk producers, milk processing and marketing organisations and various other stakeholders involved.
• The Minister was speaking on the occasion of World Milk Day Celebration at NASC Complex, New Delhi.
• Union Agriculture & Farmers Welfare Minister said that in the year 2014-17, milk production increased by 16.9% to 465.5 million tonnes as compared to 398 million tonnes during 2011-14. Similarly, in the year 2014-17, income of farmers increased by 13.79% to Rs.33 per litre as compared to Rs.29 per litre during 2011-14.
• The government of India has approved a new program called National Mission for Bovine Productivity (NMBP) and allocated Rs.850 crore for increasing milk production and making dairying more remunerative for farmers.
• For the first time in the country, E-Pashu Haat portal has been established under Rashtriya Gokul Mission. The portal would play a vital role in making available quality bovine germplasm by linking farmers with livestock rearers. This portal would help the livestock rearers and the farmers to sell and purchase Cattle and Buffaloes of Indigenous Breeds.

The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi met Russian President Vladimir Putin at the 18th Annual India Russia Summit at St. Petersburg

• The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi met Russian President Vladimir Putin at the 18th Annual India Russia Summit at St. Petersburg.
• Addressing the media at the end of the Summit, President Prime Minister Modi recalled his first visit to St. Petersburg as Chief Minister of Gujarat in 2001. He said ties between India and Russia span the spectrum from Culture to Defence (Sanskriti se Suraksha).
•  Underlining the time-tested strategic dimension of the India Russia relationship, the Prime Minister mentioned the forthcoming first Tri-services exercise - INDRA 2017, between the two countries. Defence production Joint Ventures for the production of Kamov 226 helicopters and frigates were also mentioned. The Prime Minister welcomed Russia's unconditional support to India on the issue of cross border terrorism.
• He announced that a road in Delhi has been renamed after Ambassador Alexander Kadakin, whom he described as a friend of India, who passed away recently.
• India and Russia signed five agreements in sectors covering nuclear energy, railways, gems and jewellery, traditional knowledge and cultural exchanges.

Inauguration of MITS Mega Food Park at Rayagada, Odisha

• The first Mega Food Park in the state of Odisha M/s MITS Mega Food Park Pvt. Ltd. at Rayagada has been inaugurated on 1st June, 2017 by Smt. Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Hon’ble Minister of Food Processing Industries. This is the 7th Mega Food Park operationalized in the last 3 years by the present government.
• Speaking on the occasion Smt. Badal said that the Mega Food Park has been set up in 50.05 acre of land at the cost of Rs. 80.17crore. Government of India has provided a financial assistance of Rs. 50.00 Crore to the project. The Park also has a common administrative building for office and other uses by the entrepreneurs and 6 Primary Processing Centres (PPCs) at Kashipur, Padampur, Umerkote, Koraput, Digapahandi and Khordha having facilities for primary processing and storage near the farms.
• Hon’ble Minister for food Processing Industries said that the modern infrastructure for food processing created at MITS Mega Food Park will benefit the farmers, growers, processors and consumers of Odisha and prove to be a big boost to the growth of the food processing sector in the state of Odisha. The Mega Food Park will benefit not only the people of Rayagada but also the people of adjoining districts of Nabarangpura, Ganjam and Khordha.

Prestigious APQN Quality Award to NAAC for International Co-operation in Quality Assurance

·         National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) of India has received prestigious International Award of Asia Pacific Quality Network (APQN) titled “APQN Quality Award 2017 for International Co-operation in Quality Assurance.”

·         In a special Award ceremony held in Moscow, Russia, on 26th May, 2017 Dr. Jagannath Patil, Adviser, NAAC received the award on behalf of Prof. D.P. Singh, Director, NAAC.

• APQN Quality Award are among the most prestigious International Awards in quality assurance of higher education. In the past, reputed organisations like QAA, UK, European Network - ENQA, HKCAVQ from Hong Kong, etc have received this award.

Odisha to have first automatic coastal warning for disasters in India

·         Odisha is the first State in India to have developed an automatic public address system that can be activated along its entire coast. Neighbouring Andhra Pradesh is also building up such capability to face natural calamities.

·         The State government is all set to commission the ambitious Early Warning Dissemination System (EWDS) that would enable loud sirens go off simultaneously from towers at 122 locations by July.

·         The 122 locations include tourist destinations, fish landing centres and coastal habitations.

International

India, Russia sign agreement for two more units at Kudankulam

• Mr. Modi and Mr. Putin held wide-ranging talks on bilateral, regional and international issues of mutual interests, including ways to boost energy and trade ties.
• The two sides are also expected to announce, or at least finalise, the MoU for the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project units 5&6. “We have had discussions with many countries, but Russia has emerged as the only country with which we have successfully collaborated in the atomic power sector,” said Indian Ambassador Pankaj Saran.

Pakistan summons Indian Deputy High Commissioner over LoC firing

·         Pakistan Foreign Office summoned Deputy Indian High Commissioner J.P. Singh and lodged a protest over ceasefire violation along Line of Control.

·         “The Director General South Asis & SAARC Dr. Mohammad Faisal, summoned the Indian Deputy High Commissioner, Mr. J.P. Singh and condemned the unprovoked ceasefire violations by the Indian occupation forces on 1 June, 2017 at 0715 hours, on the LoC in Battal, Jandrot and Kotli sectors.

·         The Director General urged the Indian side to respect the 2003 Ceasefire Understanding; investigate this and other incidents of ceasefire violations; instruct the Indian forces to respect the ceasefire, in letter and spirit and maintain peace on the LoC. “The deliberate targeting of civilians is indeed condemnable and contrary to human dignity and international human rights and humanitarian laws,” he said.

India, Pakistan to become full SCO members at Astana summit: China

·         India and Pakistan’s admission as full members to the Beijing-backed Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) will be formalised at the Astana summit, China announced.

·         “The member’s states of the SCO are accelerating the MoU procedures with the two countries and everything is going very well,” foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said.

·         “We hope India and Pakistan as the full members at the Astana summit (on June 8-9). We also expect the Astana summit will complete the admission procedures for the two countries,” Ms. Hua told reporters.

·         The political and security grouping — headquartered in Beijing — was founded in 2001 and comprises Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, besides China as full members. It is mainly aimed at military cooperation between the members and involves intelligence-sharing, counter-terrorism operations in Central Asia.

·         Afghanistan, Belarus, India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan have observer status.

·         During the 2015 summit in Ufa, Russia, the SCO formally adopted a resolution starting the process to admit India and Pakistan into the organisation as full members.

·         Both the countries signed a Memorandum of Obligations to join the organisation at last year’s summit in Tashkent.

Contemporary Economic Developments

Shri Gadkari launches INAM-Pro +: the Web Platform for Sale and Purchase of Construction Material and Service

• The Minister of Road Transport & Highways and Shipping Shri Nitin Gadkari launched INAM-Pro + in New Delhi.
• INAM-Pro+ is an upgraded version of INAM-Pro, the web portal designed by National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd (NHIDCL) and launched by the Ministry two years back as a common platform to bring cement buyers and sellers together.
• More than 700 construction companies have used INAM-Pro during the last two years. With 37 Cement companies registered on it, the portal facilitated comparison of price, availability of materials etc. and made it very convenient for the prospective buyers to procure cement at reasonable rates in a transparent manner.
•  This reduced the time and effort in preparation of proposals and bid submissions, and helped increase efficiency in procurement of construction materials as one could place orders, obtain price quotes and track them in swift manner on this portal.
• INAM-Pro has been highly acclaimed by the construction industry and IT sector and has also been recognized and listed in the Book-on-Innovations "New Beginning" released by Hon'ble PM on the Civil Services Day.
• Following the success with cement, the portal has recently been upgraded as INAM-Pro+ to include the A to Z of construction materials, equipments/machinery and services.

Black money amnesty scheme collects Rs 5000 crore; response not good, says govt.

·         The response to the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY) has “not been so good,” with only Rs 5,000 crore unaccounted income being declared under the amnesty scheme, the government said.

·         The scheme was launched in December last year to enable people with black money to come clean by paying tax and penalty of 50 per cent.

·         “The response (to the PMGKY) has not been so good...about Rs 5,000 crore of income was declared in PMGKY. There are mainly two factors for it.

·         “One, even before the scheme was announced people had tried to put their cash into different accounts. Second was the (tax and penalty) rate,” Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia told reporters.

Manipulation probes by SEBI hit a new high

·         SEBI’s 54-page March order barring Reliance Industries and 12 other entities from the equity derivatives segment for one year and directing them to disgorge almost Rs 1,000 crore featured the word ‘manipulation’ 15 times.

·         That the markets regulator wasn’t singling out this one high-profile case was evident from the fact that the number of market manipulation and price rigging cases investigated by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) touched an all-time high of 174 in the nine-month period between April and December 2016.

·         This was the highest in the last seven financial years since data had been made available. Incidentally, this was also the first time that the number of such cases had exceeded 100 in a fiscal. The previous high was 86 in 2012-13.

·         “SEBI’s increased monitoring perhaps in the matters relating to collective investment schemes, misuse of long term capital gains (LTCG) and intentional self-trades through algorithmic trading seems to have led to the increase in numbers,” said Sumit Agrawal, partner, Suvan Law Advisors.

Internet usage rises 28% in 2016: report

·         Internet users in India grew to an estimated 355 million users in 2016, up 28% from 277 million in the previous year, according to a report.

·         However, Internet penetration still stands at 27%, according to Mary Meeker Internet Trends 2017 report.

·         It pointed out that while the average selling price of a smartphone and the cost of wireless data were declining, they were still unaffordable for many people.

·         Data prices have fallen more than 48% over the past last year as incumbent players were forced to bring down prices in response to low pricing by new entrant Reliance Jio, according to the report. The dip in data costs, it found, led to a 9x jump in data consumption in the country.

·         Further, Indians spent 150 billion hours between 2014-16 on Android phone at and are the biggest downloaders of applications from Google Play with more than six billion downloads during the two-year period. This, however, does not include China.

·         In India, little less than 80% of Internet usage happens via mobiles as opposed to the global average of 50%.

Online education industry in India to touch $1.96 bn. by 2021

·         The online education industry in India is estimated to witness a growth of eight times (8x) and reach $1.96 billion by 2021, according to a study conducted by technology major Google and KPMG.

·         The report, titled ‘Online Education in India: 2021, was based on market research conducted by KPMG and combined with insights from Google search.

·         The research covered more than 3,600 respondents from across 27 geographies, including metro and non-metros to understand the growth of consumer paid online education market in India by 2021. The respondents were in the age group of 16-45 years.

·         According to the report,the paid user base would grow six times (6x) from 1.6 million users in 2016 to 9.6 million users in 2021.

·         At a time when the IT services industry was talking about re-skilling, the study said re-skilling and online certification was the largest category in the online education space. In 2016, it was valued at $93 million and expected to grow at a CAGR of 38% to reach 463 million by 2021.

·         “The online education segment is set to become a multi-billion dollar opportunity in India. There are many factors driving this growth, including the perceived convenience, increased reach and personalisation offered by online channels,” said Nitin Bawankule, industry director, Google India, in a statement.

Science & Technology

LIGO makes third gravitational wave detection

·         The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors in the U.S. have detected yet another merger of two black holes on January 4, 2017. Named GW170104, this signal marks the third confirmed detection of gravitational waves coming from a binary black hole merger.

·         It is of great interest to the scientific community that the black holes, having masses nearly 31 times and 19 times the sun’s. Until the first detection of gravitational waves by LIGO in 2015 (GW150914) it was not known that such massive black holes could exist.

·         The gravitational wave detection was “the first time, a chance event; second time, a coincidence, and third, a pattern,” says Bangalore Sathyaprakash, a senior scientist with the LIGO collaboration in the U.S. and an editor of the paper describing these results which was published in Physical Review Letters.

·         India’s ASTROSAT mission did a related sensitive search for short duration x-ray flashes associated with the event and did not detect any. These results will be published soon by the scientists from ASTROSAT.

Sports

Ramachandra Guha quits as BCCI administrator

·         Historian Ramachandra Guha, one of the four members of the Committee of Administrators appointed by the Supreme Court to run the BCCI, wants to be out of the panel citing personal reasons.

·         Mr. Guha, informed a Vacation Bench of Justices M.M. Shantanagoudar and Deepak Gupta that he has resigned from his post and has discussed the issue with the committee's chairperson and former Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Rai.

·         The committee, also comprising legendary Test cricketer Diana Edulji and IDFC MD and CEO Vikram Limaye, was appointed on January 30 this year to ensure transparency in the administration of the embattled Board, which had witnessed the ousting of its then president Anurag Thakur for his inability to comply with the Justice Lodha panel reforms and for allegedly committing perjury with the Supreme Court.

Source:cl