July 8-14 Current Affairs

NATIONAL UPDATES

India, Iran ink 6 pacts; to boost strategic cooperation

Iran has once again broached the possibility of signing a Bilateral Investment Protection Agreement (BIPA) with India, which could increase bilateral trade to $30 billions.

The six pacts which were signed during the meeting were –

Air Services Agreement, Transfer of Sentenced Persons Agreement, MoU on Cooperation in New and Renewable Energy, MoU on Cooperation in Small Scale Industry between National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC) and Iranian Small Industries and Industrial Parks Organisation (ISIPO), On Programme of Cooperation on Science and Technology and MoU on Cooperation between Central Pulp and Paper Research Institute of India (CPPRI) and Gorgan University of Agricultural Science and Natural Resources (GUASNR).

MoU on new air services: Under the Air Services Agreement, signed by Krishna and Hosseini, the number of flights between the two nations will be enhanced from 23 to 31 every week and the two sides also agreed to allow each other's airlines to operate to two additional destinations.

The new Air Services Agreement (ASA) will be based on the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) template and the revised ASA will supersede the ASA initialled between the two countries on 30 April, 1980.

India to grow at 9.5% in 2010: IMF

THE International Monetary Fund raised India’s growth forecast for 2010 to 9.5% and then to settle to 8.5% in 2011, saying that robust corporate profits and favourable financing conditions are likely to fuel investments.

GDP growth forecasts for Asia have been revised upward for 2010, from about 7% in the April WEO to about 7.5%.

World growth is projected at about 4.5% in 2010 and 4.25% in 2011.

Revised NCHRH draft gets Health Ministry approval

The Union Health Ministry approved the revised draft for the proposed National Council for Human Resource in Health (NCHRH), which will be an overarching body for the health sector. The new draft proposes a National Committee for Accreditation and a National Medical Education and Training Board that will register and accredit medical colleges and prepare curricula for all streams of education in the health sector. The powers of the existing councils, including the Medical Council of India, will be substantially reduced and they will deal only with licensing, continuing education and ethics. These bodies, though under the general supervision of the NCHRH, will be entirely independent in their structure and functioning, and will consist of senior professional, selected or nominated through a rigorous process. The NCHRH will be a 15-member body.

New service for LPG refills

The Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry launched, ‘Preferred Time LPG Delivery Scheme,' which would allow professionals especially working men and women to get delivery of their LPG cylinder at their own preferred time for a small premium. Under it, the customer would not have to wait to take delivery of the cylinder as it would be delivered at a time of his choice for a small premium of Rs. 50 a cylinder.

The scheme is completely optional and customers who do not opt for it will continue to get their refills as per the current schedule. The cylinder delivery would depend on the amount paid. The customer would be charged Rs. 50 for delivery sought before 8 a.m. or between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. on any day of the week in metro cities, and Rs. 25 for any time between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. Customers in other cities and towns would be charged Rs. 40 and Rs. 20 respectively. On weekends (Saturday/Sunday), Rs. 25 would be charged extra for deliveries sought between 8 a.m. and 6 pm in metro towns, and Rs. 20 in other cities.

Approval for LPG subsidy to BPL families

The Planning Commission gave its approval to the Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry's schemes to give Rs. 1,400 subsidy per household to enable 35 lakh below poverty line (BPL) families get a Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) connection. The scheme will cost the exchequer around Rs. 490 crore in the first phase.

The scheme will act as an incentive to the BPL families in rural areas, small urban towns and cities which till have been left uncovered by the LPG network and are being targeted to pursue them to shift to clean cooking fuel.

Rs 250 cr for Bengal urban job scheme

The West Bengal Government has allocated an amount of Rs 250 crore for the recently introduced ‘West Bengal Urban Employment Scheme' for direct employment generation for city youths during the current fiscal.  The scheme aims to provide employment to local unemployed youths. A group consisting of ten or more members will be formed and brought under the purview of the scheme. There will be separate group for males and females and each group will be headed by a supervisor. The scope of work will be directly related to experience and availability of work. The groups will be engaged in areas such as water supply, drainage, disposal of waste, maintenance of roads, collection of waste materials from houses, solid waste management, infrastructure development in slum areas and construction or renovation of houses among others.

The minimum daily wage for labourers and supervisors under the scheme is Rs 100 and Rs 120 respectively.

Cabinet nod for Nalanda University Bill

The Union Cabinet cleared the Nalanda University Bill 2010, paving the way for the establishment of Nalanda University at an estimated cost of Rs. 1,005 crore. Bihar has acquired 500 acres of land in Rajgir, near the original Nalanda University site. In addition to scholars and students from all over the world, the establishment of the university would benefit the local people and encourage their participation.

PSLV launches 5 satellites

The Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C15) put five satellites in their precise orbit, unequivocally demonstrating its reliability and robustness.

The five satellites launched were:

ISRO's 694-kg Cartosat-2B;

 116-kg Alsat-2A of Algeria;

6.5-kg nano satellite, named NLS 6.1 AISSAT-1 of the Space Flight Laboratory of the University of Toronto, Canada;

one-kg nano satellite NLS 6.2 TISAT-1, built by the University of Applied Science Sciences of Switzerland;

and tiny Studsat, built by 35 students of seven engineering colleges in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

UNIDO gets new India representative

Ayumi Fujino has taken over as the UNIDO (United Nations Industrial Development Organization) Representative in India and head of its South Asia regional office. She succeeds Philippe Scholtes.

Solar-powered postal delivery rickshaws launched

Aimed at making lives of postmen more comfortable, the Department of Posts introduced solar-powered postal delivery rickshaws.

‘Soleckshaw' would run in Ajmer (Rajasthan) and gradually these modern postal-delivery vehicles would be introduced across the country. Developed jointly by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and Kinetic Motors, ‘Soleckshaw' are pollution-free rickshaws that run on inexpensive solar battery.

It was part of the Government's efforts to modernise the India Post services under Project Arrow, where post offices across the country are being modernised and digitised. Already over 1,000 post offices in 500 districts have been upgraded at a cost of over Rs.160-crore, while over 500 post offices are being modernised every year.

INTERNATIONAL UPDATES

China signs $525-million deal to help Pakistan highway projects in PoK

The Chinese government signed a $525-million deal to help Pakistan build two highways in the disputed Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) region. China has agreed to build a 165-km-long highway between Jaglot and Skardu, and a 135-km highway between Thakot and Sazin in the disputed Gilgit-Baltistan region near Pakistan's border with China. the projects would cost Pakistan Rs.45 billion, or $525 million. China has agreed to bear 85 per cent of the cost.

China agrees to renew Google's licence

The uncertainty over Google's status in China appeared to end, with the Chinese government agreeing to renew the Internet giant's licence to operate in the country after months of a stand-off.

Chinese government had renewed Google's Internet Content Provider (ICP) licence, which is required by any foreign firm operating in China, after Google seemingly backed down following a six-month row over censorship issues.

In January, Google announced it would close down its Chinese-language search-engine, saying it was prepared to leave the lucrative China market following attacks on Google accounts of several Chinese human rights activists. Google closed down its Google.cn website in March, and began automatically redirecting Internet users in China to its uncensored search-engine in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is exempt from the rest of China's strict censorship laws, which limit access to any politically-sensitive websites.

Oldest text found in Jerusalem

Archaeologists in Jerusalem have uncovered an ancient clay fragment dating back some 3,400 years, the oldest-ever sample of writing found in the Holy City. The tiny fragment measures two centimetres by 2.8 cm and is covered with cuneiform script, the earliest known form of writing in the world.  

The clay chip is a key find which indicates the importance of the city in the Bronze Age, around 1,400 BC.  The miniscule chip is believed to have been part of the royal archives and indicates the importance of Jerusalem as a major city in the late Bronze Age.

Blair Foundation shortlists films by Indian students

Six short films by Indian schoolchildren have been shortlisted for an international competition, sponsored by the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, to promote inter-faith dialogue through cinema. They were selected from among hundreds of entries around the world, including Britain, America and Pakistan. The films were chosen by a 14-member jury that included Mr. Blair and actors Anil Kapoor and Hugh Jackman. 

The shortlisted entries are: Faith is the question, Faith is the answer; Grandma or Godmom; True Friend; Child Rights (all from New Delhi) ; The Path (Kerala); and The Guide (Haryana).

Obama recruits yet another Indian-American

 It had appointed Preeta D. Bansal to serve as the Vice-Chair (Government Official) of the Council of the Administrative Conference of the U.S. (ACUS). Ms. Bansal's appointment follows close on the heels of Nisha Desai Biswal being nominated to the post of Assistant Administrator for Asia in the U.S. Agency for International Development. 

ECONOMY, BANKING AND FINANCE

Industrial growth dips to 11.5% in May

Maintaining the robust trend of double-digit expansion for the eighth month in a row, industrial growth nevertheless slipped from 16.52 per cent in April to 11.5 per cent in May this year, despite a healthy show by the manufacturing sector.

World Bank approves two loans

The Centre signed two agreements with the World Bank with latter agreeing to give $407 million loan to scale up microfinance services in unbanked areas and improve capacity to generate quality statistics.

While $300 million is for ‘Scaling up sustainable and responsible microfinance project', $107 million has been granted for ‘India statistical strengthening project'.

The objective of ‘Scaling up sustainable and responsible microfinance project' is to scale up access to sustainable microfinance services to the financially excluded, particularly in under-served areas of India through, among other things, the introduction of innovative financial products and fostering transparency and responsible finance. The project will be implemented by the Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) over five years.

Similarly, the ‘India statistical strengthening project' will support statistical reforms in the country. While $100 million is a credit from World Bank's concessionary lending arm International Development Association, the remaining $200 million is a loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Finmin cuts unique ID budget by Rs 4,000cr

UPA’s ambitious project to assign a unique identification number to a billion citizens has been dealt a hard blow with the finance ministry slashing its budget by more than half. finance committee had halved the budget of Unique Identification Authority of India to Rs 3,000 crore from Rs 7,000 crore. 

The severe pruning will force UIDAI to issue only 10 crore UID numbers instead of the 60 crore it had originally planned for the first phase. Fund crunch may be due to increased spending on flagship schemes and project for Naxal-hit districts 

IOC, RIL among 8 Indian cos in Fortune 500 list

EIGHT Indian companies, including oil major Indian Oil Corporation and Mukesh Ambaniled Reliance Industries, have made the cut in the list of the world’s 500 largest companies compiled by Fortune. The league of 500 elite companies for 2010 is topped by US retailer Wal-Mart Stores, followed by oil giant Royal Dutch Shell and another oil major, Exxon Mobil, in that order. 

Besides IOC and RIL, the other Indian companies in the list are steel-maker Tata Steel, auto company Tata Motors, oil entities Bharat Petroleum, Hindustan Petroleum and Oil & Natural Gas and public sector bank SBI. Tata Motors has made an entry into the list for the first time this year, while seven other Indian entities, which were part of the list in the previous year as well, are also featured in this list. IOC has the highest rank of 125 among the featured Indian companies, followed by RIL at the 175th spot, SBI (282), BPCL (307), HPCL (354), Tata Steel (410), ONGC (413) and Tata Motors (442). 

IRDA fixes Rs 6,000 as maximum charge for exiting ULIPs

Insurance regulator IRDA said ULIP holders will have to pay up to Rs 6,000 if they want to discontinue a policy within the first four years. 

When the policy is discontinued during policy years one to four, the holders of the policy would be charged in this range. However, policies discontinued from the fifth year onwards will not carry discontinuation charges. 

TN among top 3 investment destinations

Tamil Nadu has been found to be one of the top three preferred investment destinations in India in a business survey conducted by Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham). The ranking was done on the basis of investment promotion, the government's strategies and the efficiency of the bureaucracy.

The two other states in this category were Gujarat and Maharashtra. 

The aim of the survey entitled ‘Bizcon' is to understand the current business trends and perceptions and also to guage the business mood and the state of the economy.

IDFC Announces Appointment of Chetan Dave as President and CEO of Real Estate Investments

IDFC announced today the appointment of Chetan Dave as President & CEO of Real Estate Investments. In this role Mr. Dave will be responsible for building & developing a portfolio of infrastructure focused real estate assets and a real estate private equity funds management business. 

About IDFC Ltd. 

Infrastructure Development Finance Company Limited (IDFC) is India's premier financial services institution focused on infrastructure. It was set up in 1997 by the Government of India as a financier and catalyst for private sector's involvement in infrastructure development in India. For over 12 years, since the company's initial public offering in 2005, IDFC has evolved into a 'one stop shop' for infrastructure finance in India, meeting the complex and ambitious requirements of an expanding client base.

Food inflation down

Food inflation dipped marginally to 12.63 per cent for the week ended June 26 from 12.92 per cent registered in the previous week.

Pfizer launches new variant of pneumonia-prevention vaccine

Global pharma major Pfizer launched a new variant of pneumonia-prevention vaccine, Prevanar-13, in the Indian market. India recorded over 3.71 lakh infant deaths due to pneumonia every year and the vaccine had a very large opportunity as around 25 million births occurred in the country every year.

SPORTS

Football - Spain winner of FIFA world cup 2010

 Spain emerged as the winner of FIFA World Cup Final 2010 after defeating the Netherlands by 1-0. And it is the first time Spain won the world cup while Brazil has won it record five times. A late goal from Andres Iniesta gave Spain victory over the Netherlands.  

Cricket

Pakistan completes a 2-0 series win 

Pakistan beat Australia by 11 runs in the second Twenty20 International at Edgbaston to complete a 2-0 series win.

Corporate Cup to kick-start 2010-11 season

The BCCI has scheduled the Corporate Cup limited-overs tournament from September 1 to 8.

BCCI Tournament schedule 2010-11:

Sept.1-8: BCCI Corporate Cup, 

Oct. 1-5: Zal Irani Cup (venue to be decided),

Oct.8-11: N K P Salve Trophy (Challenger series) at Indore, 

Oct. 20-25: Inter-state Twenty20 (Zonal), 

Oct 25-30: Inter-state Twenty20 (zonal), 

Nov. 1 to Jan.15, 2011: Ranji Trophy, 

Jan.19-Feb. 6: Duleep Trophy, 

Feb. 10-18: Inter-state one-day league (Zonal), 

Feb. 22-March 1: Inter-state knock out for the Vijay Hazare Trophy (North Zone), 

March 6-9: Inter-zonal one-day for the Prof. D.B. Deodhar Trophy; 

March 12-16: Inter-state Twenty20 knock out for the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (BCCI allotted venues)

Note it down:  All these cups/trophies relate to cricket

England wins series

England beat Bangladesh by 144 runs in the third One-Day International at Edgbaston to clinch the three-match series 2-1. 

Webber wins British GP

Australian Mark Webber cruised to his third win of the season when he dominated the British Grand Prix for Red Bull.

Home-favourite Lewis Hamilton, the 2008 champion, finished second for McLaren ahead of third-placed German Nico Rosberg in a Mercedes.

India loses to Malaysia (Netball)

Malaysia easily dismissed the challenge of surprise finalist Sri Lanka 63-39 to retain the Asian girls' youth netball championship at the Thyagaraj Sports Complex  

Standings: 1. Malaysia, 2. Sri Lanka, 3. Singapore, 4. India, 5. Hong Kong, 6. Thailand 

India triumphs at Colombo (Squash)

Ravi Dixit, a product of the Indian Squash Academy, made history by becoming the first Indian to win the under-19 boys' title in the Asian junior squash championship (Individuals) in Colombo and Chennai girl Dipika Pallikal won the u-19 girls' title, for her maiden triumph.

Days

World Population Day – July 11

More Affairs

• Two minor planets discovered by the Lincoln Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States have been renamed after two students of a Kolkata-based school. 
• Lord Swraj Paul unveils own portrait
• The 22-year-old Patna-born prodigy Tathagat Avtar Tulsi is all set to become the country's youngest faculty at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Powai in Mumbai.
• Missing Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri'  reappears in Washington