Civil Services Examination ISO certificate Bharat Ratna JRD Tata Award

Civil Services Examination
The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has been given an ISO certificate, a global recognition for quality management, for allocation of IAS, IFS and IPS, among other services to candidates on the basis of Civil Services Examination.

Former Agriculture Secretary P K Mishra has been appointed Additional Principal Secretary to Prime MinisterNarendra Modi.

India had 175,000 millionaire households in 2013, ranking 15th in the world, according to a wealth report which said the total number of millionaire households in the world rose to 16.3 million last year.

Somasundaram, Member (Air Navigation Services), Airports Authority of India has been conferred upon the prestigious Bharat Ratna JRD Tata Award for the year 2013.

The total approximate earnings of Indian Railways on originating basis during 1st April 2014 to 31st May 2014 were Rs. 24272.45 crore compared to Rs. 22445.29 crore during the same period last year, registering an increase of 8.14 per cent.

Rising Spanish star Jese Rodriguez has emerged as the most popular young football star on Google among those who would make their debut in the FIFA World Cup which gets under way in Brazil on Thursday.

Cooperative action by countries can increase global output by two per cent over the next five years, the head of the International Monetary Fund has said.

Bolstered by improving business sentiments, Indian employers have the strongest hiring plans worldwide for the next three months as they are expected to embark on "vigorous" recruitment activities.

Bowler and allrounder Gary Gilmour, who played 15 cricket tests for Australia between 1973 and 1977, died at the age of 62.

World news 9 november 2012

National:

Genetic changes protect primitive Indian tribes from malaria

Certain genetic variations among primitive Indian tribal populations were found to be shielding them against

malaria. Malaria claims thousands of lives across the globe annually and is caused by parasite Plasmodium

through the bite of an infected mosquito. While it is known that mutations in genes could lead to genetic

diseases, scientists have studied whether genetic variations would lead to either susceptibility to malaria or

resistance against the disease. Samples were collected from patients suffering from the disease from

malaria-endemic regions of Chhattisgarh and Odisha as also from normal population in those areas to see if

there were any differences among them at genetic level. Although genetic variations in Interleukin-4 (IL-4),

an anti-inflammatory gene have been reported to affect the risk of infectious and auto-immune diseases, this

was the first study to look into its contribution in malaria, according to Kumaraswamy Thangaraj, Deputy

Director, the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology.

UoH doctorate for Nobel laureate

University of Hyderabad will award honorary doctorate to Rudolf A Marcus, Nobel laureate in Chemistry, on

November 11. The 89-year-old Prof. Marcus was conferred honorary doctorate in absentia held on October

1. Rudolph A. Marcus was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in

1992 for advancing the theory of electron-transfer reactions in chemical systems.

Indian surgeon’s cheaper kidney transplant protocol

A treatment protocol that drastically reduces the cost of kidney transplants, developed by a Hyderabadbased

nephrologist, has been adopted successfully in several developing countries. The Philippines, Cuba,

Guatemala and the Dominican Republic have already implemented Dr. K.S. Nayak’s treatment approach,

while several other Latin American countries are in talks with him to firm up the modalities to incorporate it in

their surgery protocols. According to him, drugs account for the high cost of kidney transplants. To ensure

that the body accepts a foreign organ and to avoid rejection, patients are given antibodies that suppress

immunity. Right now, these antibodies are usually derived from horses and rabbits. “The rabbit-origin drugs

are expensive and multiple doses are usually given. If the same antibodies derived from horses are given,

the cost would come down drastically and a single dose would be sufficient. In India, there are only four or

five centres that employ this method.

IAF to acquire air version of BrahMos

BrahMos Aerospace firmed up a contract worth Rs. 6,515 crore with the Indian Air Force for manufacturing

the air version of the supersonic cruise missile, a product of Indo-Russian collaboration. The contract was

signed close on the heels of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) endorsing the Air Force requirement

for the missile under development, which will be deployed on the Sukhoi-30 MKI aircraft. The missile, with a

take-off mass of 2,500 kg and a stand-off range of 290 km, is already in operation with the Army and the

Navy. The air version, though, will be lighter and a tag shorter than the existing missile so that it can be

gravity-dropped from the aircraft and fired. It will still be the heaviest of all missiles carried by the Russianorigin

aircraft.

International:

Rare diamond of Indian-origin to fetch over USD 15 million

One of the world's most historic diamonds, the 76.02 carats Archduke Joseph, from India's Golconda mines,

is expected to fetch much over USD 15 million when it goes up for auction. It's a 76.02 carat cushion-shaped

D-colour diamond (considered to be the most flawless), from the famous Golconda mines in India. The

diamond is of the size of a domino and more than half an inch thick. It will be auctioned in Switzerland on

November 13. The diamond has the same provenance as other illustrious jewels including the Koh-i-noor,

part of the crown jewels held in the Tower of London, and the Regent, believed by many to be the finest

diamond in the French crown jewels and now in the Louvre museum in Paris. All three jewels come from the

now closed Golconda mines, which produced the purest gems. The jewel belonged to Archduke Joseph of

Austria (1872-1962).

Indian American on cusp of House victory

Dr Ami Bera, the Indian-American physician and educator from California, appeared poised to enter

the House of Representatives, but the authorities were still to declare the result because of the

narrow winning margin. When the counting ended, Bera, a Democrat, led with 88,406 votes against sitting

Republican member Dan Lungren’s 88,222 - a difference of just 184 votes. Since the winning margin is less

than two per cent of the votes cast, the State authorities have refrained from declaring the result right away,

instead putting it in the “close contest” category. It was not immediately clear if they planned to order a

recount. If Bera is declared the winner, he will be only the third Indian-American to make it to the 223-yearold

House of Representatives. The first was Dalip Singh Saund, a Democrat elected thrice back in the

1950s, and the second was Bobby Jindal, a Republican, elected twice in 2004 and 2006.

Business & Economy:

Panels to deal with CST compensation, GST framework issues

With the States firm on seeking a settlement on the Central Sales Tax (CST) compensation issue before

moving ahead with rollout of the Goods and Service Tax (GST), Finance Minister P. Chidambaram has

announced that two committees would be constituted to address the contentious issues and move ahead on

implementation of the indirect tax regime. While one committee would deal with the CST compensation

issue, the other would deliberate on the design of the GST framework. The committees will submit their

reports by December 31. As per the plan worked out, the two sub-committees are to be constituted by

Empowered Committee Chairman Sushil Modi, the Centre will nominate its members to both the committees

to be headed by the Revenue Secretary. On finalisation of their reports by the two sub-committees, the

Finance Minister would then take them up for consideration and approval. Empowered Committee by

Finance Secretary R.S. Gujral, stating that States would not be paid any CST compensation from 2011-12

onwards. Also, the compensation for 2010-11 would be restricted to the total of Rs 6,394 crore that had

already been paid.

Cabinet okays one-time fee on telcos

Union Cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, accepted an Empowered Group of Ministers’

recommendations that mobile phone companies be charged a one-time fee for the excess spectrum they

owned beyond a cap set by the telecom regulator. Spectrum will be charged for holdings beyond 4.4 (Mhz) in

GSM on auction-determined price. For GSM above 6.2 (Mhz), a one-time charge will be levied from July,

2008, onwards. The ministerial panel had suggested that GSM-based telecom operators be asked to pay for

airwaves they hold beyond 4.4 Mega-Hertz (Mhz) at an auction-determined price, while CDMA carriers pay

for holdings beyond 2.5 MHz for the remaining validity of their permits.

Centre approves 10 % disinvestment in HAL

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has approved divestment of 10 per cent equity in

Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) out of its holding on 100 per cent through an Initial Public Offer (IPO) in

the domestic market as per the SEBI rules and regulations. A five per cent discount on the issue price will be

allowed for retail investors as well as to eligible employees of HAL applying under the employees’ reservation

portion. At present, HAL is handling key projects for the armed forces which include the development of

‘Tejas’ light combat aircraft, ‘Dhruv’ advanced light helicopters and indigenous production of Russian-origin

Su-30MKI fighter aircraft.

Banks to usher in cheque standardization

Banks across the country are in the process of issuing new-look cheques with more security and

standardised features to all its customers by December 31, 2012. From January 1, 2013, cheques which do

not conform to CTS-2010 standards would not be entertained by banks. ‘Cheque Truncation System (CTS)-

2010 standard’ is a set of benchmarks towards achieving standardisation of cheques issued by banks across

the country. These include provision of mandatory minimum security features on cheque forms such as

quality of paper, watermark, bank’s logo in invisible ink, void pantograph and standardisation of field

placements on cheques. The benchmark prescriptions known as ‘CTS-2010 standard’ are to be implemented

by December 31, 2012.

Ratan Tata steps down as Tata Power Chairman

Tata Power said Ratan Tata has stepped down as chairman of the company. Ratan N Tata has stepped

down as chairman of Tata Power and Cyrus P Mistry, has been appointed chairman. Ratan Tata, who has

been on the company board since 1989, would remain a board member till his retirement in December 2012.

Mistry, who would be succeeding as the chairman of Tata group, was inducted into Tata Power board on

December 23, 2011.

Cipla cuts cancer drugs prices

Cipla has slashed the prices of its three generic cancer drugs - Erlocip, Docetax and Capegard by up to 64

per cent. The drugs are used for treatment of lung and pancreatic cancer, breast cancer, head and neck

cancer, gastric cancer, bladder and colorectal and colon cancers.

Vodafone, ICICI launching m-pesa mobile payment system in India

Vodafone and ICICI Bank has entered into an alliance to launch " m-pesa", a mobile money transfer and

payment service, by the year-end. The service will be launched through Mobile Commerce Solutions, a

Vodafone India subsidiary, and ICICI Bank. It would comprise a mobile money account with ICICI Bank and a

Mobile Wallet issued by MCSL.

Technology:

New planet discovered in habitable zone

An Anglo-German team of astronomers has discovered a new planet orbiting a nearby sun at just the right

distance for an Earth-like climate that could support life. The team actually found three new planets orbiting

the star 44 light years away, but only one of them is in the so-called Goldilocks Zone, the band around a sun

where temperatures are neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to exist. The star HD 40307 is a perfectly

quiet old dwarf star, so there is no reason why such a planet could not sustain an Earth-like climate, said

Guillem Angla-Escude from Germany's University of Goettingen, who led the research with Mikko Tuomi at

the University of Hertfordshire in Britain. The planet has a mass at least seven times that of Earth but it orbits

at about the same distance from its sun, meaning it receives a similar amount of solar energy as Earth gets.

More than 800 planets have been discovered outside our solar system since the first was detected in the

early 1990s, but only a handful of those have been in the habitable zone.

HP, Intel unveil Itanium server technology

Intel and Hewlett-Packard Co unveiled new server technology based on the high-end niche Itanium

processors at the center of a recent dispute between Hewlett-Packard and Oracle. The future of servers built

with Itanium chips was thrown into doubt last year due to a bitter legal battle between long-time partners HP

and Oracle and it remains unclear to some experts even after a California state court judge ruled in favor of

HP.

Sport:

Asiad ’19 in Hanoi

Vietnam’s capital city Hanoi will host the 2019 Asian Games, the Olympic Council of Asia announced in

Macau. Hanoi won the right to host the show piece event in 2019 over Surabaya of Indonesia in a two-city

race following a ballot of delegates at the 31st OCA General Assembly. OCA president H.E. Sheikh Ahmad al

Fahad al Sabah congratulated the two bidding nations on their preparations and presentations, and said both

were suitable to host the 18th edition of the Asian Games in 2019.

Abitova banned

Russian long distance runner Inga Abitova has been banned for two years for a doping offence, the country’s

athletics federation announced.

HC sets aside BCCI’s lifetime ban on Azharuddin

The Andhra Pradesh High Court has set aside the lifetime ban imposed by the Board of Control for Cricket in

India (BCCI) against Mohd. Azharuddin, on charges of match-fixing. A Bench comprising Justices Asutosh

Mohanto and Krishna Mohan Reddy was allowing against the order of the civil court at Hyderabad. The BCCI

passed an order in December 2000 against the Azharuddin based on the report by the Central Bureau of

Investigation (CBI). Challenging the ban, Mr. Azharuddin filed a suit before the II Additional Chief Judge, City

Civil Court who dismissed his suit. Mr. Azharuddin, then, challenged the judgment in the Andhra Pradesh

High Court. The BCCI had banned him along with another Test player Ajay Sharma, while slapping a fiveyear

ban on his former teammates Ajay Jadeja and Manoj Prabhakar along with physiotherapist Ali Irani.