Indira Gandhi International airport
current affairs march 2013 news OF march 2013
current affairs march 2013 news OF march 2013
National
Delhi
airport wins international health, safety award
The IGI airport in
New Delhi, operated by DIAL, has become the first Indian facility to bag the
'International
Safety Award' from
British Safety Council. This makes Indira Gandhi International airport (IGI),
as the first
and the only
airport in India to win this prestigious award in field of health and safety.
The award benchmarks
health and safety
performance of an organisation on an international level to recognise the
leaders in this
field. British
Safety Council is one of the largest independent occupational health, safety
and environmental
organisations in
the world. The International Safety Awards are open to all companies across
industries
globally and the
applicants are adjudged across 12 parameters related to health and safety
management.
DIAL secured this
award with an overall score of 57 (on 60 Point scale) for the year 2013.
Pinaka
rockets successfully test-fired
Indigenously
developed 'Pinaka' rockets were successfully test-fired from a multi-barrel
rocket launcher
(MBRL) by an
armament establishment from a base at Chandipur-on-sea. Pinaka', which has
undergone
several tough
tests since 1995, has already been inducted into the armed forces. Test was
conducted by
personnel from
Armament Research and Development Establishment (ARDE), Pune unit at Proof and
Experimental
Establishment (PXE) firing point-2 at Chandipur. Pinaka' is an area weapon
system with a
range of 40 km.
The quick reaction time and high rate of fire of the system gives an edge to
the army during
a low-intensity
conflict situation. The unguided rocket system is meant to neutralise large
areas with rapid
salvos. Pinaka'
system can fire a salvo of 12 rockets in 44 seconds, the sources said, adding
that the battery
of six launchers
can neutralise at a time a target area of 3.9 sq km.
Private
hospitals can't turn away rape victims
The Delhi High
Court has directed the city government and police to create public awareness
about its
orders that rape
and road accident victims cannot be denied treatment by private hospitals.
A division bench
of Chief Justice D. Murugesan and Justice V.K. Jain asked the government and
police to
ensure
"publicity" of its order within a week. The court issued the
directions after the government said it had
issued notice to
all hospitals not to deny emergency treatment to rape and road accident
victims.
Maharashtra
to have highest urban population
Maharashtra would
have maximum urban population by 2026, followed by Uttar Pradesh and Tamil
Nadu.
Quoting the
population projection by the Census of India, the Union urban development
ministry in a reply in
the Lok Sabha has
stated that country's urban population will reach 53.48 crore in another 13
years. It is
estimated that
over 38% of total projected population will be living in urban areas. As per
the projection,
India's total
population would reach 140 crore by 2026.
According to
Census of India, urban population in Maharashtra would be 8.13 crore, while in
UP it would
cross 6.75 crore.
The other states that make up the top five states are Tamil Nadu (5.37 crore),
Gujarat (3.67
crore) and West
Bengal (3.53 crore). Lakshadweep will have the least number of urban population
at around
24,000. Among
cities, Mumbai would have the highest population of at least 2.63 crore,
followed by Delhi
(over 2.24 crore).
Kolkata would slip to third slot with a little over 2 crore population. In
2001, Kolkata was the
second most
populated city in India after Mumbai.
Congress
set to form government in Meghalaya
The ruling
Congress is all set to form the next government in Meghalaya even as it fell
short of the magic
number by two
seats. The Congress won 29 of the total 60 seats of Meghalaya Assembly, the
results of
which were
declared. This is the highest number of seats won by the Congress in Meghalaya
since the
creation of the
State in 1972. The party won 25 seats in 2008. The party can seek support
either from the
independents, who
have won 13 seats, or the regional parties. The State this time has also elected
four
women candidates
(all from the Congress), which is the highest since 1972.
International:
Jack
Lew confirmed as new US Treasury Secretary
The US Senate
confirmed Obama's former chief of staff Jack Lew as the country's 76th Treasury
Secretary.
Lew, 57, who also
held the position of Director of the Office of Management and Budget, replaces
Timothy
Geithner as the
Treasury Secretary. The US senate voted 71-26 with the support from 20
republicans.
Bangladesh
sentences Islamic party leader to death in war crimes trial
A top leader of
Bangladesh's fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami party was sentenced to death for
"crimes
against
humanity", including genocide and religious persecution, during the
country's 1971 war of
independence
against Pakistan, triggering fierce clashes across the country that left at
least 35 people dead.
A special
Bangladeshi tribunal handed down death penalty to Delwar Hossain Sayedee,
vice-president of the
party, was
sentenced to death after he was found guilty of eight counts out of 20
involving rape, mass killings
and atrocities
during the nine-month freedom war.
He is the third JI
politician to be convicted by the International Crimes Tribunal since the trial
of war crimes
suspects, mostly
belonging to the Islamist group. Sayedee, was arrested on June 29, 2010 and was
indicted
on October 3, for
20 charges of crimes against humanity including looting, killing, arson, rape
and forcefully
converting
non-Muslims to Islam.
China
to launch second manned space mission
China will send
its second manned mission this year to dock with a space module currently
orbiting the
Earth, as the
country continues experiments to set up a Spacelab to rival Russia's Mir
station.
China's new manned
spacecraft will be launched some time between June and August. Three Chinese
astronauts will
board the Shenzhou-10, which is expected to dock with the orbiting lab module
Tiangong-1.
The Tiangong-1 was
sent into space in September 2011. It later docked with the Shenzhou-8 unmanned
spacecraft in
November 2011, and with the Shenzhou-9 manned spacecraft in June, 2012. In
2012, China
sent its first
woman astronaut aboard Shenzhou-9.
Business & Economy:
Lowest
Defence Budget increase in over 30 years
India will spend
its lowest on defence expenditure in over three decades with several major
modernisation
projects set to be
affected after the Union government proposed a modest hike in the annual Budget
that
amounts to just
over 5 per cent over the year 2012. As the government scrambles to cut costs
given the
dismal growth
rate, defence spending is one of the hardest hit with the projected Budget of
Rs 2.03 lakh
crore coming up to
barely 1.79 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product. This is a record low for
India in at
least three
decades, with the figure dropping considerably from 3.16 per cent of the GDP in
1987. The
expenditure Budget
has also revealed that the Defence Ministry suffered a Budget cut of over Rs
14,000
crore in 2012, a
majority of which over Rs 10,000 crore had been marked for procurement of new defence
systems.
Govt
to set up two ports in Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal
The government has
said it will set up a port each at Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal in 2013-14,
to
effectively handle
increased cargo traffic. Ministry of Shipping, in the Maritime Agenda 2010-20,
had
proposed setting
up of two major ports which handle heavy cargo traffic in the country. It had
envisaged
developing two new
major ports, one each on east and west coasts. At present there are 12 major
ports in
India Mumbai,
Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT), Kolkata (with Haldia), Chennai, Cochin,
Paradip, New
Mangalore,
Marmagao, Ennore, Tuticorin, Kandla and Visakhapatanam.
First
home buyers get tax sop up to Rs 30K
Offering the
biggest sop to the first-home buyer, Finance Minister P Chidambaram proposed a
one-time
benefit of up to
Rs 30,000 by way of an additional deduction of Rs 1 lakh paid towards interest
on a home
loan besides the
Rs 1.5 lakh deduction now available. However, the finance minister has at the
same time
proposed a 1 per
cent tax deducted at source (TDS) on high-value transactions of over Rs 50 lakh
on
immovable
properties. He introduced a new Section 80EE wherein home buyers will get a
window of one
year to avail of
the new benefit. To be eligible to claim the benefit, home buyers will have to
buy their first
home whose value
must not exceed Rs 40 lakh, and the loan should be restricted to Rs 25 lakh.
While the
loan needs to be
taken between April 1, 2013 and March 31, 2014, the buyer can claim the benefit
of
deduction of Rs 1
lakh over two years.
Technology:
Super-massive
black hole spinning at speed of light
Astronomers, for
the first time, have measured the spin rate of a super-massive black hole - and
found it is
rotating at nearly
the speed of light. The supermassive black hole lies at the center of the
spiral galaxy NGC
1365. The sphere
is more than 2 million miles across eight times the distance from Earth to the
Moon.
Astronomers
measured its jaw-dropping spin rate using new data from the Nuclear Spectroscopic
Telescope
Array, or NuSTAR,
and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton X-ray satellites. A black hole's
gravity is
so strong that, as
the black hole spins, it drags the surrounding space along. The edge of this
spinning hole
is called the
event horizon. Any material crossing the event horizon is pulled into the black
hole. Inspiraling
matter collects into an accretion
disk, where friction heats it and causes it to emit X-rays.
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