August General Awareness 2012

7/28/2019 August General Awareness 2012

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General Awareness Updates August 2012

Persons in News

Bujar Nishani has been elected the new President of Albania.

Saudi Arabia s Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud has died, aged 78. His 76-year-old brother, Prince Salman, was appointed as the next heir to King Abdullah, who isthought to be 89.

Pakistan s Supreme Court disqualified Yusuf Raza Gilani from his post as the primeminister of Pakistan.

In February this year, Pakistan SC summoned Mr Gilani to charge him with contempt of

court over his refusal to ask Switzerland to investigate President Asif Ali Zardari, who isalso the head of the ruling Pakistan People Party, for money laundering.

Mr Gilani told the court he would never think of violating judicial orders, but said hecould not write the letter because the head of state he enjoyed immunity under theconstitution.

The allegations against Mr Zardari date back to the 1990s, when he and his late wife,former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, are suspected of using Swiss bank accounts tolaunder an estimated U.S.$12m allegedly paid in bribes by companies seeking customs

inspection contracts. The Swiss shelved the cases in 2008 when Mr Zardari becamepresident.

Mr Gilani was succeeded by Raja Parvez Ashraf , a stalwart of the ruling PPP,as Pakistan s 25th Prime Minister as the country struggled to come out of its latestpolitical crisis.

The 61-year-old Mr Ashraf, a staunch loyalist of the Bhutto family, was pitched forkedinto the hot seat after the original choice Makhdoom Shahbuddin faced an arrestwarrant. But the new leader himself is dogged by corruption charges relating to his

tenure as power minister.

Hosni Mubarak , Egypt s former president, and Habib al -Adli, his interior minister, weresentenced to life in prison for their role in the brutal suppression of protesters in last

year s uprising. Six security chiefs were acquitted. Mr Mubarak and his two sons were

cleared of separate corruption charges. But thousands protested in Cairo sTahrir Square,as anger grew that no one had been convicted of actually carrying out the killings.

Mohamed Morsi Isa al-Ayyat won the historic post-Hosni Mubarak presidential polls

in Egypt, beating his rival and former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq to become the


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country s first freely elected President. Mr Morsi won the presidential run -off with 51.73

per cent of the vote.

Mr Morsi has been a leading figure of the Muslim Brotherhood, which had been bannedunder the Hosni Mubarak regime for its radical Islamist ideology. In 2011, the MuslimBrotherhood floated the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) to fight elections to theEgyptian parliament.

A military court in Tunisia sentenced toppled president Zine el Abidine Ben Ali to 20years imprisonment in absentia on various charges including incitement to murder. MrBen Ali, who is exiled in Saudi Arabia, was found guilty of inciting disorder, murder andlooting, the court said in its verdict over the deaths of four youths, shot dead in t hetown of Ouardanine in January 2011.

Four protesters were shot dead in the eastern coastal town as they tried to prevent the

flight of Mr Ben Ali s nephew Kais, a day after the dictator Ali flew out of the country on

January 14.

Mr Ben Ali faces countless trials and has already been sentenced to more than 66 yearsin prison on a range of other charges including drug trafficking and embezzlement. He

and his wife are the subject of an international arrest warrant, but Saudi authorities havenot responded to Tunisian extradition requests.

A military prosecutor is also seeking the death penalty against the former president overa similar incident which saw at least 22 people killed in pro-democracy protests in thetowns of Thala and Kasserine in late December 2010 and January 2011. The weeks of protests that started in December 2010 toppled one of the most tightly controlledregimes in the Arab world and also set off a wave of protests which became known asthe Arab Spring and is still sweeping the region.

Elinor Ostrom , the first and only woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics, has died,aged 78. She won the Nobel Prize in 2009 for her work on resource sharing. She sharedthe prize, officially known as the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences inMemory of Alfred Nobel, with University of California economist OliverWilliamson, who also studied the way economic decisions are made outside markets.

Britain celebrated the 60th year of Queen Elizabeths reign with a four-dayextravaganza that included a flotilla of 1,000 boats on the River Thames, a star-studdedconcert in front of Buckingham Palace and a thanksgiving service at St Paul s Cathedral.Queen Elizabeth II assumed the monarchy in 1952.

Awards & Honours


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Rockefeller Foundation honours Ratan Tata with LifetimeAchievement Award

Tata Sons Chairman, Ratan Tata (right), has been awarded aLifetime Achievement Award by the prestigious RockefellerFoundation in New York for his innovation in philanthropy. Hewas honoured by the Foundation for incorporating public goodinto the business model of the Tata Group.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr Tata said that businessesshould be sensitive to the fact that they are making adifference in places where they operate and they have to dothings to help the community prosper. This is all the moreevident in the developing world where disparities are so huge. If the industry is not

sensitive to it, they would encourage a backlash to take place and many companies thatgo overseas are getting to understand the need to do this and those that do not are

really hurting the reputation of other industries, Mr Tata said.

When you see in places like Africa and parts of Asia abject poverty, hungry children and

malnutrition around you, and you look at yourself as being people who have well beingand comforts, I think it takes a very insensitive, tough person not to feel they need to do

something, not just by providing material support but by playing a role in helping give

prosperity to the community in which they belong, Mr Tata added. He said employees in

his organisation have gained a certain spirit of being part of a community in which theyoperate.

It has become the DNA of the organisation to play a role in the community, he added.

Mr Tata gave the example of a voluntary group in his organisation in which employeesget leave from their jobs to help victims of natural disasters like tsunamis andearthquakes in India. He said Tata employees help in rebuilding and adopting villagesand then return to their jobs.

Sports

MOTORRACING

British Grand Prix, Silverstone Winner : Mark Webber (Australia) Second : Fernando Alonso (Spain) Third : Sebastian Vettel (Germany)

Canadian Grand Prix, Montreal Winner : Lewis Hamilton (G. Britain / McLaren-Mercedes) Second : Romain Grosjean (France/ Lotus-Renault)


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Third : Sergio Perez (Mexico / Sauber-Ferrari)

European Grand Prix, Valencia (Spain) Winner : Fernando Alonso (Spain / Ferrari) Second : Kimi Raikkonen (Finland / Lotus-Renault)

Third : Michael Schumacher (Germany / Mercedes)

TENNIS

2012 Wimbledon Championships

Mens Singles Winner : Roger Federer (Switzerland) Runner-up : Andy Murray (UK) Womens Singles

Winner : Serena Williams (USA) Runner-up : Agnieszka Radwanska (Poland) Mens Doubles Winners : Jonathan Murray (UK)/Fredrick Nielsen(Denmark) Runners-up : Robert Lindsteadt (Sweden)/Horia Tecau(Romania) Womens Doubles Winners : Serena Williams (USA)/ Venus Williams (USA)

Runners-up : Andrea Hlavckov (Czech Republic) / Lucie Hradeck (Czech Republic) Mixed Doubles Winners : Mike Bryan (USA) / Lisa Raymond (USA) Runners-up : Leander Paes (India) / Elena Vesnina (Russia)

2012 French Open, Roland Garros

Men s Singles Winner : Rafael Nadal (Spain) Runner-up : Novak Djokovic (Serbia)

Women s Singles

Winner : Maria Sharapova (Russia) Runner-up : Sara Errani (Italy) Men s Doubles Winners : Daniel Nestor (Canada) / Max Mirnyi (Serbia) Runners-up : Bob Bryan / Mike Bryan (U.S.) Women s Doubles Winners : Sara Errani / Roberta Vinci (Italy) Runners-up : Maria Kirilenko / Nadia Petrova (Russia) Mixed Doubles Winners : Sania Mirza / Mahesh Bhupathi (India)


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Runners-up : Klaudia Jans-Ignacik (Poland) / Santiago Gonzalez (Mexico)

Economy & Business

After three days of tense parliamentary debate, 179

lawmakers out of the chamber s 300 voted in favour of acentrist coalition led by conservative Prime Minister AntonisSamaras (right) that has promised to ease austeritymeasures while still meeting demands of EU-IMF creditors.

The outcome of the vote was never really in doubt andaligned exactly with the 179 seats held by the Samaras-ledcoalition that unites his conservative New Democracy partywith the socialist PASOK and the much smaller DemocraticLeft.

With parliament protocol now over, the Samaras cabinet must immediately tackle themammoth task of turning crisis-wracked Greecearound while keeping the trust of EU-IMF

creditors who hold the power to keep the country s finances afloat.

The government said its first goal, along with carrying through a raft of reforms andprivatizations will be to secure an extension to the tight budget deadlines set outin Greece s second 130 -billion bailout plan.

But Greece s new Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras warned lawmakers that winning

any kind of reprieve from lenders will not be easy as EU and IMF officials have shownstiff resistance to any talk of renegotiation, especially one that comes with a price tag.


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Former Goldman Sachs Managing Director Rajat

Gupta (right) was found guilty of illegally tipping off his friend Raj Rajaratnam of confidential market

information, in one of America s biggest insider tradingcases.

After three weeks of trial, a U.S. court held the 63-year-old guilty of providing insider information toGalleon hedge fund founder Mr Rajaratnam, who wassentenced last year to 11 years in prison for insidertrading.

Mr Gupta was found guilty by a federal court

in Manhattan on four counts, out of six. The court will pronounce the sentence on18 th October. The conviction marks a tragic fall for the Kolkata-born financial wizard, whorose from a modest background to become a force to reckon with at the Wall Street.

One of the jurors said it was a difficult decision for them but the evidence against him

was overwhelming. He said Gupta was a person who came to the U.S. and rose throughthe ra nks. He led a story book life and had full support of the family as he saw duringthe trial.

Mr Gupta was convicted on three counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy

for passing confidential boardroom information about Goldman and Proctor & Gamblecompanies to the hedge fund that earned millions of dollars trading on his tips. He wasacquitted of two counts of securities fraud.

Mr Gupta was found guilty for passing information about the U.S.$5 billion investment by

Warren Buffett s Berkshire Hathaway Inc, and of providing information to Mr Rajaratnamin October 2008 about Goldman stock.

There were five security fraud charges and once conspiracy charge against him. Out of the five security fraud charges, he was found guilty on three and on the lone conspiracy

charge.

In the largest healthcare fraud settlement in U.S. history, pharmagiant GlaxoSmithKline has agreed to plead guilty to criminal charges that it

unlawfully promoted certain prescription drugs and will pay U.S.$3 billion to resolve theallegations.

The U.S. Justice Department said GSK failed to report certain safety data and undertookalleged false price reporting practices. The U.S.$3 billion dollar resolution is the largest

payment ever by a drug company.


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GSK will plead guilty to three criminal counts, including two counts of introducing

misbranded drugs, Paxil and Wellbutrin for trading and one count of failing to reportsafety data about the drug Avandia to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In the

criminal information, the government alleges that from 1998 to 2003, GSK unlawfully

promoted Paxil for treating depression in patients under age 18, even though the FDAhad never approved it for paediatric use.

GSK participated in preparing, publishing and distributing a misleading medical journalarticle that misreported that a clinical trial of Paxil demonstrated efficacy in thetreatment of depression in patients under age 18, when the study failed to demonstrateefficacy.

In a move to bring uniformity in the sector, the Central Government has decided to

charge 8 per cent of gross revenue as licence fee from all telecom service providersacross all categories and services from 2013-14.

At present, the Department of Technology (DoT) is charging licence fee in the range of

6-10 per cent depending upon type of service and circle. A uniform annual licence feerate of 8 per cent of AGR shall be adopted across all categories of service areas (Metro

A, B and C categories) of UAS/CMTS/Basic service licences in two steps starting fromJuly 1, 2012.

Starting July 1, the DoT will impose a fee ranging from 7 to 9 per cent on operators

depending on the category of the circle while from April 1, 2013, onward, the uniformfee of 8 per cent will be charged.

Contraction in capital goods and mining sectors pulled down the industrial growth to2.4 per cent in May , prompting the government to suggest that RBI cut interest rates

in the forthcoming policy review on July 31.

In view of high inflation, the RBI in its policy review last month did not cut rates,although there was intense pressure from the industry. During the first two months of this fiscal (April-May), the industrial growth rate decelerated sharply to 0.8 per cent from6.2 per cent in the same period of 2011-12.

Also there was a contraction in April at (-) 0.9 per cent, as against 0.1 per cent growthreported previously. Growth in factory output, as measured by the Index of Industrial

Production (IIP), was 6.2 per cent in May 2011.

Meanwhile, the industrial growth rate for April 2012 was revised to 0.9 per cent, from0.1 per cent reported earlier. For the first two months of the current fiscal, April-May,

the industrial growth is sharply lower at 0.8 per cent, compared to 5.7 per cent in theyear-ago period. According to the data, the capital goods output declined 7.7 per cent in

May, as against a growth of 6.2 per cent in the same month last year. Mining output


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contracted by 0.9 per cent in May, as against growth of 1.8 per cent in the same month

a year ago. The manufacturing sector which constitutes over 75 per cent of the index didnot perform well as it grew a meagre 2.5 per cent, as against 6.3 per cent in May 2011.

Consumer Durables production showed a faster growth rate of 9.3 per cent in May, ascompared to 5.1 per cent in the same month last year. The consumer non-durablessegment output growth remained flat at 0.1 per cent in May, as against 9 per cent in thesame month last year.

Power generation witnessed a slower growth of 5.9 per cent during May, compared to10.3 per cent in the same month a year ago. In all, 12 of the 22 industry groups in the

manufacturing sector have shown positive growth during May as compared to the samemonth a year ago.

Global credit rating agency Fitch cut credit rating outlook to negative of 11 financial

entities including SBI, ICICI Bank, Punjab National Bank, and Axis Bank. The actioncame just a week after revising India s outlook to negative. The outlook revision of thefinancial institutions reflects their close linkages with the sovereign by virtue of their highexposure to domestic counterparties and holdings of domestic sovereign debt.

The list of downgraded entities includes six government banks (including an internationalbanking subsidiary of a government bank) and two private banks. These include Bank of

Baroda, Bank of Baroda (New Zealand) Ltd (BOBNZ), Canara Bank, and IDBI Bank.

Besides two wholly owned government institutions Export-Import Bank of India andHousing and Urban Development Corporation Ltd (HUDCO) have also been similarlydowngraded. Besides, the outlook of IDFC Ltd and Indian Railway Finance CorporationLtd outlook has also become negative.

However, Fitch said the banks continue to have reasonable customer deposit base,

domestic franchises and adequate capital. The non-banking financial entities, meanwhile,lack the funding advantage, which puts them more at risk during times of increased

market volatility, it said.

Miscellaneous-1

The tranquil stretches of emerald green backwaters in Mumbai and Kerala are amongseveral locales in the western and eastern coasts facing threat from the rising sea level

due to climate change. Deltas of the Ganga, Krishna, Godavari, Cauveryand Mahanadi on the east coast may also be threatened along with irrigated land and

adjoining settlements, according to a Government report.

It is estimated that sea level rise by 3.5 to 34.6 inches between 1990 and 2100 wouldresult in saline coastal groundwater, endangering wetlands and inundating valuable land


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and coastal communities. The most vulnerable stretches along the western Indian coast

are Khambat and Kutch in Gujarat, Mumbai and parts of the Konkan coast and south

Kerala, says the Central Government report submitted to the UN.

The report India s Second National Communication to the United Nations FrameworkConvention on Climate Change was prepared by multi-disciplinary teams and otherstakeholders comprising more than 220 scientists belonging to over 120 institutions.

The study, using digital elevation model data (90m resolution), digital image processing

and GIS software, showed that estimated inundation areas are 4.2 sq km and 42.5 sqkm in case where the sea level rise is 1.0 m and 2.0 m respectively in the region

surrounding Nagapattinam (Tamil Nadu). Kochi region is directly connected to thebackwaters; a lot of inland areas are far from the coast, but adjacent to the tidal creeks,

backwaters and lakes.

In Paradip (Odisha), the variations in topography are not smooth and low-lying areas are

large and connected to tidal creeks and river inlets. According to the report, this areaseems to be the most vulnerable as about 1128 sq km falls under inundation zones for a

2 m rise in sea level. Also, 478 sq km may be inundated in Paradip coastal region for a 1m sea level rise.

All the creeks, estuaries and low lands adjacent to the shoreline increase the risk of inundation and the extent of probable inundation zone goes up to approximately 40 kmlandward. Thus, Kochi region is vulnerable even in the interior land areas. The study also

showed that all the three regions considered for impact studies are highly vulnerable tosea level rise. The impact assessment will provide useful information for different sectors

such as ports and infrastructure development near the coast and for planners and policy-makers to develop long-term adaptation measures.

China completed its first manned space docking as a spacecraft carrying three

astronauts including the country s first spacewoman, successfully coupled with an

orbiting module, in a major milestone for its ambitious space programme. Withthis China has become only the third country after the U.S. and Russia to achieve a

manned docking.

This is the fourth time China has launched a manned mission into space. It is regarded

as a prelude to China s plans to send a manned mission to Moon in the next fewyears. China conducted its first manned mission in 2003 followed it up in 2005 and 2008.

The three astronauts on board Shenzhou-9 (Divine Craft) will now enter the orbitingspace lab Tiangong- 1 or Heavenly Palace , that will give another boost to China s goal of completing a space station by 2020.


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The astronauts are Jing Haipeng, Liu Wang, and China s first woman astronaut Liu

Yang . Ms Yang, 33, an air-force pilot, is China s first woman astronaut and the world s57th space woman.

The first woman in space was former Soviet Union cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova,who entered space and history in June 1963; later women fromthe U.S., UK, France,Canada, Japan, and South Korea have also been to space.

Miscellaneous-2

Monsoon plays truant, aggravates already dismal economic scene

India s crucial monsoon will be normal this year but with less heavier rains as theweather office marginally downgraded its earlier forecast.

Quantitatively, monsoon season rainfall for the country as a whole will be 96 per cent of

the long period average, Laxman Singh Rathore, Director General, IndiaMeteorologicalDepartment (IMD) said.

In April, the IMD had said the country would receive 99 per cent rains of the long periodaverage (LPA). A normal monsoon means rainfall between 96-104 per cent of 50-year

average rains during the four-month season from June to September.

The LPA has been pegged at 89 cm. Most parts of the country are expected to receive

good rains in July- August, the crucial months for the country s trillion -dollar economywhich depends largely on rain-fed agriculture. Rains in July this year are likely to be 98per cent of the long period average, while the rainfall in August is forecast to be 96 percent of the LPA.

The Northwest region, including Punjab and Haryana, considered to be India s granarystates, are expected to receive below normal rains at 93 per cent of the LPA, accordingto the IMD.

Monsoon arrived four days late over Kerala on 5 th June and is yet to pick up steam due

to a string of atmospheric storms in the south-east Asian region which had affected themonsoon current.

Develop scientific temper and culture of tolerance

Expressing concern over growing intolerance among people of dissent, Prime Minister DrManmohan Singh favoured a rational discourse because narrow mindedness might affectcreative instincts. The Prime Minister noted that people are losing the ability to engage inrational discourse where different points of views are expressed.

Public debate was of ten hostage to sensationalism. I sometimes fear that a growingculture of narrow mindedness may affect the creative, innovative and imaginative


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instincts of the country s youth, he said. I have been observing a growing intolerance

among our people of dissent and opinions that contradict the prevailing orthodoxy. Weseem to be losing the ability to engage in a rational discourse where different points of

views are expressed, Dr Singh noted.

He said Indian civilization has a rich tradition of preserving social harmony andpromoting conciliation by accommodating different viewpoints, identities and cultural

differences. We should strengthen these impulses through the propagation of a

scientific temper and an enlightened understanding of the meaning of freedom of

expression, Dr Singh said.

Speaking at the inception ceremony as a general president of the Indian ScienceCongress Association (ISCA) on the occasion of its centenary, he said the theme for

Congress in the city next year would be Science for Shaping Future of India . Dr Singh

took over as the General President of Science Congress which is a rare honour for aPrime Minister since Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.

It is a theme that might have resonated just as well 100 years ago when the

association came into being, he said. I would sign al the full support and commitment

of the government to Indian science as it passed through a critical decade of innovation,

he said at the Calcutta University.

Our problems are overwhelming and need scientific solutions, he said. We have to use

our abundant intellectual resources to find new pathways of development that use our

scarce natural resources judiciously. He further said that, We did not use science andtechnology in our development processes as much as we should have. We did not build

local capacities that could meaningfully address problems of development in adecentralised manner using this knowledge.

Also, the Prime Minister laid the foundation of the unified campus of the Bose Institutein Salt Lake. The new campus will bring all departments and research activities of theInstitute, founded by celebrated scientist Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose, under oneroof. The unified campus of the Institute is likely to be fully operational within next twoyears.

India-China to step up defence & economic ties

India and China agreed to step up their defence and security dialogue and work to takesteps to ensure that the two countries achieve a U.S.$100 billion trade target by 2015.

India s Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and his Chinese counterpar t Wen Jiabaospoke of the need to continue with this dialogue at their meeting on the sidelines of theRio+20 Environment Summit.

India s Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai said that during the discussion on trade andeconomic cooperation Prime Minister Singh invited Chinese investment in infrastructure


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We have reached a milestone in our understanding of nature, said CERN Director

General Rolf Heuer in Geneva. The discovery of a particle consistent with the Higgsboson opens the way to more detailed studies, requiring larger statistics, which will pin

down the new particle s properties, and is likely to shed light on other mysteries of our

Universe, Mr Heuer said. Joe Incandela, the leader of CMS, one of the two teams at the world s biggest atom

smasher, told a packed audience of scientists at the European Centre for NuclearResearch (CERN) that the data has reached the level of certainty needed for a

discovery. But he did not yet confirm that the new particle is indeed the tiny and

elusive Higgs boson, which is believed to give all matter in the universe size and shape.

A second team of physicists ATLAS also claimed they have observed a new particle,

probably the elusive Higgs boson. We observe in our data clear signs of a new particle,

at the level of 5 S igma, in the mass region around 126 GeV, said ATLAS experimentspokesperson Fabiola Gianotti, but a little more time is needed to prepare these results

for publication. A 5 Sigma that translates into over 99 per cent certainty of discovery, is

required before a particle is declared as being discovered.

Plus, the Higgs is believed to lurk at the lower ends of the energy spectrum between

120 and 140 GeV. The particle was hypothesized in 1964 by six physicists, includingBriton Peter Higgs, whose name it came to bear.

Boson, on the other hand, is derived from the surname of Indian physicist, Satyendra

Nath Bose, a contemporary of Albert Einstein. His work on Quantum Mechanics wasadopted by Mr Einstein, who extended it to the concept of the Bose-Einstein condensate

a dense collection of bosons, sub-atomic particles with integer spin.

For 50 years, finding the missing Higgs was one of the most puzzling riddles of Quantum

Physics, and led scientists to set up the 3 billion Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the

world s biggest and most powerful particle accelerator. The 27 -km looped pipe set up ina tunnel 100 metres underground on the Switzerland-France border created artificiallysimulated conditions similar to the Big Bang, triggering collisions between acceleratedparticles.

In the LHC experiment, two beams of protons are fired in opposite directions to smashmillions of particles into each other every second, a set up that recreates conditions that

existed a fraction of a second after the Big Bang. This is the time when the Higgs field isbelieved to have come into play. The Higgs particles are believed to have transferredmass to the millions of other particles in the process of creation of the universe.

The scientists then look into conditions that might point to the existence of themysterious particle. As the Higgs cannot be seen, its existence is only to be inferred

from circumstances. The Standard Model a hypothesis devised in the 1970s to explainthe events after the Big Bang identifies the building blocks for matter. Finding the


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Higgs particle would validate the Standard Model that is a hugely successful theory but

has several gaps, the biggest of which is why some particles have mass but others donot.

Without the Higgs boson, the universe could not exist, as everything would behave aslight does, floating freely and not combining with anything else, the scientists believe.

August General Awareness 2012

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