Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 05 October 2016

:: National ::

SC put on hold order to constitute the Cauvery Management Board

• In another roller-coaster hearing, the Supreme Court put on hold its order to constitute the Cauvery Management Board and finally settled for the Centre’s suggestion to appoint a “technical team” to visit the Cauvery basin.
• The technical team led by G.S. Jha, Chairman, Central Water Commission, will visit the river basin along with nominees of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Kerala to submit a report in the Supreme Court by October 17.
• The court will hear the matter on October 18.
• Tamil Nadu accused the Centre of “playing into the hands of the Karnataka government” to deny the people of Tamil Nadu their share of Cauvery water.

GSAT-18 to be launched from the European spacepad of Kourou

• GSAT-18, India's heaviest satellite to date at 3,404 kg, is scheduled to be launched from the European spacepad of Kourou in French Guiana.
• It. is expected to add a few new transponders for Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
• The 48 transponders on the new satellite , including 12 in the Ku-band, should ease ISRO’s shortfall in meeting the growing demand from its numerous users.
• GSAT-18 will be lifted to its space orbit on a European Ariane-5 rocket, ISRO said.
• ISRO last launched a communication satellite in November last year. That spacecraft, GSAT-15, did not add new numbers but has replaced the ageing INSAT-3A and a partially crippled INSAT-4B in the 93 degrees East slot.
• GSAT-18 was approved in May 2015 with a budget of Rs. 1,022 crore, which includes the fee to launch provider Arianespace. It will supplement the INSAT-4CR, sent to orbit in 2007, at the same slot of 74 degrees East longitude.
• In the coming days, when it is in its final slot GSAT18 is expected to support the services of users in telecommunication, broadcasting, VSAT services and digital satellite news gathering areas.

:: International ::

After EU vote Paris climate deal set to come into force

• In a historic vote held at the plenary session of the EU Parliament in Strasbourg, a majority of the members voted in favour of ratifying the Paris Agreement.
• The vote paved the way for the entry into force of the Agreement in November this year, with 610 out of 678 Parliament members voting in favour of the ratification.
• As per the rules of the Agreement, adopted in Paris last year, the cumulative emissions of the ratifying parties must cross the minimum required threshold of 55 per cent of global emissions for it to enter into force.
• Accounting for approximately 12 per cent of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions globally, the EU-28 nations will add to the 52 per cent of global emissions that the 62 ratifying parties have covered already.
• Only seven EU nations — France, Germany, Malta, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria and Portugal — have ratified the Paris Agreement at the national level.
• However, after the EU submits its instrument of ratification, the member nations will work on following the requisite procedures back at home.

:: Business and Economy ::

MPC decided to reduce the benchmark repo rates

• The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) decided at its first policy review to reduce the benchmark repurchase rate by 25 basis points to 6.25 per cent.
• The Reserve Bank of India’s key policy interest rate has now been cut to its lowest level since 2011. Retail inflation dropped to a five-month low of 5.05 per cent in August.
• The neutral rate is the difference between the risk free rate and inflation — a key determinant of the policy rate.
• Market participants expect interest rates to ease further in the next policy review in December.

Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 04 October 2016

:: National ::

Centre says SC has over-stepped its jurisdiction in Cauvery case

• The Centre said the Supreme Court had over-stepped into legislative turf by ordering the National Democratic Alliance government to constitute the Cauvery Management Board (CMB).
• Less than 48 hours after the Centre agreed to comply with the Supreme Court’s order to form the CMB by October 4, Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi was back in the apex court.
• He told a Bench of Justices Dipak Misra and U.U. Lalit that he made a “mistake” by not giving them the full picture on the CMB as compliance may lead to “other complications.”

Another terrorist attack in Baramulla

• Militants planned to mount a Uri-style attack at the Baramulla Army camp but BSF constable Nitin Kumar (24) put paid to their designs, when he came out of his bunker, all alone, to challenge them.
• A senior Border Security Force (BSF) official said on Monday that Kumar was killed when the terrorists hurled grenades at the bunkers outside the Army camp and shrapnel hit him.
• The BSF is co-deployed with the 46 RR Battalion of the Army and mans some of the bunkers there as part of its road opening duty.
• Attackers, three-four, fled from the spot through the narrow alleys of the congested old town after their bid to carry out a Uri-style attack was foiled in effective fire.
• A compass, one Global Positioning System (GPS) device and a wire cutter were found near the encounter site.
• Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who is on a two-day visit to Leh, said he had spoken to National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and BSF DG K.K. Sharma.

:: India and World ::

India gets support of its old ally Russia

• Days after it asked Islamabad to take “effective” steps to stop the activities of terrorist groups on its territory, Russia “welcomed” the surgical strike by India, saying every country had a right to defend itself.
• Russia’s Ambassador to New Delhi Alexander M. Kadakin said his country had always been with India in fighting cross-border terrorism.
• “Greatest human rights violations take place when terrorists attack military installations and attack peaceful civilians in India. We welcome the surgical strike. Every country has right to defend itself,” the Russian Govt.said.
• He assured India that it did not need to worry about the Russia-Pakistan joint military exercise, saying it did not take place in the “Pakistan-occupied Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir”.
• Last week, a Russian Foreign Ministry statement said Russia stood for a “decisive struggle” against terrorism in all its manifestations.

:: Business and Economy ::

To Boost BRICS trade, India will organise trade fair for BRICS

• To boost trade among the BRICS nations, India, for the first time, will organise a trade fair for the bloc that also includes Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa.
• Intra-BRICS trade in 2014 was just $297 billion — less than five per cent of the $6.5 trillion worth trade that the five countries had with the world that year.
• Goods imports from the world into the BRICS countries were $3.03 trillion in 2014, while global goods exports of BRICS countries were $3.47 trillion that year.
• The first BRICS Trade Fair & Exhibition will be held from October 12-14 in the national capital, ahead of the BRICS political summit in Goa. This initiative was proposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year.
• The focus of the Fair is ‘Building BRICS – Innovation for Collaboration’. The Fair is meant to give an impetus to intra-BRICS economic engagement. It will showcase about 20 key sectors.
• Besides established companies, start-ups and innovators from BRICS will showcase their offerings to help technology solution providers share knowledge in dealing with challenges in healthcare, education, energy efficiency, waste management etc.
• Leaders from Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand have been invited for meetings at the Fair.

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2016

Yoshinori Ohsumi

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2016 was awarded to Yoshinori Ohsumi "for his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy".

Yoshinori Ohsumi, a Japanese cell biologist, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Monday for his discoveries on how cells recycle their content, a process known as autophagy, a Greek term for “self-eating.”

It is a crucial process. During starvation, cells break down proteins and nonessential components and reuse them for energy. Cells also use autophagy to destroy invading viruses and bacteria, sending them off for recycling. And cells use autophagy to get rid of damaged structures. The process is thought to go awry in cancer, infectious diseases, immunological diseases and neurodegenerative disorders. Disruptions in autophagy are also thought to play a role in aging.

But little was known about how autophagy happens, what genes were involved, or its role in disease and normal development until Dr. Ohsumi began studying the process in baker’s yeast.

Why Did He Win?

The process he studies is critical for cells to survive and to stay healthy. The autophagy genes and the metabolic pathways he discovered in yeast are used by higher organisms, including humans. And mutations in those genes can cause disease. His work led to a new field and inspired hundreds of researchers around the world to study the process and opened a new area of inquiry.

“Without him, the whole field doesn’t exist,” said Seungmin Hwang, an assistant professor in the department of pathology at the University of Chicago. “He set up the field.”

Who Is He?

Dr. Ohsumi, who was born in 1945 in Fukuoka, Japan, and received a Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo in 1974, floundered at first, trying to find his way. He started out in chemistry but decided it was too established a field with few opportunities.


So he switched to molecular biology. But his Ph.D. thesis was unimpressive, and he could not find a job. His adviser suggested a postdoctoral position at Rockefeller University in New York, where he was to study in vitro fertilization in mice.

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2016

David J. Thouless
University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

and the other half to

F. Duncan M. Haldane
Princeton University, NJ, USA

and

J. Michael Kosterlitz
Brown University, Providence, RI, USA

”for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter”

They revealed the secrets of exotic matter
This year’s Laureates opened the door on an unknown world where matter can assume strange states. They have used advanced mathematical methods to study unusual phases, or states, of matter, such as superconductors, superfluids or thin magnetic films. Thanks to their pioneering work, the hunt is now on for new and exotic phases of matter. Many people are hopeful of future applications in both materials science and electronics.

The three Laureates’ use of topological concepts in physics was decisive for their discoveries. Topology is a branch of mathematics that describes properties that only change step-wise. Using topology as a tool, they were able to astound the experts. In the early 1970s, Michael Kosterlitz and David Thouless overturned the then current theory that superconductivity or suprafluidity could not occur in thin layers. They demonstrated that superconductivity could occur at low temperatures and also explained the mechanism, phase transition, that makes superconductivity disappear at higher temperatures.

In the 1980s, Thouless was able to explain a previous experiment with very thin electrically conducting layers in which conductance was precisely measured as integer steps. He showed that these integers were topological in their nature. At around the same time, Duncan Haldane discovered how topological concepts can be used to understand the properties of chains of small magnets found in some materials.

We now know of many topological phases, not only in thin layers and threads, but also in ordinary three-dimensional materials. Over the last decade, this area has boosted frontline research in condensed matter physics, not least because of the hope that topological materials could be used in new generations of electronics and superconductors, or in future quantum computers. Current research is revealing the secrets of matter in the exotic worlds discovered by this year’s Nobel Laureates.

Japanese cell biologist Yoshinori Ohsumi won Nobel Prize in medicine

Yoshinori Ohsumi (71) of Japan has won the 2016 Nobel Prize for physiology or Medicine for his pioneering work on autophagy. With this he becomes the 23rd Japanese national to win a Nobel prize and overall the sixth Japanese medicine Nobel laureate. Mr. Ohsumi had received a PhD from the University of Tokyo in 1974. Currently, he is a professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology (TIT). What is Autophagy? Autophagy is a process whereby cells “eat themselves”. It is a fundamental process in cell physiology dealing with how the body breaks down and recycles cellular components. It is essential for the orderly recycling of damaged cell parts and its better understanding has major implications for health and disease, including cancer. It was first observed by Belgian scientist Christian de Duve who had won Nobel Medicine Prize in 1974 for it. Christian de Duve had coined the term “autophagy”, which comes from the Greek meaning self-eating. Yoshinori Ohsumi’s Research in Autophagy Ohsumi’s discoveries in Autophagy have led to a new paradigm in the understanding of how the cell recycles its content. In his research, Mr. Ohsumi had used baker’s yeast to identify genes essential for autophagy. He explained the mechanisms for autophagy in yeast and showed that similar sophisticated machinery is used in human cells. Significance: Ohsumi’s research had located the genes that regulate this self-eating process and also related that errors in these genes can cause disease. His findings have opened new path to understand importance of autophagy in many physiological processes, such as how body adapts to starvation or responds to infection. It has helped to establish links to Parkinson’s disease, type 2 diabetes and other disorders that appear in the elderly. About Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine The Nobel award for medicine is given to persons whose discoveries have significantly enhanced the understanding of life or the practice of medicine. The winners are chosen by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute and are always announced before the Nobel Prize for other categories. The prestigious award carries prize money of 8 million Swedish kroner or 1.1 million dollars. It is one of five Nobel Prizes established by Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite in 1895.

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