Daily Current Affairs 11 – September – 2017

Setting sail: around the world in 7 months – Navika Sagar Parikrama

Topic :GS 1 Role of women Social empowerment

Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, Hon’ble Raksha Mantri flagged-off Indian Naval Sailing Vessel Tarini (INSV Tarini) with an all women crew from INS Mandovi boat pool, Goa

What is Navika Sagar Parikrama?

• It is the first-ever Indian circumnavigation of the globe by an all-women crew.
• The crew shall attempt to circumnavigate the globe on Indian Navy’s sailing vessel INSV Tarini.
• The crew is expected to return to Goa in April 2018, on completion of the voyage. The expedition will be covered in five legs, with stop-overs at 4 ports viz. Fremantle (Australia), Lyttleton (New Zealand), Port Stanley (Falklands), and Cape Town (South Africa).

About INSV Tarini

• INSV Tarini is a 55-foot sailing vessel, which has been built indigenously, and was inducted in the Indian Navy earlier this year.
• INSV Tarini is being skippered by Lt. Commander Vartika Joshi, and the crew comprises Lt. Commanders Pratibha Jamwal, P Swathi, and Lieutenants S Vijaya Devi, B Aishwarya and Payal Gupta.

Sources : The Hindu pib

Fall in GDP figures structural, not transient, says SBI report

Topic : GS 2 Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization of resources, growth, development and employment.

India’s GDP growth was expected to decline in the first quarter of the current fiscal, but the “free fall” in the numbers shows that the problem is more structural than transient according to a report published by SBI.

Highlights of the report

• India’s economic growth slipped to a three-year low of 5.7% cent in April-June, underscoring the disruptions caused by uncertainty related to the GST roll-out amid a slowdown in manufacturing activities.
• With fiscal deficit touching 92.4% of the budget estimate by the end of July, the government may cut expenditure to meet the 3.2% target.
• With uncertainties involving GST and monetary policy support to growth not forthcoming, it would not be prudent for the government to reduce spending as other growth drivers are missing.

The findings are based on SBI’s research report Ecowrap.

Sources : The Hindu

“North East Calling” festival

Topic : GS 1 Indian Heritage and Culture, History and Geography of the World and Society.

The Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh inaugurated the “North East Calling” festival, in Delhi. The “North East Calling” event is being organised by the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), Government of India under its ‘Destination North East’ series of this year.

Why the festival?

The purpose of the event is to promote the art, culture, heritage, cuisine, handicrafts, business and tourism of North East India.

North East Venture Fund

• ‘North East Venture Fund’, which is a joint initiative of Ministry of DoNER and North Eastern Development Finance Corporation Ltd was launched during the occasion.
• The objective of the fund is to promote entrepreneurship and Start up in the North Eastern Region.
• It is the first dedicated Venture Fund for the region with a corpus of Rs 100 crores.

Other details

The Minister also launched North East Tourism Development Council with objective to promote sustainable tourism in North East India.

The Ministry had organised ‘Destination North East’ festival in Chandigarh recently.

Sources : pib

Anti Tank Guided Missile – NAG

Topic : GS 3 Science and Technology- developments and their applications and effects in everyday life

India’s indigenously developed 3rd generation Anti Tank Guided Missile (ATGM), Nag has been successfully flight tested twice by DRDO against two different targets in the ranges of Rajasthan.

Nag

• Nag is a third generation “fire-and-forget” anti-tank missile developed in India.
• It is one of five missile systems developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) under the Integrated Guided Missile Development Program (IGMDP).
• The Nag is equipped with (IIR) Imaging Infra-red seeker and a highly potent tandem HEAT (high explosive anti-tank) warhead.
• The day-and-night third generation missile with top-attack capability has a maximum range of four km.

Sources : PIB Wikipedia The Hindu

The disaster next door: on the Rohingya issue – Opinion

Topic : GS 2 International relations Effect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries on India’s interests

Background

• In a span of two weeks, almost 300,000 Rohingya have crossed over to Bangladesh from the northern Rakhine state in Myanmar, putting Bangladesh under immense strain
• The Rohingya have been harassed and hounded by the Myanmar authorities for decades.

India and Rohingyas

• The Rohingya have sought refuge in India where they have been treated as illegal migrants.This is in contrast to accommodative nature of Indian state towards refugees in the neighbourhood fleeing persecution, which includes Parsis, Tibetans, Afghans, Sri Lankan Tamils, and Bangladeshis during the war of liberation in 1971.
• South Asia, particularly Bangladesh, has been most affected by the crisis, was hopeful that Indian Prime Minister would express concern about the humanitarian crisis which had not happened.
• Bangladesh, itself one of the world’s most densely populated nations, has hosted more than 600,000 Rohingya compared to 40,000 by India.
• India’s move to dissociate itself from the Bali Declaration adopted at the World Parliamentary Forum which called for respecting human rights of Rohingyas puts into question its respect for human rights and the treatment of minorities.

How India’s position on Rohingyas will affect its relations with Bangladesh?

• Since 2009, Bangladesh has emerged as one of India’s most trusted neighbours, with Dhaka addressing almost all of New Delhi’s security concerns. Despite the bonhomie that India shares with Bangladesh, the silence from the part of India regarding Rohingya crisis shows that India is not helping out its trusted neighbour in need.

Concluding remarks

• India’s nonchalant attitude towards Rohingya crisis reflects inadequate moral leadership and an inability to rise to the occasion.
• India, despite its enviable soft power and formidable hard power, fails to generate confidence in the region, including with friends such as Bangladesh, is due to its complex geopolitics based more on political opportunism and economic interests as opposed to principles and values, practised consistently.

Sources : The Hindu

New malware alert issued

A new malware ‘Xafecopy Trojan’ has been detected in India which would steal money through mobile phones, cyber security firm Kaspersky said. Around 40% of target of the malware had been detected in India. Xafecopy Trojan is disguised as apps like BatteryMaster, and secretly loads malicious code on the phone.

Sources : The Hindu

Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water wins Venice Golden Lion

Guillermo del Toro’s monster thriller The Shape of Water has won the Venice Film Festival’s top prize, the Golden Lion. Sally Hawkins stars as a cleaner smitten with a scaly underwater beast in this cold war-era creature feature that melds ravishing romance with B-movie thrills. The runner-up Grand Jury Prize on Saturday went to Israeli director Samuel Maoz’s Foxtrot.

Sources : The Guardian

Jepkosgei smashes 10km road world record

Kenya’s Joyciline Jepkosgei broke her own 10km road world record in Prague (Capital of Czech republic), becoming the first woman to run the distance under 30 minutes off the track. The 23-year-old ran 29 minutes 43 seconds at the Birell Prague Grand Prix to eclipse her previous record of 30:04 set in the Czech capital in April. Track and road racing records are kept separately by the IAAF, the world’s governing body.

Sources : Times of India

BV Radha passes away in Bengaluru

Veteran film actor Bengaluru Vijaya Radha, popularly known as BV Radha, passed away on in Bengaluru. Born as Rajalakshmi, Radha made her acting debut with Kannada film Navakoti Narayan, starring legendary thespian Rajkumar in the lead role, in 1964.She had been part of at least 250 films in Kannada, while she has also acted in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Tulu and Hindi.

Sources : The Indian Express

World Suicide Prevention Day (WSPD)

World Suicide Prevention Day (WSPD), on 10 September, is organized by the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP). WHO has been co-sponsor of the day. The purpose of this day is to raise awareness around the globe that suicide can be prevented. The theme of the 2017 World Suicide Prevention Day is: ‘Take a minute, change a life.’

Sources : IASP WHO

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