Terrorist attack in Paris; Hundreds Killed
Terrorists on 13 November 2015 attacked six locations around Paris killing around 160 civilians and injuring another 200 people and security personnel.
While majority of the deaths occurred in the Bataclan concert venue, around 80000 football fans in the Stade de France (National Stadium of France) came under the deadliest attacks who were watching a friendly match between France and Germany.
As a response, France President Francois Hollande, who was at the venue during the attack, immediately convened an emergency cabinet meeting outside the stadium and announced a state of emergency.
The decree enables the authorities to close public places and impose curfews and restrictions on the movement of traffic and people.
France saw its most recent emergency in November 2005 while the suburbs of Paris came under a series of attacks by rioting mob.
The present attack in Paris is the deadliest violence to strike France since World War II and the second major terror incident in 2015 after the Charlie Hebdo Shooting.
In the January 2015 incident, terrorists belonging to the Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) killed 11 people when they stormed into the offices of the French satirical weekly newspaper in Paris.
RBI Governor Dr Raghuram Rajan elected as Vice-Chairman on BIS Board
Dr Raghuram Rajan, Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), on 9 November 2015 was elected as the Vice-Chairman on the Board of Directors of BIS.
With this, he became the first Indian to be elected to this position in the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).
In this capacity, he will serve the BIS for three years starting from 10 November 2015 and will assist the Chairman of the BIS Board in his/her functioning.
At present, Jens Weidmann is the Chairman of the Board of Directors. He is also the head of Bundesbank, the German banking regulator.
About Bank for International Settlements
• Established on 17 May 1930, the BIS is the world's oldest international financial organisation.
• It mission is to serve central banks in their pursuit of monetary and financial stability, to foster international cooperation in those areas and to act as a bank for central banks.
• It has 60 member central banks, representing countries from around the world that together make up about 95 percent of world GDP.
• The head office is in Basel, Switzerland and there are two representative offices: in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China and in Mexico City.
Annual Hundred Drums Wangala Festival begins in Meghalaya
Annual Hundred Drums Wangala Festival has begun on a cultural fervor at Asanang near Tura town in Meghalaya.
The three day-long started with the arrival of ten Wangala Dance Troupes from various parts of Garo Hills.
Significance of Wangala Festival
• Wangala Festival is an annual post-harvest festival of the Garos tribes of North east India. Generally celebrated in the second week of November every year.
• It is a thanks giving ceremony to Misi Saljong, which is also known as Pattigipa Ra∙rongipa (The Great Giver) for blessing the people with rich harvest of the season.
Events held on occasion: An inter-locality tug-of-war was also held on the first day along with District Industrial Exhibition. Indigenous sports and Ajea, Grika and Doroa competitions and Rugala ceremony are held on the second day. On concluding day Hundred Drums Dance competition is held.
Northeast India’s first elephant hospital established at Kaziranga National Park
Northeast India’s first exclusive hospital for elephants has been established at the Kaziranga National Park in Assam.
The hospital was set up at Mark Shand Memorial Learning Centre in Kaziranga National Park. It was inaugurated by Sir Evelyn de Rothschild who is founding patron of the UK-based charity Elephant Family.
About Kaziranga National Park
• It is located in the Golaghat and Nagaon districts of Assam and is circumscribed by the Brahmaputra River.
• It was designated with National Park status in 1968 and was declared UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985 for its unique natural environment.
• The park hosts two-thirds of the world’s great one-horned rhinoceroses which are listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red list of Threatened Species.
• It is also home to large breeding populations of tigers, elephants, wild water buffalo, and swamp deer.
• Kaziranga is also recognized as an Important Bird Area by BirdLife International for conservation of avifaunal species.
Subir Gokaran appointed as Executive Director of IMF
Renowned economist Subir Gokaran has been appointed as an Executive Director on the board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Mr. Gokarn’s name was cleared by Appointments Committee of Cabinet (ACC) headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He will replace Rakesh Mohan whose 3 year tenure ends in November 2015.
He will represent grouping of India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Bhutan on the IMF’s Executive Board with a total casting vote of 2.8 per cent of which India has more than 2.3 per cent.
Earlier he had served as Deputy Governor of RBI from 2009 to 2012 and was the youngest Deputy Governors of the central bank at that time. He also had served as a nominee Board Member of the State Bank of India (SBI).
Executive Board of IMF
• The Executive Board of IMF is based in Washington and is responsible for conducting the day-to-day business of it.
• Composition: The board comprises 24 Directors, who are appointed or elected by groups of countries or by member countries.
• It is headed by the Managing Director (MD) who serves as its Chairman.
• Functions: The Executive Board meets several times in each week and carries out its work largely on the basis of papers prepared by IMF management and staff.
Sameer Panda-led Indian team won NASA award for Burst Prevention & Puncture Curative technology
A team of Indian scientist led by Sameer Panda from Odisha on 6 November 2015 won the NASA award for an innovative technology named Burst Prevention & Puncture Curative (BPPC) technology. Udit Bondia, KN Panda and Smitiparna Satpathy are the other members of the team.
They won the award in the Create the Future Design Contest- 2015 conducted by NASA Tech Brief in New York. Tech Brief is a contest jointly organized by NASA and Society of Automobile Engineers, International.
They won the award for Mild Run Flat Tyre based on BPPC technology and developed by TycheeJuno, a firm working on Disruptive and Breakthrough Innovation in technology mostly related to automotive division.
The tyre is a multi-chambered tubeless tire with sealant inside the chamber to take care of puncture in tread and sidewall.
Importance of the technology
• The technology decreases the possibilities of bursts, takes care of punctures and dynamic wheel balancing.
• It helps to increase fuel efficiency and life and can also be manufactured with existing technology.
• Using this technology in 10 million vehicles can lead to reduction in carbon emission due to tyre replacement up to 200000 ton CO2 annually.
• It can also lead to reduction in consumption of gasoline up to 100 million gallons.
• Use of cancer-causing lead, which is used for wheel balancing, can also be avoided by using this technology. For instance, 500 tons of cancer causing carcinogenic Lead (RoHS material) can be avoided.
In 2014, bursting of tyre caused 3371 deaths and 9081 injuries in India. Similarly in the US alone around 33000 injuries occur every year due to tyre. Globally, 1.25 million injuries and casualties are estimated to occur due to tyre bursts.
India, UK announced commercial deals worth 9 billion pounds
India and the UK on 12 November 2015 announced commercial deals worth 9 billion pounds in London.
The deals took place between the companies operating from both the countries and were agreed upon during the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the UK.
Details of Commercial Deals
Creative and retail
• Merlin Entertainments: It will open the first Madame Tussauds in the sub-continent. It will be set up in New Delhi in 2017. Further, it will invest up to 50 million pounds over 10 years to open more of company’s iconic brands that include Discovery Centre and Sea Life Aquarium.
• Apollo Hospitals: It partnered with Holland & Barrett International to open 1000 Holland & Barrett outlets in India over the next 5 years. The first store will open in New Delhi in January 2016 with 115 outlets open at the end of the year.
• Genus ABS will invest 1 million pounds in India providing the latest dairy genetics and constructing a state-of-the-art facility near Pune in Maharashtra.
Logistics
TVS is opening a 20 million pounds advanced logistics facility in Barnsley (the UK) generating 100 new jobs, growing to 500 across the TVS Group over 5 years. As part of Team Leidos, the company is integral to delivering 500 million pounds worth of procurement savings to the UK Ministry of Defence over 13 years.
Finance and professional services
• HDFC, India’s largest housing finance company, has announced the proposal to issue rupee denominated bonds overseas of up to 490 million pounds.
• Bharti Airtel Ltd announced that it intends to issue its maiden sterling bond of up to 500 million pounds to be listed on the London Stock Exchange.
• Major UK-based insurance companies like Standard Life, Bupa and Aviva have committed to invest a combined total of approximately 238 million pounds worth of FDI in their Indian joint ventures.
• London Stock Exchange Group and Yes Bank will sign a MoU to foster the development around bond and equity issuance, with a strong focus on green infrastructure finance. As part of this MoU, the bank is expected to list a green bond of up to 330 million pounds through Medium Term Notes by December 2016.
• State Bank of India (SBI) and London Stock Exchange Group have announced a collaboration to create the FTSE-SBI India Bonds Indices to be used initially by a new investment fund run by SBI. These indices, to be launched in the first half of 2016, will facilitate investment into India’s bond markets and support market liquidity and pricing.
• Zyfin and Sun Global announced that they would be listing the world’s first India fixed income exchange traded fund (ETF) on the London Stock Exchange. This ETF will give international investors access to the Indian fixed income market, which is worth 1.3 trillion dollars and is a vital source of finance for the infrastructure sector.
• A new MoU on technical co-operation in the rail sector was agreed which will boost potential business opportunities for the rail industry. Further, India announced its intention to launch the first government-backed rupee bond (Railway Rupee Bond) in London to fund railway infrastructure development.
Energy
• Lightsource Renewable Energy Holdings has announced a 2 billion pounds investment in India. They will design, install and manage around 3 gigawatts of solar power infrastructure in India over the next 5 years.
• UK technology company Intelligent Energy is now facilitating an initial order of over 10000 hydrogen fuel cells, worth over 128 million pounds.
• UK-listed OPG Power Ventures plc will invest 2.9 billion pounds in India to create 4200 MW of new power capacity in India, of which 1000 MW will be solar power and 3200 MW will be thermal and renewable power in Tamil Nadu.
IT and cyber
• Kloudpad Mobility Research will invest 100 million pounds produce the next generation of smart watches, wearables and tablets in South India.
• Vodafone has announced investments in India totaling 1.3 billion pounds of which 100 million pounds will be used to create a payment bank focused on serving the unbanked and under banked and to accelerate India’s journey towards a cashless economy.
• E-commerce cloud platform provider, CloudBuy, will sign a contract with the Confederation of Indian industry (CII) for an online business to business marketplace. Over the next 5 years the platform is projected to facilitate transactions worth 3.5 billion pounds.
Healthcare
King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Indo UK Healthcare Pvt Ltd will open King’s College Hospital in Chandigarh. This is the first of a proposed 11 new Indo-UK institutes for health that will be developed across India, which, when fully implemented, would amount to a 1 billion pound investment into India’s healthcare system.
Education
• A partnership between the British Council and TCS will see the global IT services firm provide opportunities for 1000 graduate interns from British universities to train and work in India between 2016 and 2020.
• HSBC announced the launch of its Skills for Life initiative in India, a programme to skill 75,000 disadvantaged young people and women over 5 years.
• Indian integrated learning solutions provider Dexler will set up Dexler Education UK, its European headquarters, with an investment of around 10 million pounds to augment corporate training, higher education and individual learning.
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