Current Affairs June 2010

AWARDS

IIFA Awards, 2010
Best Film: 3 Idiots.
Best Actor: Amitabh Bachchan, for his role as a progeria-afflicted child in “Paa”.
Best Actress: Shared jointly by Vidya Balan for “Paa” and Kareena Kapoor for “3 Idiots”.
Best Director: Rajkumar Hirani for “3 Idiots
Best Screenplay: 3 Idiots.
Best Cinematography: 3 Idoits
Best Supporting Actor (Male): Sharman Joshi for his role in “3 Idiots”.
Best Supporting Actor (Female): Divya Dutta for her performance in “Delhi 6”.
Best Actor in Negative Role: Boman Irani for his role in “3 Idiots”.
Best performance in Comic Role: Sanjay Dutt for performance in “All the Best”.
Best Music Director: Pritam for “Love Aaj Kal”.
Best Singer (Male): Shaan, for “Behti hawa sa tha woh” (3 Idiots).
Best Singer (Female): Kavita Seth for “Iktara’ in “Wake Up, Sid!”.
Best Lyrics: Swanand Kirkire for “3 Idiots”.
Best Debut (Female): Jacqueline Fernandez and Mahie Gill share the award for their role in “Aladin” and “Dev D”, respectively.
Best Debut (Male): Omi Vaidya for his role of Chatur in “3 Idiots” and ackky Bhagnani for “Kal Kissne Dekha”.
Lifetime Achievement Award: Veteran filmmaker J. Om Prakash and yesteryear actress Zeenat Aman.
Outstanding achievement by an Indian in International Cinema: Anil Kapoor.

The awards ceremony was held in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

DAYS; YEARS
World Environment Day
The World Environment Day is the biggest global celebration for positive environmental action, coordinated by United Nations Environment Programme every year on June 5. It is a day that reminds everyone on the planet to get involved in environment-friendly activities. From school children to community groups, companies and governments, all come together to pledge towards building a greener planet. The day urges every citizen to mitigate environmental problems, which are a result of human activities.

This year’s theme—Many Species. One Planet. One Future—focuses on the importance of wealth of species and ecosystems to humanity.

This year's global host, Rwanda, has made huge strides on environmental protection. Rwanda is already internationally-renowned for introducing a ban on plastic bags, nationwide environmental clean-up campaigns and the restoration of previously degraded natural rain forests as part of a chimpanzee conservation programme.

Every year the World Environment Day is hosted in a different city with a different theme with the message to protect and save our environment. In 2008, the event was hosted at Wellington, New Zealand with the theme “Kick The Habit—Towards A Low Carbon Economy”.

In 2009, the event was held at Mexico City and the theme was: “Your Planet Needs You—UNite to Combat Climate Change”.

DEFENCE
First flight of Tejas supersonic fighter plane
The dream of having a supersonic fighter jet of indigenous built came one step closer to realisation on June 2, 2010, when the Limited Series Production Tejas aircraft (LSP-4) took off from the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited airport, Bangaluru, for its first flight.

Test pilot, Group Captain Suneet Krishna, flew the aircraft to an altitude of 11 kms and went supersonic, touching 1.1 Mach speed. A fighter plane flies in supersonic speed when it has already accomplished its mission and is being chased by enemy aircraft. For testing, there was a plane chasing the Tejas LSP-4 during its first test flight.

The Tejas flew in the configuration that would be finally delivered to the Indian Air Force.

Navy gets two Warships
Giving a boost to the Navy’s defence capabilities, two state-of-the-art high-speed warships, INS Cankarso and INS Kondul, were commissioned into the naval fleet on June 29, 2010.

The indigenously-built ships use water jet propulsion technology and can achieve speeds in excess of 35 knots. Water jet technology has rapidly gained acceptance as the leading means of propulsion for all types of high-speed marine craft, including ferries, work boats, patrol crafts and pleasure boats.

The ships will be based in Goa and tasked with the role of detecting, locating and destroying small, fast-moving enemy surface craft engaged in covert operations.

INS Cankarso and INS Kondul are fitted with 30-mm CRN-91 gun built by Ordnance Factory, Medak, and Igla missiles and set of machine guns ranging from light to heavy.

These two ships are the first lot of the ten similar ships that the Navy proposes to induct in its fleet. They belong to the Car Nicobar class V and VI in the FAC series.

INS Cankarso is named after an island near Goa while INS Kondul derives its name from an island near Nicobar. Kolkata-based Garden Reach Ship Builders and Engineers built these ships in two years.

EDUCATION
India’s first PG course in Golf Management
Golf, as a sport, is one of the fastest emerging sectors in India, with an estimated growth of 30 per cent in the next five years. However, there is a huge gap for good quality management professionals to join the golfing industry in India. To bridge this gap, International School of Corporate Management (ISCOM) has partnered with the prestigious Elmwood College, St. Andrews, Scotland, to introduce the first ever Postgraduate Programme in Golf Management.

The course is India’s first ever PG course in Golf Management and includes six months’ intensive apprenticeship at a golf facility in Scotland, UK. Minimum degree required to be eligible for the course is graduation. Admission is through entrance test. Candidates who qualify in GMAT, CAT, MAT or equivalent with at least 60% marks will be exempt from the entrance test. You have to be a golf player with minimum 24 handicap.

ENVIRONMENT
Solar-powered LED lanterns to earn carbon credits
The United Nations’ Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)—aimed at slowing the warming of the planet—has notified governments and companies on how to calculate carbon-emission saved by installing solar-powered Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) instead of ubiquitous, ancient lanterns. This could give India an incentive to replace the lamps that are used in 30 per cent of households, meaning a saving of 50 million tonnes of carbon emissions every year.

A tonne of emission saved fetches up to Rs 19,000 in the international carbon market.

A poor Indian household can save up to Rs 1,000 per annum on kerosene costs, half the cost of a solar-powered LED lighting system. Once charged, LED bulb works for up to 42 hours, compared with eight to 10 hours that conventional solar lanterns do.

LED lamps are about 90 per cent more energy efficient than traditional incandescent lamps and about 20 per cent more than Compact Fluorescent Lamps.

The UN estimates its new initiative can change the lives of a quarter of humanity, which still gets light by directly burning fuels, emitting nearly 200 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year, the equivalent of 60 million cars.

PROJECTS
India’s first integrated Waste Management Plant
Infra firm a2z Infrastructure will set up India’s first integrated municipal solid waste management plant in Kanpur. The project, touted to be Asia’s largest, would comprise management of the city’s solid waste in an environment friendly manner and subsequent power generation for captive and merchant use.

Majority of the fuel used in the plant will be RDF (Refuse Derived Fuel) derived from solid waste, which is considered a better replacement for coal with lesser emissions. The power plant will have the capacity to produce 15 MW power.

IIT-Kanpur to set up experimental power plant
The Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT-K) has planned to set up a 550 kilowatt (KW) Solar Energy Research Experimental Station (SERES) in its campus. The station would serve the purpose of solar energy development research, apart from being a pilot project for improving the commercial viability of solar energy generation.

It would provide uninterrupted free power supply to six neighbouring villages, Nankari, Bara Sirohi, Singhpur, Bakunthpur, Naramau and Kachchar. The villages are electrified, but the present power supply is highly erratic.

The Rs 18-crore project has been taken up as a part of the ongoing golden jubilee celebrations at the institute.

Currently, the solar power produced in India costs around Rs15 per KW hour, whereas conventional energy costs as little as Rs 3.5 per KW hour. The institute will bring in team from the biotechnology and electrical departments to work on reducing the production cost of solar power to make it more economical and commercially viable.

The project will be modelled on the German mode of solar power generation after conducting the requisite studies on production and transmission.

RESEARCH
“Printer” to create human organs
It may sound a bit too much, but doctors could one day be able to “print” new organs for transplant, say scientists who claim to have designed a “bio-printer” to create made-to-measure human organs. A prototype machine developed by the California-based regenerative medicine company Organovo is already capable of growing new arteries.

It is based on 3-D laser printing technology used to create new machine parts for industry. But, instead of combining layers of plastic and metal, the “bio-printer” puts living tissue together.

Two laser-based printing heads are used to place living cells onto thin sheets of gel with microscopic precision. Multiple layers are then laid on top of each other in a specially designed mould, or ‘scaffold’ and the cells begin to fuse together.

SPACE RESEARCH
Thirty Meter Telescope Project
On June 25, 2010, India joined as an observer in the ambitious astronomical observatory, Thirty Metre Telescope (TMT), in Hawaii, which will help in unravelling mysteries of black hole, origin of galaxies and formation of planets among others.

The status of an observer is first step by India in becoming a full partner in TMT, which will be fully operational in 2018 and will be world’s most advanced astronomical observatory.

The telescope will have a 30-metre segmented mirror which uses diffraction of light and focuses in much sharper way than smaller telescopes. Such a large size of aperture will help it collecting more light, thus generating much clearer and sharper images of fainter objects, which may not be possible by present day scopes. The images generated by the telescope will be 12 times sharper than the Hubble Space Telescope.

A look at these images will help the scientists to understand several key aspects of universe, including the black hole formation, formation of galaxies, starting of the Universe and formation of first heavy elements in it.

MISCELLANEOUS
National Business Register
The sixth economic census, set to take off in 2011, will provide India with a National Business Register (NBR) for the first time, containing the details of every business establishment in the country.

The creation and maintenance of a business register and directory are expected to be an economic data framework for various needed statistical surveys, including the Annual Survey of Industries and others of the National Sample Survey Organisation.

Currently, a fairly reasonable database exists for the agricultural sector, while much is lacking for the non-agricultural ones, particularly services. The move to create a directory will particularly benefit the latter. The services sector, contributing 62.5 per cent to the country’s gross domestic product, does not have a comprehensive data bank. The national accounts significantly under-states the sector, even as it is the major contributor.

The business register is to keep an account of all business establishments with a workforce of 10 or more people—addresses, sectors, turnovers, number employed etc.

Now, fly tricolour at night
India’s National flag will now fly even during night, which was not earlier allowed under the flag code rules. This has been possible due to efforts of industrialist-turned-politician and chairman of the Flag Foundation of India and MP Naveen Jindal.

The Union Home Ministry has allowed keeping the National Flag fly even during night with a rider that the flag does not remain in dark.