CURRENT GENERAL KNOWLEDGE

AVIATION
Solar plane takes off
On July 7, 2010, giant glider-like aircraft completed the first night flight propelled only by solar energy.

Solar Impulse, whose wingspan is the same as an Airbus A340, flew 26 hours and 9 minutes, powered only by solar energy stored during the day. It was also the longest and highest flight in the history of solar aviation. The plane, which has 12,000 solar cells built into its 64.3-metre wings, is a prototype for an aircraft that its creators hope will carry out its first circum-navigation of the globe from 2012.

Bertrand Piccard, the Swiss president of the project, best known for completing the first round-the-world flight in a hot air balloon in 1999, said the success of the flight showed the potential of renewable energies and clean technology.

The carbon-fibre aircraft reached a maximum speed of 68 knots (ground speed), an average speed of 23 knots and a maximum altitude of 8,564 metres above sea level.

AWARDS
Arjuna Awards, 2009
Indian women’s cricket team captain, Jhulan Goswami, who won the ICC Women's Player of The Year Award in 2007, is among those named for the Arjuna Award for the year 2009 by the committee headed by former track queen P.T. Usha. Other winners are: Joseph Abraham (Athletics), Krishna Poonia (Athletics), Dinesh Kumar(Boxing), Parimrajan Negi (Chess), Deepak Kumar Mandal (Football), Sandeep Singh (Hockey (Men)), Jasjeet Kaur Handa (Hockey (Women)), Dinesh Kumar (Kabaddi), Sanjeev Rajput (Shooting), Rehan Jehangir Poncha (Swimming), Kapil Dev K.J. (Volleyball), Rajeev Tomar (Wrestling), Rajesh Chaudhary (Yachting), Jagseer Singh (Paralympic (Athletics)).

Awardees will receive statuettes, citations and cash prize of Rs.5 lakh each.

Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award, 2009
India's ace shuttler Saina Nehwal has been selected for the prestigious award, for her outstanding achievements on the badminton court. The Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna is India’s highest honour given for achievement in sports. The award carries a medal, a scroll of honour and a cash component of Rs. 500,000. The award was instituted in the year 1991-92 to supply the lack of a supreme national accolade in the field of sports.

Dronacharya Awards, 2009
This award is given by the government of India for excellence in sports coaching. The award comprises a bronze statuette of Dronacharya, a scroll of honour and a cash component of Rs.500,000 each. The award was instituted in 1985. As the best sports-person award is named Arjuna Award, it is appropriate that the coaching award is named after Dronacharya, as he was the Guru ofArjuna.

Among the winners of 2009 award were: Subhash B. Aggarwal (Billiards & Snooker), L. Ibomcha Singh (Boxing) and Ajay Kumar Bansal (Hockey). Captain Roop Chand (Wrestling) and A.K. Kutty (Athletics) were awarded for lifetime achievement.

Dhyan Chand Award, 2009
Anita Chanu (Weightlifting), Satish Pal (Athletics) and Kuldeep Singh (Wrestling) have been chosen for the award which is India's highest award for lifetime achievement in sports and games. The award is named after the legendary Indian hockey player Dhyan Chand.

CONFERENCE
India’s first sports law conference
The Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF) organised the first ever ‘Sports Law Conference’ in New Delhi, on July 24-25, 2010, to deliberate on various issues related to sports and law in India. Among other things, the conference discussed the ‘Right to Information’ (RTI) and accountability of sports federations, and legalities involved in staging major sports events like the Olympics, Asian Games, Commonwealth Games. It also discussed gender discrimination in sports, intellectual property rights, importance of transparency in corporate structure of professional sports leagues, future of IPL, besides public relation opportunities and challenges which are concomitant with it, issues relating to infrastructure in developing and maintaining stadiums, training facilities etc.

EXPEDITION
India’s first scientific expedition to South Pole
To commemorate the centenary of Norwegian explorer Ronald Amundsen’s December 14, 1911 feat, India will launch its first scientific expedition to the South Pole in November 2010.

An eight-member team of scientists would undertake the 3,000-km long treacherous terrain from India’s research station Maitri in the Antarctic region to the South Pole. The route to be taken is a fairly new one and had been charted with the aim to understand climate change over the past years. These studies are expected to add to the knowledge of how the ancient landmass, once fused with other continents in a super-continent before being separated 200 million years ago, has evolved.

The challenging effort will be simplified to some extend with the help of navigational equipment and four modern ice-traversing vehicles that the Union government is planning to acquire for the trip.

PERSONS
Quraishi, Dr S.Y.
He has been appointed as the 17th Chief Election Commissioner of India. He is the first Muslim to hold the post. Dr. Quraishi earlier held the position of Election Commissioner.

In the management of elections, Dr. Quraishi has brought a special focus on people’s participation, voters’ education and youth involvement in the electoral process through scientific research and interventions. He has been an ardent proponent for lending strength to the grassroots level election functionaries.

Born on 11 June 1947, Dr Quraishi completed his Masters degrees from St. Stephen’s College in Delhi before joining the Indian Administrative Service in 1971. He received a Ph.D for his thesis on “Role of Communication and Social Marketing in Development of Women and Children”.

Dr Quraishi is known for his special contributions in social sector reforms covering health, education, population, drug abuse, and civil society action. He also has a number of books, articles and talks to his credit on issues related to democracy, elections, HIV AIDS and Family Planning, social marketing, women and child development and Youth. His book ‘Social Marketing for Social Change’ has broken new ground in the field of Development Communication.

PROJECTS
Three Indian projects among World’s top 100
Global consultancy firm KPMG, in its Infrastructure 100 Project Report, has included three Indian projects in the list of 100 most interesting infrastructure projects. The report showcases examples of great infrastructure projects at different stages of development across the world.

The three Indian projects are: KG-D6, 4,000-MW Mundra Plant and the newly opened Indira Gandhi International Airport project in New Delhi.

India’s KG-D6 project not only sets new standards in integrated gas infrastructure projects but it also launches an innovated approach to the sale and transportation of energy, helping to accelerate India’s economic growth. The 4,000 MW Mundra Plant, one of the nine Ultra Mega Power Projects, uses unfashionable coal, making it the most energy-efficient plant. The IGI Airport at New Delhi was upgraded and modernised while still functioning, delivering a world-class facility, which has also been turned around in record time.

RESEARCH
First robot with emotions
A robot that is capable of developing and showing emotions has finally been unveiled. When Nao—developed by a European research team—is sad, he hunches his shoulders forward and looks down. When he's happy, he raises his arms, angling for a hug. When frightened, Nao cowers, and he stays like that until he is soothed with some gentle strokes on his head.

Nothing out of the ordinary, perhaps, except that Nao is a robot—the world's first that can develop and display emotions. He can form bonds with the people he meets, depending on how he is treated. The more he interacts with someone, the more Nao learns a person's moods and the stronger the bonds become.

He can use video cameras to work out how close a person comes and sensors to detect how tactile they are.

Nao can also work out where his human companions are looking, follow their gaze and memorise different people's faces. Using a neural network brain, he can remember interactions with different people.

This understanding, plus some basic rules of what is good and bad for him, learned from exploring his environment, allows Nao to indicate whether he is happy, sad or frightened with what is going on around him. The display actions for each emotion are pre-programmed but Nao decides by himself when to display each emotion or combination of emotions.

Nao's programming was developed as part of a project called Feelix Growing, funded by the European commission. It was a collaboration of eight universities and robotics companies across the UK, France, Switzerland, Greece and Denmark.

Brain chip may give mobility to paralysed patients
Scientists have developed a brain chip that will help paralysed patients operate their bionic limbs. The technology employs tiny microchips to sense nerve messages, decode the signals, and turn thought into movement.

The scientists hope that, within five years, they will be able to offer robotic devices to patients with damaged spinal cords that will enable them to move their arms or legs at will. A more ambitious idea is not to use robotic devices but to replace the broken connection to the limb with an artificial link. The brain chip would then send signals to an implanted stimulator in the spinal cord. This would generate electrical impulses to make muscles contract and move paralysed limbs.

SPACE RESEARCH
PSLV launches five satellites
On July 12, 2010, five satellites—CARTOSAT, STUDSAT and three foreign satellites—were launched by the ISRO-built Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). The three foreign satellites—Algerian, Canadian and Swiss—were launched as part of a commercial operation.

Studsat weighs one kg and has been built by 35 students of seven engineering colleges of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. It has a camera that produces high-resolution data.

Built at Rs 175 crore and weighing 694 kg, CARTOSAT-2B is an earth observation satellite in a sun-synchronous orbit. Its application will be towards cartography in India. It will generate pictures and data relevant for agriculture and rural development.

MISCELLANEOUS
Rupee goes designer
On July 14, 2010, the Union Cabinet approved a new symbol for the Indian Rupee—an amalgam of the Devnagiri ‘Ra’ and the Roman capital ‘R’, minus its stem. With the gaining of the symbol, the Indian rupee joins the elite club of US dollar, British pound, European euro and Japanese yen that currently have their own symbols.

31-year-old IIT-B postgraduate in industrial design, D. Udaya Kumar has designed the new symbol.

All individuals and entities within and outside India would use the symbol after its incorporation in Unicode Standard, ISO/IEC 10646 and IS 13194. Encoding of the symbol in the Indian Standards is estimated to take about six months while encoding in the Unicode and ISO/IEC 10646 will take about 18-24 months. It will be incorporated in software packages and keyboards in use in India.

The symbol will standardise the expression for Indian Rupee in different languages, both within and outside the country. It would better distinguish the Indian currency from countries whose currencies are also designated as Rupee or Rupiah, such as Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Indonesia.

Car to break 1000 mph barrier
One of the 2010 Farnborough International Air Show’s wildest propositions was the Bloodhound SuperSonic car, unveiled for the first time during the show. The 42ft, full-size, fibre-glass prototype revealed the super-slick shape that the design team believes will enable the car to hit 1,000 miles per hour, boosted by Eurofighter Typoon jet engines.

The construction of the rear portion of the car by aerospace group Hampson Industries is to go ahead in 2011. And a separate contract to build the nose is imminent.

If speed tests on a British runway in 2011 go according to plan, the Bloodhound will go to the Hakskeen Pan dried-up lake bed in South Africa to try to break the world land-speed record, which stands at 763 mph.

The design of the back of the vehicle is crucial to avoid dangerous “lift” at high speeds and to manage the sonic boom shock-wave. The Bloodhound SuperSonic is also being used to help to inspire children to study science, maths and engineering.