21 APRIL 2015: India has 988 species in IUCN Red List

Ø  India has added 15 more species to the “Red List” of threatened species published by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in 2014, but the country has climbed down a spot to the seventh position. By the year-end, India had 988 threatened species on the list, which lists critically endangered, endangered and vulnerable species. In 2013, the number was 973. With 659 species in 2008, the increase over seven years is 50 per cent, in part due to better research identifying more threatened species and deforestation. By adding 37 species, China seemed to have helped India improve its rank.

Ø  NASA is offering an award of up to $30,000 for innovative designsto protect a spacecraft’s crew on the journey to Mars. The US space agency, which recently awarded $12,000 to five winners of a challenge to mitigate radiation exposure on deep space missions, is developing the capabilities needed to send humans to an asteroid by 2025 and Mars in the 2030s. Galactic cosmic rays (GCRs), high-energy radiation that originates outside the solar system, are a major issue facing future space travellers venturing beyond low-Earth orbit. These charged particles permeate the universe and exposure to them is inevitable during space exploration.

Ø  Investments into Indian markets through participatory notes (P-Notes) has surged to the highest level in over seven years at Rs.2.72 lakh crore (over $43 billion) at the end of March 2015. P-Notes, mostly used by overseas HNIs (high networth individuals), hedge funds and other foreign institutions, allow such investors to invest in Indian markets through registered foreign institutional investors (FIIs). This saves time and costs for investors, but the flip side is that the route can also be used for round tripping of black money. According to the data released by Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), the total value of P-Note investments in Indian markets (equity, debt and derivatives) rose to Rs.2,72,078 crore at the end of March from Rs.2,71,752 crore in the preceding month. This is the highest investment since February 2008, when the cumulative value of such investments stood at Rs.3.23 lakh crore. The quantum of FII investments through P-Notes, too, climbed to 11.3 per cent last month from 11.1 per cent in February. Till a few years ago, P-Notes used to account for more than 50 per cent of the total FII investments, but their share has fallen after SEBI tightened the disclosure norms and other regulations for such investments. P-Notes have been accounting for mostly 15-20 per cent of the total FII holdings in India since 2009, while it used to be much higher — in the range of 25-40 per cent — in 2008. It was as high as over 50 per cent at the peak of Indian stock market bull-run in 2007.