Ø Amid growing concerns over deteriorating air quality in India’s major
cities, the government on Monday launched the National Air Quality Index (AQI)
that will put out real time data about the level of pollutants in the air and
inform people about the possible impacts on health. Launched by Prime
Minister Narendra Modi during the two-day Environment and Forest Minister's
conference, the new index will initially cover 10 cities — Delhi, Agra, Kanpur,
Lucknow, Varanasi, Faridabad, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad —
each of which would have monitoring stations with Air Quality Index display
boards. The government said the aim was to eventually deploy the index in all
cities with a population of over one million. The government has been
under immense pressure to take a strong stand on air pollution after a World
Health Organization study of 1,600 cities released last year showed that Delhi
was the world's most polluted capital. Another study, conducted by economists
and public policy experts from the Energy Policy Institute at Chicago, Yale and
Harvard University found that India's poor air quality reduces the lifespan of
the average citizen by 3.2 years. The AQI is a global standard used to
understand air quality. It takes multiple data on pollution already available
with the country's Central Pollution Control Board and presents it as a colour
coded scale with six levels. Dark green, the first level, indicates good
quality air while maroon at the other end indicates severe pollution. For each
category, the index identifies associated health impacts.
Ø Mayilsamy Annadurai, who led two of India’s much celebrated space
projects — the Mars mission and the Chandrayaan-1 — is the new Director of ISRO
Satellite Centre, Bengaluru.
Ø Pratap Singh, 15, an Indian-origin schoolboy in the U.K has been awarded
the Institute of Physics Prize for conducting an experiment that verified an
effect of Albert Einstein’s theory of special relativity. More than 200 UK
students aged 11-18 competed in the finals, demonstrating their projects to
thousands of visitors.
Ø Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s maiden visit to Europe, where
his first stop is Paris, Indian and French officials are discussing a wide
range of agreements spanning everything, from preserving heritage buildings to
a space mission on Mars. According to sources, among the agreements that
are expected to be signed after the bilateral meetings between Mr. Modi and
French President Francois Hollande are memoranda of understanding on space
cooperation, tourism, anti-terror training between the National Security Guard
and France’s GIGN special ops forces (National Gendarmerie Intervention Group)
who were at the forefront during theCharlie Hebdo operations. During his visit
to Airbus headquarters in Toulouse, Mr. Modi is also expected to make a pitch
for his ‘Make in India’ project to have more parts sourced from India, while
President Hollande is pitching for India to join the climate change convention
to be adopted at the COP21 conference in Paris in November. France wants
to commit to assist with about 10 per cent of India’s projected 100 gigawatt
solar power planned capacity. India and France also plan to work together on
Mr. Modi’s recently concluded ‘Sagar’ initiative for 40 coastal surveillance
radars where they will share scientific information to jointly help the islands
of Seychelles, Mauritius, and Reunion. As The Hindu reported, an agreement on building smart cities
is being discussed as well. Officials and businessmen on both sides will
also discuss investment and manufacturing deals amounting between $5 billion
and $ 8 billion to be finalised over the next five years, an official confirmed
to The
Hindu .
More than a 1,000 French companies operate in India, according to French
Embassy trade figures, totalling an investment of $18 billion, growing at an
average of €1 billion each year. Prominent among the deals being negotiated is
one for $500-million port infrastructure in Gujarat to be developed by the
joint venture between the Adani group and France’s CMA CGM group. However,
officials close to the negotiations said they didn’t expect much headway on the
two big deals that are being negotiated, the commercial contract for the 9,900
MWe Jaitapur nuclear power reactor project, as well as the $20 billion deal for
126 Rafale fighter aircraft to be bought by the Indian Air Force. Both deals
have been a cause for concern at successive bilateral meetings, and were
discussed during French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and Defence Minister
Jean Yves Le Drian’s visits in the past year. The nuclear deal for
Jaitapur has been negotiated since 2010 between France’s Areva and the Nuclear
Power Corporation of India (NPCIL). NPCIL officials have argued that the rate
of Rs.9.18/unit is much higher than the Rs.6/unit they are willing to pay,
while Areva officials have contended that the price is pushed up over the high
cost of financing the project and the parameters of the European Pressurised
Reactors (EPRs) that have higher safety standards. The Prime Minister
will visit France from April 9-12, where he will travel to Paris, Toulouse, and
a memorial near Lille, before flying to Germany and Canada.
Ø Mazagon Dock Limited (MDL) after commemorating the undocking of the
first of class submarine of Project 75, named Kalvari, the Tiger Shark. It is
the first of the six Scorpene submarines in which DCNS of France is a
collaborator with MDL as the builder. On the Scorpene submarines, Mr
Parrikar said, India will fulfil its requirement of submarines to protect its
sea waters by 2022. Acknowledging the efforts of MDL in construction of
this partially indigenous submarine, the Defence Minister said the government
had an ambitious plan to fulfil the requirements of the armed forces as per
which all Public Sector Undertakings would double their production in the next
two years. Following the undocking of submarine on Monday, the launching
of the submarine will take place in September 2015. Till September 2016, it
will undergo rigorous trials and tests, both in harbour and at sea, while on
surface and underwater. Thereafter it would be commissioned into the Navy as
INS Kalvari. The state-of-the-art features of the Scorpene include
superior stealth and ability to launch a crippling attack on the enemy using
precision guided weapons. The attack can be launched with torpedoes, as well as
tube launched anti-ship missiles, whilst underwater or on surface.
Ø Muslim leaders from across the country met Prime Minister Narendra Modi
on Monday to express “apprehensions” over the increased radicalisation and the
“emerging threat of terrorism.”
Ø The trial of a newly configured interceptor missile ended in failure on
Monday. Within seconds of its lift-off at 11.45 a.m. from Wheeler island off
the Odisha coast, the missile plunged into the Bay of Bengal without following
its designated trajectory and interception of an electronic target missile.
Ø Pakistan and Sri Lanka on Monday signed six agreements including one on
nuclear cooperation, two months after Sri Lanka inked an atomic deal with India.
Ø he Central Government will sell five per cent stake in Rural
Electrification Corporation (REC) on April 8 to mop up close to Rs.1,600 crore,
marking the first disinvestment of the current fiscal.
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