10 APRIL 2014

Ø  Three personnel of the Commando Battalion for Resolute Action unit of the Central Reserve Police Force were killed and three others injured in a Maoist ambush in Chhattisgarh’s Sukma district.

Ø  A massive fire had broken out on Sindhurakshak followed by a series of explosions, killing all 18 Navy personnel, including three officers. The 3,000-tonne submarine sank in the South Breakwater in Mumbai’s naval dockyard within hours of the incident. Sabotage is one of the six possible reasons for the sinking of kilo-class submarine INS Sindhurakshak in August 2013, a preliminary report of the board of inquiry (BoI) has held. According to the report, submitted to the Defence Ministry and accessed by The Hindu , the BoI, chaired by Commodore Deepak Bisht, cited five other probable reasons as well. The other reasons include human error (inadvertent mishandling of ammunition), malfunctioning of equipment or an accident. The BoI can submit a final report only when the submarine is pulled out and is subjected to a forensic and chemical test. The first explosion, which was minor, could be because of malfunctioning of equipment. The subsequent explosions were major, probably due to the triggering of torpedoes, which also led to the sinking of the ship. This is impossible without a human element. This is why the inquiry panel has deliberated on the point of sabotage. One of the other possibilities could be that the sailors were not able to load the missiles properly.

9 APRIL 2014

Ø  Thirteen people were killed and 35 injured in a bomb blast on a train in Pakistan’s restive southwestern Balochistan province on Tuesday. The blast took place inside coach number 9 of passenger train Jaffar Express, which was on its way to Rawalpindi from Quetta.

Ø  The Navy last week sold the iconic INS Vikrant to a ship-breaking company here for Rs. 63.2 crore. The decommissioned aircraft carrier, which played a major role in the 1971 war and was retired in 1997, is now the property of IB Commercial Private Ltd. INS Vikrant (formerly HMS Hercules) was purchased by India from the United Kingdom in 1957. It was operated from 1961 to 1997.

Ø  The coming Commonwealth Games in Glasgow will emulate the security apparatus India used when it hosted the tournament’s last edition, according to organising officials. A Scottish Police team was in Delhi recently as part of a “transfer of knowledge” exercise on security provisioning.

Ø   The number of Indian tourists visiting the U.S. is likely to cross 10 lakhs in 2015 and Indian visitors will register the third fastest growth after Chinese and Columbians from 2013 to 2018. The Department of Commerce in its latest report on international visitors and their projections, said 69.8 million international visitors travelled to the US in 2013, generating a record USD 181 billion in receipts.

8 APRIL 2014

Ø  An Australian naval ship hunting for MH370 has detected fresh underwater signals consistent with aircraft’s black boxes, in what officials on Monday said was the “most promising lead”,raising hopes of solving the unprecedented month-long aviation mystery.

Ø  Doyen of cinematography V.K. Murthy, who carved a niche for himself by presenting striking images in black and white to the celluloid world, passed away at his residence. He was 91. Murthy’s demise marks the end of a glorious chapter in Indian celluloid history. 

Ø  Two Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) men were killed in a blast while defusing an improvised explosive device planted by Maoists in Aurangabad district.

Ø  The Arunachal capital Itanagar was on Monday put on the country’s railway map with the first passenger train of about 400 commuters arriving at Naharlagun near here.

Ø  The 135th death anniversary of one of India’s freedom fighters, Begum Hazrat Mahal, was observed at a major mosque in Kathmandu. A wreath-laying ceremony was organised by the Embassy of India at the Jame-e-Masjid amid a gathering of community leaders and the embassy staff. This is the first-ever ceremony in the memory of the wife of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah of Awadh (Uttar Pradesh), who rests in the tomb in the heart of the capital.

Ø  Pro-Russia activists in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk have proclaimed independence from Ukraine and asked Russia to send in troops to protect them from the government in Kiev.

Ø  United States Defence Secretary Charles Hagel on Monday was given an unexpected tour around China’s first aircraft carrier soon after arriving here on a three-day visit aimed at building trust between the two countries amid rising regional tensions. Mr. Hagel, who arrived in the northeastern port city of Qingdao from Japan, was escorted around ‘Liaoning’, China’s first aircraft carrier, which is close to becoming fully operational, by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

7 APRIL 2014

Ø  In a first of its kind initiative, the Tamil Nadu police have joined hands with the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, and Anna University here to enhance technology applications in policing to world-class standards. The police department signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Anna University for technology collaboration and knowledge transfer.

Ø  The World Boxing Council (WBC) awarded an honorary championship belt to a former Japanese boxer who was freed from death row last month after 48 years in prison following a murder conviction. WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman handed the belt to Iwao Hakamada (78), who has been receiving hospital treatment since his release from a Tokyo prison on March 27. A portrait of Hakamada was sewn into the green belt.

6 APRIL 2014

Ø  Afghans voted in large numbers in the country’s first democratic transfer of power as US-led forces end their 13-year war. Despite Taliban threats, voting was largely peaceful with long queues in cities.

Ø  Bhupal Man Damai alias Yusuf Nepali, who was jailed in connection with the hijacking of Indian airlines flight IC-814 to Kandahar in December 1999, was released after a court exonerated him.

Ø  A Chinese patrol ship, the Haixun 01, searching for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 picked up a pulse signal from its black box detector in the southern Indian Ocean, China’s official media reported, in a possible breakthrough in the nearly month-long multinational hunt for the jet.

Ø  Asia’s largest tulip garden on the banks of Dal Lake here was thrown open to visitors on Saturday, even as inclement weather has delayed blooming of a majority of the bulbs. Formerly known as Siraj Bagh, the Indira Gandhi Memorial Tulip garden was opened in 2008.

Ø  The total grid-connected solar capacity, commissioned under the National Solar Mission, crossed the 2,500-MW mark and stood at 2,632 MW as on March 31, 2014. Of the total, a little over a third of capacity was commissioned in Gujarat. Gujarat (916 MW) topped the cumulative capacity table, followed by Rajasthan (730 MW), Madhya Pradesh (347 MW) and Maharashtra (249 MW), among others.

5 APRIL 2014

Ø  A sessions court here awarded the death penalty, under a new IPC section, to three repeat offenders — Vijay Jadhav, Qasim Sheikh, alias Bengali, and Salim Ansari — who gang-raped a photojournalist on the Shakti Mills compound in 2013.

Ø  India marched towards establishing its own navigation system when its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C24) put into precise orbit the country’s second navigation satellite, the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS-1B). The 1,432-kg IRNSS-1B will form part of a constellation of the seven navigation satellites.

Ø  It is recently found that weather prediction was done in ancient Egypt some 3,500 years ago! A new translation of a 40-line inscription on a six-foot-tall 3,500-year-old calcite block from Egypt — called the Tempest Stela — describes rain, darkness and “the sky being in storm without cessation, louder than the cries of the masses”.

Ø  A five-member committee set up by the Union Home Ministry to recommend the location of a new Capital for the residuary State of Andhra Pradesh will be headed by former Union Urban Development Secretary K. Sivaramakrishnan. Among the others appointed as members of the committee are former School of Planning and Architecture dean K.T. Ravindran, National Institute of Urban Affairs director Jagan Shah, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy director Rathin Roy and Indian Institute for Human Settlements (Bangalore ) director Aromar Revi.

Ø  A U.S. Navy “black box” detector made its much-anticipated debut in the oceanic hunt for flight MH370 on Friday but Australia’s search chief warned it was crunch time with the box’s signal set to expire soon. The Australian naval vessel Ocean Shield arrived with a “towed pinger locator” capable of homing in on signals from the black box, as 14 planes scoured the remote Indian Ocean search area for signs of a crash site. The plane disappeared March 8, and Australian authorities coordinating the search have rushed the device into place with the black box’s roughly 30-day location signal set to expire.

Ø  NPAs of banks touched an all-time high of over 5 per cent as of the December quarter, while 2013-14 saw banks recasting as many as Rs.1 lakh crore worth of loans, taking the overall corporate debt restructuring loan book to close to Rs.4 lakh crore. NPAs and CDR (corporate debt restructuring) loans put together is over 10 per cent of the system. 

4 APRIL 2014

Ø  As deadline for creation of separate Telangana nears, the Centre on Thursday decided to extend the term of the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal headed by retired SC Judge Brijesh Kumar till July 31 this year.

Ø  The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is looking forward to the liftoff of its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle PSLV-C24 from Sriharikota. The IRNSS-1B is India’s second dedicated navigation satellite. The first, IRNSS-1A, was put into orbit on July 1 last year. All the seven satellites, which form the IRNSS, will be in orbit by 2016.

Ø  Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said he has scrapped the last discount on gas price granted by Moscow to Ukraine, effectively raising the price by $100 to $485 for every 1,000 cubic metres.

Ø  Japan said it was cancelling its annual Antarctic whaling hunt for the first time in more than a quarter of a century after a U.N. court ruled that the programme was a commercial activity disguised as science. A “deeply disappointed” Tokyo earlier this week said it would honour Monday’s judgment by the United Nations’ Hague-based International Court of Justice but did not exclude the possibility of future whaling programmes. 

3 APRIL 2014

Ø  The real cause behind the mysterious disappearance of Flight MH370 may never be known, Malaysian police warned as the frustrating search for the crashed airliner continued in the Indian Ocean without any headway. Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak is in Australia on a two-day tour to oversee the search for the plane. On the 25th day of the multinational search operations, a British nuclear submarine joined the hunt, about 1,500 km northwest of Perth. Up to 10 planes and nine ships participated in Wednesday’s search.

Ø  The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), on Wednesday, granted ‘in-principle’ approval to two applicants, IDFC Limited and Kolkata-based Bandhan Financial Services Private Limited, to set up banks. The RBI has also accepted the recommendation of the High-Level Advisory Committee (HLAC), set up by the RBI, to consider the application of the Department of Posts, separately in consultation with the Central Government. These licences would be issued under the guidelines on Licensing of New Banks in the Private Sector issued on February 22, 2013 (Guidelines), said RBI in a release.

Ø  Financial Services Secretary Gurdial Singh Sandhu has been nominated as a director on the Reserve Bank’s central board.

2 APRIL 2014

Ø  Communications satellite INSAT-3E has completed its life and gone out of service. Built to last 15 years, it has completed ten-and-a-half years in orbit. The third-generation satellite was launched in September 2003 with 36 transponders — 24 C-band and 12 extended C-band transponders — but only 25 of them have been working since 2009. The ISRO had apparently expected that the satellite, positioned at 55 degrees E longitude, would last a few more months and that it would be smoothly replaced with GSAT-16.

Ø  The largest land crab is called robber crab, but in reality only its life is being robbed by youth, and habitat destruction after the 2004 tsunami. The population of this crab, also called coconut crab, in the wild archipelagos of Andaman and Nicobar, the only place in India where they are found, is severely fragmented. What is remarkable about this crab is that it climbs a coconut tree, cuts a fruit and drops it. On descending, it de-husks the fruit and, using its pincers, eats the kernel or endosperm, piercing through the eyes in the nut. And it uses the fibre as a bed in its burrow. The NCF team conducted the study in South Sentinel and Little Andaman in Andaman Islands; and Car Nicobar, Little Nicobar, Great Nicobar, Camotra, Menchal and Cabra Islands in Nicobar Islands. It held discussions with Nicobari communities to examine how to conserve this species and conducted timed searches in areas where these crabs are likely to be found. The interactions revealed social taboos against hunting the crab in most of the Nicobar Islands. However, in some islands, the community members, particularly the youth, hunted them and consumed them. Although the crab is under Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act, none of the villagers are aware that hunting this species is illegal. The Zoological Survey of India has submitted a proposal to the Ministry of Environment and Forests to study the habitat of these crabs, survey their population in the wild and assess threats they face.

Ø  The Geographical Indications (GI) Registry has put on hold the decision to grant registration to products such as Dharmavaram handloom silk sari, Firozabad glass, Kannauj perfume, Moradabad metal craft and Saharanpur woodcraft due to code of conduct in force.

Ø  The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor, Raghuram Rajan, said that the central bank had adopted the new Consumer Price Index (CPI) (combined) as the key measure of inflation. Some recommendations of Urjit R. Patel Committee report have been implemented.  This also includes explicit recognition of the glide path for disinflation, transition to a bi-monthly monetary policy cycle, progressive reduction in access to overnight liquidity at the fixed repo rate, and a corresponding increase in access to liquidity through term repos, and introduction of longer-tenor term repos as well as, going forward, term reverse repos. Following on the recommendations of the high-level advisory committee chaired by Bimal Jalan, and after consulting the Election Commission, the RBI will announce in-principle approval for new bank licences.

31 MARCH 2014

Ø  Nineteen of the 98 Tamil Nadu fishermen arrested by the Sri Lankan Navy and ordered to be released by the Lankan government were repatriated. Indian Coast Guard (ICG) vessel Abheek received the fishermen with their four boats at the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL) after they were repatriated by the Lankan Navy.

Ø  British actor (female) Kate O’Mara, best known for her role in the 1980s soap opera “Dynasty,” died Sunday at the age of 74.

30 MARCH 2014

Ø  The BJP on Saturday announced the expulsion of senior leader Jaswant Singh and Subhash Mahariya for six years. The decision comes in the wake of Mr. Singh’s decision to contest as an Independent from Barmer and Mr. Mahariya’s announcement to do the same from Sikar in Rajasthan. 

Ø  The council of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc.) selected, as its 20th director, Anurag Kumar, who is now the Chairman of the Electrical Sciences Division at the institute. IISc.’s present director, P. Balaram, retires on July 31 after an eight-year tenure.

Ø   Astronauts’ hearts grow rounder while they are in space, suggesting that spending lots of time in microgravity could lead to heart problems, according to U.S. research. 

29 MARCH 2014

Ø  A recent and most modern acquisition of the Indian Air Force from the United States, the C-130J Super Hercules military transport aircraft, crashed on Friday near Gwalior, killing all five IAF personnel on board.The wreckage was strewn along the Madhya Pradesh-Rajasthan border, near Karauli district, about 165 km from Jaipur. 

Ø  Justice R.M. Lodha, the seniormost judge of the Supreme Court, has been recommended to be the 41st Chief Justice of India to succeed CJI P. Sathasivam, who retires on April 26.

Ø  Former Norwegian premier Jens Stoltenberg was named the next NATO chief on Friday, stepping in to take over from current Secretary- General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

Ø  European space experts said on Friday they had reawakened a fridge-sized robot designed to make the first-ever spacecraft landing on a comet. The 100-kg. Philae lander was revived after more than three years of deep space hibernation. The mission was launched over a decade ago. The National Centre for Space Studies said the spacecraft had re-established contact with Earth.

28 MARCH 2014

Ø  The Supreme Court on Thursday suggested the appointment of the former India cricket captain, Sunil Gavaskar, as the interim president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to replace N. Srinivasan until its final order on the Indian Premier League spot-fixing and betting scandal.

Ø  The U.N. Human Rights Council launched an inquiry into alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka, despite Colombo’s fierce efforts to block an investigation. In a 23-12 vote, the council backed a Western-sponsored resolution that said it was time for a “comprehensive investigation into alleged serious violations and abuses of human rights and related crimes by both parties in Sri Lanka.” India, for the first time, abstained from voting on a resolution against the island nation at the UNHRC.

Ø  The discovery of two more mounds in January at the Harappan site of Rakhigarhi in Hisar district, Haryana, has led to archaeologists establishing it as the biggest Harappan civilisation site. Until now, specialists in the Harappan civilisation had argued that Mohenjo-daro in Pakistan was the largest among the 2,000 Harappan sites known to exist in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The archaeological remains at Mohenjo-daro extend around 300 hectares. Mohenjo-daro, Harappa and Ganweriwala (all in Pakistan) and Rakhigarhi and Dholavira (both in India) are ranked as the first to the fifth biggest Harappan sites. With the discovery of two additional mounds, the total area of the Rakhigarhi site will be 350 hectares.

Ø  ANNUAL REPORT OF AMMENESTY INTERNATIONAL: Despite a marked global trend towards the abolition of the death sentence, the pattern was disrupted by a sharp spike in the number of executions in Iran (369) and Iraq (169) in 2013, leading to a 15 per cent increase in the global figure for executions as compared to 2012. In India 72 new death sentences were known to have been imposed throughout the year and at least 400 people were believed to be on death row at the end of the year, Excluding China, at least 778 executions are known to have been carried out worldwide in 2013, compared to 682 in 2012. Amnesty International says that it stopped publishing Chinese execution numbers from 2009 in protest against the Chinese government’s refusal to provide the organisation with figures. Nevertheless, it claims China accounts for the single largest number of executions, running “into thousands. There has been a steady decline in the number of countries using the death penalty over the last 20 years. Twenty years ago, 37 countries actively implemented the death penalty. This number fell to 25 by 2004 and to 22 last year. Only nine of the world’s countries have executed year on year for the past five years. Significantly, the USA is the only country to have carried out executions in the Americas, although the numbers fell by four between 2012 and 2013 that saw 39 executions. There were 3108 people on death row last year, with Texas accounting for 41 per cent of all executions in the country.

Ø  Outgoing Finance Minister P. Chidambaram has threatened action by India against Switzerland at global forums such as G20 for its persistent denial to share information on Indians stashing money in its banks. The G20 can impose sanctions for the protection of the member countries’ public finances and financial systems.

27 MARCH 2014

Ø  A French satellite scanning the Indian Ocean for remnants of the missing MH370 jetliner found a possible debris field containing 122 objects.

Ø  Russian mathematician Yakov Grigorevich Sinai (78), one of the most influential mathematicians of the 20th Century, has been chosen for the 2014 Abel Prize, the mathematician’s Nobel Prize, by the Norwegian Academy of Science Letters. The President of the Academy, Nils Chr. Stenseth, announced this in Oslo.

Ø  Approximately seven million people died of air pollution around the world in 2012, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has estimated in its new study.

Ø  Astronomers found rings around an asteroid, the smallest object known to have this feature and only the fifth after Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The twin rings around a rock called Chariklo were spotted in June last year as it passed in front of a star, scrutinised by seven telescopes dotted over a 1,500-kilometre stretch of South America.

Ø  Nearly a month after announcing $19 billion acquisition of instant messaging firm WhatsApp, Facebook reached a definitive agreement to acquire virtual reality technology company Oculus VR, Inc., for about $2 billion in a cash and stock deal. The California headquatered Oculus’ flagship product — Oculus Rift — is a goggle like ‘virtual reality headset’ for video gaming.

26 MARCH 2014

Ø  The G8 group of top economic powers has suspended Russia for annexing Crimea, and has threatened to impose far-reaching sanctions if Moscow continued its incursion into Ukraine. The U.S. and six other economic powers also scrapped the G8 summit to be hosted by Russia in Sochi in June to build pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin. At an emergency summit in the Hague on Monday, the leaders of the U.S., Britain, Canada, Germany, France, Italy and Japan also decided to convene in Brussels without Russia.

Ø  More than a year after the shocking Delhi gang rape, the Indian Ordinance factory today launched a light-weight revolver, “Nirbheek,” designed especially for women to defend themselves from assault. “Nirbheek,” a .32 bore revolver, weighing 500gm, can be carried by women in their purses or handbags. The nomenclature of the light-weight revolver is inspired by ‘Nirbhaya,’ the name given by the media to a paramedical student who was brutally gang raped (and who died later) in a bus in Delhi in 2012. The revolver, priced at Rs 1,22,360, is made of titanium alloy.

Ø  Shigeru Ban, Japanese architect known for his creative and inexpensive designs for disaster relief shelters, has won the 2014 Pritzker Architecture Prize. The annual award, considered the most prestigious prize in the world of architecture, is given to designers who have “significantly contributed to humanity” and for “excellence in built work.”

Ø  Thirty-five countries on Tuesday committed to bolstering nuclear security, backing a global drive spearheaded by U.S. President Barack Obama to prevent dangerous materials falling into the hands of terrorists. In a joint statement issued on the sidelines of the third biennial Nuclear Security Summit (NSS), the countries pledged to work closer together and submit to “peer reviews periodically” of their sensitive nuclear security regimes.