GK and Current Affairs Updates

The European Parliament on 14 April 2016 approved a joint system for Police and Justice Officials to access airline passenger data on all flights to and from the EU. The measure was passed by 461 votes to 179 against.
•    The creation of the new system will enable security agencies to systematically store the data of airline passengers travelling to, from and within the EU.
•    The creation of a European passenger name records (PNR) system gained momentum following 2015 Paris terrorist attacks. The March 22 attacks in Brussels added further urgency.
•    PNR includes name, travel dates, itinerary, ticket details, contact details, travel agent, and means of payment, seat number and baggage information.
•    Counter-terrorism officials have lobbied for years for the introduction of Passenger Name Records (PNR), arguing that sharing data will help them trace suspicious itineraries. EU countries will have two years to turn it into national law.

Wind turbine maker Suzlon Energy Ltd has acquired five companies for an undisclosed sum to help implement its diversification into the solar energy industry, including the execution of its recently won 70 megawatt (MW) solar project in Maharashtra, the company informed the BSE on 19th April 2016.
•    However, Suzlon will keep its foray into the solar power business independent of its wind energy operations through separate companies. 
•    Keeping solar power operations separate will help investors participate in this business selectively.
•    The acquired companies are Gale Solarfarms Pvt. Ltd, Tornado Solarfarms Pvt. Ltd, Abha Solarfarms Pvt. Ltd, Aalok Solarfarms Pvt. Ltd and Shreyas Solarfarms Pvt. Ltd.
•    Suzlon, which has helped its power sector customers install 15GW of wind energy capacity, manufactures turbines in India and has research and development facilities in Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark, apart from India. About 9GW of the Pune-based firm’s installation is in India, accounting for 37% of the country’s wind installations.

The Uttar Pradesh Cabinet on 18th April 2016 approved various concessions and facilities to six mega projects in the state that will bring an investment worth Rs 3,166 crore and employment opportunities to over 11,000 people.

•    The Cabinet presided over by Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav approved extending various facilities and concessions worth Rs 3,184 crore in seven to ten years' time under the infrastructure and industrial investment policy of 2012.
•    Proposals worth Rs 1,328 crore from LG Electronics India limited, Rs 324 crore from M/s Sparsh Industries, Rs 272.79 crore from M/s Ashar Agro Limited, Rs 278.46 by Sukhbir Agro Energy in Shahjahanpur and another by the same firm for solar energy in Mahoba worth Rs 377.99 crore and Rs 585 crore by Benett Institute of Higher education had been received.
•    Together these mega projects are worth Rs 3,166 crore and will create direct and indirect job opportunities for 11,645 people in the state.
•    As per the policy, a chief secretary led empowered committee was set up to deliberate on giving certain facilities to projects investing over Rs. 200 crores and it made some recommendations which were approved by the cabinet on 18th April 2016.
•    The Cabinet also recommended making another category of 'super mega projects' for units having an investment of Rs 1,000 crore and above and it was also given a nod by the cabinet.
•    Before this, letter of comforts had been issued to eight mega projects worth Rs 7,435 crore of which Rs 2,160 crore have already been invested and two of them have started production.
•    In another important decision, the cabinet approved amendment in the existing policy to encourage setting up of theme parks and amusement parks and approved government guarantee for the Agra-Lucknow Expresway project to raise a loan of Rs 1,530 crore from the HUDCO.

On 18th April 2016 Centre released foreign trade figures relating to the financial year 2015-16. The central government's Ministry of Commerce and Industry released the 2015-16 fiscal statistics on foreign trade.
•    Exports during March, 2016 were valued at US$ 22718.69 million (Rs.152264.96 crore) which was 5.47 per cent lower in Dollar terms (1.45 per cent higher in Rupee terms) than the level of US$ 24032.55 million (Rs.150082.80 crore) during March, 2015. 
•    Cumulative value of exports for the period April-March 2015-16 was US$ 261136.80 million (Rs.1708841.43 crore) as against US$ 310338.47 million (Rs.1896348.40 crore) registering a negative growth of 15.85 per cent in Dollar terms and 9.89 per cent in Rupee terms over the same period last year.
•    Non-petroleum exports in March 2016 are valued at US$ 20639.78 million against US$ 21386.48 million in March 2015, a reduction of 3.49 per cent. 
•    Non-petroleum exports during April to March 2016 are valued at US$ 231952.95 million as compared to US$ 253544.33 million for the corresponding period in 2015, a reduction of 8.52 per cent.
•    The trend of falling exports is in tandem with other major world economies. 
•    The growth in exports have fallen for USA (10.81 per cent), European Union (7.40 per cent), China (11.37 per cent) and Japan (12.85 per cent) for January 2016 over the corresponding period previous year as per WTO statistics.
•    Imports during March, 2016 were valued at US$ 27789.56 million (Rs.186250.88 crore) which was 21.56 per cent lower in Dollar terms and 15.82 per cent lower in Rupee terms over the level of imports valued at US$ 35428.72 million (Rs.221251.65 crore) in March, 2015. 
•    Cumulative value of imports for the period April-March 2015-16 was US$ 379596.17 million (Rs.2481367.22 crore) as against US$ 448033.42 million (Rs.2737086.58 crore) registering a negative growth of 15.28 per cent in Dollar terms and 9.34 per cent in Rupee terms over the same period last year.
•    Oil imports during March, 2016 were valued at US$ 4799.96 million which was 35.30 per cent lower than oil imports valued at US$ 7418.51 million in the corresponding period last year. 
•    Oil imports during April-March, 2015-16 were valued at US$ 82662.26 million which was 40.24 per cent lower than the oil imports of US$ 138325.50 million in the corresponding period last year. 
•    Non-oil imports during March, 2016 were estimated at US$ 22989.60 million which was 17.92 per cent lower than non-oil imports of US$ 28010.21 million in March, 2015. 
•    Non-oil imports during April-March, 2015-16 were valued at US$ 296933.91 million which was 4.12 per cent lower than the level of such imports valued at US$ 309707.92 million in April-March, 2014-15.
•    II. TRADE IN SERVICES (for February, 2016, as per the RBI Press Release dated 18th April, 2016)
•    Exports during February, 2016 were valued at US$ 12329.00 Million (Rs. 84130.26 crore).
•    During February, 2016, on month-on-month basis, growth in services export remained negative (with a growth of 1.94 per cent) as compared to negative growth (10.44 per cent) during January 2016 (as per RBI’s Press Release for the respective months).

Puerto Rican composer and singer Ismael Quintana was died on 16 April 2016 in Colorado, United States of America after respiratory failure. He was 78.
•    He became a pioneer of salsa music and was renowned for hits such as Puerto Rico, Adoracion, No se compara and Maestro rumbero.
•    He was born in Ponce and in early career he played in quartets and sextets.
•    He joined forces with the beloved Eddie Palmieri, also from Puerto Rico, in the Orquesta La Perfecta in 1960.
•    Yet Experts credit him with a major role in getting salsa's Afro-Caribbean beat to stick. He also hit it big with fans with the Fania All-Stars in the late 1960s.  
•    Salsa is a mix of Latin rhythms but mostly Cuban and Puerto Rican. It started emerging in New York City in the late 1960s and 1970s.

Satyanand Munjal, co-founder of Hero Cycles group, passed away on 14 April 2016 at Model Town, Ludhiana. He was 99.
He was popularly known as Mahatma Satyanand Munjal for being devoted to several social causes related to the Arya Samaj.
Satyanand had co-founded Hero Group with his three brothers, Om Prakash Munjal, Brijmohan Lall Munjal and Dayanand Munjal. The brothers hailed from a small town called Kamalia, now in Pakistan.
The philanthropist had served as a Co-Chairman and Managing Director (MD) of Hero Cycles Ltd.
Satyanand was also known for his philanthropic acts such as Bahadur Chand Munjal (BCM) Arya schools, Hero DMC Heart Institute, Dayanand Medical College and Hospital (DMCH).
• After partition and independence of India, the Munjal brothers moved to Ludhiana and started a bicycle unit called Hero Cycles in 1956.
• By 1975, Hero became the largest manufacturer of bicycles in India with a production of 7500 cycles per day.
• In 1984, Hero group joined Honda Motors of Japan to create Hero Honda Motors Limited, which soon became one of the market leaders in motor-cycle sales in India.
• In 1986, Hero Cycles produced over 18500 cycles a day, the highest in global reckoning. With the 48% share of the Indian market, this volume has catapulted Hero in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest bicycle manufacturer in the world.
• By 2004, Hero Honda became the world's largest manufacturer of two-wheelers with over 48% market share in India.
• In August 2011, Hero and Honda parted company, thus forming Hero MotoCorp and Honda moving out of the Hero Honda joint venture.

Indian artistic gymnast Dipa Karmakar on 17 April 2016 created history by becoming the first Indian woman gymnast to qualify for Olympics.
Karmakar booked a berth for the Rio Games after a strong performance at the final qualifying and test event. She earned a total score of 52.698 points in the Olympics qualifying event to book a berth for artistic gymnastics in Rio Games to be held in August 2016.
Karmakar has been listed as the 79th gymnast among individual qualifiers in the list of women’s artistic gymnast who have qualified for the Rio Olympics.
• Born on 9 August 1993 in Agartala, Dipa Karmakar came to recognition when she won a bronze medal at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, held at Glasgow becoming the first Indian female gymnast to do so in the history of the games.
• She is also one of the five women that have successfully landed the very difficult Produnova vault in competition, also holding the highest score amongst all in her attempt. She scored 15.100, which is 7.000 for difficulty, and an 8.100 for execution, with a 0.1 penalty. Only two of her contemporaries have attempted the Produnova: Yamilet Pena of Dominican Republic and Fadwa Mahmoud of Egypt.
• She also won a bronze at the Asian Gymnastics Championships and finished fifth at the 2015 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships, both a first for India. These achievements have established her as the most successful gymnast from India despite her young age.

The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has given its approval for signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between India and United Arab Emirates (UAE) on cooperation in preventing and combating of Human Trafficking. The MoU is expected to be signed very soon after the approval.
•    The MoU will strengthen the bonds of friendship between the two countries and increase the bilateral cooperation on the issues of prevention, rescue, recovery and repatriation related to human trafficking especially women and children expeditiously. 
•    The following are the salient features of the MoU: 

(i) To strengthen cooperation to prevent all forms of human trafficking, especially that of women and children and ensure speedy investigation and prosecution of traffickers and organized crime syndicates in either country. 

(ii) Taking preventive measures that would eliminate human trafficking in women and children and in protecting the rights of victims of trafficking. 

(iii) Anti-trafficking Cells and Task Forces will work on both sides to prevent human trafficking. 

(iv) Police and other concerned authorities will work in close cooperation and exchange information which can be used to interdict human traffickers. 

(v) The repatriation of victims would be done as expeditiously as possible and the home country will undertake the safe and effective re-integration of the victims. 

(vi) A Joint Task Force with representatives from both sides would be constituted to monitor the working of the MoU
•    As a destination of trafficking, South Asian countries are mainly affected by domestic trafficking, or trafficking from the neighboring countries. However, South Asian victims are also increasingly detected in the Middle East. 
•    India is a source and transit country as far as trafficking to UAE is concerned, whereas UAE is a destination and transit country for men and women, predominantly from South, Southeast and Central Asia and Eastern Europe who are subjected to forced labour and sex trafficking. 
•    Migrant workers, who comprise over 95 percent of the UAE's private sector workforce, are recruited primarily from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Iran and East, South and Southeast Asia. 
•    Some of these workers face forced labour in the UAE. Women from some of these countries travel willingly to the UAE to work as domestic workers, secretaries, beauticians and hotel cleaners, but some are subjected to forced labour by unlawful withholding of their passports, restrictions on movement, non-payment of wages, threats and physical or sexual abuse. 
•    The reinforcement of anti-trafficking efforts at all levels between the UAE and India is essential for prevention and protection of victims. 
•    This requires mutual cooperation among both the countries for intelligence sharing, joint investigation and a coordinated response to the challenges of human trafficking. 
•    For this purpose, it is proposed to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with UAE. We have already signed one MoU to prevent trafficking with Bangladesh and another with Bahrain is to be signed during this month. 

The Central Information Commission (CIC) on 1 April 2016 directed the GEAC to make public the non-confidential bio-safety information on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs).
The direction is aimed at enhancing transparency in the regulatory approval process and applicable to all GMOs in the pipeline including GM mustard variety - DMH11.
As per the direction, the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC), the apex regulatory body for GMOs, has to keep all the relevant data in the public domain by 30 April 2016.
However, the disclosure of intellectual property data was exempted.
• The Centre for Genetic Manipulation of Crop Plants (CGMCP) of Delhi University has been developing GM Mustard variety - DMH11 - for few years.
• In 2014 and 2015, the crop developer submitted two separate dossiers to the GEAC seeking permission to conduct field trials.
• Opposing regulatory approval to GM mustard, the Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture requested the authorities for a copy of the bio-safety dossier under the Right to Information Act, 2005.
• The petitioners contended that the GM seeds so produced aren’t substantially better than existing mustard varieties and that seed developers and biotechnology regulators have colluded to “push” DMH11.
• However, the authorities refused to provide the information saying such information will breach the commercial confidence of the CGMCP.
• Contending this stand, the petitioners approached the Central Information Commission for redressal.
• GMOs can be defined as organisms like plants, animals or microorganisms in which the genetic material (DNA) has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally by mating and/or natural recombination.
• GM foods are produced – and marketed – because there is some perceived advantage either to the producer or consumer of these foods.
• This is meant to translate into a product with a lower price, greater benefit (in terms of durability or nutritional value) or both.
• However, the GMOs attracted much criticism on various grounds including environment, public health, cost-benefit analysis, technological hurdles, monopoly of multinational companies, etc.
• Though the hybrid varieties are generally known to produce greater yields but they necessitate farmers to keep going to seed companies every year to buy fresh seed.
• About DMH11 has been developed by Deepak Pental, a geneticist at the Delhi University, with support from the National Dairy Development Board and the Department of Biotechnology.
• The technology involves using a complex of genes, sourced from soil bacterium, which makes it easier for seed developers to easily develop hybrid varieties of mustard, generally a self pollinating plant.
• This new variety is expected to contribute to increasing yields of up to 25 percent compared to existing varieties.
• It is India’s apex regulatory body under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC).
• It looks after approval of activities involving large scale use of hazardous microorganisms and recom¬binants in research and industrial production from the environ¬mental angle.
• It is also responsible for ap¬proval of proposals relating to release of genetically engineered organisms and products into the environment including experimen¬tal field trials.
• At present, GM cotton is the only GM crop commercially available in farmer fields.
• Since its introduction in India in 2002, it is grown in such quantities that India is the world’s fourth-biggest GM-crop producer, behind the United States, Brazil and Argentina.
• In July 2014, it gave the green signal for field trials of GM rice, mustard, cotton, chickpea and brinjal.

Australia on 16 April 2016 defeated India 4-0 in the final to win the 25th edition of the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup held in Ipoh, Malaysia.
This was the 9th title for the Aussies at this tournament having last won it in 2014.
India last won the tournament in 2010, their fifth title, when they were jointly declared winners with South Korea.
Thomas Craig and Matt Gohdes scored two goals each in open field play for Australia. The Aussies took off though Craig's field goals in the 25th and 35th minutes. Gohdes made it 3-0 in the 43rd minute and scored the fourth in the 57th minute.
New Zealand, the winner of 2015 Sultan Azlan Shah Cup, acquired the third place in the 25th edition of the tournament.
• The Sultan Azlan Shah Cup is an annual international men's field hockey tournament held in Malaysia.
• It began in 1983 as a biennial contest.
• The tournament became an annual event after 1998, following its growth and popularity.
• The tournament is named after the ninth Yang di-Pertuan Agong (King) of Malaysia, Sultan Azlan Shah, who was an avid fan of field hockey.