News Roundup - 8 December 2014

1. The bottom 10% of Indian population held just 0.2% of the country’s total wealth in 2014, while top 10% held 74%. Top 1% alone held almost 50%. The share of top 10% increased by nearly 10 percentage points since 2000. The share of top 1% historically lower than the share of top 1% globally, has been growing faster than the rest of the world. Still, Indians make nearly 20% of world’s poorest tenth and just 0.5% of world’s richest 1%. – Credit Suisse.
2. China Machinery Engineering Corporation is building a water treatment plant with a supply capacity of 54000 cubic meters a day in Sri Lanka. The Chinese company had earlier constructed $1.2 bn Lakvijaya coal fired power plant in Sri Lanka. China sees Sri Lanka as one of the important elements of Maritime Silk Road (MSR), which will connect its Fujian province with Europe. The MSR would transit through the Indian Ocean via India, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Nairobi in Kenya, and terminate in Venice after crossing the Mediterranean via the Suez Canal. China is also engaged in expansion of Hambantota Port in the Southern Sri Lanka, with two loans of $600 mn (provided by Exim Bank of China) and 1bn Yuan (provided by Chinese Government). The first phase of the Hambantota port was also financed by China.
3. India sent water to Male and is the first country to respond to its distress call. The water was sent by INS Deepak, a large fleet tanker carrying 900 tons of water. It is capable of providing 100 tons of water a day using its desalination plants. INS Sukanya, an Offshore Patrol vessel, with capacity to produce 20 tons a day was also sent.
4. Kundankulan Nuclear Power Plant back on stream and would begin commercial operations soon. Its maximum capacity is 1000 MWe.
5. Indian engineering exports to China declined nearly 50% yoy. ($310 mn in Oct 2014 against $612 mn in Oct 2013) whereas the total engineering exports declined 9.36% to $5.03bn in Oct.
6. India broke Pakistan’s Guinness world record by creating largest human flag (30,000 people vs 28,957) in Chennai.
7. NASA’s New Horizons probe, launched in January 2006, to study Pluto and its moons (largest moon is Charon) has been woken up from Hibernation.
8. Communication satellite GSAT 16 launched on board an Arianespance rocket from Kourou in French Guiana. It was a dual satellite launch with a lift-off mass of 3,181 Kg ejected into space four minutes after its co-passenger DIRECTTV-14 spacecraft designed to provide direct-to-home TV broadcasts across the US. GSAT-16 has 24 C band, 12 Ku band & 12 upper extended C-band transponders. Its 48 transponders (largest ever carried by a communication satellite built by ISRO) would be joining 180-odd existing ones.
9. Russian President Vladimir Putin to visit Delhi on December 10.  Mr Putin & Mr Modi are likely to unveil two vision documents on strategic, nuclear and economic issues & may appear at World Diamond Congress. Since July, the relations between the countries are strained as Russia has entered into defence cooperation agreement with Pakistan. Its Defence Minister visited Pakistan for the first time and a Russian delegation took part in Karachi Defence Expo. Whereas, India has increased defence procurement from US. With just $10bn in bilateral trade in 2013, India & Russia are not likely to meet their target of $15bn by 2015.

Credits:The Hindu, Google.