News Roundup - 6 December 2015

1. Union Minister for Road Transport, Highways and Shipping Nitin Gadkari announced relaxation of cabotage law under the Merchant Shipping Act, 1958 for transhipment of export-import containers at the Vizhinjam International Deepwater Multipurpose seaport. Compared to the 150 million TEUs container transhipment business handled by China, the country handled only 10 million TEUs. Cabotage law protects domestic shipping lines by reserving coastal cargo for Indian ships.
2. President Barack Obama said the law forbidding people on government's no-fly list from being able to buy a gun. He said "If you’re too dangerous to board a plane, you’re too dangerous, by definition, to buy a gun".
3. India’s total installed capacity of solar power has crossed the 5-GW-mark. During last fiscal, a total capacity of 1,112 MW of grid connected solar power projects and 44.5 MW of rooftop projects were installed. For the current fiscal, 827 MW of solar capacity has been added so far. Central government has laid down the ambitious target of 100 GW by 2022.
4. The Council of Leather Exports (CLE) along with other agencies has devised a plan to more than double sales revenue in next five years to $27 billion. Last year, leather sector reported total sales of nearly $13 billion, of which exports accounted for $6.5 billion. By 2020, the export target is $15 billion. Plans to hold road shows, business-to-business meetings and conferences in different countries to attract foreign direct investment, introduce new technologies, designs and concepts and showcase India’s potential to the outside world.
5. Essar Oil Ltd., India’s second biggest non-state oil refiner, has issued a public notice to delist the company from local bourses by buying out the non-promoter shareholding of 28.54 per cent at Rs.146.05 per share.
6. Tata Sons, the promoter of major operating companies of the Tata group, will acquire an additional 0.22 per cent stake in Titan Company at an estimated price of over Rs.66 crore, taking its total holding to 19.80 per cent.
7. Sri Venkateswara Swamy Temple, popularly known as the Tirupati Temple may become the biggest contributor to the Gold Monetisation Scheme with more than 5.5 tonnes of gold. India is the world’s second-biggest consumer of gold after China & imports of the precious metal accounted for 28 percent of India’s trade deficit in the year ending March 2013.
8. The final draft of the Paris Climate agreement was released by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The overall goal of the Paris agreement, to keep global temperature rise to a specified quantum compared to pre-industrial levels, is pegged at either “below 1.5 degrees C”, or, as “well below 2 degrees C.”
9. HelpMeSee, a New York-based non-profit organisation leading the global campaign to end cataract blindness, presented its breakthrough eye care technologies at the first-ever World Conference on Manual Small Incision Cataract Surgery (MSICS). It includes a focus on simulation-based learning to train tens of thousands of specialists needed to carry out cataract surgery in the developing world. Earlier last month, the organisation launched a mobile health, or mHealth, smartphone application.
10. Antrix Corporation,  ISRO’s marketing arm, has signed deal with U.S.  commercial weather satellite company PlanetiQ for supply of two PSLV rockets. Antrix has bagged nine such U.S. launch orders for 2015-16. In September, US operator Spire Global became the PSLV’s first US customer by getting four 4-kg-each Lemur satellites from Sriharikota.
11. A map compiled by French explorer Samuel de Champlain in 1612 and believed to be among dozens stolen more than a decade ago from the Boston Public Library has been recovered.
12. The Indian government recently hiked foreign investment in insurance from 26 per cent to 49 per cent, and U.S. companies are unlikely to invest more in the sector till the Indian government removes the rider in the insurance law that mandates Indian ownership and control in the sector. U.S. firms are planning to invest $41-billion in infrastructure, defence, pharmaceutical, healthcare, e-commerce and renewable energy as per U.S.-India Business Council (USIBC).

Source: Google, The Hindu

News Roundup - 5 December 2015

1. Mr. Gates launched a multi-billion dollar 20-nation ‘Breakthrough Energy Coalition. world’s biggest charitable foundation at Paris COP21 summit. He said technological innovation was the only way to fight climate change.
2. Delhi to allow odd and even numbered vehicles on alternate days from  Jan 1, 2016. Cominga after Delhi High Court observation that Delhi is a gas chamber, the guidelines are aimed at dealing with vehicular population (currently above 87 lakh). Other measures include permitting commercial vehicles to enter the city only after 10 pm from current 9 pm. Emergency vehicles such as ambulances will be out of the purview of the scheme. The scheme is in operation at several capitals across the globe including Beijing and Sao Paulo. 
3. Oprah Winfrey signed a deal with Flatiron Books (an imprint of Macmillan) for her memoir The Life You Want and her own imprint at Macmillian - an untitled line on non-fiction.
4. The average agricultural household in India earns just Rs 6400 a month from all sources and owns less than 1 hectare of land - NSSO Data from 2013 sample survey of 35,200 households in 4,529 villages across the country. India had over 90 million agricultural households — households which owned, leased or operated land and made at least Rs 3,000 per year from agricultural activities — with over 460 million persons in all, the survey found, making up 58 per cent of all rural households. Uttar Pradesh alone had a fifth of India’s agricultural households, while the southern states had the smallest shares. The survey found that OBCs constitute over 45 per cent of all agricultural households. About 70 per cent of agricultural households owned less than one hectare of land, and just 13 per cent owned more than two hectares. Most Scheduled Caste households had very small land holdings. Farmers in West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar and Kerala were most likely to have very small land holdings, with around 90 per cent of households in these States owning less than one hectare.
5. Researchers in Sweden have developed power paper — a new material consisting of nano-cellulose and a conductive polymer with an outstanding ability to store energy. Power paper is made from renewable cellulose and an easily available polymer.
6. Japanese firm KDDI, has developed the world’s first smartphone ‘Digno rafre’ phone that can be washed with soap and water.
7. Germany to take on a direct role in the battle against the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria, answering France’s appeal for help after the deadly Paris attacks. 
8. Chinese authorities jailed Fu Zhibin, the author of a history book , A History of Brainwashing, critical of the ruling Communist Party for nearly two years. The verdict came on China’s second annual “Constitution Day”, which sees officials vow to govern in accordance with the document and other laws.
9. China is set to expand investments in Africa that would help absorb its excess manufacturing capacity China announced a $ 60-billion-dollar package that will benefit Africa in 10 major areas: industry, agriculture, infrastructure, financial services, green development, trade and investment facilitation, poverty reduction and public welfare, public health, people-to-people exchanges, and peace and security.
10. China's direct investment in the region scaled $30 billion last year. Trade had also zoomed to $220 billion — Africa’s highest with any single country. China wants to harmonise Africa’s Agenda 2063 — a 50 year developmental framework drawn by the African Union — with China’s Belt and Road blueprint of connecting Eurasia with roads, railways, cyber-optic highways, industrial parks and smart cities.
11. Anil Ambani led Reliance Communications (RCom) agreed  to sell its telecom tower assets and related infrastructure to Tillman Global Holdings, LLC and TPG Asia Inc. (TPG). If successful, it will be the largest acquisition in the telecom sector in India. RCom has 45,000 phone towers valued at about Rs. 22,000 crore and optic fibre assets worth another Rs. 8,000 crore, taking the total deal size to Rs. 30,000 crore. With outstanding borrowings of about Rs. 40,000 crore RCom intends to utilise the proceeds of the proposed transaction to pare its debt. After the deal, RCom’s debt will decline to Rs. 10,000 crore, making it one of the least leveraged companies in the country’s telecom industry. RCom’s interest costs will fall by a significant 85 per cent to Rs. 600 crore a year. The proposed transaction is subject to final due diligence, definitive documentation, applicable regulatory and other approvals and certain other terms and conditions The telecom tower business in India is seeing an increase in demand as telecommunications firms expand high-speed 3G and 4G internet services across the world's second-biggest telecom market by number of users.
12. China’s Apus Group, one of the world’s biggest Android application development companies has floated a fund in India with an initial corpus of Rs 300 crore. It will invest in startups that are working on mobile internet innovation projects in the country. Other investors include Northern Light Venture Capital, Redpoint Ventures, Chengwei Ventures, SIG Global and Qiming Venture Partners.
13. In September, Apus formed a partnership with Indian mobile advertising network InMobi. Apus said it has 30 million users in India and 80 percent of them are aged 18-34. The firm said the fund will also provide support for young Indian ventures to enter the Chinese market through their Apus Global Mobile Internet Incubator in Beijing. Apus would provide services such as registration, office, accommodation, human resources and legal support.
14. What startups need? NASSCOM say Enactment of bankruptcy law, E-filing facility and Change in taxation rule
15. Government looking at establishing 12 more petrochemical complexes in order to have one complex in each of 16 refineries. Currently 4 PCPIR (Petroleum, Chemicals and Petrochemicals Investment Region) are at Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Tamil Nadu. As per the PCPIR policy, the Centre has to ensure the availability of external physical infrastructure linkages to these regions including rail, road connectivity to national highways, ports, and telecom connectivity.

Source: Google, The Hindu