Comprehensive News Analysis - 11 December 2016

A. GS1 Related

Nothing here today folks!

B. GS2 Related

1. From Kiev to Kerala, enlivening tourism season

Category: Polity and Governance    

Topic: Government Initiatives  

Key Points:

• Kerala Tourism is hopeful of bringing chartered tourists from Ukraine during the tourism season.
• Efforts are on to bring the tourists from Ukraine before summer offering viability gap funding for the first time.
• Tourism officials in Kerala have said that a 30 per cent increase in operations would infuse much-needed enthusiasm to the travel trade in Kovalam.

2. India offers tsunami alert system to SCS countries

Category: International Relations

Topic: Agreements involving India

Key Points:

• In an effort of soft-diplomacy, India is looking to have South China Sea countries such as Vietnam, Malaysia and Philippines use the tsunami early warning-system developed by it.
• China, too has been approached, according to a senior official in the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), but a deal is unlikely yet.
• It is important to note that since the deadly tsunami struck Tamil Nadu in 2004, India has put in place its own tsunami-alert system over the years that immediately warn concerned authorities in the country of any large earthquake in the Indian Ocean and the threat it poses.

A novel approach

• Because of limited data on the historical occurrence of tsunamis, scientists at the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) have developed a technique that uses mathematical modelling to estimate if an earthquake, in India’s oceanic neighbourhood, will result in a tsunami.
• There are also sensors lodged on the ocean floor that will measure actual earthquake signals, based on which warnings can be revised.

3. Vietnam invites India to explore energy in South China Sea

Category: International Relations

Topic: Agreements involving India

Key Points:

• Vietnam has urged India to intensify economic engagement with Southeast Asia, thereby highlighting India’s importance as a regional power.
• Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, Chairwoman of National Assembly of Vietnam, has recently extended an invitation to India to explore energy in the South China Sea and supported India’s multilateral membership plans.
• She remarked, “Vietnam supports ‘Act East’ policy of India which is aimed at energising India’s ties with Southeast Asia.
• In this context, Vietnam can serve as India’s bridge to Southeast Asia.”

4. Kolkata-Mizoram trade route to open via Myanmar

Category: International Relations

Topic: Agreements involving India

Key Points:

• A deep water port built by India in Myanmar’s Sittwe on the Bay of Bengal is ready to be commissioned.
• According to Vikram Misri, the Indian envoy to Myanmar, an inauguration ceremony for this strategically important facility is expected to take place next month.
• It is important to note that this Indian achievement, has taken place faster than the Chinese endeavour to create a deep-sea berthing infrastructure and an SEZ further down the Rakhine coast at Kyaukphyu.
• These two investments are inevitably being seen as attempts made by India and China, to expand their spheres of naval influence in the Indian ocean region as in the case of Gwadar in Pakistan and Chabahar in Iran being built by China and India, respectively.
• Sittwe is the capital of Rakhine State in south-western Myanmar.
• It is located at the mouth of the Kaladan river, which flows into Mizoram in north-eastern India.

Indian Context

• It is important to note that India has for years sought transit access through Bangladesh to ship goods to its landlocked north-eastern States.
• Unfortunately, at present, the only route to this region from the rest of India is through a narrow strip of Indian territory nicknamed the Chicken’s Neck in West Bengal, sandwiched between Bhutan and Bangladesh.
• The strategic advantage of the deep water port built by India in Myanmar’s Sittwe would be that it would significantly lower the cost and distance of movement from Kolkata to Mizoram and beyond.
• For example, once shipments arrive at Sittwe, they will be transferred to smaller freight carriers which would sail upstream into Mizoram.

C. GS3 Related

1. Cancer protein found

Category: Science and Technology    

Topic: Developments

Key Points:

• Recently, scientists have identified a specific protein called CD36 on cancer cells which has the ability to metastasise or spread.
• CD36, found in the cell membranes of tumour cells, is responsible for taking up fatty acids.
• This unique CD36 activity and dependence on fatty acids distinguishes metastasis-initiating cells from other tumour cells.

2. What is the Kounotori Experiment?

Category: Science and Technology    

Topic: Developments

Key Points:

• Recently, Japan’s space agency lauched Kounotori (“White Stork”).
• This space capsule will attempt to clean space debris orbiting around earth, using an unusual approach.

What are orbital debris?

• Orbital debris, consist of man-made objects, usually the residue of inactive space vehicles.

How does Kounotori work?

• The Kounotori uses a kind of “electrodynamic tether” forged from thin wires of stainless steel and aluminium.
• It is expected to slow the speed of space junk and pull it into lower and lower orbits.

D. GS4 Related

E. Important Editorials: A Quick Glance

1. In rural health care, few good options

Category: Polity and Governance    

Topic: Health

Key Points:

➢ Informal private health-care providers, continue to flourish in rural India, not only due to lack of access to public health care.

➢ Findings of an audit conducted in rural Madhya Pradesh, and published in the American Economic Review (December 2016), have revealed that most private providers, the bulk of whom lack formal medical qualifications, “exerted significantly higher effort than public providers” and “recommend correct treatments equally often.”

➢ The results of the audit suggest that the quality of the public system of health-care delivery is constrained by a lack of enforcement of administrative accountability and inadequate incentives.

For example, doctors are often reported to be missing from the primary health-care centres.

➢ Irrespective of the sector, the study says, “patients in our setting have few good options for health care”.

PIB

1. I&B Ministry to formulate National Information & Communication Policy 

Category: Polity and Governance       

Topic: Government Initiatives

Key Points:

• M Venkaiah Naidu, Minister of Information & Broadcasting has said the Ministry of I&B would be formulating a National Information & Communication Policy to address the communication needs of the people, challenges and the paradigm shift taking place across media space.
• The proposed policy would be prepared in consultation with States in the spirit of cooperative federalism and the principle of Team India which the Prime Minister firmly believes in.

Broad Objectives of the policy:

• To enhance access to information and communication infrastructures and new technologies, especially in rural areas
• To promote national dialogue on development issues by all citizens and facilitate informed participation of people in setting development agenda and its execution
• To rationalize multi-sectoral investments in information and communication hardware and software through their consolidation and appropriate integration in development plans and planning structures
• To ensure timely, orderly and effective growth of information and communication institutions and professions through standards setting, capacity building and human resource development
• Broadly define the roles of different governments at various levels and other stakeholders
• Preserve national cultural identity and enhance the development of cultural and artistic capabilities and institutions
• To improve the quality of life of the people, by facilitating systematic and effective use and coordination of communication and information strategies and outcomes.

The Minister further added that the initiation of such a policy would integrate development communication, development agendas linking planners, beneficiaries and implementers of development actions.

F. Concepts-in-News: Related Concepts to Revise/Learn:

• National Information & Communication Policy
• CD36
• Kounotori

G. BILLS/ACTS/SCHEMES/ORGS IN NEWS

Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA)

H. Fun with Practice Questions 🙂

Question 1: Consider the following statements,

Question 2: Consider the following statements, 

Question 3: Consider the following statements,

Question 4: Consider the following statements,

Question 5: Consider the following statements,

I. Archives:

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