Current Affairs: Other Issues: 02 - 15 May 2010 by Dialogue India

CAG Weekly
(Current Affairs & GK)
By Om Prakash (goldy sir)

Content:

1. Fast Breeder Reactor research

Brief Description:

Fast Breeder Reactor research

1. Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor crosses milestone

• As a very tall crane ever so slowly winched up the circular contraption weighing 78 tonnes with “a spider” gripping it from top the contraption called thermal baffle sometimes stayed still in midair. At times, it swayed slowly as it rose in the air and hundreds of eyes were riveted on it.

• As the thermal baffle reached a height of about 80 metres, it was gingerly lowered to a height of 54 metres from the ground and then placed deftly inside the main vessel of the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) under construction at Kalpakkam, near Chennai.
• Applause rang out as the baffle fitted flush inside the main vessel, with just 90 mm of space separating the two contraptions. With that, the tension that had gripped the engineers of Bharatiya Nabhikiya Vidyut Nigam Limited (BHAVINI), which is building the PFBR, was gone. The entire operation took about an hour.
• Prabhat Kumar, Project Director, BHAVINI, who was happy that the PFBR project had flawlessly crossed the milestone, said “the entire world was looking at India” building the 500 MWe PFBR. Its construction signalled the beginning of the second stage of India's nuclear power programme, under which a series of fast breeder reactors would be built.
• The PFBR will use plutonium-uranium oxide as fuel and liquid sodium as coolant. It will go critical in March 2012.

2. Six more fast breeder reactors planned

• The Centre has sanctioned a pre-project funding of Rs. 250 crore to Bharatiya Nabhikiya Vidyut Nigam Limited (BHAVINI) for the construction of two more fast breeder reactors of 500 MWe capacity each at Kalpakkam, near Chennai, according to Prabhat Kumar, Project Director, BHAVINI.

Content:

1. India, Korea declared joint winners
2. Webber wins Monaco Grand Prix
3. Atlantis lifts off into history
4. Revamp of DRDO planned to make it more accountable
5. Greenhouse gas emissions fell by 30% during 1994-2007
6. The greats
7. Anand retains world title
8. Newton's tree to experience zero gravity, in space
9. Boeing in talks to work with ISRO on moon mission

Brief Description:

India, Korea declared joint winners

• India and Korea were declared joint champions after the cup final was abandoned a little over six minutes after start in the Sultan Azlan Shah hockey tournament on Sunday. India, the defending champion, leads the pool with a tally of 13 points.
• Heavy rain forced the Tournament Committee to arrive at this unprecedented decision. This is the first time that the teams have been declared joint winners in this tournament since its inception in 1983.
• Even the two earlier matches, which Australia and Pakistan won, were affected by rain.

Webber wins Monaco Grand Prix 

• Mark Webber leapt into serious contention for this year's drivers' World championship on Sunday when he drove to an imperious victory ahead of his precocious young teammate Sebastian Vettel in the Monaco Grand Prix.
• The 33-year-old Australian led from start to finish and made light of four interruptions for the introduction of the Safety Car on his way to a second comprehensive win in succession, having won equally impressively in Spain last weekend.

Atlantis lifts off into history

• A huge orange plume trailing behind, space shuttle Atlantis lifted off from the Kennedy Space Centre on its last scheduled mission to the International Space Station, signalling the beginning of the end of the three-decade American programme.
• The Obama administration decided to wind up the space shuttle programme that began with Columbia making its maiden voyage in April 1981. Between now and November this year, the last of the two shuttles, Discovery and Endeavor will carry payloads to the ISS and then make their way to museums.

Revamp of DRDO planned to make it more accountable

• The Defence Ministry announced plans to make the country's leading military research organisation, the Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO), more accountable and leaner.
• Another initiative, to be announced later, will also make it more commercially oriented.
• Despite impressive credentials in several spheres, the DRDO, however, has an equally patchy record of delivering on its promises and satisfying the expectations of the armed forces.
• The money would be used for land acquisition and site-levelling. These two breeder reactors would come up in addition to the 500 MWe Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) already under construction at Kalpakkam.

Greenhouse gas emissions fell by 30% during 1994-2007

• India has released its first greenhouse gas emissions inventory since 1994 — showing a 30 per cent fall in the emissions intensity of the GDP from that date till 2007 — even as it announced several measures to improve the domestic study of climate change.
• From ISRO satellites to monitor India's greenhouse gas emissions and forest cover to indigenous peer-reviewed climate change journals, the government is initiating steps to reduce dependence on international science.
• The ISRO will launch a dedicated satellite to track greenhouse gas (GHG) and aerosol emissions in 2012, and plans another satellite to monitor changes in forest cover on a real-time basis by 2013, according to Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh.

The greats

• Viswanathan Anand showed tremendous character in winning his fourth world chess crown in a decade.
• The 40-year-old Indian genius won the most intense battle of his career against Bulgarian challenger Veselin Topalov in Sofia, significantly scoring his edge-of-the-seat victory with black pieces in the 12th and final game of the championship match.
• This sealed Anand's place in chess history — as the greatest non-Russian champion, after the legendary Bobby Fischer, ever to play the game. For one whose three previous world titles came in different formats, Tuesday's triumph only reinforced the belief that his universal style of play remains the most effective against opponents of different temperament and approach.
• In a glittering international career spanning more than two decades, Anand has evolved from a bright, talented boy to a battle-scarred veteran who can quickly adapt himself to any challenge and challengers. If his maiden world title in 2000 took the monkey off his back after he destroyed Spain's Alexei Shirov in one of the shortest title-clashes, the triumph in a classy eight-man field in 2007 underlined his determination to end a seven-year wait and regain the title. The purists, mostly from the erstwhile Soviet Union, believed that the true sign of a world chess champion was his ability to win a title match, comprising a stipulated number of games. In 2008, Anand won their admiration by beating a previously unbeaten Russian, Vladimir Kramnik, with a game to spare.

Anand retains world title

• Viswanathan Anand retained the FIDE World Chess Championship, defeating Bulgarian Veselin Topalov with black pieces in the final classic game of the series in Sofia on Tuesday.
• Anand won the 12-game match with a score of 6.5-5.5 to defend the title he claimed in 2007.

Newton's tree to experience zero gravity, in space

• An astronaut is planning a unique test of Sir Isaac Newton's theory of gravity — by taking an original piece of the scientist's famous apple tree on a five-mile journey into space.
• British-born Piers Sellers plans to release the 10-cm fragment in zero gravity during his 12-day mission to the International Space Station, as a tribute to Newton's discovery of gravity in 1666, when he watched an apple fall to the ground in his garden.
• The tree fragment, engraved with the scientist's name, is stowed aboard the shuttle Atlantis at Cape Canaveral, Florida, awaiting Friday's blast-off.
• The stunt is part of the 350th anniversary celebrations of the Royal Society, of which Newton, who died in 1727, was a president.

Boeing in talks to work with ISRO on moon mission

• Seeking to expand cooperation with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on its moon mission, the United States is offering assistance through Boeing, which partners with the National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA) on its space exploration programme.
• Having worked with NASA on the Chandryaan mission, the ISRO is in talks with Boeing, which has a commercial crew development contract with NASA, as a key teammate to initiate the design and development architecture of a commercial transport to and from the International Space Station.