Current Affairs: Others - Major/Minor Issues 17th to 29th June 2010

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

India needs a network of biosphere reserves'

• The country needs a network of biosphere reserves for conserving biodiversity and promoting value-added bio-resources, according to Natarajan Ishwaran, UNESCO director of Division of Ecological and Earth Sciences.
• The Nilgiri, Nanda Devi, Sundarbans, Gulf of Mannar, Pachmarhi, Nokrek and Simlipal reserves have been included in a world network of biosphere reserves. The Nilgiri reserve is sited on 5,520 sq. km., spread over Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka.
• Munnar declaration- The conference suggested that biosphere reserves be carved out of the desert and Gangetic plain bio-geographic zones, as all other zones were covered. The information relating to the schemes implemented in the reserves, including their objectives and cost, should be put in public domain.

LCA Naval prototype all set to roll out

• The Naval Prototype of the Light Combat Aircraft , being developed by the Aeronautical Development Agency , Bangalore, is all set to roll out from the hangar on July 6 and take its first flight by year-end.
• The country's first indigenous LCA (Navy) will come out from HAL Aircraft Research and Design Centre, marking a milestone for the programme sanctioned by the government in 2003.
• The Chief of The Naval Staff Admiral Nirmal Verma will be the Chief Guest at the Roll-Out occasion when the aircraft comes out of the hangar for the first time.
• The NP2 (fighter) is likely to fly by the end of 2011. The aircraft, with state-of-the-art technologies, is designed to use the future indigenous aircraft carriers the Navy plans to acquire.

1,000 Genomes Project releases first phase data

• The 1,000 Genomes Project, which aims to produce an extensive catalogue of human genetic variations, started to release data from a pilot phase Monday.
• The project, a collaboration started in 2008 among research groups in the U.S., the United Kingdom, China and Germany, would support medical research and throw new light on human evolution, said Wang Jun, project coordinator of the Chinese party and also deputy head of the Shenzhen Branch of the Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI).
•  More than 50 trigabites of 8,000 billion base pairs of human DNA had been mapped and included in a public database, he said.

singapore Open title

• Indian badminton ace Saina Nehwal clinched the second Super Series title of her career by winning the Singapore Open with a straight-game win over qualifier Tzu Ying Tai in the final here on Sunday.
• Top-seeded Saina took just 33 minutes to beat Chinese Taipei's Tai 21-18, 21-15 at the Singapore Indoor Stadium here.
• The World No. 6 bagged her maiden Super Series title in June last year when she claimed the top honours at the Indonesian Open.

Inclusion of new areas in digital mapping under study

• Even as the Chennai Corporation is taking measures on digital mapping of the city to develop a Geographical Information System (GIS), the civic body is considering expanding the initiative to include localities that would be part of the Corporation limits next year.
• Officials said that the digital mapping at the scale of 1:1000 and the development of GIS would be a long-drawn-out process and, currently, the focus was on the existing limits.

Trials of combat aircraft over'

• 126 multi-role combat aircraft, the latest fighter aircraft, are being inducted into the Indian Air Force (IAF).
• Speaking to media persons after reviewing the Combined Graduation Parade at the Air Force Academy at Dundigal here on Saturday, the Minister said trials by the fleet were over and vendors who qualified in the evaluation process would be invited to submit financial proposals.

S.Korea to tap India's space launch capabilities

• South Korea agreed to explore possibilities of launching its satellites aboard India's space launch vehicles, according to official sources in Seoul.
• External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna suggested such a new trajectory of cooperation when he called on the Republic of Korea (ROK) President Lee Myung-bak at his official residence in Seoul.
• Mr. Krishna was referring to the Memorandum of Understanding that the Indian Space Research Organisation and the Korean Aerospace Research Institute signed in January, according to an External Affairs Ministry statement on Thursday's talks. Agreeing with Mr. Krishna, Mr. Lee “asked his officials to do the necessary follow-up,” the statement noted.
• The issue, however, acquires unusual importance in the context of Seoul's recent failures to launch its satellites, with Russia's collaboration, from an ROK space facility. Mr. Lee and Mr. Krishna agreed that there was a great deal of potential for civil nuclear cooperation between the two countries, sources told The Hindu. The issue was first discussed during Mr. Lee's visit to India as its Republic Day guest earlier this year. On the recent sinking of the ROK frigate, Cheonan, which Seoul and Washington blamed on North Korea, Mr. Krishna now conveyed to Mr. Lee India's appreciation of the “mature and restrained way” his country had responded, sources said.
• The External Affairs Ministry statement said the two leaders emphasised the importance of enhancing people-to-people contacts to bolster the strategic partnership between the two sides.
• Mr. Krishna suggested that a bust of Rabindranath Tagore, who had described Korea as the ‘Lamp of the East,' be installed at a prominent place in Seoul. Warmly evincing interest, Mr. Lee said he would make a strong recommendation to the city authorities to identify a suitable location for installing the bust in 2011, Tagore's 150th birth anniversary.

World champion knocked out

• Italy exited the 2010 World Cup after suffering a 3-2 defeat to Slovakia in a pulsating Group F game at Ellis Park in Johannesburg.
• This is the second time Italy has crashed out at the first round as defending champion. The 2006 champion also exited at this stage in 1950. The other two teams that share this dubious distinction are Brazil (1966) and France (2002). Italy finished last in Group F, with only two points from three games. The last time the Azzurri went out at the first hurdle was in 1974.

Descartes letter exists, therefore it is found

• The name Guglielmo Libri will mean little to anyone outside the inner circles of academia. But a mere mention of the 19th-century Tuscan noble and polymath to European scholars still has the power to provoke hand-wringing and despair.
• Count Guglielmo Libri Carucci dalla Sommaja was more than a respected scientist and a decorated professor of mathematics. He was also — and more notoriously — a book thief, guilty of intellectual larceny on an international scale.
• In the mid-1800s, Libri pilfered tens of thousands of precious manuscripts, tomes and documents from Italian and French libraries, including 72 letters written by the great French philosopher and mathematician Rene Descartes. Now, in an emotional ceremony, one of the letters has been handed back to France after collecting dust in a library at a small American college since 1902.
• The letter, described as “a wonderful discovery for science”, is dated 27 May 1641 and concerns the publication of Descartes's treatise, Meditations on First Philosophy — subtitled In Which the Existence of God and the Immortality of the Soul Are Demonstrated — that year. It was written to Father Marin Mersenne, who was overseeing the book's publication.
• Academics had known of the letter's existence for more than 300 years but not its contents as nobody, apart from a Haverford College undergraduate, had examined it. As scholars pore over the contents, its discovery has once more put Libri under the spotlight.
• Born on January 1, 1803, in Florence, he was a precocious academic who, at the age of 20, was appointed professor of mathematical physics at Pisa, and had a fascination with ancient books and manuscripts. Threatened with arrest for his political activities, he fled to France, where he was elected to the French Academy of Sciences and awarded the Legion d'Honneur. His love and knowledge of books were recognised when he was appointed Inspector of Libraries, tasked with cataloguing valuable works. Instead of documenting them, however, he began stealing them.