Current Affairs Update – 13th March, 2015

• Reserve Bank of India has agreed for a $1.5-billion currency swap agreement with the Sri Lankan central bank to help the island nation keep its currency stable, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said today.
• The agreement was announced after a meeting between Modi and Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena here.
• The currency swap pact assumes significance as the Sri Lankan rupee has been under pressure for quite some time.
• Despite attempts made by the central bank, the currency has been losing value since the beginning of this year.
• At the current valuation, one Indian rupee is equivalent to 2.12 Sri Lankan rupees. It has lost almost three per cent value in comparison to the Indian rupee so far in 2015.
• Modi is the first Indian Prime Minister to come to Sri Lanka on a standalone bilateral visit since 1987.
• Last month, Sirisena visited India on his first foreign trip as Sri Lankan President.

• India and Sri Lanka today signed four agreements during Narendra Modi’s maiden visit to the country, the first bilateral tour by an Indian Prime Minister in 28 years, with the PM announcing a slew of measures aimed at resetting ties with the strategic neighbour.
• Prime Minister Modi, who arrived here this morning on the final stop of his three-nation tour of Indian Ocean island nations, met Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena and discussed bilateral and issues of regional importance.
• The two sides signed four agreements on visa, customs, youth development and building Rabindranath Tagore memorial in Sri Lanka.

• NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has found strong evidence of a massive saltwater ocean under the icy crust of Jupiter’s largest moon Ganymede that could potentially support life.
• The subterranean ocean is thought to have more water than all the water on Earth’s surface, researchers said.
• Identifying liquid water is crucial in the search for habitable worlds beyond Earth and for the search for life.
• Ganymede is the largest moon in our solar system and the only moon with its own magnetic field. The magnetic field causes aurorae, which are ribbons of glowing, hot electrified gas, in regions circling the north and south poles of the moon.

• In a breakthrough, Japanese researchers have successfully transmitted electric power wirelessly to a pinpoint target using microwaves, an advance that brings space-based solar power closer to reality.
• According to Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or Jaxa, the researchers were able to transform 1.8 kilowatts of electric power into microwaves and transmit it with accuracy into a receiver located 55 metres away.
• In an experiment conducted last week in Hyogo prefecture in western Japan, the microwaves were successfully converted into direct electrical current, The Wall Street Journal reported.
• The experiment was the first in the world to send out high-output microwaves wirelessly to a small target, a Jaxa spokesman said.
• In space-based solar power generation, sunlight is gathered in geostationary orbit and transmitted to a receiver on Earth.

• Britain has applied to join a proposed Chinese-led Asian regional bank that Washington worries will undercut institutions such as the World Bank.
• The British Treasury said on Thursday it will join talks this month on the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank’s structure and governance arrangements.
• China proposed the bank in 2013 and has pledged to put up most of its initial $50 billion in capital. Twenty-one other governments including the Philippines, Thailand, New Zealand and Vietnam have said they want to join.
• The United States has expressed concern the bank will allow looser lending standards for the environment, labour rights and financial transparency, undercutting the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

• Pakistan today successfully tested its first indigenous all-weather armed drone and a laser guided missile that can strike its targets with pinpoint accuracy.
• Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif attended the ceremony and witnessed the test-fire of the new missile on static and moving targets.
• The drone, named Burraq, has the ability to fly in all types of weather conditions and strike its targets with pinpoint accuracy.
• Pakistan also tested its laser guided missile named Barq.
• General Sharif Sharif said this newly developed arsenal will increase the military's capacity in fighting terrorism.

• Chinese and US companies generate power through "least efficient and most polluting form of coal-fired generation", followed by Indian firms at the third position globally, says a report.
• According to a research by Stranded Assets Programme at the University of Oxford, 39 per cent of total global "sub-critical" capacity is located in China, 21 per cent in the US, and 9 per cent in India.
• The report further said that 10 per cent of these sub-critical portfolios are in the European Union (EU), a politico-economic grouping of 28 member states.
• Among the top 10 SCPS portfolios, ranked in terms of total generation of least efficient and pump out most greenhouse gas, state-run NTPC was ranked at the fifth position, the only Indian company in the top 10.

• World Kidney Day (WKD) was observed globally on 12 March 2015. The theme for the year 2015 is Kidney Health for All.
• The day is a global health awareness campaign that focuses on the importance of the kidneys and reducing the frequency and impact of kidney disease and its associated health problems worldwide.

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