Current Affairs Update - 3-4 Oct, 2014

• ·         The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) has set up an 18-member advisory committee to help frame regulations for developing a robust pensions system in the country.
• ·         The move comes eight months after the PFRDA law got notified on February 1 this year, giving the regulator the much-needed statutory backing.
• ·         The setting up of the advisory panel — Pension Advisory Committee (PAC) — is an important step and the final stage of structural arrangement for finalising the regulations for the pension sector, RV Verma, Acting Chairman of PFRDA.
• ·         As many as 12-13 draft regulations are currently under the process of receiving public feedback and these are then expected to go through the newly set up PAC before being taken up by the PFRDA Board for final approval, Verma said.
• ·         The draft regulations that had been already exposed to the public include pension funds management, points-of-presence regulations, aggregator regulations, customer grievance regulations and exit regulations.

• ·         Thirty-two people, most of them women and children, were killed and several injured in a stampede that broke out this evening at the Gandhi Maidan here shortly after the Dussehra celebrations.
• ·         The tragedy occurred when people were returning after watching the “Ravan Vadh” ceremony at the Bihar capital’s main Dussehra event at Gandhi Maidan where a huge crowd had gathered to witness the event, police said. “Thirty-two people have died,” Bihar Home Secretary Amir Subhani said. Officials said the dead were mainly women and children.
• ·         Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manji was present at the Gandhi Maidan where people watched an arrow setting the 60 feet tall effigy of Ravan into flames.
• ·         Condoling the loss of lives in the Patna stampede, Prime Minister Narendra Modi sanctioned an ex gratia of Rs. 2 lakh each to the next of kin of those killed in the incident. He also sanctioned Rs. 50,000 for each of the critically injured from the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund.

• ·         The Gujarat Chief Minister Anandi Patel today announced the setting up of dedicated schools for sports in all districts of the state in a view to groom budding talent.
• ·         “The state government will establish sports schools in each district and for that purpose a grant of more than Rs. 33 crore has already been allocated,” an official statement quoted the Chief Minister as saying.
• ·         She was speaking after inaugurating the fourth edition of ’Khel Maha kumbh’, a state-level mega sporting event promoted by the government, in Bhavnagar district.
• ·         ‘Khel Mahakumbh’ had been initiated by then chief minister Narendra Modi in 2010 to mark the golden jubilee of formation of Gujarat.
• ·         Patel said that her government will also set up a state-level table tennis and basketball academy in Bhavnagar and also a multi-purpose hall with an amount of Rs. 15 crore for international championships.
• ·         The chief minister also announced a synthetic athletic track in Bhavnagar with an amount of Rs. 6 crore, to provide training for budding athletes, besides Swami Vivekanand gyms and fitness centres at tehsil level.

• ·         China has flight tested an upgraded version of its 10,000-km range Dongfeng missile which can reach most of the US and European cities, demonstrating its nuclear capability, media reports said.
• ·         The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) launched a Dongfeng-31B on September 25, days before its October 1 National Day from the Wuzhai Missile and Space Test Centre, also called Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre in Shanxi province, Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post said quoting US media reports.
• ·         The first flight test of an upgraded mobile intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in the lead-up to the National Day aimed to show the world that China was reinforcing its nuclear deterrent, it quoted military experts as saying.
• ·         The DF-31B is an upgraded version of the DF-31A and the launch was at least the second time the PLA’s Second Artillery Corps had tested a DF-31 missile in the past three months.
• ·         In late July, the PLA conducted a flight test of a DF-31A in what was the fourth known flight test of that missile in two years, it said.
• ·         The DF-31 system has an estimated range of nearly 10,000 kms, enough to deliver a nuclear warhead to the capitals of Europe or the west coast of the US.

• ·         A 79-year old Indian-American Stanford University professor is among 10 innovators to receive US National Medal of Science announced by President Barack Obama for their contribution to the field of science.
• ·         Pune-graduate and Padma Bhushan recipient Thomas Kailath will receive the United States’ highest honour for achievement and leadership in advancing the fields of science at a White House ceremony later this year.
• ·         Born in 1935 to a Malayalam-speaking Syrian Christian family who hailed from Kerala, Kailath has authored several books including well-known Linear Systems.
• ·         After graduating from the University of Pune in 1956, Kailath received his Master’s degree and his doctorate degree in 1961, both from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology US. He was the first India-born student to receive a doctorate in electrical engineering from MIT.
• ·         He joined Stanford University as Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering in 1963 and was promoted to Professor in 1968, and was appointed the first holder of the Hitachi America Professorship in 1988.

• ·         Australia’s prime minister said on Friday that the nation’s air force will launch airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq.
• ·         The announcement has been widely anticipated since six F/A-18F Super Hornet jet fighters were pre-deployed to the United Arab Emirates more than two weeks ago in response to a formal request from the United States for specific contributions to the international coalition.
• ·         Prime Minister Tony Abbott told reporters that the deployment to Iraq “could be quite lengthy. Certainly, months rather than weeks.”

• ·         Martin Perl, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist from Stanford University who discovered a subatomic particle known as the tau lepton, has died at age 87.
• ·         The university said the retired professor, one of two American scientists who shared the Nobel Prize for physics in 1995, died at Stanford Hospital on Tuesday.
• ·         At the time Perl discovered the tau lepton, many physicists doubted the particle that would turn out to be a heavyweight cousin of the electron existed. He eventually proved them wrong using a new kind of accelerator in which electrons and positrons course in opposite directions and collide.

• ·         A former news editor at Rupert Murdoch’s now-defunct tabloid News of the World on Friday admitted to hacking phones of celebrities such as Jude Law and Paul McCartney while at the newspaper, becoming the eighth person to be convicted in connection with the case.
• ·         Ian Edmondson, 45, is likely to receive a custodial sentence after pleading guilty at the Old Bailey court in London.
• ·         Edmondson illegally intercepted the voicemails of two Home Secretaries, ex-Beatle Sir Paul McCartney and actors Jude Law and Sienna Miller.
• ·         He had been in the dock at the start of the eight-month trial which ended with his former boss Andy Coulson being jailed for 18 months but was excused due to ill health in December 2013. A hearing in July 2014 established that Edmondson was fit to continue.
• ·         He has now admitted conspiring with colleagues and private detective Glenn Mulcaire to intercept private voicemails between October 3, 2000 and August 9, 2006.

• ·         The 17th Asian Games drew to a close with an enthralling cultural extravaganza on Saturday after 15 days of action at the end of which India managed to stay inside top 10.
• ·         The formal closing was done at the Incheon Asiad Main Stadium by Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) President Sheikh Ahmad Fahad Al-Sabah.
• ·         World sports powerhouse China topped the medals table for the ninth time with another staggering haul of 342 medals, which included 151 gold, 48 less than what they pocketed at home four years ago in Guangzhou.
• ·         India finished eighth in the medals table with a total haul of 57, comprising of 11 gold, 10 silver and 36 bronze.
• ·         Korean Prime Minister Jung Hongwon, President of the Games organizing committee (IAGOC) Kim Youngsoo, OCA President Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al—Sabah, Korean Olympic Committee chief Kim Junghaeng and the city Mayor Yoo Jeongbok were present for the event.
• ·         The Samsung award for the Most Valuable Player, decided by the number of votes cast by the Games accredited media persons and officials of IAGOC and OCA, was won by Japanese swimmer Kosuke Hagino, who won four individual gold medals.

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