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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