Current Affairs Update – 13th March, 2015




        Today’s Topics


 •  RBI
 • India
 • World
 • Index
 • Days






RBI
RBI, Sri Lankan
central bank agree on $1.5-bn currency swap deal

  • 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
India, Sri Lanka sign
four agreements

  • 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.


World
NASA finds ocean on
Jupiter’s largest moon Ganymede

  • 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.

Electric power
transmitted wirelessly in Japan

  • 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 applies to
join Chinese-led Asian bank
  • 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.

Pak Tests First
Indigenous Armed Drone, Laser Guided Missile
  • 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.

Index/Lists
India Third Least
Efficient Coal-Fired Power Generating Nation

  • 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.

Days
World Kidney Day 2015
observed on 12th March

  • 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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This post was last modified on July 20, 2019 12:10 pm