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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