13.08.2015
China, Pakistan sign deals to beef up CPEC project
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Recently a forum on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) was held in China
which was attended by more than than 300 officials and delegates from companies,
think tanks and social organizations from both China and Pakistan
China and Pakistan signed 20 cooperation agreements worth 1.6 billion dollars to
strengthen the ambitious China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project.
China and Pakistan also issued the Karamay Manifesto for the China-Pakistan
Economic Corridor (CPEC), a major project under the Chinese government's Belt and
Road Initiative
About China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)
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CPEC is a huge development project that would connect the Gwadar Port in
southwestern Pakistan and Xinjiang, the northwestern autonomous region of China
through a network of highways, railways, and pipelines to transport oil
The project is considered an economic corridor, which is critical to the relationship
between China and Pakistan it will shorten the route for China’s energy imports from
the Middle East by approximately 12,000 kilometers.
It was launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping during his visit to Pakistan in April
2015. During this visit, around 51 agreements were signed of which 30 were linked to
this China-Pakistan Economic Corridor
Security concerns:- Gwadar port is believed to have strong military possibilities. ChinaPakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) will give China access to Gulf countries, and the possibility
of building a naval base on the Arabian Sea in future
Jethabhai Patel re-elected as Amul Chairman
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Jethabhai Patel Veteran cooperative leader and Sabar Dairy chief was unanimously
elected as Chairman of the prestigious Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing
Federation (GCMMF) that markets the Amul brand of dairy products in India and
overseas.
As a chairman of GCMMF he will lead the Asia’s largest milk cooperative and apex
marketing body comprising 17 dairy unions of the state for the next two-and-a-half
years. He was unanimously elected by chairmen of all 17 district dairy unions under
GCMMF, who are also board members of GCMMF
Patel has been Chairman of the Sabarkantha District Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union
Ltd (Sabar Dairy), Himatnagar, twice. He was already serving as acting Chairman of
GCMMF since August 2014 following the ouster of incumbent Vipul Chaudhary in
January 2014 for alleged financial irregularities.
About Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF)
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GCMMF, popularly known as Amul, is Asia’s largest dairy cooperative marketing
body, that exclusively markets products under the brand name of Amul and Sagar.
Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd. (GCMMF), based at Anand in the
state of Gujarat, India is jointly owned by 3.6 million milk producers in Gujarat.
It was formed by late Dr. Verghese Kurien in 1973 who was the founder-chairman of
the GCMMF for more than 30 years (1973–2006), he is credited with the success of Amul
Note :- Over the last five and a half decades, dairy cooperatives in Gujarat have created an
economic network that links more than 3.1 million village milk products with millions of
consumers in India. Its daily milk procurement is approx 14.85 million lit per day from 18,536
village milk cooperative societies, 17 member unions covering 31 districts, and 3.37 million milk
producer members. More than 70% of the members are small or marginal farmers and landless
labourers including a sizeable population of tribal folk and people belonging to the scheduled
Railways Ministry inked four MoUs to save power, improve efficiency
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Railway Ministry has signed four memorandum of understanding (MoUs) with Power
and New & Renewable Energy Ministry for energy conservation, transmission and
solarisation.
The agreements was a step toward increasing savings on the power front for the
Railways, which is the largest power consumer in the country and generates current
energy bill of Rs. 12,500 crore
The agreements signed are:1. First MoU was signed between the Power and Railways Ministries for knowledge
sharing in the field of electricity and energy conservation to reduce the cost of electricity
for the Railways.
2. Second MoU was signed with the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy to promote
solar energy usage and thus create an alterantive source of power
3. Third MoU was signed between Railway Ministry and Bureau of Energy Efficiency to
identify technologies to improve energy utilisation
4. Fourth MoU was signed between the Railway Energy Management Company and
Energy Efficiency Services Ltd for implementation of energy efficient systems and
conservation projects for the Railways
Note :- The Railways has saved Rs. 2,500 crore over the last five years in energy costs. This must
become a yearly practice now and a target of Rs. 2,000 crore has been set for this year
Azim Premji, Shiv Nadar among world’s 20 richest tech czars
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According to Forbes magazine's inaugural list of 20 richest tech tycoons in the world
Azim Premji chairman of Wipro and Shiv Nadar founder of HCL are the only two
Indian tycoons in the top 20 richest people in the world of technology.
As per the Forbes' first ever list of "100 Richest People In Tech" Seventy-year-old Azim
Premji with net worth of Rs. 17.4 billion dollars has been ranked 13th while Shiv Nadar
with net worth of Rs. 14.4 billion dollars has been ranked 14th
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Indian-origin tech tycoons Romesh Wadhwani and Bharat Desai are also in the list .
Wadhwani, the CEO and Chairman of Symphony Technology Group, has been ranked
73rd with a $2.8 billion while Desai and his family have been ranked 82nd with a net
worth of $2.5 billion.
Key Facts :
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The list has been dominated by American billionaires who have occupied 51 of the 100
slots while 33 are occupied by tech barons from Asia.
The list has only seven women, the wealthiest of whom is Laurene Powell Jobs, the
widow of Apple's late chief Steve Jobs, with an estimated net worth of 21.4 billion
dollars.
Top Five in the list are :
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Microsaft's Bill Gates has ben ranked first in the list with a net worth of $79.6 billion
Oracle chairman and CTO Ellison with a net worth estimated at $50 billion has been
ranked second
Jeff Bezos the founder and CEO of Amazon.com has been ranked third in the list
Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg has been ranked four
Google co-founder Larry Page has been ranked five and Sergey Brin ranked sixth
Twenty one million dollars worth benefits distributed to Indian startups through Facebook's
FbStart
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Social network giant Facebook has given benefits of around 21 million dollars to Indian
developers as part of its FbStart initiative.
Facebook which has more than 70 per cent of its developers outside the U.S. is
distributing the beneftt of 50 million dollars in the Asia-Pacific region
Hyderabad-based Samosa and Delhi’s Cardback are two Indian beneficiaries of the
programme who have got 21 million dollars
About FbStart :
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FbStart is a programme launched last year to help early-stage mobile start-ups build and
grow their applications. Under this, Facebook runs two tracks called ‘Accelerate
companies’ and ‘Bootstrap companies’ and for which it will provide software and tools
worth 80,000 dollars and 30,000 dollars respectively to developers.
As part of its plan to reach developers across the world, FbStart is being organised
across 20 cities to meet mobile developers. In the Asia-Pacific region, FbStart was
organised in countries like Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan and India.
In India, the event is being organised in Bengaluru and Gurgaon. In Asia, Facebook has
more than 1,000 members as part of the FbStart programme.
Union Cabinet approved MoU between India, Nepal for construction of petroleum pipeline
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The Union Cabinet approved the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)
between India and Nepal for the construction of a petroleum products pipeline from
Raxaul (Bihar) to Amlekhgunj in Nepal and re-engineering of Amlekhgunj Depot.
The MoU will promote bilateral cooperation in the oil and gas sector and secure long
term supply of petroleum products to Nepal. It would help preserve the environment
along the route and decongest the international border at Raxaul.
Highlights of the Project
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The Indian Oil Corporation has been entrusted with the job of construction of the
pipeline and re-engineering of the Amlekhgunj Depot and allied facilities.
The project will be completed in two phases. In the first phase, a petroleum products
pipeline from Raxaul to Amlekhgunj would be constructed.
The Indian Oil Corporation will bear a cost of Rs. 200 crore for the first phase of the
project.
There will be a long term contract of 15 years (initial contract for five years extendable
for two terms of five years each) between the Indian Oil Corporation and the Nepal Oil
Corporation
Uninor signed Rs 1,200 cr contract to Huawei for modernising its network
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Norweign telecom major Telenor’s Indian arm, Uninor, has signed a contract worth Rs
1,200 crore to Chinese firm Huawei to modernise and manage its network across six
circles in India within a three-year time frame.
Under the deal, all 24000 base station will be swapped with new equipments. The deal
also involves Huawei becoming the managed services partner of Uninor.
This is the largest deal of its kind in the Indian telecom industry and also within the
Telenor Group in which Huawei India will modernise Uninor’s entire telecom network
across six telecom circles with 24,000 base stations
The project will start this year with modernisation of 5,000 mobile tower sites. The
remaining 19,000 sites will be modernised in 2016. Uninor has about 40 million mobile
subscribers in the country with 24 % of active data users.
Huwai announced that the network modernisation will be done in environment-friendly
green solutions that would lower power consumption by almost 30 per cent and
increase spectral efficiency
Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) approves Rs 6,000 crore soft loans to sugar
mills
To infuse liquidity into the sugar industry and facilitate clearing of cane dues arrears, the
Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, has approved a soft loan scheme to the extent of Rs.
6000 crore for the current sugar season.
About Soft loan Scheme:
The CCEA has further mandated that banks pass on the financial assistance directly to
the cane growers after obtaining the list from the mills.
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The scheme provides soft loans only to those sugar industries which have cleared at
least 50 percent of their outstanding arrears.
The Government has provided one year moratorium on this loan, and will bear the
interest subvention cost to the extent of Rs. 600 crore for the said period.
To further liquidation of arrears and increase coverage of the soft loan scheme, the
government has decided to extend the date of achieving eligibility under the soft loan
scheme from 30.6.2015 to 31.8.2015. Now mills are required to discharge 50 percent of
cane dues payable by 31.8.2015 to become eligible for the loan.
Steps taken by the government to promote sugar industry:
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The Central Government has taken several steps to mitigate the situation by infusing
liquidity into the sector. The export incentive on raw sugar has been increased from Rs
3200/MT to Rs. 4000/MT. Funds have been allocated to support 14 lac MT (LMT) of raw
sugar exports as against 7.5 LMT achieved last year.
The Government had also increased import duty to 40 percent, abolished the Duty Free
Import Authorization Scheme, to prevent possible leakages of sugar in the domestic
markets.
The Government has also reduced the export obligation period from 18 months to 6
months under the Advanced Authorization Scheme. These measures are intended to
improve price sentiments.
Cabinet Approves Spectrum Sharing Guidelines
Union cabinet chaired by the prime minister, Narendra Modi gave its approval to spectrum
sharing guidelines based on the recommendations of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India
(TRAI).
TRAI Guidelines:
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Spectrum sharing would be allowed only for the access service providers in the first
instance in a Licensed Service Area (LSA), where both the licensees are having spectrum
in the same band
Leasing of spectrum will not be permitted. For the purpose of charging Spectrum Usage
Charges (SUC), licensees shall be considered as sharing their entire spectrum holding in
the particular band in the entire LSA.
Spectrum sharing will be restricted to sharing by only two licensees subject to the
condition that there will be at least two independent networks provided in the same
band
Spectrum Usage Charges (SUC) rate of each of the licensees post-sharing shall increase
by 0.5 percent of Aggregate Gross Revenue (AGR).
Pankaj Advani won 13th World Snooker Championship
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India’s star Snooker player Pankaj Advani clinched his 13th world title, by outplaying
the Chinese player Yan Bingtao 6-2 in the World 6-Red Snooker Championship, held in
Karachi.
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Advani also won the 2014 IBSF World 6-Red Snooker Championship, on his debut in
that discipline. He is the only player ever to win professional world titles in both the
long and short formats of snooker (15-red standard, and 6-red) and both formats of
English billiards (time and point)
Advani is also India's first world champion in 6-red snooker. It should be noted that Yan
Bingtao, 15, is the youngest player to win the Amateur World Snooker Championship
(2014).
ISRO teams up with Urban Development ministry, to map 4,041 towns
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The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has tied up with the Union Urban
Development Ministry for mapping over 500 towns and cities with an aim to make a
base plan for better planning and management.
This base plan will further help the town planners to prepare a master plan for many
fast urbanising local bodies. The mapping is being currently done for municipal local
bodies with a population of more than a lakh.
ISRO has tied up with the Ministry of Urban Development to map over 4,041 areas.
Which includes around 500 urban local bodies After mapping these cities and towns a
base paln will be prepared which can help urban planners prepare a better master plan
ISRO will map and provide management plans for heritage sites and monuments of
national importance. Over 2,500 town planners have been roped in and trained on how
to use the base plan.
Bhuvan " Mapping India "
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ISRO launched the beta version of its web-based GIS tool, Bhuvan, on August 12, 2009.
Bhuvan offers detailed imagery of Indian locations compared to other Virtual Globe
Software,
Bhuvan is a software application which allows users to explore a 2D/3D representation
of the surface of the Earth. The browser is specifically tailored to view India, offering the
highest resolution in this region and providing content in four local languages
The National Remote Sensing Agency played an important role in the development of
this product. ISRO has used data provided by satellites including Resourcesat-1,
Cartosat-1 and Cartosat-2 to get the best possible imagery of India.