Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 29 June 2017

::National::

Govt took the first step towards divesting its stake in Air India

• The Narendra Modi government took the first step towards divesting its stake in ailing national carrier Air India, with an ‘in-principle’ approval from the Cabinet and the formation of a ministerial group under Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to work out the fine print for the airline’s strategic sale.
• Sixty-four years after the airline was nationalised and over a decade after the previous NDA government put a proposed sale of Air India in cold storage, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs gave its nod for its disinvestment.
• Plans to privatise the airline resurfaced when Mr. Jaitley told Doordarshan last month that the government would prefer investing money in social welfare sectors instead of financing the national airline’s debt of over Rs. 50,000 crore.
• The Cabinet also approved hikes in allowances for Central government staff based on modified recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission. This will benefit over 48 lakh employees and cost the exchequer Rs. 30,748 crore a year.

China launched its biggest new generation destroyer

• China’s Navy launched its biggest new generation destroyer weighing 10,000 tonnes as part of the Communist giant’s ambitious plans to become a global naval power.
• The new destroyer, domestically designed and built, was launched in Shanghai. It is equipped with new air defence, anti-missile, anti-ship and anti-submarine weapons.

Govt is closely monitoring the impact of ransomware

• With the Petya global ransomware spreading to India, the government on Wednesday said it is “closely” monitoring the situation while maintaining that there has been no large-scale impact on India yet.
• The government has, however, sent Dr. Gulshan Rai, National Cyber Security Coordinator to the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT), where one of three terminals was impacted, to “deal with the situation”.
• Operations at the Mumbai terminal of country’s largest container port, the JNPT, which is operated by Danish business conglomerate AP Moller-Maersk, was disrupted due to the ransomware attack.
• The Petya ransomware not only encrypts files, it locks the entire disk, making it basically unusable until the infection is removed. It shuts down the system and asks for a ransom of $300 in bitcoins on rebooting. 
• Ministry was in touch with security providers, including Kaspersky, Microsoft, McAfee and QuickHeal, as also with Computer Emergency Response Teams in the Asia Pacific region, including from Hong Kong, China and Japan. 
• The Petya/Notpetya ransomware is the second major global ransomware since WannaCry hit over 3,00,000 computers across 200 countries in May. 
• Petya, like the recent WannaCry ransomware that infected over 300,000 computers worldwide, uses the Eternal Blue exploit as one of the means to propagate itself. However, experts have warned of bigger damage this time.

GSAT-17, the country’s newest communication satellite to be launched

• GSAT-17, the country’s newest communication satellite to be launched, will soon join the fleet of 17 working Indian communication satellites in space and augment their overall capacity to some extent. 
• The 3,477-kg spacecraft was set to be launched on June 29 from the European space port of Kourou in French Guiana at the time of writing this report. 
• GSAT-17 is the second passenger on the European booster, Ariane-5 ECA VA-238, according to ISRO and the European launch company Arianespace.
• The 5,700-kg Hellas Sat 3-Inmarsat S EAN shared by two satellite operators was also put on the same booster as co-passenger. It was a pre-dusk launch in the South American space port.
• The spacecraft was approved in May 2015 with an outlay of Rs. 1,013 crore, including its launch fee and insurance. GSAT-17, built mainly for broadcasting, telecommunication and VSAT services, carries over 40 transponders.
• Designed and assembled at the ISRO Satellite Centre in Bengaluru, GSAT-17 has been at the Kourou space port since May 15, undergoing pre-launch checks and tests. Project Director Prakash Rao and a rotating team of over 20 ISRO engineers have been attending to it during the period.

::International:: 

First local elections in Nepal in two decades

• Millions of Nepalis voted in the country’s first local elections for two decades, a key step in its post-war transformation from feudal monarchy to federal democracy.
• The government had deployed troops and sealed the border with India, fearing violence in second phase of voting. Police said a small bomb exploded in the west of the country, but there were no casualties and the polls passed off peacefully.
• The elections began last month in other parts of the nation but were repeatedly delayed in the southern plains, which were shaken two years ago by deadly ethnic protests. 
• Voting was taking place across around half the country of 26 million people, including large swathes of the south.
• The local elections are supposed to be the final step in the peace deal that ended a 10-year civil war in 2006. Since then the country has suffered persistent instability, cycling through nine governments.
• The government had repeatedly postponed the polls in the south due to objections from the local Madhesi ethnic minority, who say federal boundaries laid out in a new national constitution will leave them under-represented in Parliament.
• The Rastriya Janata Party-Nepal, the main party representing the Madhesi community, has said it will boycott this phase, raising doubts about the legitimacy of the vote.
• More than 50 people died in 2015 when the Madhesi and Tharu ethnic minorities took to the streets. Most of the victims were killed when police fired at the demonstrators, a response condemned by rights campaigners, and tensions persist.

European NATO allies and Canada will increase defence spending

• European NATO allies and Canada will increase defence spending this year by 4.3%, alliance chief Jens Stoltenberg said, amid pressure from President Donald Trump to spend more.
• “In 2017, we foresee an even greater annual real increase of 4.3%. That is three consecutive years of accelerating defence spending,” Mr. Stoltenberg told reporters on the eve of a defence ministers’ meeting here.
• Mr. Trump has repeatedly berated the allies for not doing more to share the defence burden and bluntly told them again at a leaders’ summit in Brussels last month that they could not count on Washington coming to their defence if they did not do their bit.
• Mr. Trump’s comments caused consternation among many, notably Germany, but Mr. Stoltenberg said the President’s demands were understandable given the challenges the U.S.-led alliance now faces.

::Business and Economy:: 

New oil and gas block licensing policy

• Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan introduced a new oil and gas block licensing policy that is expected to open up 2.8 million square kilometres of sedimentary basins to exploration and production activities.
• The lack of seismic sedimentary basin data had been hampering the oil and gas exploration and production sector, the minister said, adding that 52% of India’s sedimentary basins had not been appraised as yet.
• The National Data Repository was expected to improve this situation, he said.
• The OALP, a part of the government’s Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP), gives exploration companies the option to select the exploration blocks on their own, without having to wait for the formal bid round from the Government.
• The company then submits an application to the government, which puts that block up for bid.
• The new policy will open up 2.8 million square kilometres of sedimentary basins for exploration and eventual production. 
• Mr Pradhan said that initially the applications and related bids for the blocks would be held twice a year —in January and July — but said this could become more frequent as the industry becomes used to the new model.
• Mr. Pradhan added that the recently-concluded discovered small field (DSF) bid round, though small, was encouraging as it gave an insight into the investment appetite of the sector.
• The new policy environment has already started attracting investment into India’s upstream sector, which could help reduce imports and increase the share of gas in the country's energy mix.
• During his speech, Mr. Pradhan said that his Ministry was working on developing a gas trading hub to support a robust marketing network.
• About 52% of India’s sedimentary basins are unappraised, with the last appraisal taking place 25 years ago,” Mr. Pradhan said during his speech. 
• The lack of seismic sedimentary basin data was hampering the exploration and production (E&P) sector of the oil and gas industry.

New regulator for coal and gas mooted

• Niti Aayog has suggested creation of regulators for coal as well as oil and gas.
• “Coal and upstream petroleum sectors have lacked independent, statutory regulators. Due to several reasons, including strong presence of PSUs and limited number of private operators, it was so far not found useful to place the latter in position,” it said in a draft National Energy Policy.
• “But, now with increased private activity, the time is appropriate,” it said in the new licensing policy unveiled.
• “Ideally, there ought to be a single regulator to govern the energy market,” the Aayog said, pointing out that in India, the market has not fully developed.
• Hence, the regulators need to devote considerable attention to development of supply. 
• The think-tank said that at the level of electricity, all fuels ultimately converge into a common product which is rightly governed by a single regulator.

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