India enters MTCR
India joined the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) which would help in furtherance of international non-proliferation objectives. India had intensified efforts at gaining membership of the MTCR, the NSG, the Australia Group and Wassenaar Arrangement since getting a waiver at the NSG in 2008. Membership of these groups would help India trade more effectively in critical high tech areas.
Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR)
The Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) is a multilateral export control regime. It is an informal and voluntary partnership among 35 countries to prevent the proliferation of missile and unmanned aerial vehicle technology capable of carrying above 500 kg payload for more than 300 km.
Source: The Hindu, Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_Technology_Control_Regime)
Air Passenger Traffic in India
Source: The Hindu
Centre notifies amended RBI Act to usher in Monetary Policy Committee
The Centre brought the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) one step closer to reality by notifying the changes made to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Act. The government has decided to bring the provisions of amended RBI Act regarding constitution of MPC into force on June 27, 2016 so that statutory basis of MPC is made effective. The rules governing the procedure for selection of members of Monetary Policy Committee and terms and conditions of their appointment and factors constituting failure to meet inflation target under the MPC framework have also been notified on June 27, 2016.
The six-member Committee — tasked with bringing “value and transparency to monetary policy decisions” — will comprise three members from RBI, including the Governor, who will be the ex-officio chairperson, a Deputy Governor and one officer of the central bank.
The other three members will be appointed by the Centre on the recommendations of a search-cum-selection committee to be headed by the Cabinet Secretary. These three members of MPC will be experts in the field of economics or banking or finance or monetary policy and will be appointed for a period of four years and shall not be eligible for re-appointment. The Committee is to meet four times a year and make public its decisions following each meeting.
Source: The Hindu
Regional connectivity: DGCA to ease norms for smaller aircraft
According to the regional connectivity scheme announced by the Centre in its civil aviation policy, passengers will be charged Rs. 2,500 for an hour’s flight from an airport that is currently unconnected.
The government will provide 80 per cent of the subsidy to airlines for the losses they incur due to the cap on the fare, while the remaining 20 per cent will come from the States.
The government, is of the view that the success of the regional connectivity scheme will depend on making it easier to acquire and operate smaller aircraft. For the scheme to become a success, operators with aircraft below 80-seats will have to come. As per DGCA records, there are only fifty-one 80-seater aircraft and four 42-seater planes run by various operators in India. New players with smaller aircraft need to enter the market and take advantage of the new policy.
The government plans to revive 50 airports in three years. This would require an addition of 50-100 small aircraft to the total fleet size of 440 aircraft serving Indian skies currently, according to estimates.
In its 20-year forecast for the period 2014-2033, Bombardier projected that the 60- to 99-seat aircraft market worldwide would see substantial growth, as these planes become important tool for network connectivity between major, secondary and tertiary airports. It forecast global delivery demand in this period at 5,600 aircraft.
Small aircraft are critical to the next phase of Indian aviation’s growth story which will come from India’s tier-II and III cities. The government should also push global manufacturers for local aircraft assembly and component manufacturing.
Source: The Hindu
Key study links air pollution to over six million deaths
A sobering report released by the International Energy Agency says air pollution has become a major public health crisis leading to around 6.5 million deaths each year, with “many of its root causes and cures” found in the energy industry.
International Energy Agency
The International Energy Agency is a Paris-based autonomous intergovernmental organization established in the framework of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 1974 in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis. The IEA was initially dedicated to responding to physical disruptions in the supply of oil, as well as serving as an information source on statistics about the international oil market and other energy sectors.
The IEA acts as a policy adviser to its member states, but also works with non-member countries, especially China, India, and Russia. The Agency’s mandate has broadened to focus on the “3Es” of effectual energy policy: energy security, economic development, and environmental protection. The latter has focused on mitigating climate change. The IEA has a broad role in promoting alternate energy sources (including renewable energy), rational energy policies, and multinational energy technology co-operation.
IEA member countries are required to maintain total oil stock levels equivalent to at least 90 days of the previous year’s net imports. At the end of July 2009, IEA member countries held a combined stockpile of almost 4.3 billion barrels (680,000,000 m3) of oil.
Source : Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Energy_Agency)
Why mitochondria are passed through mom
Scientists have decoded the long-standing mystery behind how and why mitochondria are only passed to offspring through a mother’s egg — and not the father’s sperm.
Experiments from the study show that when paternal mitochondria persist for longer than they should during development, the embryo is at greater risk of lethality. Harboured inside the cells of nearly all multi-cellular animals, plants and fungi are mitochondria, organelles that play an important role in generating the energy that cells need to survive.
Shortly after a sperm penetrates an egg during fertilisation, the sperm’s mitochondria are degraded while the egg’s mitochondria persist, researchers said. To gain more insights into this highly specific degradation pattern, scientists used electron microscopy and tomography to study sperm mitochondria (or paternal mitochondria) in Caenorhabditis elegans , a type of roundworm, during early stages of development.
The paternal mitochondria were found to partially self-destruct before the mitochondria were surrounded by autophagosomes, which target components within a cell and facilitate their degradation. This suggests that another mechanism, something within the paternal mitochondrion itself, initiates the degradation process. RNA analysis of paternal mitochondria in early stages of embryonic development hinted that it is the cps-6 gene that facilitates this process, which the team confirmed by studying sperm lacking cps-6; without it, paternal mitochondria remained later into the development stage.