Current Affairs Questions & Answers - Sep 05, 2017

ANSWER: TRAPPIST-1

Explanation:
The Earth-sized planets orbiting the ultracool TRAPPIST-1 dwarf star 40 light-years away may have substantial amounts of water and could be habitable.

An international team of astronomers used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to estimate whether there might be water on the seven planets orbiting in the nearby TRAPPIST-1 planetary.

The results suggest that the outer planets of the system might still harbour substantial amounts of water.

This includes the three planets within the habitable zone of the star, lending further weight to the possibility that they may indeed be habitable.

This makes TRAPPIST-1 the planetary system with the largest number of Earth-sized planets discovered so far.

Following up on the discovery, scientists used the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) on the Hubble telescope to study the amount of ultraviolet radiation received by the individual planets of the system.

While lower-energy ultraviolet radiation breaks up water molecules - a process called photodissociation - ultraviolet rays with more energy (XUV radiation) and X-rays heat the upper atmosphere of a planet, which allows the products of photodissociation, hydrogen and oxygen, to escape.

As it is very light, hydrogen gas can escape the exoplanets’ atmospheres and be detected around the exoplanets with Hubble, acting as a possible indicator of atmospheric water vapour.

The observed amount of ultraviolet radiation emitted by TRAPPIST-1 suggests that the planets could have lost gigantic amounts of water over the course of their history.

ANSWER: Breakthrough Listen

Explanation:
A mission to explore intelligent alien life in the universe has recorded some mysterious signals coming from a galaxy three billion light years away, according to an Indian-origin scientist working on the ambitious project co-founded by Stephen Hawking.

The team working under the Breakthrough Listen project - set up by Hawking, one of the world’s best-known scientists, and Russian billionaire Yuri Milner - is set to discover the truth about the universe.

The latest fast radio bursts (FRBs) prove their equipment is working well and ready to pick up signs of life if they exist.

Breakthrough Listen is a USD 100-million global astronomical initiative launched in 2015 by Hawking and Miller and has teams around the world using their telescopes to look for evidence of life.

The initial 10-year programme will survey the 1,000,000 closest stars to Earth, scanning the entire galactic plane of the Milky Way.

Beyond our galaxy it will listen for messages from the 100 closest galaxies at 10 billion different frequencies.

Announcing the project at the time at a press conference in London, Hawking said it was time to commit to finding the answer to life beyond Earth.

Explanations for the latest signals detected range from rotating neutron stars with extremely magnetic fields, to energy sources used by extraterrestrial civilisations to power spacecraft.

Whatever they are they left their galaxy when our Solar System was just two billion years old and life was just getting going on Earth.

At first scientists thought the signals were the fallout from a catastrophic event in space, like a supernova, but then they repeated again in 2015 and 2016 suggesting the whatever object produced them was still there.

In the fresh experiment, which will be elaborated upon in scientific journals in future, University of California, Berkeley, experts scanned the same galaxy at a higher frequency than which had been used to see the original bursts, and found 15 more.

ANSWER: Xiamen declaration

Explanation:
In a significant move forward from the Goa BRICS declaration, Beijing has signed off on New Delhi’s initiative to name two Pakistan-based terrorist groups, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, in the Xiamen declaration.

China has been expressing “concern” on the security situation in the region and violence caused by these outfits.

This is the first time that a BRICS declaration has named these terrorist groups, although the Heart of Asia declaration in Amritsar, a grouping which includes China and Pakistan, also named them in December 2016.

But there has been no visible change in China’s policy on the ground so far.

Along with the Haqqani network, Taliban and Islamic State, the Xiamen declaration also named the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, a Muslim separatist group founded by militant Uighurs, members of the Turkic-speaking ethnic group in northwest China’s Xinjiang province.

The Xiamen declaration also deplored all terrorist attacks worldwide, including attacks in BRICS countries, and condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations wherever committed, by whomsoever.

It underlined that there could be no justification whatsoever for any act of terrorism.

ANSWER: National

Explanation:
Five banks of the Brics Bank Cooperation Mechanism have agreed to establish credit lines in the national currencies and cooperate on credit ratings.

The agreement was signed ahead of the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit in China’s Xiamen city on Sept 2, 2017 in which leaders of the five countries, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi are scheduled to take part.

Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES), Vnesheconombank, Export-Import Bank of India, China Development Bank and Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA) have signed an agreement to establish credit lines in the national currencies, as well as a memorandum of cooperation on credit ratings.

Ahead of the Brics summit, the New Development Bank (NDB) of the five nations has approved $1.4 billion loans for sustainable development projects in China, India and Russia.

The Board of Directors of the bank have approved four infrastructure and sustainable development projects in the three countries, the NDB had said.

For India, the bank has approved $470 million loan for Madhya Pradesh’s Multi-Village Rural Drinking Water Supply Scheme Project.

ANSWER: Sultan Ahmed

Explanation:
Former Union minister and sitting Trinamool Congress MP Sultan Ahmed died today following a cardiac arrest at his residence in Kolkata.

The 64-year-old is survived by wife and two sons.

He was elected to the Lok Sabha from Uluberia constituency on a Trinamool Congress ticket.

Ahmed had served as the Union Minister of State for Tourism in the UPA government headed by Manmohan Singh government.

He was elected to the West Bengal Assembly twice.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee condoled his death.

Ahmed, who was president of Mohammedan Sporting Club in Kolkata, had served as the junior minister for tourism for three years till 2012.

Before joining the TMC, he belonged to the Congress party and was elected to the West Bengal legislative assembly twice.

Lately, Ahmed was in the news as one of the key accused in the Narada TV sting operation case, and was facing investigation by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) at the time of his death.

ANSWER: Computer Emergency Response Team

Explanation:
The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) on Sept 1, 2017 issued an alert about spread of a new malicious software ‘Locky’, which is being circulated through spam messages.

This is a ransomware that can potentially lock computers and demand ransom for restoring access to users.

Reports indicate that over 23 million messages are being sent in this campaign.

Locky Ransomware is learnt to be demanding ransom of half bitcoin, which at present rate is equivalent to over Rs 1.5 lakh.

The alert, issued on Cyber Swachhta Kendra, said it has been reported that a new wave of spam mails is circulating with common subject lines to spread variants of Locky Ransomware.

To target users, it added, spam e-mails showing links to fake websites is being used to spread Locky variants.

Users are advised to exercise caution while opening e-mails and organisations are advised to deploy anti-spam solutions and update spam block lists.

This is the third major ransomware attack this year after Wannacry and Petya that crippled thousands of computers, including those of multinational corporations.

In fact, according to an Assocham PWC study, India was the third worst affected country in a list of over 100 countries hit by Wannacry in May.

ANSWER: Saurashtra Narmada Avtaran Irrigation Yojana

Explanation:
President Ram Nath Kovind, who reached Ahmedabad on 2nd Sept 2017 on a two-day visit to Gujarat, laid the foundation stone of the second phase of link-IV pipeline canal of Saurashtra Narmada Avtaran Irrigation (SAUNI) Yojana at Ghela Somnath in Rajkot district.

SAUNI is an ambitious project to fill up 115 dams of water-starved Saurashtra region by diverting one million acre feet of floodwaters of Narmada.

The project envisages lifting water from various canals of Narmada project and pump it to these reservoirs by a 1,165-km-long network of giant pipelines.

The estimated project cost is INR 16,500 crore.

The second phase of this giant pipeline canal would begin from Sartanpar minor irrigation scheme near Ankadiya village of Vinchhiya and tail in Dhrafad dam in Visavadar taluka of Junagadh district.

The designed length of the second phase is 147 km.

ANSWER: #LetsTalkIP

Explanation:
The Cell for IPR Promotions & Management (CIPAM) under the aegis of Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), Ministry of Commerce and Industry, has launched a social media campaign to promote Indian Geographical Indications (GIs).

Its called #LetsTalkIP and is an ongoing movement initiated by CIPAM to make more people aware about the importance of Intellectual Property Rights.

A Geographical Indication or a GI is a sign used on products that have a specific geographical origin and possess qualities or a reputation that are due to that origin.

Such a name conveys an assurance of quality and distinctiveness which is essentially attributable to its origin in that defined geographical locality.

Darjeeling Tea, Mahabaleshwar Strawberry, Blue Pottery of Jaipur, Banarasi Sarees and Tirupati Laddus are some of the GIs.

In the recent past, the government had launched similar initiatives such as #IWearHandloom and #CottonIsCool to promote and revive traditional handwoven textiles.

This time around, CIPAM will be talking about interesting facts and stories related to GIs from across the country on its Twitter handle @CIPAM_India and Facebook Page @CIPAMIndia using #LetsTalkIP hashtag.

The government will also be coming up with various other initiatives to promote registered GIs in the future.