Daily Current Affairs Analysis today : 05 and 6 -feb-2023
PM Modi to inaugurate helicopter factory in Karnataka
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will dedicate to the nation a helicopter production facility of state-run aerospace behemoth Hindustan Aeronautics Limited in Karnataka’s Tumakuru.
The greenfield helicopter factory, spread across 615 acres, is planned with a vision to become a one-stop solution for all helicopter requirements of the country.
It is India’s largest helicopter manufacturing facility and will initially produce Light Utility Helicopters (LUHs).
Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) plans to produce more than 1,000 helicopters in the range of 3-15 tonnes, with a total business of over Rs 4 lakh crore over a period of 20 years.
The foundation stone of the facility was laid by the prime minister in 2016.
The factory will be augmented to produce other helicopters such as Light Combat Helicopters (LCHs) and Indian Multirole Helicopters (IMRHs). It will also be used for Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul of LCH, LUH, Civil Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH) and IMRH in the future.
LUH:
LUH is an indigenously designed and developed 3-tonne class, single-engine multipurpose utility helicopter with unique features of high manoeuvrability. Initially, this factory will produce around 30 helicopters per year and this can be enhanced to 60 and then 90 per year in a phased manner.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate India’s largest helicopter manufacturing facility in which state? Karnataka
PM Modi’s approval ratings highest among 22 world leaders; list released
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has become the most liked leader in the world with an approval rating of above 75%. The political intelligence company Morning Consult released a list of world leaders trending on the basis of their approval ratings among 22 nations that it surveyed. PM Modi is followed by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Swiss President Alain Berset among others.
The list keeps on getting updated and currently, US President Joe Biden ranks further down in seventh. Out of the 22 countries, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, South Korean President Yoon Seok-youl and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida rank among last three.
Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and US President Joe Biden received an approval rating of 40 per cent each. They secured seventh and ninth positions, respectively, whereas UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak got the 13th spot with an approval rating of 30 per cent.
Global Leader Approval:
- Modi: 78%
- López Obrador: 68%
- Albanese: 58%
- Meloni: 52%
- Lula da Silva: 50%
- Biden: 40%
- Trudeau: 40%
- Sánchez: 36%
- Scholz: 32%
- Sunak: 30%
- Macron: 29%
- Yoon: 23%
- Kishida: 21%
According to which political intelligence company, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has become the most liked leader in the world with an approval rating of over 75%? morning consult
Govt to become Vodafone Idea’s largest shareholder with 33% stake
The Central government will become Vodafone Idea’s single largest shareholder after converting its interest dues worth ₹16,133 crore into equity.
The government will receive a stake of around 33% in Vodafone Idea after the conversion, bringing down the promoters’ holding to 50% from 74.99%.
The company will issue equity shares to the government at an issue price of ₹10 apiece.
Vodafone Idea:
Founded: 31 August 2018
Headquarters: Mumbai (Corp.), Gandhinagar (Reg.)
Chairman: Ravinder Takkar
CEO: Akshay Moondra
The Government of India became the largest shareholder of Vodafone Idea with ___ stake. 33%
SpaceX awarded shared NASA contract worth $100 million
Elon Musk-led SpaceX is part of a payload contract NASA has awarded for as much as $100 million over a decade.
SpaceX will share the contract with Lockheed Martin’s Astrotech Space Operations.
The uncrewed missions will be launched out of Cape Canaveral, Florida, or Vandenberg Space Force Base in California and the contract could run for as many as 10 years through February of 2033.
The missions that SpaceX and Astrotech will work on involve launching satellites to observe the Earth or spacecraft that visit deep-space destinations in the Solar System.
SpaceX:
Founded; March 14, 2002
CEO, Chairman and CTO: Elon Musk
president and COO: Gwynne Shotwell
Founders: Elon Musk, Tom Mueller
Headquarters: Hawthorne, California, United States
Subsidiary: Swarm Technologies
Which space company is part of a payload contract awarded by NASA for over $100 million over a decade? Spacex
Indian gymnast Dipa Karmakar handed 21-month ban for doping
Indian gymnastics’ poster girl Dipa Karmakar has been handed a retrospective 21-month suspension by International Testing Agency (ITA), an independent non-profit organisation that handles anti-doping test procedures for the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG).
Dipa tested positive for higenamine, a Beta-2 Agonist, which means it is prohibited for consumption at all times, both in and out of competition.
Her samples were collected out of competition on October 11, 2021, and the ban runs until July 10, 2023.
As per the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA):
Higenamine has mixed adrenergic receptor activity, meaning it may act as a general stimulant. Added to WADA’s list of prohibited substances in 2017, higenamine can act as an anti-asthmatic to open up airways. It may also be cardiotonic, which means it can strengthen heart contraction to increase cardiac output.
International Gymnastics Federation:
Founded: 23 July 1881, Liège, Belgium
President: Morinari Watanabe
Headquarters: Lausanne, Switzerland
Indian gymnast Dipa Karmakar has been given a retrospective suspension of how many months by the International Testing Agency (ITA)? 21
Google invests $300 million in artificial intelligence startup Anthropic
Google has invested around $300 million in Anthropic, an artificial intelligence startup whose technology is said to rival OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. According to the deal, Anthropic has agreed to purchase some of Google’s services to support its technology. The terms of the deal, through which Google will take a stake of about 10 per cent, requires Anthropic to use the money to buy computing resources from the search company’s cloud computing division.
The partnership is designed so that the companies can co-develop AI computing systems; Anthropic will leverage Google Cloud’s cutting-edge GPU and TPU clusters to train, scale, and deploy its AI systems.
Anthropic and its startup Claude:
Anthropic was founded in 2021 by OpenAI former leaders at OpenAI, including Daniela and Dario Amodei. Since its founding, Anthropic has published 14 research papers showing how to build language models that are reliable and controllable.
In January, Anthropic began deploying its technology publicly, starting off with a language model assistant named ‘Claude’. The AI startup is working with a broad range of early partners on deploying Claude and will be expanding access to the assistant in the coming months. Claude pairs RLHF with a variety of safety techniques built by Anthropic to make AI systems that are predictable, steerable, and easier to interpret. Claude runs on Google Cloud as will other systems developed by Anthropic.
Which tech giant has invested around $300 million in Anthropic, an artificial intelligence startup? Google
Saudi Arabia to Host Football’s 2027 Asian Cup
The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) announced that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) won the hosting of the 2027 Asian Nations Cup, for the first time in its history, since its inception in 1956. This came during the work of the 33rd Congress of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), February 1, in the Bahraini capital, Manama. Saudi Arabia was the only bid presented at the Congress in Manama after India’s withdrawal in December 2022.
After the announcement, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said, “This victory is an opportunity to create the future of football in the Kingdom and the continent of Asia, and we look forward with determination to open new horizons for Asian football.”
The Saudi Arabia 2027 committee concerned with the Saudi file to host the 2027 Asian Nations Cup revealed the new and developed stadiums that will be worked on to host the tournament.
On October 17, the AFC Executive Committee selected a shortlist of those wishing to host the continental event held once every four years, which included Saudi Arabia and India, but the final decision to be made by the General Assembly postponed it until early February.
The Kingdom obtained the vote of 43 countries to organize the 2027 Asian Nations Cup out of 45 votes, and Palestine and Turkmenistan abstained from voting.
Note: Qatar will host the next edition of the Asian Football Cup, from June 26 to July 16, 2023
Which nation will host the next edition of the Asian Football Cup? Qatar
NISAR satellite, jointly built by NASA and ISRO, ships out to India
NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR), an Earth science satellite being jointly built by NASA and ISRO, got a send-off ceremony in California before it ships out to India later this month.
The radar imaging satellite will measure the movement of Earth’s surfaces to provide information on trends that affect global challenges like food security.
NISAR mission, planned to launch in 2024, is expected to systematically map Earth, using two different radar frequencies to monitor resources such as water, forests and agriculture.
The mission will provide important Earth science data related to ecosystems, Earth’s surface, natural hazards, sea level rise and the cryosphere,
NISAR will gather radar data with a drum-shaped reflector antenna almost 40 feet (12 meters) in diameter. It will use a signal-processing technique called interferometric synthetic aperture radar, or InSAR, to observe changes in Earth’s land and ice surfaces down to fractions of an inch.
NISAR is an Earth science satellite being jointly built by NASA and which space agency? ISRO
Maharashtra tops list of states buying EVs through FAME scheme
Maharashtra tops the list in sales of electric vehicles across all segments which have availed of the FAME II subsidy, followed by Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Rajasthan.
The top five states collectively account for over 56 per cent of the 0.85 million electric vehicles bought through the scheme, according to government data and span two wheelers, three wheelers, e-rickshaws, and four wheelers.
Uttar Pradesh has lost its spot in the top five in electric sweepstakes.
Its place has been taken by Rajasthan which is at number five in the pecking order.
With electric vehicle sales of 39,572, Uttar Pradesh is far behind in its conversion to electric, accounting for only 4.6 per cent of overall electric vehicle sales and a mere 3.4 per cent of electric two wheelers sales.
By contrast, Rajasthan has sold 60,584 vehicles, most of them two wheelers. Only 45 electric four wheelers were sold under FAME II. The state’s share of total electric vehicle sales is pegged at 7.1 per cent.
While Maharashtra remains number one on both the lists, Karnataka has overtaken Tamil Nadu and Gujarat in the rankings for electric vehicles to take the second slot in electric vehicles.
In electric four wheelers (which include passenger cars), Delhi was in the top selling market with 2,864 vehicles followed by Karnataka (1,359), Maharashtra (735), Telangana (427), Haryana (369) and West Bengal (197).
However, all four wheelers are not eligible under the FAME II scheme — for example many electric car brands are not — and so the FAME II-led sales do not reflect the entire sales of electric four wheelers.
FAME:
To reduce pollution caused by diesel and petrol operated vehicles and to promote electric or hybrid vehicles in India, the Central Government launched the Fame India Scheme in 2015.The full form of Fame India scheme is “Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric and Hybrid Vehicles in India”.Manufacturers and infrastructure providers of electric vehicles receive this incentive in the form of subsidies. Fame India scheme is a part of the National Electric Mobility Mission Plan and was launched by the Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises.
Under the FAME II scheme:
The scheme has been extended till March-end 2024.
The latest budget has earmarked Rs 5,500 crore till March FY24.
Which state has recently topped the list of states buying electric vehicles through the FAME scheme? Maharashtra
also Read: