Comprehensive News Analysis - 25 February 2017

Table of Contents:

A. GS1 Related:

1. Aga Khan Trust to restore Telangi’s tomb in Delhi

B. GS2 Related:

C. GS3 Related:

D. GS4 Related:

E. Important Editorials : A Quick Glance

The Hindu

1. Shining bright

Economic Times

1. Stop patronising power theft and bring down runaway revenue leakage in power distribution

2. Merger of Telcos is a welcome step for the industryn

PIB

1. NDMA prepares States to deal with Heat Wave 2017

2. INS Betwa on Even Keel: to be Fully Operational by Apr 2018

3. DoNER Ministry alongwith Tezpur University to encourage entrepreneurship in Northeast

F. Concepts-in-News: Related Concepts to Revise/Learn

G. BILLS/ACTS/SCHEMES/ORGS IN NEWS

H. Fun with Practice Questions 🙂

I. Archives

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Useful News Articles for UPSC Current Affairs

• The way ahead is for politicians to stop patronising power theft and bring down runaway revenue leakage in power distribution pan-India so as to have a proper market for power.
• What’s required is regular disclosure of power utility results prior to implementing routine open access. A proper market can wait, pending basic power tariff reform.

• Recent examples of mergers and acquisitions in the telecom sector include:
  1. 1) Vodafone in India is merging with Idea Cellular.
  1. 2) Bharti is acquiring Telenor’s loss-making operations in India.
  1. 3) Reliance Infocomm has merged with Aircel and
        4) MTS and is in talks to bring Tata Teleservices into its embrace.

A look at Indian Telecom Expansion

• Indian telecom is consolidating at a rapid pace, thanks to the disruptive entry of Reliance Industries’ Jio, which fancies itself as a digital empire in the making rather than as a telecom company, and is, thus, prepared to offer voice services for free and data services at an ultra-low rate to facilitate all kinds of digital commerce.

Impact on consumer

• The consumer’s benefit is hardly obscure.
• Tariffs have fallen sharply: calls are free and data has become cheap, once you become a subscriber for a nominal fee, which is zero for Jio alone till March.
• But this would prove transient, if the service providers did not reorganise their business to make these low tariffs viable.
• The ongoing consolidation in the sector is part of that organisational restructuring.

Impact on Service Providers

• Larger subscriber bases, especially those in underserved areas, would allow margins to grow thinner, without the company turning sick.
• Shared resources of the merging companies would allow cost saving.
• Larger pools of spectrum will allow operators to finally optimise the network.
• Larger distribution networks will come in handy when telcos fully operationalise their payment banks.
• Consolidation will create a leaner, more efficient industry.

The Way Ahead

• The Competition Commission of India, rather than the telecom regulator Trai, should oversee competition in the industry.
• There is no contradiction between having a sectoral regulator and entities operating in the sector being regulated for a particular purpose by another regulator.
• For example, just because a company offers telecom services and, thus, comes under the regulatory remit of Trai, it will not cease to be regulated by markets regulator Sebi when it comes to a public issue.

• The two-day national workshop on Preparation of Heat Wave Action Plan in Hyderabad ended on a high note with all stakeholders resolving to work towards mitigating the adverse impact of the imminent heat wave this year.
• The workshop was organised by National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) in collaboration with the Government of Telangana.
• Shri R.K. Jain, Member, NDMA said the focus of all our efforts should be on reducing the number of deaths.
• We should work towards translating available data and research into specific actions to reduce the impact of heat waves, he added.
• Dr. D.N. Sharma, Member, NDMA, underlined the need to fine-tune Heat Action Plans right up to the village level so that traditional knowledge and indigenous practices are integrated in their plans to enhance the efficacy of their mitigation measures.
• Heat waves often lead to dehydration, heat exhaustion, stress and even a fatal heat stroke.
• With advance planning and preparedness, heat wave induced deaths and illnesses can be brought down.
• In 2016, with NDMA’s ‘Guidelines for Preparation of Action Plan – Prevention and Management of Heat-Wave’ and the pro-active approach of some of the most vulnerable States, the number of deaths in the country came down significantly.

• INS Betwa, a P-16A Class frigate has been made upright by the unstinted efforts put in by the Naval Dockyard, Mumbai and the salvage firm M/s Resolve Marine, specially contracted for the operation.
• It may be recalled that, the ship which was undergoing major repairs, had keeled on to her side during her undocking on 05 Dec 2016.
• The salvage operations were progressed on a war footing and the initial stabilisation of the ship was achieved by 29 Dec 2016.
• The complete salvage operation involving complex hydrodynamic calculations and rigging up of intricate measuring and monitoring systems was completed in less than two months.
• As the ship was undergoing major refit and mid-life up-gradation since Apr 2016, majority of the equipment/ machinery had already been removed for routine servicing/ replacement with upgraded equipment.
• Indian Navy is confident that with in-house expertise and sustained efforts, the ship will be made fully operational by her scheduled date of refit completion i.e by Apr 2018.

• Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DONER), jointly with the Department of Business Administration, Tezpur University and North Eastern Finance Corporation Limited (NEDFi), is coming up with a Business Idea Challenge to encourage entrepreneurship in the North-East Region (NER).
• The annual industry-academia interface event “Sampark”, which will see the DoNER Ministry’s involvement for the first time, brings the spirit of entrepreneurship in the region.
• The event will take place on March 3, 2017 and will be the 17th edition in the series. To encourage the students towards entrepreneurship, a Pioneering Business Idea Challenge 2017 is being organized as a part of the event.
• The contest is open to any student of North Eastern Region, having a business idea.
• Sampark 2017 will have different sessions to motivate the students to be addressed by established entrepreneurs, prominent start-ups.
• A session on Act East Policy (One of India’s foreign policy effort to cultivate extensive economic and strategic relations with the nations of Southeast Asia) will also feature in the event.
• There will be an exclusive interaction where the funding agencies represented by respective heads of the NER will clarify various queries of the prospective entrepreneurs and start-ups.

Question 1: Consider the following statements:

Question 2: Consider the following statements:

Question 3: Consider the following statements:

Question 4: Consider the following statements:

Question 5: Which of the following organizations bring out the report 
known as ‘World Oil Outlook’?