Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

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India can play a role in Middle East peace process: Palestine President Abbas

News:

• Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s historic Palestine visit, President Mahmoud Abbas said that, he will discuss with him India’s role in the Middle East peace process and the creation of a multilateral forum of negotiations to strike a final deal with Isarel.

Beyond News:

• Mr. Modi, the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Palestine, is reaching Ramallah tomorrow amid heightened tensions in the region after US President Donald Trump recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
• The unilateral U.S. decision to declare Jerusalem as the capital of Israel was challenged at the UN General Assembly where 128 nations, including India, voted to turn down the move as “null and void”.
• Describing India as a “very respected country in the international arena”, India can have a possible role in creating a multilateral forum of negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis to reach a final agreement.

A number of MoUs are likely to be signed between the two sides during Mr. Modi’s three-hour visit to Palestine under which India will provide funding for a number of projects in the fields of health, education, culture and women’s empowerment.

A lot of Palestinian diplomats have received training in India and hundreds of Palestinians have availed scholarships to study at Indian institutions as part of New Delhi’s effort towards capacity building in Palestine.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

NASA spacecraft captures farthest images away from Earth.

News:

NASA’s New Horizons probe has captured the farthest images from Earth by a spacecraft, surpassing Voyager 1’s record of clicking a picture when it was 6.06 billion kilometres away from our planet.

Beyond News:

The routine calibration frame of the “Wishing Well” galactic open star cluster, made by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on December 5 last year, was taken when New Horizons was 6.12 billion kilometres from Earth, NASA has said.

That picture was part of a composite of 60 images looking back at the solar system, on February 14, 1990, when Voyager was 6.06 billion kilometres from Earth.

Voyager 1’s cameras were turned off shortly after that portrait, leaving its distance record unchallenged for more than 27 years.

New Horizons is the fifth spacecraft to speed beyond the outer planets and so many of its activities have set distance records.

According to NASA,that New Year’s flight past MU69 will be the farthest planetary encounter in history, happening one billion miles beyond the Pluto system – which New Horizons famously explored in July 2015.

INDIA-IP-RANKING

News:

• India has “increased substantially” its score in the latest international Intellectual Property (IP) index released by the U.S. Chambers of Commerce on Thursday, ranking 44th out of 50 countries.

Intellectual property (IP)

Intellectual property (IP) refers to creations of the mind, such as inventions; literary and artistic works; designs; and symbols, names and images used in commerce.

Beyond News:

India’s overall score has increased substantially from 25% (8.75 out of 35) in the 5th edition of the Index to 30% (12.03 out of 40) in the 6th edition, according to the annual report.

Despite improvement in the score, India continues to remain towards the bottom of the ladder. It now ranks 44 out of 50 countries. Last year, India ranked 43rd out of 45 countries in the index, with an overall score of 8.4 points.

India’s ranking, the report said, reflects a relatively strong performance in the new indicators as well as positive reform efforts on patentability of computer-implemented inventions (CIIs) and registration procedures for well-known marks.

The U.S. tops the list with 37.98 points, followed by the U.K. (37.97) and Sweden (37.03).

Hindu Notes from General Studies-04

Google fined ₹136 crore by Competition Commission for ‘infringing anti-trust conduct’

News:

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) imposed a fine of ₹136 crore on search engine major Google for unfair business practices in the Indian market for online search.

Beyond News:

• Passing the order on complaints that were filed back in 2012, the regulator said the penalty is being imposed on Google for “infringing anti-trust conduct”.
• Globally, this is one of the rare cases where Google has been penalised for unfair business ways.
• It was alleged that Google is indulging in abuse of dominant position in the market for online search through practices leading to search bias and search manipulation, among others.

The penalty amount of ₹135.86 crore translates to 5% of the company’s average total revenue generated from India operations from its different business segments for the financial years 2013, 2014 and 2015, according to the CCI order.

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