Current Affairs 5th May 2016

Current Affairs 5th May 2016 - Important Points

• Who creates Non-Fare Revenue Directorate to explore advertising in train coaches - Indian Railways
• Union Cabinet approves to allow flexibility in using domestic coal to reduce - Power Generation Cost 
• Who took over as part-time Chairperson of National Statistical Commission - Radha Binod Barman
• What is the name of a process to understand Rain Formation in Clouds & impact of Randomized Cloud Seeding - CAIPEEX
• Agriculture project Harita-Priya of Andhra Pradesh wins - WSIS 2016 Prize
• 34 satellites are operational in India - Government

Current Affairs 5th May 2016 - Details

Who creates Non-Fare Revenue Directorate to explore advertising in train coaches - Indian Railways

Among Important National Current Affairs, On 4 May 2016, Indian Railways (IR) announced the creation of Non-Fare Revenue Directorate to carry out advertisements in rail coaches, along the track and near stations.

The decision to create a directorate was taken from non-tariff sources to increase the revenue substantially.

Know About Non-Fare Revenue Directorate - 

• Non-Fare Revenue Directorate will explore getting advertisements on coaches, wagons, locomotives and at stations and commercial exploitation of vacant rail land among others.

• It will also be headed by a senior-level railway official.

• To enhance revenues by 10 per cent to 20 per cent from the current 5 per cent from the non-tariff sources, It will focus on various ways.

Union Cabinet approves to allow flexibility in using domestic coal to reduce - Power Generation Cost 

Among Important National Current Affairs, On 4 May 2016, The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved to allow the flexibility in optimal use of domestic coal to reduce cost of electricity generation and purchase.

However, It will also leverage coal to electricity conversion and also optimize the transportation cost.

Do You Know -

• Talking about this proposal, this would create new thrust in promoting efficiency, optimum utilization of natural resources as well as overall economic benefit in the power sector in the country.

• This proposal is also in line with the UDAY scheme of Union Government.

Who took over as part-time Chairperson of National Statistical Commission - Radha Binod Barman

Among Important National Current Affairs, On 4 May 2016 renowned statistician Dr Radha Binod Barman took over as the part-time Chairperson in the National Statistical Commission.

Whereas, Professor S. Mahendra Dev, Professor Rahul Mukherjee, Dr Rajiv Mehta and Dr Manoj Panda took over as other part-time members in the commission.

Know About National Statistical Commission - 

• On 1 June 2005 on the recommendation of C. Rangarajan Commission, The Government of India ordered setting up National Statistical CommissionThe National Statistical Commission (NSC) of India is an autonomous body which formed in July 2006. 

• The NSC is headed by economists Prof TCA Anant (Chief Statistician of India and Secretary of both NSC and Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation) and Dr. Radha Binod Burman (Chairman of NSC).

What is the name of a process to understand Rain Formation in Clouds & impact of Randomized Cloud Seeding - CAIPEEX 

CAIPEEX, is a technique or a process to understand the rain formation in clouds and the impact of Randomized Cloud Seeding.

This term CAIPEEX was first used in Parliament by Minister of State for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences, YS Chowdary.

On 4 May 2016, in Lok Sabha, the minister informed that the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) is putting its effort in understanding the rain formation in clouds through this research program. 

Agriculture project Harita-Priya of Andhra Pradesh wins - WSIS 2016 Prize

On 3 May 2016, The agriculture project Harita-Priya of Andhra Pradesh won the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) 2016 prize in e-Agriculture category.

The prize was announced by International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Secretary-General Houlin Zhao, in Geneva

Do You Know – 

•Harita-Priya Project is the experiment, that is being carried out as a part of HARITA (Harmonized Information of Agriculture, Revenue and Irrigation for a Transformation Agenda) initiative of Government of Andhra Pradesh, being implemented with the objective of integrating the data generated by three departments (Agriculture, Revenue and Irrigation), so as to ensure consistency, efficiency and timeliness of the decision making process.

34 satellites are operational in India - Government

Currently 34 Indian satellites are operational in the space, announced by The Union Government. 

By the Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh in written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha, was announced by them only. 

34 operational satellites are 13 Communication Satellites such as: INSAT-3A, INSAT-3C, INSAT-4A, INSAT-4B, INSAT-4CR, GSAT-6, GSAT-7, GSAT-8, GSAT-10, GSAT-12, GSAT-14, GSAT-15 and GSAT-16.