Current Affairs 05th September 2015

Current Affairs 5th September 2015 - Important Points

• Name the Indonesian satellite which will be launched by India - LAPAN A2/Orari

• SAARC countries’ conference on Disaster Mitigation begins in New Delhi

• 15% stake in Russia’s 2nd-largest oil field from Rosneft was bought by - ONGC

• Who is selected for 2014 National Humanities Medal - Jhumpa Lahiri

Current Affairs 5th September 2015 - Details

Name the Indonesian satellite which will be launched by India - LAPAN A2/Orari

On 27th September 2015, Indonesia’s second multi-spectral remote sensing satellite LAPAN A2/Orari will be launched by India from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh.

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will launch the satellite.

About LAPAN A2/Orari satellite

• It is a is successor to LAPAN A1/Tubsat satellite and Indonesia’s domestically-made satellite.
• National Institute of Aeronautics and Space (LAPAN) of Indonesia produced this satellite in 2012.
• It is provided with an automatic packet reporting system to help disaster mitigation especially for monitoring floods, changes in the sea level and movements of the population.
• With an altitude of 650 kilometers, it will orbit the Earth along the equator. It will travel at 7.5 kilometers per second and will encircle the Earth 14 times a day.

SAARC countries’ conference on Disaster Mitigation begins in New Delhi

On 3rd September 2015, South Asian Association on Regional Cooperation (SAARC) conference on Disaster Mitigation has begun in New Delhi.

Various joint efforts on various issues related to disaster mapping and mitigation in the member nations will be outlined and undertaken in the two day conference.

Key Fearures

• The prevalent geo-climatic conditions as well as increased frequency of natural disaster and calamities in the SAARC region will be kept in mind during the conference.
• Nepal earthquake in the year 2015 will also be kept in mind.
• It also seeks collaborative action amongst member countries to deal jointly and individually in disaster situations and ensure minimal loss of lives and property.
• It calls for enhanced levels of preparedness and risk resilience amongst member countries.

15% stake in Russia’s 2nd-largest oil field from Rosneft was bought by - ONGC

On 4th September 2015, a 15% stake in Russia’s second-largest oil field Vankor from Rosneft for about 1.35 billion US dollars was bought by State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC).

OVL Managing Director Narendra Verma and Chairman of Rosneft Management Board Igor Sechin in Vladivostok digned the agreement to buy stake in Vankor.

Under the terms of the agreement

• OVL will get two seats on the Board of Directors of Vankor, a subsidiary of Rosneft that operates the Vankor field.
• The 15 per cent stake Vankor oil field will give OVL about 3.5 million metric tonnes of oil a year of its total 2.5 billion recoverable reserves barrels (or 500 million tonnes).
• This is 4th biggest acquisition by OVL. Earlier to this, it already has a 20% stake in the Sakhalin-1 oil and gas field located off Russia’s far eastern coast and also owns Imperial Energy which has fields in Siberia.

Who is selected for 2014 National Humanities Medal - Jhumpa Lahiri

On 3rd September 2015, Indian-American Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri has been selected for the prestigious 2014 National Humanities Medal of White House for enlarging the human story and will be presented with it by US President Barack Obama.

Her fictional works which have illuminated the Indian-American experience in beautifully wrought narratives of estrangement and belonging is also recognized.

Currently, she is Professor of creative writing at Princeton University

About Jhumpa Lahiri

• Her original name is Nilanjana Sudeshna.
• She has won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her debut short story collection Interpreter of Maladies (1999).
• Namesake (2003) was her first novel.

Her book The Lowland (2013) was nominated for the Man Booker Prize.

Do You Know :

National Humanities Medal is an annual award given by US President. It had replaced annual Charles Frankel Prize in the Humanities (established in 1988) in 1996.

The award is presented to persons, groups or institutions in recognition for their work which has deepened United States understanding of the humanities, broadened US citizens’ engagement with the humanities or helped to preserve and expand US’s access to important resources in the humanities.