Essential Facts (Prelims) – May 26 & 27 , 2019


Jam

Category: International

  • Deadly floods sweeping Afghanistan have put the celebrated minaret of Jam — one of the country’s most revered cultural, architectural and historical treasures — at risk of collapse.
  • The minaret of Jam, a more than 800-year-old, is a 65 m Islamic religious tower and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Ural

Category: International

  • Russia launched a nuclear-powered icebreaker in order to improve its ability to tap the Arctic’s commercial potential.
  • The ship is named – the Ural.
  • The Arctic holds oil and gas reserves equivalent to 412 billion barrels of oil, about 22 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas.

Superconductors

Category: Sc/tech

  • A material is said to be a superconductor if it conducts electricity with nil resistance to the flow of electrons.
  • Superconductors will help build very high efficiency devices leading to huge energy savings.
  • Until now, scientists have been able to make materials superconduct only at temperature much below zero degree C and hence making practical utility very difficult.
  • This is where the IISc’s work becomes particularly important. A revised article on the tests has been posted on May 21 in arXiv, a pre-print repository.
  • Now superconductivity has been found even at ambient temperatures.
  • The material that exhibited superconductivity is in the form of nanosized films and pellets made of silver nanoparticles embedded in a gold matrix. Interestingly, silver and gold independently do not exhibit superconductivity.

JOIDES

Category: Sc/tech

  • In a first, scientists have discovered the remnants of seawater dating back to the Ice Age, tucked inside rock formations in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
  • The discovery was made while exploring the limestone deposits that form the Maldives.
  • The ship, the JOIDES Resolution, is specifically built for ocean science and is equipped with a drill that can extract cores of rock over a mile long from up to three miles beneath the seafloor.
  • Scientists are interested in reconstructing the last Ice Age because the patterns that drove its circulation, climate and weather were very different from today’s. Understanding these patterns could shed light on how the planet’s climate will react in the future.

NBFCs

Category: Economy

  • The Reserve Bank of India is gradually breaking down the wall between non-banking finance companies and commercial banks with its latest proposal on liquidity coverage requirement.
  • Liquidity Coverage Requirement is expected to bring the regulations for struggling NBFCs in line with banks and put an end to liquidity disruptions in the sector.
  • With the RBI stipulating gradual shift to liquidity coverage ratio (LCR), NBFCs will, over a period of next four years, be required to hold an amount of high-quality liquid assets (HQLA) that’s enough to fund cash outflows for 30 days.
  • The RBI had earlier made LCR mandatory for banks over the 2015-2019 period.
  • During a period of financial stress, NBFCs like the banks will have to use their stock of HQLA.
  • NBFCs had till recently borrowed short-term funds from banks and mutual funds for lending to long-term projects, creating a liquidity mismatch.
  • The LCR requirement will be binding on NBFCs from April 1, 2020 with the minimum HQLAs to be held being 60 per cent of the LCR, progressively increasing in equal steps reaching up to the required level of 100 per cent by April 1, 2024.
  • The liquid assets comprise of high quality assets that can be readily sold or used as collateral to obtain funds in a range of stress scenarios. They should be unencumbered i.e. without legal, regulatory or operational impediments.
  • The RBI also recently asked NBFCs with asset size of more than Rs 5,000 crore to appoint chief risk officer with clearly specified role and responsibilities.

AKASH – MK -1S

Category: Defence

  • Akash Mk1S is an upgrade of existing AKASH missile with indigenous Seeker.
  • AKASH Mk1S is a surface to air missile which can neutralize advanced aerial targets.

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