Current Affairs 6th December 2017

Current Affairs 6th December 2017 - Important Points

• ISA to become a treaty-based International Intergovernmental organization on - 6th December 2017
• Microbes found on ISS resembles homes on Earth: A Study
• India wins first-ever South Asian Regional Badminton Team Championship on - 5th December 2017
• India successfully tests surface to air missile ‘AKASH’  on - 5th December 2017
•  Narendra Modi is most tweeted about world leader after Trump on - 5th December 2017

Current Affairs 6th December 2017 - Details

ISA to become a treaty-based International Intergovernmental organization - 6th December 2017

India’s global scheme, the International Solar Alliance-ISA will become a treaty-based international intergovernmental organization on 6th December 2017, after formal consent by Guinea, which will be the 15th country to do so.
The ISA is a scheme that was cooperatively launched by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the then President of France Francois Hollande on 30th November 2015 in Paris, on the sidelines of UN Climate Meeting.
Based in India, the Alliance focuses at addressing barriers in the deployment of solar energy through better harmonization and aggregation of demand from solar rich nations lying fully or partially in-between the Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn.

Ratifying Countries
India, France, Australia, Malawi, Mali, Mauritius, Nauru, Niger, Peru, Seychelles, Somalia, Bangladesh, Comoros, Cuba, Fiji, Guinea, Ghana, South Sudan, and Tuvalu

Key Details

• The ISA internal Secretariat has been operational as a de-facto company since 25th January 2016.
• Three programs- Scaling Solar Applications for Agriculture Usage, reasonable Finance at Scale, and Scaling Solar Mini-grids - have been initiated.
• The programs focus to help in achieving the complete goal of growing solar energy deployment in the ISA member nations for achieving universal energy access and accelerating economic development.
• ISA has launched plans to initiate 2 more programs: Scaling Solar Rooftops and Scaling Solar E-mobility and Storage.
• The ISA has also been enlarging a common risk mitigating process for de-risking and decreasing the financial cost of solar projects in ISA member nations.
• The process is expected to support diversify and pool risks on mutual public resources and opening significant investments. An international trained group has been working on the outlines of the mechanism and it will be rolled out by December 2018.
• Another major proposal is establishment of Digital Infopedia, which will work as a platform to enable policy makers, Ministers and corporate heads from ISA nations to interact, connect, communicate and cooperate with each another.
• India has suggested meeting ISA Secretariat expenses for initial 5 years.
• The Union Ministry of External Affairs has also set apart US$2 billion for solar assignments in Africa out of Government of India's US$10 billion concessional Line of Credit for Africa.
• Government of France has also set aside Euro 300 million loan for solar concerned projects in ISA member nations.

Microbes found on ISS resembles homes on Earth: A Study

As per the researchers, The International Space Station has a 'very different’ class of microorganisms that are much similar to that of homes other than of humans.
The result came from Project MERCCURI, a citizen science project that analyzed bacteria found on 15 places on the International Space Station and evaluated them with samples from houses on Earth as well as the Human Microbiome Project.
According to this study, Earth is covered by mostly harmless microbes and a widely same microbial community on the ISS also.
The study explain that, the International Space Station is house to approximately 12,554 distinct microbial species and the quantity of species that are closely connected to known human microbes is on par with related form environments on Earth.
The report also explained that since the ISS is completely coated, the microbes inside the station come from the individual on the ISS and the supplies passed to them.

Project MERCCURI
MERCCURI is known as Microbial Ecology Research Combining Citizen and University Researchers on the International Space Station. It is an alliance between UC Davis and other organizations, including Science Cheerleader, a group of present and former professional cheerleaders pursuing jobs in science and mathematics.

India wins first-ever South Asian Regional Badminton Team Championship on - 5th December 2017

India won the 1st-ever South Asian Regional Badminton Team Championship in a title fight against Nepal in Guwahati, Assam on 5th December 2017.
India, who was the favorites, beat Nepal 3-0. The Indian team passed into the final without losing any match and continued their good performance with Aryaman Tandon, who beaten Nepal’s Dipesh Dhami 21-9, 21-15 in the boys' singles match, to give India an early plan.
India's victory was further doubled with Ashmita Chaliha’s straight success of 21-9, 21-6 over Rashila Maharjan in the girls' singles match.
In the boy’s doubles match, the duo of Arintap Dasgupta and Krishna Prasad defeated the Nepalese pair of Dipesh Dhami and Nabin Shrestha to fix the win for India. Though Nepal started well by winning the 1st game 21-19, Indians came back stronger and won the next 2 games 21-14, 21-11.

While the team championship is over, the individual competition is planned to start from 6th December 2017.

India successfully tests surface to air missile ‘AKASH’  on - 5th December 2017

India carried out successful test launch of land to air missile ‘AKASH’ with indigenous radio frequency seeker on 5th December 2017. The missile was targeted from Launch Complex-III at ITR Chandipur.
The radars, telemetry and electro-optical systems along with coast have tracked and monitored all the technical parameters of the missile. The missile would soon be initiated into the Indian army as Short Range Surface to Air Missile.

Important Info-

• This is the 1st Surface to Air Missile with indigenous seeker that has been tested.
• With the achievement, India has attained the capability of manufacturing any type of Surface to Air Missile.

More about Akash Missile-

• It is a medium-range mobile surface-to-air missile defense system constructed by the Defense Research and Development Organization under Integrated Guided-Missile Development Program.
• It is multi target, all directional and all weather air-defense missile system including surveillance and tracking radars for defending vulnerable sectors against medium range air targets piercing from low, medium and high altitudes.
• The missile system can target aircraft up to 30 km away, at height up to 18,000 m.
• It has the ability to neutralize flying targets like fighter jets, cruise missiles and air-to-surface missiles along with ballistic missiles.
• The missile carries a 60 kg high-explosive, pre-fragmented warhead with a proximity fuse.
• The Akash system is fully mobile and proficient of protecting a moving convoy of vehicles.
• The launch platform has been integrated with both wheeled and tracked motor-vehicles.
• The system gives air defense missile coverage for an area of 2,000 km.

 Narendra Modi is most tweeted about world leader after Trump on - 5th December 2017

According to the figures published by Twitter on 5th December 2017, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has came out as the most tweeted about world leader after US President Donald Trump present year.
The social site explained that Modi with 37.5 million fans is the 2nd most tweeted about world leader, after Donald Trump who has 44.1 million fans.
Other world leaders in the top-10 list are Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Argentina's President Mauricio Macri, British Prime Minister Theresa May, French President Emmanuel Macro, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and the President of Indonesia, Joko Widodo.
Among the most-liked tweets of 2017, the one that got the much likes belonged to earlier US President Barack Obama. Obama’s twitter account has approximately 97.6 million fans; making him the 3rd most followed human being on Twitter, after Justin Bieber and Katy Perry.
On the other side, not even a single tweet of Trump appeared as the top-10 of either most-retweeted posts or most-liked in 2017.