Current Affairs 16th February 2019

Current Affairs 16th February 2019 - Important Points

• NASA’s Mars Rover Opportunity ending the mission after - 15-Year 
• Minimum Selling Price of Sugar Raised by - Rs 2/kg
• 1st District Cooling System of India to come up in - Amaravati
• Jallianwala Bagh National Memorial (Amendment) Bill 2018 sanctioned in  - Lok Sabha

Current Affairs 16th February 2019 - Details

NASA’s Mars Rover Opportunity ending the mission after - 15-Year 

The National Aeronautics &  Space Administration declared that its Mars Mission, Opportunity has come to an end. This manifest the end of the 15 years old saga. The decision to finish the mission was made after all the efforts to re-establish contact with the Opportunity Mars rover didn’t yield desired results.
NASA lost the contact
A historic global dust storm touched the location of the Opportunity rover on Mars. The storm dark the skies & cut off of the rover’s solar energy. All the efforts of National Aeronautics & Space Administration to re-establish the rover did not yield fruitful results. Things worsened with the onset of the winter at the position of the Opportunity rover. The decreased sunlight &  colder temperatures during winter resulted it unlikely for the recovery of the Opportunity rover.
About the Mission

• Opportunity was the 2nd of the twin Mars Exploration Rovers to land on Mars in January 2004.
• Opportunity landed 90-day following its twin rover Spirit landed. Spirit landed at Gusev Crater & 
  Opportunity landed on the reverse side of Mars at Meridiani Planum.
• National Aeronautics and Space Administration expected 90 days lifetimes for the rovers. 
• Both Opportunity & Spirit far surpassed their expected lifetime. Spirit’s mission finished in May 2011 after travelling 8 kms &Opportunity had logged 45 kms before losing contact in June 2018.

Minimum Selling Price of Sugar Raised by - Rs 2/kg

The Central government has raised the Minimum Selling Price- MSP of sugar by Rupees 2/kg
to Rupees 31/kg.
Rationale behind the Raise
The decision to raise the Minimum Selling Price has been taken keeping in view the debt burden of the
industry. According to the information provided by the Indian Sugar Mills Association, arrears of
sugarcane farmers mounted at approximate Rupees 20000 crore as of end of January.
The raise in the MSP is believed to benefit millers to make the payment to sugarcane farmers. The
government is also putting in place a process to ensure the advantage due to the raise in the Minimum
Selling Price is given to the sugarcane farmers.
Other Steps taken

The government has taken various other steps including the raise in import duty on sugar to 100%,
scrapping of export duty, the formation of buffer stock, & subsidy for mandatory export of 5 MT in the 2018-19 marketing year to assist cash-starved mills clear cane dues.

1st District Cooling System of India to come up in - Amaravati

India’s 1st District Cooling System- DCS will initiate in Amravati, Andhra Pradesh. The government of
Andhra Pradesh has arrived into a 30 years concession with United Arab Emirates based International
cooling provider, the pact between the National Central Cooling Company (Tabreed) for the District
Cooling System at Amaravati.
District cooling system

DCSs generates chilled water, steam/hot water at a central plant & then pipeline that energy out either underground/over rooftops, to buildings for AC, space heating & water heating. As a result, these buildings don’t need their own chillers, ACs, boilers/furnaces.
They are measured to be highly efficient to address each of the challenges including high Capital & 
operating costs, reliabile, flexible &  environmentally sustainable while meeting their comfort & process cooling & heating requirements.
District cooling utilises only 50% of primary energy consumption for cooling urban building as compared to other cooling systems and also decreases carbon emissions.
DCS at Amaravati
DCS at Amaravati is part of Andhra Pradesh government’s dream to generate jobs & homes along with a world-class infrastructure at Amaravati.
The DCS will accomplish the cooling needs for the State’s Assembly, High Court, Secretariat & other government buildings which are presently under construction, for which cooling services will start from early 2021.

Jallianwala Bagh National Memorial (Amendment) Bill 2018 sanctioned in  - Lok Sabha

The Jallianwala Bagh National Memorial (Amendment) Bill, 2018 was sanctioned in  Lok Sabha .
The features of the bill 

Jallianwala Bagh National Memorial Act, 1951 issued for the creation of a National Memorial in  memory of those killed/wounded on April 13th, 1919 , in Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar.
The 1951 Act also provided for a Trust to succeed the National Memorial.
The Trust according to the 1951 Act included the PM, as Chairperson, (ii) the President of the Indian
National Congress, (iii) the Minister in-charge of Culture, (iv) the Opposition Leader in  Lok Sabha , (v) the Governor of Punjab, (vi) the CM Punjab, & (vii) 3 eminent persons designated by the central government.
The 2018 amendment bill eliminates the President of the Indian National Congress as a Trustee.
Further, the bill elucidates that when there is no Leader of Opposition in  Lok Sabha , the leader of the
single major opposition party in the  Lok Sabha  will be the Trustee.
The 1951 act issued that the 3 eminent persons designated by the central government will have a term
period of 5 years & will be entitled for re-nomination.
The 2018 bill supplemented a clause to permit the central government to dismiss the term of a
designated trustee earlier to the expiry of his term without conveying any reason.