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TARGET IAS 2016 BATCH
CURRENT AFFAIRS NOTES – 05-01-2016
FOUR NEW ELEMENTS ADDED TO PERIODIC TABLE
 Chemistry students the world over will soon have four more names of
elements to remember, and a new periodic table to boot.
 The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry [IUPAC] is the
global body responsible for the table.
 International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry recently announced
that it has verified the discovery of four new chemical elements.
 Scientists from Japan have fulfilled the criteria for the element Z=113,
making them the first Asian scientists to achieve this feat.
 Collaborative efforts between American and Russian scientists have led
to the discovery of elements with atomic numbers 115, 117 and 118.
This means that seventh row in the periodic table is now complete.
 The scientists have now been invited to name the elements, making the
Japanese scientists the first Asian scientists to receive this honour.
 There are restrictions when it comes to naming new elements; the
names have to be based on either a mythological concept, a mineral, a
place, a property or a scientist.
VULTURE FUND
 Vulture Fund is a fund that buys distressed debt of commercial
companies or sovereign nations at a cheap price and then often sues
them for the entire value of the debt.
 The resemblance to vultures is because these funds profit from the debt
of failing companies or poor nations.
 Vulture funds are relatively risky but offer large potential profits.
 The performance of a vulture fund is dependent upon the skill of the
fund's managers in identifying and purchasing undervalued assets that
can be turned into profitable investments.
  Many vulture funds focus on real estate, but others invest in bonds that
have been downgraded or are in default and other high-risk securities.
 A vulture fund is a pool of investor money that makes investments in
securities from distressed issuers (usually bonds).
 In normal commercial investment, vulture funds can be used for normal
business speculation where a distressed asset is bought cheaply during
times of economic distress and sold later at a profit when the
economic environment improves.
 In India, many manufacturing units established several years ago had
huge tracts of land. Although the manufacturing unit may have stopped
operations, the value of the property would be significant enough to
repay outstanding loans.
 Buy-out of bad loans with the underlying collateral of property is now
possible primarily due to the Securitisation Act which allows a bank and
an asset reconstruction company to attach and sell secured assets which
are classified as non-performing assets or bad loans.
NAI MANZIL SCHEME
 The Nai Manzil Scheme is designed as an integrated education and
training programme that provides youth from minority communities
skills needed for different tasks in a rapidly changing world.
 Interventions under this project will support the Nai Manzil Scheme in
improving the employability and performance of minority youth in the
labour market
Objective:
 Improvement in the education attainment of the minority youth in the
project area and improvement in their employability skills are among the
expected outcomes of the project.
 The project takes an integrated and holistic approach towards education
and skill development of the minority youth.
 To address the high dropout and unemployment rate among them.
Why recently in news?
  The Union government and the World Bank signed a $50-million credit
agreement for a Nai Manzil project aimed at helping young people from
minority communities complete their education and improve their
employment opportunities.
DRUG AUTHENTICATION AND VERIFICATION APPLICATION [DAVA] PROJECT
 DAVA project launched on June 29, 2015 created an integrated platform
for implementation of the Track and Trace system both for exports and
domestic markets of Drugs and Pharmaceuticals.
 The DAVA project is an initiative of Government of India which aims to
cover all the drugs manufactured in India.
 Indian Pharmaceutical industry has approximately 250 large units and
more than 8,000 small and medium scale units.
 The project will provide simpler means to the consumer and regulatory
agencies for establishing drug authentication and protect the India’s
Brand image in international trade.
 When fully implemented, the export of fake or spurious drug from the
country, will not be possible and in case it happens it would be easily
traceable.
 It is in the pilot stage and will be subsequently made mandatory for all
pharmaceutical exports from India.
 The application has value-added features like availability of stocks for a
drug in an area/wholesalers/retailers at a point of time; whenever
required, drugs can easily be identified and recalled due to traceability
of stocks, prevention of black marketing which especially arises during
epidemics.
Why recently in news?
 The Department of Commerce’s DAVA (Drug Authentication and
Verification Application) project has won the 2015 eASIA Award under
Trade Facilitation category as announced by Asia Pacific Council for
Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (AFACT) in Tehran, Iran.
 This award is administered by AFACT Asia Pacific Council for Trade
Facilitation and Electronic Business
  This project is a significant step in this direction and will contribute
considerably in enhancing the brand image of our pharmaceutical
exporters.
SEVEN MAHARATNA COMPANIES
 The seven Maharatna companies are Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd, Coal
India, GAIL (India), Indian Oil Corp, NTPC, Oil & Natural Gas Corp and
Steel Authority of India Ltd.
NORTHEAST EARTHQUAKE – IMPORTANT FACTS
Reason for Earthquake
 A rupture between the Indian plate and the Burmese plate caused the
large tremor that shook the entire North-East and parts of eastern India
recently.
Epicentre
 The earthquake was located about 25 km deep and the epicentre lay
around 40 km from Imphal city, the capital of Manipur.
Seismic Zone V
 The North Eastern Region falls under the Seismic Zone V (the highest
risk area).
Past experience
 In the past two years, the region surrounding the country has
experienced heightened seismic activity.
 The devastating 7.8 Nepal tremblor of April 25, 2015, the large 7.3
earthquake in the Hindukush region in October 2015, and earthquakes
of magnitude 6 affecting Afghanistan, Pakistan and neighbourhood have
been reported.
BALANCED FUND
 A balanced fund is a mutual fund that generally keeps to a 50-50 mix of
stock and bond investments.
 Balanced fund is a fund that combines a stock component, a bond
component and, sometimes, a money market component, in a single
portfolio.
 Balanced funds are mechanically very similar to bond funds but they
include varying amounts of non-debt instruments like preferred stock,
common stock, or even real estate.