Current Affairs September 2013 - Current Affairs Today Advertisement Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf honored with Indira Gandhi Peace Prize September 14th, 2013 Indian President Pranab Mukherjee conferred the Indira Gandhi peace prize on Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in recognition of her inspiring efforts for ensuring the return of peace, democracy, development, security and order in Liberia and for her strong interest in the consolidation and betterment of relations between both the countries. About Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: Current President of Liberia. Earlier, served as Minister of Finance under President William Tolbert from 1979 until the 1980 coup d’état, after which she left Liberia and held senior positions at various financial institutions. Won the 2005 presidential election and took office on 16 January 2006, and she was a successful candidate for re-election in 2011. First democratically elected women Head of State of any African country. Awarded 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, jointly with Leymah Gbowee of Liberia and Tawakel Karman of Yemen. Oil production kicks off in Kashagan, world’s largest oil field outside the Middle East September 14th, 2013 World’s largest oil field outside the Middle East- Kashagan field in Kazakhstan started production of crude. Although the starting production is just 26,000 barrels a day, the reservoir promises about 1.5 million barrels of oil a day to global output in future. If it attains that level, the oil will be equivalent to about 1.6% of the world’s total, or roughly the amount Libya produces. A consortium of oil companies including KazMunayGas, the national oil company of Kazakhstan; Shell of the Netherlands; Total of France; Inpex of Japan; Exxon; Conoco; and Eni – are slowly but –steadily developing the oil field. Kashagan Oilfield: Kashagan Field is an offshore oil field in the Kazakhstan’s zone of the Caspian Sea. The field, discovered in 2000, is located in the northern part of the Caspian Sea close to Atyrau and it is considered the world’s largest discovery in the last 30 years, combined with the Tengiz Field. Delay in the Project: Although it was discovered in 2000, the project was delayed due to technical problems, disputes with the Kazakh government, and infighting among the oil companies. The project is already five years behind schedule and has cost $41 billion. A Challenging Project: The Kashagan oilfield project is one of the world’s most challenging projects as the developers have to confront harsh conditions as sea ice during the winter, temperature variation from -35 to 40 °C, extremely shallow water and high level of hydrogen sulphide. There are environmental concerns too as the oil in the field in under high pressure which increases the chances of spills. Obama nominates person of Indian origin to key post September 14th, 2013 US President Barack Obama has nominated Indian-American Puneet Talwar as assistant secretary of state for political military affairs. Talwar has served Obama’s top advisor on the Middle East region for over four years. He is the second Indian-American to be nominated as the assistant secretary position in the state department. In July, 2013, Nisha Desai Biswal was nominated as the assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia. Both the nominations are yet to be confirmed by the Senate. If confirmed by the Senate, Talwar, will provide policy direction in the areas of international security, security assistance, defence strategy and plans, military operations, and defence trade. ATMs, PoS machines to scan UID biometrics September 14th, 2013 The RBI is understood to be preparing a directive for banks to introduce additional facilities in all new credit card swipe (Point of Sales, or PoS) machines and Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) for providing a mechanism for Aadhaar authentication using biometrics. The central bank intends to have an Aadhaar-based authentication to provide additional security for card transactions. Although RBI seems to have accommodated to a combination of ‘chip and PIN’ authentication for existing customers and biometric checks for hitherto unbanked cardholders, the challenge is in the acceptance devices. Banks are of the view that the additional facilities would significantly increase investment costs. The other challenge is that conventional phone lines may not work to transmit scanned fingerprint images for verification. As per banks, the new machines will require the equivalent of 3G data speeds to transmit biometric data.
Posted on: Sun, 15 Sep 2013 06:53:17 +0000
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