Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams - 19 January 2022

::National::

Air India curtails India-US operations from today. What is the 5G issue?

Air India announced that it has curtailed its operations to the US starting from January 19 in view of the deployment of the 5G communications by the US, which has already upset the schedules of many other airlines. According to reports, following the warning of the airlines, the US telecommunication giants have now decided to temporarily limit 5G services around some airports.
As US telecom giants have decided to rollout 5G technology providing fliers with faster internet access, the airline industry said it might have a catastrophic impact and the technology could interfere with sensitive airplane instruments. 5G should not be rolled out in the runways, the airlines said.
US telecom companies AT&T and Verizon said their technology is safe and is being used in many other countries. But as the conflict could not be resolved, they said they would limit the rollout of the technology near certain airports.
US aviation regulator Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had on January 14 said that “5G interference with the aircraft's radio altimeter could prevent engine and braking systems from transitioning to landing mode, which could prevent an aircraft from stopping on the runway”.
Apart from Air India, Emirates, Japan's two major airlines, All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines said they would curtail Boeing 777 flights. British Airways opted to switch aircraft on some flights to Los Angeles to an Airbus A380 from the usual Boeing 777 service, Reuters reported.

Printed Study Materials for IBPS, SBI Bank Exam

::International::

US Supreme Court to determine fate of $30 mn Pissarro painting looted by Nazis

The US Supreme Court on Tuesday weighed the fate of a painting by Camille Pissarro looted by the Nazis in 1939 and currently on display at a gallery in Spain.
The 1897 painting, "Rue Saint-Honore in the Afternoon. Effect of Rain," like some other works by the French impressionist, is at the heart of a long legal battle with international ramifications.
The painting, now estimated to be worth around $30 million, once belonged to Lilly Cassirer Neubauer, a member of a prominent German Jewish family.
Neubauer was forced to hand it over for a pittance to the Nazis in 1939 in exchange for the visa which allowed her to leave Germany.
The Neubauer family lost track of the painting after World War II and accepted compensation of $13,000 from the German government in 1958 but did not waive their rights to the artwork.
The painting changed hands several times in the ensuing decades before ending up with the Thyssen-Bornemisza museum in Madrid.
It was acquired in 1976 by Baron Hans-Heinrich Thyssen Bornemisza, heir to the Thyssen industrial group, from the Stephen Hahn Gallery in New York.
Claude Cassirer, Neubauer's grandson, discovered in 2000 that the painting was on display in Madrid and launched legal efforts in Spain and California to recover it.
Cassirer died in 2010 at the age of 89 but his children, David and Ana, have pursued the court challenges.
After suffering defeats in courts in Spain and California, the Supreme Court represents their final hope.
The highest US court will decide whether Spanish law or US state law applies in the case.
Under Spanish property law, a purchaser is not required to return an item if it was not known at the time that it may have had illegal origins and they have possessed it for at least six years.
The Nazis are estimated to have plundered some 600,000 artworks in Europe, according to a US congressional report, and courts on both sides of the Atlantic have regularly heard cases designed to restore items to their original owners.

::Economy::

RIL acquires 54% stake in robotics firm

Reliance Industries Ltd’s retail arm has purchased a 54% stake in Addverb Technologies, a Noida-based robotics company, for $132 million. Post the transaction, Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL) will have four directors on the board of Addverb of a total of eight directors, according to Sangeet Kumar, co-founder and chief executive of Addverb Technologies.
“We, the founders of Addverb, were working for Asian Paints and used to visit many factories and warehouses the world over. We realized that every time we set up factories, many of the materials were procured from the US and Japan. We wondered why are we not making these in India as there is huge demand. That is when we realized that it is a big business opportunity, and we started Addverb,” Sangeet Kumar, co-founder and chief executive of Addverb Technologies, said in an interview.
Kumar said Addverb will continue to operate independently and will use the fresh funds from RRVL to expand overseas and also build one of India’s biggest robotics manufacturing facilities in Noida.
The company currently has a manufacturing plant in Noida where it produces around 10,000 robots a year. “With this investment, RRVL becomes the largest shareholder in the company. RIL was already a client with whom we had co-created and delivered highly automated warehouses for their Jio-Mart grocery business,” said Kumar, adding that the company will be assisting RIL’s businesses in other subsidiaries too.
The investment in Addverb was made at a valuation of $265 million to $270 million, a company statement said.
“The strategic partnership with the RIL arm will help us leverage 5G, battery technology through new energy initiatives, advances in material sciences (carbon fibre) to deliver more advanced and affordable robots,” Kumar said.

SC upholds NCLAT’s order onwinding up of Devas Multimedia

The Supreme Court on Monday cleared the decks for winding up of Devas Multimedia at the instance of ISRO’s commercial arm Antrix, as it affirmed the findings of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) that Devas was set up for a “fraudulent and unlawful purpose” of “unjust enrichment”.
Signing off on the first case of winding up of a firm on the ground of fraud under India’s 2013 Companies Act, the top court also called three international arbitral awards in favour of Devas “infected with the poison of fraud”, raising questions about the arbitration proceedings initiated by the company.
Devas and its shareholders currently hold arbitral awards to the tune of ₹15,000 crore against Antrix, and through it the Union of India over the 2011 cancellation of a deal between the two firms. India has not paid any money yet to Devas and has challenged the arbitral awards. It will likely cite the apex court’s order in some of the challenges.
Devas and Antrix signed a contract in 2005 under which Antrix had to build and launch two ISRO satellites and lease S-band satellite spectrum on them to Devas, which in turn would use it to provide its internet services. However, after reports of procedural and regulatory irregularities in the deal emerged, Antrix cancelled the contract in 2011 by invoking the force majeure (extraordinary circumstances) clause, prompting Devas to approach arbitral tribunals for damages.
But a bench of justices Hemant Gupta and V Ramasubramanian rejected these contentions, emphasising that the arbitral awards are products of a fraud.
“If the seeds of the commercial relationship between Antrix and Devas were a product of fraud perpetrated by Devas, every part of the plant that grew out of those seeds, such as the agreement, the disputes, arbitral awards etc are infected with the poison of fraud,” said the bench in its 134-page judgment.
The court noted that Antrix is a “victim of fraud” and hence the motive behind its action is neither an impediment nor relevant for the purpose of adjudicating its winding up plea against Devas. The bench added that although it is not certain whether winding up of Devas would send a wrong message to the community of international investors, it is sure that “allowing Devas and its shareholders to reap the benefits of their fraudulent action” would send a wrong message that “investors can hope to get tens of thousands of crores of rupees” through such means in India.
“It is a case of fraud of a huge magnitude which cannot be brushed under the carpet, as a private lis... the claims of Devas and its shareholders are also on the property of the Government of India. The space segment in the satellite proposed to be launched by the Government of India, is the property of the Government of India,” said the bench, finding favour with the winding up petition by Antrix.

::Science and tech::

South Africa launches first 'Made in Africa' satellite

South Africa has launched its first satellite constellation developed entirely in the continent of Africa, a move hailed by the country's Science and Innovation Minister Blade Nzimande as a milestone. Three locally produced nanosatellites, which made up the country's first Maritime Domain Awareness Satellite (MDASat) constellation, were launched from Cape Canaveral in the United States on Thursday as part of American aerospace company SpaceX's Transporter-3 mission.
Transporter-3, SpaceX's third dedicated rideshare mission, carried a total of 105 spacecraft for various organisations and governments, including CubeSats, microsats, PocketQubes and orbital transfer vehicles.
The launch of the first three satellites of the MDASat constellation comes three years after that of the most advanced South African nanosatellite to date, ZACube-2, as a technology demonstrator for the constellation.
"Since its launch in 2018, ZACube-2 has been providing cutting-edge very high frequency (VHF) data exchange communication systems to the country's maritime industry, as a contribution to Operation Phakisa," Nzimande said, adding that the DSI had invested 27 million rands over three years in the development of the MDASat constellation.
Operation Phakisa focuses on unlocking the economic potential of South Africa's oceans, which the department said could contribute up to R177 billion to the GDP by 2033 and between 8,00,000 and a million direct jobs.
The DSI is implementing this work through the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT).
Although South Africa has been involved, on a relatively small scale, in space activities since the dawn of the space age in 1957, the national space industry requires specialised skills.
The minister noted that the lack of space professionals and engineers had prompted the DSI and its National Research Foundation (NRF) to initiate a human capital development programme at CPUT under the French South African Institute of Technology (F'SATI) cube satellite (CubeSat) programme, with the introduction of a Master's in Electrical Engineering focusing on satellite systems.
"As part of this programme, students are taught engineering principles using CubeSats as training tools," Nzimande said.

::Sport::

9th National Ice Hockey Championship at Kaza

Chief minister Jai Ram Thakur inaugurated the 9th National Ice Hockey Championship-2022 at the Ice Skating Rink, Kaza, in Lahaul-Spiti district on Sunday. Speaking on the occasion, the chief minister said it was for the first time that the national-level ice hockey competition and development camp was being held in Himachal Pradesh.
He said ice hockey was one of the most popular winter sports in the world.
Thakur said the championship would also boost the tourism development in the region besides promoting ice hockey amongst the younger generation.
He said ice hockey was quite popular in Uttarakhand, Ladakh, Kashmir and other Himalayan states.
“Here also it would give a boost to tourism development in this remote hinterland,” said the chief minister, adding that teams from Himachal Pradesh, Telangana, Ladakh, ITBP Ladakh, Chandigarh and Delhi were participating in this mega sports event.