Insights Daily Current Affairs, 05 October 2016
Paper 3 Topic: Infrastructure: Energy, Ports, Roads, Airports, Railways etc.
Indian Bridge Management System
The Indian Bridge Management System (IBMS) has been launched.
What is it?
IBMS is being developed to create an inventory of all bridges in the country and rate their structural condition so that timely repair and rehabilitation work can be carried out based on the criticality of the structure.
IBMS is the largest platform in the world owned by a single owner, with database that could exceed 1,50,000 bridge structures. So far 1,15,000 bridges have been inventorized, of which 85,000 are culverts and the rest are bridges.
Why was it necessary?
Lack of any data base on bridges in the country has led to a situation where there is no clear idea about the exact number and location of bridges. Hence, it has become difficult to maintain bridges in proper working condition. Poor condition of bridges hampers efficient transport and has also led to accidents and loss of lives on several occasions.
How it operates?
- During inventory creation each bridge is assigned a unique identification number or National Identity Number based on the state, RTO zone and whether it is situated on an National Highway, State Highway or is a district road.
- Then the precise location of the bridge in terms of latitude-longitude is collected through GPS and based on this, the bridge is assigned a Bridge Location Number.
- Thereafter, engineering characteristics like the design, materials, type of bridge, its age, loading, traffic lane, length, width of carriage way etc are collected and are used to assign a Bridge Classification Number to the structure.
- These are then used to do a structural rating of the structure on a scale of 0 to 9, and each bridge is assigned a Structural Rating Number.
- The rating is done for each component of the structure like integral and non integral deck, superstructure, substructure, bank and channel, structural evaluation, deck geometry, vertical clearance, waterway efficiency etc.
- In addition to the structural rating, the bridges are also being assigned Socio-Economic Bridge Rating Number which will decide the importance of the structure in relation to its contribution to daily socio-economic activity of the area in its vicinity.
- Based on this inventory IBMS will analyse data and identify bridges that need attention. Further inspection will be carried out wherever required to improve the operational availability of the structure, enhance its life and prioritize repair and rehabilitation work. The data will help to decide which bridge needs critical attention, or which needs to be rebuilt.
Sources: pib.
Paper 2 Topic: Important aspects of governance, transparency and accountability, e-governance- applications, models, successes, limitations, and potential; citizens charters, transparency & accountability and institutional and other measures.
Certificates of Appreciation to the Ministries/ Departments for their performance in CPGRAMS
Certificates of Appreciation were recently awarded to the Ministries/Departments based on their performance in the Centralized Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS).
- From each category one Ministry/Department is selected for issue of Certificate of Appreciation based on the parameters of percentage of disposal and quality of disposal.
- A three member Committee evaluates the performance for each quarter.
What is CPGRAMS?
The CPGRAMS is an online web enabled application to facilitate speedy redress of public grievances as it allows for online lodging and status tracking of grievances by the citizens. The system is flexible enough to be extended to multiple levels as per the requirement of concerned Ministry/Department/ Govt. Organization for speedy forwarding and redress of grievance.
- With this, the Government aims to have minimum Government and maximum Governance with citizen centric approach.
- Award Scheme is expected to bring a sense of competitiveness in Ministries/ Departments to address public grievances.
Sources: pib.
Paper 1 Topic: Modern Indian history from about the middle of the eighteenth century until the present- significant events, personalities, issues.
PM remembers Shyamji Krishna Varma on his birth anniversary
Birth anniversary of Shyamji Krishna Varma was celebrated on 4th October.
Shyamji Krishna Varma- Key facts:
- Shyamji Krishna varma was an Indian revolutionary fighter, lawyer and journalist.
- He founded the Indian Home Rule Society, India House and The Indian Sociologist in London.
- An admirer of Dayanand Saraswati’s approach of cultural nationalism, and of Herbert Spencer, Krishna Varma believed in Spencer’s dictum: “Resistance to aggression is not simply justified, but imperative”.
- The India House and The Indian Sociologist rapidly developed as an organised meeting point for radical nationalists among Indian students in Britain at the time and one of the most prominent centres for revolutionary Indian nationalism outside India. Most famous among the members of this organisation was Veer Savarkar.
- Shyamji Krishan was also an admirer of Lokmanya Tilak and supported him during the Age of Consent bill controversy of 1890. However, he rejected the petitioning, praying, protesting, cooperating and collaborating policy of the Congress Party.
Sources: the hindu.
Paper 3 Topic: Science and Technology- developments and their applications and effects in everyday life Achievements of Indians in science & technology; indigenization of technology and developing new technology.
Physics Nobel shared by three, one half by one and the other by two
Three physicists have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for rewriting our understanding of exotic quantum states on the surfaces of materials. Their work explains the behavior of superconductors and superfluids by connecting these systems to topology, the mathematical study of spatial properties including surfaces.
- Half of the prize goes to David J. Thouless, a physicist at the University of Washington in Seattle, while the other half will be split between J. Michael Kosterlitz, a physicist at Brown University, and F. Duncan M. Haldane, a physicist at Princeton University.
What is topology?
Topology is a branch of math that studies what properties are preserved when objects are stretched, twisted, or deformed.
Sources: the hindu.
Paper-3 Topic: Science and Technology- developments and their applications and effects in everyday life Achievements of Indians in science & technology; indigenization of technology and developing new technology.
Maharashtra to be on the crest of science
Maharashtra State Cabinet has decided to hand over 40.68 hectare government land to the Atomic Energy Department to build the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory Project (LIGO India Project) at Dudhala village in Hingoli district.
Key facts:
- In April this year, India and United States had signed an MoU to set up the LIGO Observatory that recently proved the existence of gravitational waves envisaged by Albert Einstein nearly a century ago.
- With this project, India will join an elite league of countries that support research on gravitational waves. Besides the U.S, U.K, Italy, Germany and Japan have ongoing research in the area.
- The two current LIGO Observatories are located at Hanford, Washington, and Livingston, Louisiana, and are operated by Caltech and MIT.
- The LIGO project is run with the collaboration of 90 universities and research institutions. Thirty people of Indian origin are part of the LIGO project.
Background:
The proposed LIGO-India project aims to move one Advanced LIGO detector from Hanford to India. LIGO-India project is envisaged as an international collaboration between the LIGO Laboratory and three lead institutions in the IndIGO consortium: Institute of Plasma Research (IPR) Gandhinagar, Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune and Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology (RRCAT), Indore.
- LIGO lab would provide the complete design and all the key detector components. Indian scientists would provide the infrastructure to install the detector at a suitable site in India and would be responsible for commissioning it.
- The proposed observatory would be operated jointly by IndIGO and the LIGO-Lab and would form a single network along with the LIGO detectors in USA and Virgo in Italy.
Sources: the hindu.
Facts for Prelims
Sagar Port Project
- The Central Government has given in principle approval to a grant of Rs. 515 crores to make the development of the proposed Sagar Port project in West Bengal financially viable.
- A Special Purpose Vehicle, Bhor Sagar Port Limited (BSPL) has been incorporated for the implementation of the project, with Kolkata Port Trust holding 74% equity and the Government of West Bengal holding 26% equity.
- A road-cum-rail bridge is proposed over the river Muriganga to connect the Sagar island to the mainland.
- The connectivity of this road-cum-rail bridge to the National Highways network and the railway network has also been taken up in right earnest. The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has agreed, in- principle, to take up widening of NH-117 to a four-lane road from Kakdwip to Joka and up to the rail-cum-road bridge to the Sagar Island.
Where is it?
- Sagar island is an island in the Ganges delta, lying on the continental shelf of Bay of Bengal about 100 km south of Kolkata.
- Who administers it? It comes under South 24 Parganas District in West Bengal. It is governed by the State government of West Bengal.
SBI branch in Myanmar
- State Bank of India (SBI) has announced the opening up its foreign branch in Yangon, the capital city of Myanmar.
- With this, SBI became the first domestic bank of India to open a branch in Myanmar.
- The Yangon branch is the 54th foreign branch of the SBI.
- This branch extends the global presence of India’s largest lender in 37 countries through 198 offices.
