14th Sep Prelims Sure Shot – Based on The Hindu Current Affairs 

Initial Public Offering

• Initial Public Offer is a process which enables unlisted or private companies to go public so as to raise capital either to repay debt or business expansion or for promoters to dilute stake in the company. It is a great way through which an individual can buy a stake in the company which previously was not possible.
• IPO basically represents the first time, company will financially benefit by issue of its stock.
• When a company makes an IPO, the prior requirement would be to decide a price of the Issue/ share.
• In India, there is a system of free pricing since 1992. However, there are guidelines that the company (Issuer) will decide the price in consultation with Merchant Banker. Still there is no formula for deciding the price of an IPO
• SEBI does not play any role on pricing of shares, but the company and merchant banker are required to give full disclosures of the parameters which they had considered while deciding the issue price.

 

Bank to offer Card less Cash Withdrawals

• Public sector lender Indian Bank will start working on system under which customers can withdraw cash without using a debit card.
• Indian Bank would start working on the system, with interoperability facility, soon after the National Payments Corporation of India comes out with specifications.
• Right now, two banks are offering this facility; State Bank is offering this facility through its Yono website and Bank of India, via QR code for their own ATMs, in a limited manner.

 

Concept of 5G

• 5G is the 5th generation of mobile networks, a significant evolution of today’s 4G LTE networks.  5G has been designed to meet the very large growth in data and connectivity of today’s modern society, the internet of things with billions of connected devices, and tomorrow’s innovations. 5G will initially operate in conjunction with existing 4G networks before evolving to fully standalone networks in subsequent releases and coverage expansions.
• 5G technology depends on 4 major factors– Millimetre waves, Small Cells, MASSIVE MIMO and BEAMFORMING.
• Millimetre waves which are in the frequency spectrum of 30–300 GHz, provide us required space for expanding the spectrum, even the speeds achieved by this millimetre waves are high. We use millimetre waves which have very less wavelength.
• The height of antenna reduces to a very higher extent. Instead of using a single high power antenna we use multiple smaller base stations. Frequency reusability can be achieved very easily when we use such smaller cells. MIMO stands for MULTIPLE INPUT MULTIPLE OUTPUT.
• 5G technology we increase the numbers (of MIMO Ports being used for 4G) to almost 4 times to facilitate the signals to travel faster in all directions.
• Beamforming is a method intended to eliminate the interferences of the signals, instead of letting all the ports transmit the signals in all directions we first make a single port send a higher beam signals in a specified direction, this reduces the interference and even the attenuations since high power beam is focused and sent into a particular direction

 

     Spectrum

• Spectrum relates to the radio frequencies allocated to the mobile industry and other sectors for communication over the airwaves.
• The spectrum is divided between different types of technology – AM and FM channels are all spread around 100MHz – 200MHz. Telecom spectrum starts from 800MHz, and goes up to 2300MHz. Beyond that, we start getting into the unlicensed bands used for technology such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth – Wi-Fi used to be 2.4GHz (2400MHz) and has started to shift to the 5GHz band.
• According to the GSM Alliance, the most suitable spectrum for telecommunication is in the 400MHz to 4GHz range, and these bands are used globally for various telecommunications purposes.

 

Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (prevention of atrocities Amendment) act, 2018

• In March 2018, Supreme Court diluted the stringent provisions of SC/ST Act (Subhash Kashinath Mahajan v. State of Maharashtra).
• The Apex court also observes that the act has become a tool to persecute innocents and public servants for political and personal gains.

Main Amendments to the Act-

• The Bill rules out any provision for anticipatory bail for a person accused of atrocities against SC/STs, notwithstanding any court order.
• The legislation also provides that no preliminary inquiry will be required for registering a criminal case and an arrest under this law.
• The arrest of a person accused of having committed an offence under the Act would not require any approval.
• The provisions of Section 438 of the Code of Criminal Procedure which deals with anticipatory bail shall not apply to a case under this Act, notwithstanding any judgment or order of any Court.

 

United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification

• It was established in 1994, as the sole legally binding international agreement linking environment and development to sustainable land management.
• Its 197 Parties aim, through partnerships, to implement the Convention and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. The end goal is to protect land from over-use and drought, so it can continue to provide food, water and energy.

 

Delhi Declaration

·       A major UN conference on fighting desertification agreed on 13^th September, 2019 to make the Sustainable Development Goal target of achieving “land degradation neutrality” (LDN), a national target for action. Countries agree to make ‘land degradation neutrality’ by 2030.

 

G.I Tag for Marayoor Jaggery

• The Marayoor Jaggery, the traditional and handmade product from Idukki district, received the Geographical Indication (GI) tag from central government. Produced in Marayoor, this Jaggery is made from sugarcane and no chemicals are added during the manufacturing process.