Indian Current Affairs: 05.08.2007

The very word ‘opium’ makes us conjure up the bad and ugly underworld, crime and what not. But do you know that it is produced under license from the Government?
At present 80,000 farmers have licences for opium cultivation, most of who are from MP and Rajasthan. One cultivator is allowed to grow opium in an area of 10 are (1 are = 100 sq meters).
Opium is processed in only two government run factories, one at Neemuch (MP) and another at Ghazipur (UP). Together they produce about 130 tonnes of opium.
Opium production is required for the pharmaceutical industry. It is used in making alkaloids such as codeine phosphate, codeine sulphate, narcotine and morphine sulphate, which are needed for various life-saving drugs.
Now the government is thinking of allowing two private sector players such as Ranbaxy, Cipla and Dr. Reddy’s labs. Which are the two will be known sometime down the line.

Exchangeable Image File Format. This is a technology that is used in digital cameras. When this is used along with GPS in the cameras, the image browsers (image viewing software) will be able to tell where exactly the picture was taken.

The rural and semi-urban territories are expected to reach a size of $20 bn mark in the next four years from the present size of a little less than $5 bn.
The urban life insurance market is expected to touch a size of $15 bn in the same period.
72% of India lives in rural areas.

A paramotor consists of a backpack-style ultra light aircraft engine; attached to which is a standard Paraglider wing. The engines is a 220 cc single cylinder, two-stroke engine delivering around 12 to 15 horsepower. The complete backpack unit usually weighs less than 25 kgs. It can fly with a speed of around 40 to 55 kph depending on the wing. 10 litres of fuel would deliver three hours of flying.
But before you dream of trying it out know two things:

It costs a cool ~Rs. 8 lakhs to have this engine.
The DGCA has a vice like grip over flying anywhere in India. And it wont be happy to allow you to fly.
And if you dare do it without permission, don’t be surprised if the US intelligence tips of the DGCA saying that there is security threat for their White House.

In fact, as a child I used to dream of flying like that, after seeing a Telugu movie “ Keelu gurram.” A rough translation of the movie title means a horse with control levers. Of late these dreams are a recurring theme for me. Do visit the present day Hyderabad once; you will understand why. Traffic snarls are my nightmares.

Apart from their construction, fuel cells are characterized by their ability to generate electric power from a chemical process instead of combustion like regular engines.
They have no moving parts, slashing maintenance costs and making them inherently silent and vibration free.
But at the moment they are costing about 6 times more than diesel generators.

Indian Current Affairs