Predatory Pricing

• Predatory pricing is the act of setting prices low in an attempt to eliminate the competition.
• Predatory pricing is illegal under anti-trust laws, as it makes markets more vulnerable to a monopoly.
• Companies may engage in a variety of activities that intend to drive out competitors, such as create barriers to entry for new competitors or unethical production methods to minimize costs.
• A sign of predatory pricing can occur when the price of a product gradually becomes lower, which
  can happen during a price war.
• A price war is when companies continuously lower prices to undercut the competition. A price war may be used to increase revenue in the short term or as a longer term strategy to gain market share.
• In the short term, a price war can be beneficial for consumers because of the lower prices.
• In the long term, however, it is not beneficial as the company that wins a price war, effectively putting its competitor out of business, will have a monopoly where it can set whatever price it wants.

Data Security Council of India(DSCI)

• Data Security Council of India (DSCI), is a not-for-profit, industry body on data protection in India, setup by NASSCOM®, committed to making the cyberspace safe, secure and trusted by establishing best practices, standards and initiatives in cyber security and privacy.
• To further its objectives, DSCI engages with governments and their agencies, regulators, industry sectors, industry associations and think tanks for policy advocacy, thought leadership, capacity building and outreach activities.

Glanders Disease:

• It is an infectious disease that is caused by the bacterium Burkholderia mallei. While people can get the disease, glanders is primarily a disease affecting horses. It also affects donkeys and mules and can be naturally contracted by other mammals such as goats, dogs, and cats.
• The bacteria that cause glanders are transmitted to humans through contact with tissues or body fluids of infected animals. The bacteria enter the body through cuts or abrasions in the skin and through mucosal surfaces such as the eyes and nose.
• It may also be inhaled via infected aerosols or dust contaminated by infected animals. Sporadic cases have been documented in veterinarians, horse caretakers, and laboratorians.
• Cases of human-to-human transmission have not been reported in the U.S.

Symptoms of glanders commonly include:

• Fever with chills and sweating
• Muscle aches
• Chest pain
• Muscle tightness
• Headache
• Nasal discharge
• Light sensitivity (sometimes with excessive tearing of the eyes)

Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous

• In 2001, the NEAR (Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous) Shoemaker spacecraft by NASA landed on Eros, an asteroid near Earth.
• In 2011, the Dawn spacecraft entered Vesta’s orbit which successfully completed a 14-month survey of the large asteroid.
• NASA researchers announced plans for a spacecraft called HAMMER that would collide and knock incoming asteroids in another direction or simply blow them up into tiny pieces.
• In 2016, NASA launched the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft to study a near-Earth asteroid, Bennu.
• In 2005, the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa landed on the near-Earth asteroid Itokawa and in 2010, it successfully returned to Earth.
• The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched the Hayabusa 2 probe in December 2014, and plans to return samples from Ryugu in December 2020.

Colistin

• An investigation was led by an expert to look for evidence for strains of bacteria that are resistant to the most powerful antibiotics in everyday food.
• The investigation discovered a mutation called mgrB that makes the bacteria Klebsiella pneumoniae resistant to colistin and helps them make their way into people.
• Colistin is a last-resort antibiotic, a life-saver for humans.
• Even if the food is cooked, thereby killing the bacteria, storage and handling of the food products are processes by which it is passed on to people.
• It renders them helpless if they should ever need the colistin antibiotic to save their lives.
• It also revealed colistin-resistance in humans is not so much because of indiscriminate use of the antibiotic in hospitals, as it is because of its use in veterinary feed.

Carbon mineralization

• In the arid vastness of Oman of the Arabian Peninsula rocks naturally react with carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and turning it into stone.
• This natural process is called as carbon mineralization.
• Carbonate surrounds pebbles and cobbles, turning ordinary gravel into natural mosaics.
• Scientists say that if carbon mineralization process could be harnessed, accelerated and applied inexpensively on a huge scale it could help fight climate change.
• Rocks could remove billions of tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide.
• The carbon-capturing formations, consisting largely of a rock called peridotite, are in a slice of oceanic crust.
• Similar smaller amount of peridotite are found in Northern California, Papua New Guinea and Albania, among other places.

Fiscal Monitor Report 

• The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its Fiscal Monitor Report stated that the world debt has ballooned to a record $164 trillion.
• The Global public and private debt swelled to 225 percent of global gross domestic product in 2016.
• China China has accounted for almost three-quarters of the increase in private debt since the global financial crisis.
• Another observation is that more than one-third of advanced economies had debt-to-GDP levels above 85 percent, three times more nations than in 2000.
• A fifth of emerging markets and middle-income countries had debt levels above 70 percent of GDP.
• It was led by Brazil at 84 percent and India at 70.2 percent.
• Gross government debt in China stood at 47.8 percent last year.

Swadesh Darshan Scheme:

• The scheme is 100% centrally funded for the project components undertaken for public funding.
• To leverage the voluntary funding available for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives of Central Public Sector Undertakings and corporate sector.
• Funding of individual project will vary from state to state and will be finalised on the basis of detailed project reports prepared by PMC (Programme Management Consultant).
• A National Steering Committee (NSC) will be constituted with Minister in charge of M/O Tourism as Chairman, to steer the mission objectives and vision of the scheme.
• A Mission Directorate headed by the Member Secretary, NSC as a nodal officer will help in identification of projects in consultation with the States/ UTs governments and other stake holders.
• PMC will be a national level consultant to be appointed by the Mission Directorate.

InSight Mission

• NASA is set to launch Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) on May 5, the first-ever mission to study the heart of Mars. 
• InSight is part of NASA’s Discovery Program, managed by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
• It will be the first mission to peer deep beneath the Martian surface, studying the planet’s interior by measuring its heat output and listening for marsquakes, which are seismic events similar to earthquakes on Earth.
• It will use the seismic waves generated by marsquakes to develop a map of the planet’s deep interior.

Mars Cube One

• The rocket that will loft InSight beyond Earth will also launch a separate NASA technology experiment: two mini-spacecraft called Mars Cube One, or MarCO. These briefcase-sized CubeSats will fly on their own path to Mars behind InSight.
• Their goal is to test new miniaturized deep space communication equipment. This will be a first test of miniaturized CubeSat technology at another planet, which researchers hope can offer new capabilities to future missions.
• If successful, the MarCOs could represent a new kind of communication capability to Earth. InSight’s success is independent of its CubeSat tag-alongs.

Trapdoor matriarch

• It is the world’s oldest known spider which died recently at the ripe old age of 43 after being monitored for years during a long-term population study in Australia.
• The trapdoor matriarch comfortably outlived the previous record holder, a 28-year-old tarantula found in Mexico.