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Stephen Hawking

This great man took physics to the people, and changed the way we think about disability
Brief History of book describing in nontechnical terms the structure, development and fate of the universe
He ranks with Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein as that rare physicist who fired the popular imagination
Newton and Einstein worked on broad canvases, Hawking was focussed on cosmology and gravitation.

Far short of the potential

India needs technical expertise and investments to develop its infrastructure,
While Japan has capital to spare and know-how to share
common strategic objective in countering Chinese hegemony in Asia, a goal that can be best met in collaboration
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart ShinzoAbe have worked hard to upgrade ties.
Regular high-profile bilateral visits have brought with them
Big-ticket projects, notably Japanese investment in India’s first bullet train
1,369 Japanese companies and over 4,800 Japanese corporate offices active in India.
Japanese investment in India totalled $4.7 billion in 2016-17
Japan currently ranks as the third largest investor in India
Yet, the India-Japan economic relationship remains underwhelming both in relation to its potential, and to the ties that each nation shares with China.
According to Japan ExternalTrade Organization (JETRO) data, China received about five times more Japanese investment between 1996-2015 ($116 billion) than India did ($24 billion). Japan-India twoway trade $13.48 billion in 2016- 17 is also a fraction of the $350billion China-Japan trade relationship or even India-China trade ($84.44 billion in 2017)
 Japanese companies in India longer than their Korean or Chinese counterparts to learn how best to localise their products for the Indian market
Consumer is therefore more focussed on cost than durability.
India’s image- greatest challenge- outdated and negative image of India
Small and medium enterprises are the worst culprits of this attitude
Punctuality is another stumbling block.
Jugaad-proud environment of India- More flexible and adapt better
Possible in India it has the capacity and skills for engineering design that can match Japanese requirements
India as a manufacturing base for markets in Africa, a trend that is interesting to Japan’s business strategists
India-Japan economic relationship remains underwhelming in relation to strategic ties-Closing this distance remains a tough ask

Prelims Focus Facts-News Analysis

Page-1-In civic ranking, Pune is Maximum City
None of the 23 cities surveyed had a good platform for citizen engagement
TheAnnual Survey of India’s City-Systems (ASICS) 2017, which uses 150 parameters to judge 23 cities, has placed Pune at the top and Bengaluru at the bottom of the rankings.While Pune scored 5.1 out of a maximum score of 10, Bengaluru got just 3. But Indian cities lagged behind global cities like NewYork and London, which scored 8.8
 Survey- by the NGO Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy
Page-1-U.K.‘hits back’, to expel 23 Russian diplomats
U.K. to cut high-level contacts with Russia
removal of the diplomats would represent the single biggest expulsion in over 30 years, Prime MinisterTheresa May told the House of Commons
moves come in response to the poisoning of the former double agent Sergei Skripal and his
daughterYulia in the English city of Salisbury earlier this month.
Neutrino project gets environmental nod
India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) project has got a fresh lease of life with the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) taking it up as a special case and granting it environmental clearance to set up the lab in BodiWest hills inTamil Nadu
Lok Sabha passes Finance Bill without discussion
China sets up agency to focus on foreign aid, Belt and Road
World Bank forecasts India’s economic growth will accelerate to 7.3% in 2018-19
Urea subsidy extended till 2020
Approved the proposal by the Department of Fertilizers to continue the ongoing Urea Subsidy Scheme from 2017 to 2020