Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 26 September 2016

:: National ::

Government is weighing extreme diplomatic actions against Pakistan

In an indication that the government was weighing extreme diplomatic actions against Pakistan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to chair a meeting on the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT).
The IWT between India and Pakistan was sealed in 1960. The IWT, brokered by the World Bank, was signed between the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his Pakistani counterpart General Ayub Khan.
The meeting that the Prime Minister will chair would have representatives from the Water Resources and External Affairs Ministries.
The meeting comes in the wake of Mr. Modi’s first public speech post-Uri attacks in Kozhikode. Mr. Modi had said the government would take measures to isolate Pakistan diplomatically.

Regional disparity has increased in India

Regional disparity has been growing over the years, shows a new study which evaluates the governance performance of 19 major States.
Five of the six best-performing States in 2001 — Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Punjab — continue to be the top performers in 2011.
Likewise, four of the six worst-performing States in 2001 — Odisha, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar — remained at the bottom in 2011.
This led the researchers to conclude that “development clusters” — combinations of quality service delivery and high per capita income — are emerging among the more developed States in the south and west of the country.
While there are various approaches to evaluating performance of the State governments, the researchers use “output” — the quality of service delivery — as a measure of governance quality.
Five sets of criteria were used to rank the States: infrastructure, social services, fiscal performance, justice, law and order, and quality of the legislature. Only official government data were used.
In 2011, Gujarat was placed at the top for infrastructure delivery, justice, law and order, where it jumped six places, from the seventh position in 2001. However, in social services, the State slipped from the fifth in 2001 to the ninth in 2011.
The study shows that development legacy seems to have a strong impact on the quality of governance (when measured as service delivery).
Hence, another set of rankings was devised factoring in the impact of development on governance outputs.
Some of the less developed States like Bihar and Madhya Pradesh moved up significantly in the modified ranking. Bihar jumped eight positions from the 18th in standard ranking to the 10th in development-adjusted ranking.
Madhya Pradesh jumped from the 13th to second position. Chhattisgarh, placed at the eighth position, was the top performer in the modified ranking.

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:: International ::

China hosts world's largest radio telescope

The world’s largest radio telescope began searching for signals from stars and galaxies and, perhaps, extraterrestrial life n a project demonstrating China’s rising ambitions in space and its pursuit of international scientific prestige.
Beijing has poured billions into such ambitious scientific projects as well as its military-backed space programme, which saw the launch of China’s second space station earlier this month.
Measuring 500-meters in diameter, the radio telescope is nestled in a natural basin within a stunning landscape of lush green karst formations in southern Guizhou Province.
It took five years and $180 million to complete and surpasses that of the 300-meter Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, a dish used in research on stars that led to a Nobel Prize.
FAST would search for gravitational waves, detect radio emissions from stars and galaxies and listen for signs of intelligent extraterrestrial life.
Installation of the 4,450-panel structure, nicknamed Tianyan, or the Eye of Heaven, started in 2011 and was completed in July.
The telescope requires a radio silence within a five-km radius, resulting in the relocation of more than 8,000 people from their homes in eight villages to make way for the facility.

:: Science and Technology ::

Pluto may contain an ocean spanning over 100 km

Pluto may contain an ocean spanning over 100 km in thickness beneath its icy surface, with a salt content similar to that of the Dead Sea on Earth, a new study suggests.
Ever since NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft flew by Pluto last year, evidence has been mounting that the dwarf planet may have a liquid ocean beneath its icy shell.
The study finds a high likelihood that there is more than 100 km layer of liquid water beneath Pluto’s surface.
The research also offers a significant clue about the composition of that putative ocean, suggesting that it likely has a salt content which is similar to that of the Dead Sea.
The basin appears to have been created by an impact, likely by an object 200 kilometres across or larger.
The story of how the basin relates to Pluto’s putative ocean starts with its position on the planet relative to Pluto’s largest moon, Charon.
As Charon’s gravity pulls on Pluto, it would pull proportionally more on areas of higher mass, which would tilt the planet until Sputnik Planum became aligned with the tidal axis.
Water is denser than ice. If there were a layer of liquid water beneath Pluto’s ice shell, it may have welled up following the Sputnik Planum impact, evening out the crater’s mass.

:: Business and Economy ::

Incredible India Investors’ Summit gets big investment

Five states — Gujarat, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Uttarakhand and Chattisgarh — signed 86 MoUs worth close to Rs.15,000 crore during the recently concluded Incredible India Investors’ Summit.
Gujarat leads the tally with signed pacts worth nearly Rs.9,000 crore, followed by Karnataka (Rs.2,600 crore), Rajasthan (Rs.1,000 crore), Uttarakhand (Rs.500 crore) and Chhattisgarh (Rs.12 crore), according to an official statement.
The summit was organised by the Ministry of Tourism in partnership with industry body CII and the Tourism Finance Corporation of India.
The three-day summit was aimed at inviting investments from foreign and domestic players to fund 700 tourism-related projects from 29 states requiring over Rs.50,000 crore.
Invest India, which is a not-for-profit joint venture between the DIPP, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, state governments and FICCI, has shown interest in setting up the investment desk, which will be a unit under Ministry of Tourism.
Foreign tourist arrivals in June 2016, grew 7.3 per cent to 5.50 lakh as compared with 5.12 lakh during the month of June, 2015.
For the January-June period of 2016, 41.86 lakh visited India registering a growth of 8.9 per cent compared with the same period the previous year.