Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 26 December 2016

:: National ::

In a move that promises to reduce congestion on roads, six cities along the river Ganga including Varanasi, Kolkata and Patna are going to get passenger ferry services.
The Inland Waterways Authority of India, Ministry of Shipping has recently entered into a contract with a joint venture of Infrastructure
Architecture Lab of MIT, U.S. and Thompson Design Group, Boston, U.S. for identifying suitable locations for construction of 18 ferry terminals in six cities of Allahabad, Varanasi, Patna, Munghyr, Kolkata and Haldia.
The consultants will prepare Detailed ProjectReport and tender documents for the 18 terminals.
This venture has earlier worked on similar transport solutions for Governors Island (172 acre island in the heart of New York Harbour in U.S.), Navy Pier, Chicago, and Bufalo Bayou, Texas.
The consultants will identify the best locations along the river and carry out technical and financial feasibility of the ferry services.

As many as 31 persons were injured, 12 of them seriously, in a minor stampede at Malikappuram at Sabarimala Sannidhanam on the eve of the annual Mandalam festival.
The stampede occurred immediately after the deep-aradhana at the hill shrine around 6.40 p.m. when an iron railing collapsed as a huge crowd of devotees on the northern side of the Lower Tirumuttom near Malikappuram.
It had been waiting for about seven hours to enter the Ayyappa Temple premises (Tirumuttom) through the Northern Gate, surged forward.

The time has come for criminal justice system to mould a survivor-centric approach in dealing with cases of sexual violence, especially for victims of child abuse for whom the trauma will scar them for life, the Supreme Court observed.
A Bench of Justices A.K. Sikri and A.M. Sapre said the criminal justice system needed significant reforms to institutionalise a more sympathetic approach in which the sexual abuse survivor was the focus.
The court was restoring the conviction of a man found guilty of raping his nine-year old niece in 2009. He was sent to jail for 12 years. The court found, in this case, positive proof and a credible sequence of events linking the man to the crime.
The verdict, based on the appeal filed by the HP govt, dismissed the defence's argument that there was a delay in filing the FIR in the rape case, which they claimed was fabricated.
Moreover, it added that “a decision to lodge FIR be-comes more difficult and harder when the accused happens to be a family member.”
Justices Sikri and Sapre also observed that in many cases rape by family members was not reported to the police by the victim or her immediate family, fearing social stigma.

A focus on establish-ing “soft borders” between India and Pakistan, rather than a final settlement of boundaries in Kashmir, can lead to New Delhi's rapid integration into an expanded CPEC, says a top Chinese academic.
An endorsement of “soft borders” by New Delhi and Islamabad would address India's core objection to the CPEC — its passage through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).
The concept of “soft borders” as a pragmatic solution to the Kashmir dispute is not new. In 2005, shortly after a bus service from Srinagar and Muzafarabad had star-ted.
Prof. Li has ex-tended the idea of “soft borders” to both Kashmir and Afghanistan in order to impart regional inclusiveness to China's ‘Belt and Road' connectivity project, manifested in the CPEC.
Prof Li also highlighted that Pakistan and Afghanistan should accept ‘soft borders' as the touchstone for resolving their differences along the Durand Line. The Chinese scholar stressed that Afghanistan is the “heart of Asia”.
Chabahar, which is being jointly developed by Iran, India and Afghanistan, and Gwadar, are separated from each other by only around 100 km.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that moving to an economy with lower amounts of cash in circulation will help the country reduce its fiscal deficit and in-crease budgetary allocations for defence and rural infrastructure.
The Budget for the central government is about ₨20 lakh crore. This year, our revenues are likely to be about ₨16 lakh crore. Of this, half we get from income tax, and remaining we get from indirect taxes.
If India runs its economy honestly…there will be no ill-affects of cash economy, will we still super this loss? Will we not be able to improve infrastructure in rural are-a…government's capability to spend on poor people will not improve? FM said.
This is unethical,” he said, point-ing out the rise in high-value currency notes from 40 per cent in circulation to 86 per cent over the past 12-13 years.
Mr. Jaitley emphasised that long-term economic impact of the demonetisation move for a country like India will lead to a “better and cleaner” economy.
The Aadhaar-based pay-ment system is for people who don't have cards or mo-bile phones as they only need thumb print for transactions, Mr. Jaitley said.