Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 01 February 2016

:: NATIONAL ::

U.S. Considering to reverse its policy with India-Pak

• Seven years after the State Department was restructured to ‘de- hyphenate’ U.S. relations with India and with Pakistan, it is considering a reversal of the move.

• De-hyphenating refers to a policy started by the U.S. government under President Bush, but sealed by the Obama administration, of dealing with India and Pakistan in different silos, without referring to their bilateral relations.

• It enabled the U.S. to build closer military and strategic ties with India without factoring in the reaction from Pakistan, and to continue its own strategy in Afghanistan with the help of the Pakistan military without referring back to India.

• The re-merger proposal is ostensibly timed with the international troops pullout from Afghanistan.

• India’s relationship has grown because it stood on its own, as it is important that bilateral relations with India won’t be overshadowed by its relations with the region.\

• The de-hyphenation policy of the U.S. was crystallised when the SRAP was set up in 2009 soon after President Barack Obama had taken over, with the appointment of Richard Holbrooke.

• There are indications, present. however, that even as the U.S. is planning to bring the desks back together, India may not object as strenuously as it did in 2009.

• To begin with, India has dropped its objections to talks with the Taliban in the past few months, instead asking to be “kept in the loop” on developments in the U.S. talks on Af-Pak.

Supreme Court to hear about criminality of section 377 of IPC

• The Supreme Court will take a final call on whether Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which criminalises consensual sexual acts of Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual and Transgender (LGBT) adults in private, amounts to denial of their rights to privacy and dignity and results in gross miscarriage of justice.

• A Bench of the three senior-most judges will hear a batch of eight curative petitions filed by parents, civil society, scientific and LGBT rights organisations against a judgment by the Supreme Court dismissing their review petitions on the ground that Section 377 is constitutional and applies to sexual acts irrespective of age or consent of the parties.

• One of the eight petitions now listed for Tuesday is by 13 senior psychiatrists, psychologists, counsellors and mental health professionals, including an editor of the influential Lancet Series on Global Health.

• They have argued that homosexuality was not a mental disorder, but a normal and natural variant of human sexuality.

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:: INTERNATIONAL ::

Russia providing more freedom to provinces to take tie with India beyond defence

• In a bid to take ties with India beyond the defence sector, Russia is giving more freedom to its Provinces to engage with Indian States directly.

• There is growing competition among Province like Astrakhan, Mordovia, and Bashkortostan to take advantage of the positive trend in India- Russia ties.

• Moscow handles defence and strategic ties with India, but provinces have been given free hand to deal with India in the fields of agriculture, health, education, cultural cooperation.

• Provinces like Mordovia and Astrakhan compete to benefit from overall bilateral ties underlining that his Province has begun to promote Yoga as a visible sign of cooperation with India.

• India and Russia had, during the inter-governmental discussion in October 2015 agreed to ramp up bilateral investment from $15 billion to $30 billion by 2025.

Zika virus is spreading fast across the world (Register and Login to read Full News..)

:: Business and Economy ::

Government considering to include road as priority sector

• The government will soon approach the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) with a proposal to include road projects under the priority sector list for lending purposes and review the non-performing assets norms to revive Rs. 40,000-crore worth of highway projects that have not taken of due to bureaucratic delays and cost overruns.

• At present, 40 per cent of loans given by banks should go to priority sectors defined by the RBI. Out of this, 18 per cent should go toward agriculture lending.

• In a separate move, the Union government may ask the RBI to ease non-performing asset norms for bank loans to revive projects.

• It may ask the RBI to not classify bank loans as NPAs if the project has failed to take of beyond two years from its original date of commencement.

• At present, bank loans, extended for infrastructure projects, become NPAs if the project has been delayed for two years from its original schedule even for reasons beyond the control of promoters such as land acquisition approvals.

• This will, however, be done for road projects which are found viable after assessment.

:: Science and Technology ::

Zika is fit case for WHO to declare public health emergency

• The World Health Organization faced flak for its delay by two months in 2014 in declaring the Ebola epidemic as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).

• This might not happen in the case of Zika virus when the WHO will convene an emergency committee on February 1 (Monday) to help determine the level of the international response to the outbreak.

• It is alleged that WHO declared Ebola as a PHEIC only after a U.S. health care person was infected with the virus.

• Likewise, is it because the risk to the U.S. is very high in the case of Zika virus that WHO has convened the Committee meeting on Monday.

• But in the first place why should the Zika virus outbreaks be declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern?

• The term PHEIC is defined as an “extraordinary event” which is determined if both these conditions are met — constitute a public health risk to other States through the international spread of disease, and potentially requires a coordinated international response.

• According to the 2005 International Health Regulations (IHR) agreement, this definition “implies a situation that is: serious, unusual or unexpected, carries implications for public health beyond the affected State’s national border, and may require immediate international action”.

• The Zika outbreak in 23 countries meets these conditions. “Given the rapidly spreading Zika epidemic, WHO should declare an emergency and use all their powers under the International Health Regulations.

• Since its outbreak in Brazil in May 2015, there have been nearly 4,000 suspected cases of microcephaly — a foetal deformation where infants are born with abnormally small heads.

• Officials are still investigating whether Zika causes microcephaly in newborns, but the link is “strongly suspected,” ac- cording to the WHO.

• The Zika virus infection usually is asymptomatic in nearly 80 per cent of the cases. As a result, many cases of Zika go undetected, making it difficult to estimate the true scale of the outbreak in the Americas.

• One in four people infected with Zika develop symptoms — mild illness, such as fever, rash, muscle/joint pain, and conjunctivitis.

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:: SPORTS ::

Djokovic wins another Australian open

• Novak Djokovic crushed Andy Murray 6-1, 7-5, 7-6(3) at Melbourne Park on Sunday to match Roy Emerson’s record of six Australian Open titles.

• The defending champion was at his ruthless best under the lights at Rod Laver Arena, mauling Murray in the base- line duels and closing out the match in two hours and 53 minutes.

• Murray succumbed to his fifth loss in five Australian Open finals, and fourth against the World No.1 Serbian, who claimed his 11th Grand Slam title to draw level with Rod Laver and Bjorn Borg.

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Sources: Various News Papers & PIB

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