Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 01 November 2015

:: National ::

Reserve Bank of India Governor RaghuramRajan on Saturday called for an end to vigilante acts to enforce bans, saying they would stifle economic progress.
Indeed, if what you do offendsme but does not harmme otherwise, there shouldbe a very high bar for prohibitingyour act.
Excessivepolitical correctness stiflesprogress as much as excessivelicence anddisrespect.
He said “A quick resort to bans will chill all debate as everyone will be anguished by ideas they dislike. It is far better to improve the environment for ideas through tolerance and mutual respect.”

The database being set upat LaCONES (Laboratory forthe Conservation of EndangeredSpecies), an annexureof the Centre for Cellular andMolecular Biology (CCMB),has genetic profiles of tigersfrom central India, WesternGhats and the Northeast.
A database of geneticprofiles of tigers fromacross India is not only aidingin nabbing poachers but alsoin establishing whether thebig cat is a suspected man-eaterin cases of animal-humanconflict.
The database was also enablingthe scientists to assignwith a fair degree of accuracythe region from where a bigcat comes.
With greater awareness onthe utility of DNA fingerprintingtechnique, forest officialsfrom Maharashtra, Karnatakaand other States havebeen referring samples incases of poaching and human-animalconflict to LaCONES.

The India-Africa ForumSummit (IAFS) endedwith a globally relevant declaration.
Though India and Africancountries meet often in internationalplatforms, IAFS 2015will remain unique because itwas the first time that Indiaappeared before Africa speakingthe language of pure economicdevelopment and financecapital, in a departurefrom the ideology-dominantdays of Jawaharlal Nehru inthe 1950s.
The summit was importantbecause Africans have realized that it is necessary to letChina know that the Africanstoo have an alternative to China,said former Indian HighCommissioner to Kenya, T.P.Sreenivasan.
A Sudanese political activistnow in India said that Africanhuman rights activistswere disturbed by the factthat despite being the largestavoided showing any interestin advising African countrieslike Democratic Republic ofCongo, Somalia, and severalothers on how to resolve conflictsand end discriminations.

Russian airliner carrying 224 passengerscrashed into a mountainous area ofEgypt's Sinai Peninsula on Saturdayshortly after losing radar contact nearcruising altitude, killing all aboard.
A militant group ailiated to IslamicState in Egypt, Sinai Province, said in astatement it had brought down the plane.
The Airbus A321, operated by Russianairline Kogalymavia under the brandname Metrojet, was flying from the RedSea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburgin Russia when it went down incentral Sinai soon after daybreak.
Egyptian and Russian authorities saidit was too early to draw any conclusionsabout the cause of the crash.

A group of government-appointedadvisors has recommendedsweepingchanges to India's outdatedand overburdenedbankruptcy system, aimingto modernize a processthat takes severalyears and costs investorsand taxpayers billions.
The changes would bethe most ambitious overhaulto date of rules governingthe liquidation orrevival of companies inIndia, a country with nosingle bankruptcy codeand where competinglaws, unclear jurisdictionsand inadequate resourcescan leave caseslanguishing for decades.
Under current rules,even deciding whether tosave or liquidate an ailingcompany can take years,leaving it in the hands ofmanagers who can – anddo - strip assets with impunity.Under the proposedchanges, a decisionwould have to be reachedin 180 days - even 90 daysfor fast-track applications.
The World Bank says ittakes 4.3 years on average,more than twice aslong as in China, with anaverage recovery of 25.7cents on the dollar, one ofthe worst among similarsize economies.
Troubled companies inIndia, or their creditors,largely turn to the OfficialLiquidator, a government-appointed officerattached to the country'shigh courts, who administersassets and overseesliquidation.Banks can also turn toseparate Debts RecoveryTribunals (DRT), partlystaffed by officials on assignmentfrom the banksthemselves and overseenby the Ministry ofFinance.Both are overstretched;on visits totheir offices in India's financialcapital, Mumbai,computers were often ofand always outnumberedby teetering pillars offiles.

JoshnaChinappa stunnedWorld No. 1 and top seed RaneemEl Welily of Egypt in thefirst round of the $1,15,000 QatarClassic squash here on Saturday.
This is the first time that shewas beating a player in the topfive in the world ranking.
India’s SauravGhosal is inthe fray in the men’s sectionand will play his first match onSunday.