Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 06 October 2015

:: International ::

Pacific Rim countries reach landmark trade deal, U.S. lawmakers sceptical

The United States and 11 other Pacific Rim countries have reached a sweeping deal to set up a free-trade zone for 40 percent of the world's economy, but the accord on Monday faced initial scepticism in the U.S. Congress.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership is the most ambitious trade pact in a generation and could reshape industries and influence the cost of products from cheese to cancer treatments, presenting key issues also for drug companies and automakers.
Tired negotiators worked round the clock over the weekend to settle tough issues such as monopoly rights for new biotech drugs.
A demand by New Zealand for greater access for its dairy exports was only settled at 5 a.m. EDT (0900 GMT) on Monday.
Details of the pact were emerging in statements by officials after days of marathon talks in Atlanta.
The 12 countries will cut trade barriers and set common standards for a region stretching from Vietnam to Canada.
The agreement could be a legacy-defining achievement for Democratic President Barack Obama, if it is ratified by Congress.
Lawmakers in other TPP countries must also approve the deal, which would reduce or eliminate tariffs on almost 18,000 categories of goods like machinery, chemicals and food.
The Obama administration hopes the pact will help the United States increase its influence in East Asia to help counter the rise of China, which is not one of the TPP nations.
Initial reaction from U.S. lawmakers, including Democrats and Republicans, ranged from cautious to sceptical.
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, a U.S. Democratic presidential candidate, said he was disappointed and warned the pact would cost U.S. jobs and hurt consumers.

:: Miscellaneous ::

German will now be the additional foreign language in Kendriya Vidyalayas

German will be taught in Kendriya Vidyalayas as an additional foreign language while modern Indian languages will be taught in Germany, according to an understanding reached between the two countries today to put a lid on a controversy that had erupted about a year back.
An MoU was signed between the two countries on the occasion of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's visit and under the understanding, a pact will be signed between the KV and Max Mueller Bhavan to formalise the arrangement.
This marks an end to the controversy which had erupted about a year after KVs decided to stop teaching German as third language and replaced it with Sanskrit.
The governing board of KV had in its meeting on October 27 last year directed that teaching of German language as an option instead of Sanskrit be discontinued.
The new understanding is a sharp departure from the earlier agreement of 2011 between the two countries to offer German as a third language in the KVs.
HRD Minister Smriti Irani has been maintaining that teaching German was against the spirit of the three-language formula and violated the national education policy.
The KV's decision had triggered an uproar and had threatened to derail ties between the two countries.
It was criticised also by Merkel who raised the issue during her meeting with Modi on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Brisbane in November last year.
The government, though, had announced that German would continue to be taught as an additional or hobby subject from class VI to VIII.

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:: Business ::

India home to most poor, but poverty rate lowest: World Bank

India was home to the largest number of poor in 2012, but its poverty rate was one of the lowest among those countries with the largest number of poor, according to a new World Bank report.
A new methodology applied to household surveys in India also suggests that its poverty rate could be even lower, the report noted.
For 2011-12, India's poverty rate using the so-called "uniform reference period" (URP)-based consumption was 21.2 percent.
But a new method introduced in 2009-10 by the National Sample Survey Organization using a shorter recall period for food items brings down the poverty rate to a significantly lower figure of 12.4 percent.
From a broader historical perspective, the global poverty rate has fallen by approximately 1 percentage point a year since 1990, with rapid poverty reduction in China and India playing a central role in this outcome, the report noted.
Tentative projections for global poverty in 2015 suggest that the global headcount may have reached 700 million, leading to a poverty rate of 9.6 percent.
The number of people living in extreme poverty around the world was likely to fall to under 10 percent of the global population in 2015, according to World Bank projections.This gives fresh evidence that a quarter-century-long sustained reduction in poverty is moving the world closer to the historic goal of ending poverty by 2030, the report said.