Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 10 November 2014

National

Peace must for “economy to grow”: Arun Jaitley

• Peace in the neighbourhood is a necessity for the “economy to grow” and “to reassure investors,” said Union Finance and Defence Minister Arun Jaitley.
• Mr. Jaitley told that there is a difference in the tensions between India and Pakistan and India and China. Accusing Pakistan of repeated ceasefire violations, he said: “The environment for dialogue suffers if repeated ceasefire violations take place.
• Yes, there should be dialogue between the two countries. But one side cannot upset the environment and then ask why dialogue is not taking place.”
• Mr. Jaitley was speaking to investors and defence strategists from around the world at the ‘India Global Forum’ meet organised by International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) and Observer Research Foundation (ORF) in New Delhi, a day after the Defence Ministry said a woman and a soldier were killed in Pakistani firing in the Uri sector of Baramulla district.
• Mr. Jaitley said he could not confirm whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi would have any bilateral meeting with his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif at the SAARC summit in Kathmandu in two weeks’ time.
• The Minister said despite problems with China at the Line of Actual Control (LAC), New Delhi continued to have “meaningful dialogue” with Beijing. “As far as China is concerned, our economic relationship continues to grow. We were also able to resolve our issues at the LAC without a single bullet being fired,” he said, referring to the Chumar stand-off.

21 new ministers, Modi balances caste, merit

• Considerations of merit, caste equations in States crucial to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and representation of various regions seem to have weighed on Prime Minister Narendra Modi while expanding the Union Council of Ministers, five months after it was formed.
• No Minister was dropped or promoted from Minister of State to Cabinet rank. Former Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar is the new Defence Minister while Suresh Prabhu, who joined the BJP only, is the new Railway Minister. D.B. Sadananda Gowda has been shifted to Law. J.P. Nadda is the new Health Minister.
• Mr. Jaitley has been given additional charge of Information and Broadcasting, while Prakash Javdekar has retained Environment.
• President Pranab Mukherjee administered the oath of office to 21 new Ministers, including four Cabinet Ministers, three Ministers of State with independent charge and 14 Ministers of State.
• Making the council more representative geographically and socially, the exercise is expected to stabilise the BJP’s internal politics. The exercise however, alienated former ally Shiv Sena further; the latter refused to accept the Minister of State position offered to it.
• The new inductions make large-scale changes in portfolios imperative, but no announcement was made. While Mr. Parrikar is set to be the new Defence Minister, other Ministers said they had no information regarding their responsibilities.

Modi Government to review ineffective MoUs with various countries

• The Narendra Modi Government has decided to do away with ineffective Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) signed by India with various countries.
• “The MOUs which are more than five-years-old and have registered little progress will specifically be reviewed to see whether there is any rationale to keep them alive,” a note circulated by the Cabinet Secretariat to various Ministries and departments said.
• Satish Agnihotri, Secretary (Coordination) in the Cabinet Secretariat, has called for a meeting to review the status of such MOUs. Notice for the meeting has been sent to nine Ministries and departments.
• These include Ministry of Defence, Overseas Indian Affairs Ministry, Department of Defence Production, Defence Research and Development Department, Justice Department, Electronics and Information Department, Department of Posts, Telecommunication Department, and Legal Affairs Department.
• These Ministries and departments have been asked to give details on all MoUs signed so far and those in the pipeline.
• MoU is an instrument to show willingness for future co-operation between two countries and is singed when senior dignitaries visit each other. It is an indication of intentions before final agreement is signed. It does not grant any right to the signatories.
• There is also no legal binding on any of the party signing such a document. According to the External Affairs Ministry’s annual report for 2013-14 India signed a 56 bilateral documents in 2013, most were MOUs.

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Persons in news

M.V. Raghavan passes away

• Veteran Communist leader and Communist Marxist Party (CMP) general secretary M.V. Raghavan passed away at the Pariyaram Medical College Hospital (PMCH). He was 81.
• MVR, as he is popularly known, breathed his last at the hospital in the morning. He had been admitted to the hospital after his condition worsened. Hospital authorities said he died of cardiac arrest following the failure of his kidneys and liver.
• He had been under treatment for age-related ailments for the past several months. He is survived by wife, C.V. Janaki, and their three sons and a daughter.
• The body was kept at the PMCH for public viewing till 4 p.m. and brought to his residence at Burnassery here in the evening. There was a large turnout of people from all walks of life to pay their tributes to the deceased leader.
• The body will be kept at the district committee office of the CMP and the Town Square for the public to pay their last respects. The cremation will take place at Payyambalam at 11 a.m., according to his relatives. Those who paid their last respects to the departed leader included Chief Minister Oommen Chandy.
• The veteran leader had served as Minister for Cooperation in the United Democratic Front (UDF) government in 1991 and 2001. He had formed the breakaway CMP after his expulsion from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] in 1986.
• He had also been founder chairman of the Pariyaram Medical College (PMC) started in the cooperative sector. He had earlier founded the Pappinissery Visha Chikilsa Society (PVCS) which runs a snake park and an Ayurveda medical college, among others.

International

Reverse the ongoing militarisation, C. V. Wigneswaran urges India

• Chief Minister of Sri Lanka’s Northern Province C.V. Wigneswaran made a fervent appeal to India to prevail upon his country to reverse the ongoing militarisation of the Tamil-majority region and stop what he called harassment and abuse of minorities there.
• Mr. Wigneswaran, on his first visit since being elected, alleged that militarisation was taking place “not due to any real security threat, but to maintain a stranglehold over the populace; subjugate them and make them compliant; and to stifle any form of democratic or political dissent.”
• Delivering the K.G. Kannabiran Memorial Lecture, organised by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) here, Mr. Wigneswaran, a former judge of Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court, said in the last few weeks, the government was arresting and openly intimidating those trying to collect evidence for an UN-backed investigation into violations of human rights. “The State does not want the evidence to leave the shores of the country.”
• Arguing that India had a “fiduciary duty” towards Tamils in Sri Lanka, he wanted it to ensure that Tamil-speaking people realised their right to self-determination within a united Sri Lanka. His suggestion was a ‘13th Amendment Plus Plus’ to the Constitution to shed its unitary character.
• Mr. Wigneswaran had a wish-list for the Indian government: hold Sri Lanka to its promises; lend support to international processes in furtherance of justice and truth and for the return of rule of law and democracy in the country; halt harassment of the minorities, and help the return to civilian life by reversing militarisation and demand the repeal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act of Sri Lanka.

WTO logjam may be broken at agriculture committee meet

• An end-of-the-week crucial meeting of the World Trade Organisation’s agriculture committee is likely to indicate if India and the US will break the deadlock on issues of food security and trade facilitation before the informal Christmas deadline.
• Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already discussed with Commerce & Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and senior Commerce Ministry officials the minimum concessions on food security that India needs to try and secure in return for its support to a trade facilitation pact.
• “We have communicated our decision to the Indian Mission in Geneva. We hope that the US, which has softened and has indicated its willingness to compromise, will recognise our reasonable approach and agree to what we want and so will other members,” a Government official told.
• The WTO’s Committee on Agriculture, with representatives from all member countries, will meet and could continue discussions as well if talks gain momentum, according to the schedule.
• New Delhi wants a permanent peace clause protecting it against action from other countries in case its food procurement subsidies breach given caps (of 10 per cent of production of a particular crop). This means that the peace clause will stay active till members re-work the formula for calculating subsidies in a way that it doesn’t hurt India’s food security programmes.
• It also wants the peace clause to be made more user-friendly with a number of conditions dropped that relate to supply of voluminous data and documents and proving that the subsidies were non-trade distortive to be dropped.
• The on-going global trade talks got dead-locked in July when India refused to support a protocol on trade facilitation – a pact to ease flow of goods between borders by upgrading infrastructure and processes – as its concerns on food security were not getting adequately addressed.

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Science & technology

India-based NIO project awaits PMO approval

• India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) project – a study to understand the properties of atmospheric neutrinos through an underground lab - in Theni district is awaiting a final nod from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).
• “We have done all the pre-approval work such as fencing, constructing basic necessary buildings at Madurai. But the first step towards the main project needs PMO approval and that’s what we have been waiting for,” Naba K. Mondal, chief of INO project.
• Christened ‘India-based Neutrino Observatory’ by the Department of Atomic Energy, the project will study atmospheric neutrinos some 1,300 metres below ground near Pottipuram village of Theni district and is expected to provide precise measurement of neutrino mixing parameters. INO was initially allotted Rs. 83 crore to start various pre-project activities at the site.
• The proposed INO comprises of two underground laboratory caverns with a rock cover of more than 1000 metres all around to house detectors and control equipment, for which a two kilometre access tunnel would be driven under a mountain, according to the INO website.
• More than 30 research institutions across India like Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Harish Chandra Research Institute are coordinating with INO for the project.

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Business & economy

Overseas investors infuse Rs 5,200 crore in Indian capital market in a week

• Overseas investors have pumped in close to Rs 5,200 crore in capital markets in first week of the month on positive global cues coupled with government’s reforms agenda.
• The net investments by foreign investors in the equity market were Rs 4,412 crore (USD 718 million) from November 3-7, while they infused a net amount of Rs 765 crore (USD 125 million) in the debt market during the period, taking the total to Rs 5,177 crore (USD 843 million), as per the latest data.
• Market analysts said that overseas investors (foreign Institutional Investors, sub-accounts or foreign portfolio investors) are betting on hopes that European Central Bank (ECB) may announce stimulus measures to revive growth in Eurozone economies.
• Besides, Japan has already announced plan to expand its additional stimulus package. They believe that some of this excess liquidity will come to India compared to other emerging market countries.
• Moreover, foreign investors are betting on India on account of the reforms agenda of the Central government. Since the beginning of the year, foreign investors have made a net investment of Rs 2.23 lakh crore (USD 37 billion) into the country’s securities market.
• This includes a net investment of Rs 86,678 crore in equities and Rs 1.37 lakh crore into debt market. The strong inflows in the recent months have taken the cumulative net investments of FIIs into India to USD 208 billion, while their investments in rupee terms is Rs 10.14 lakh crore.

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Sources: Various News Papers & PIB

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