Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 11 December 2014

National

RS agree for 49% FDI in insurance

• Chairman of the Rajya Sabha Select Committee Chandan Mitra tabled the report on the Insurance Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2008, recommending a hike in FDI in insurance sector from 26 to 49 per cent.
• The report, carrying dissent notes from four of the 15 members, incorporated Congress party’s demand for a composite cap on such investments.
• The dissenting parties include the Samajwadi Party, Trinamool Congress, Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Janata Dal (United). These parties are opposed to further opening of the insurance sector to foreign investment.
• The Union Cabinet that met late in the evening approved the incorporation of amendments suggested by a Parliamentary select panel in the Insurance Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2008.
• Following the Cabinet’s approval, the Bill is expected to come up for consideration and passage in the Rajya Sabha next week.
• However, it may not have a smooth sailing in a house where the NDA does not have majority. The Congress party is on board but not keen to pass the Bill in this session before the arrival of U.S. President Barack Obama, who is the chief guest at the Republic Day ceremony, highly placed sources told.

SC allowed BCCI to postpone polls

• The Supreme Court allowed the Board of Cricket Control in India (BCCI) to postpone its Annual General Meeting and election of office-bearers to the end of January 2015.
• The delay has indirectly led to the present office-bearers, including suspended BCCI chief N. Srinivasan, continuing in office till January 31, 2015.
• The order by a Bench led by Justice T.S. Thakur to postpone the elections came after BCCI counsel C. Aryama Sundaram asked the court to give clear directions as BCCI bye-laws required prior notice of the AGM to be issued three weeks in advance.
• Normally held in September, the AGM has been repeatedly postponed as the Supreme Court was hearing the IPL betting scandal.
• The decision to postpone the elections came at the end of a day-long hearing which saw senior advocate Kapil Sibal, counsel for Mr. Srinivasan, assure the Bench that if elected president, his client would stay away from BCCI governing council meetings on IPL till rules and procedure on conflict of interest in the cricket format are framed.
• His assurance came even as the Bench was considering the setting up of a disciplinary committee with persons of its choice to look into the prima facie findings of the Justice Mukul Mudgal Committee report on IPL betting scandal, fix liability and identify conflict of interest zones and procedure in the cricket format.
• In its arguments, the BCCI raised apprehensions of whether the court’s committee would infringe on its autonomy.
• It said the Board had “able people” who could take care of situations of conflict of interest. Mr. Sundaram objected to an “external agency” taking over the functions of the BCCI.

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International

UN expert calls for prosecution

• Senior U.S. officials who authorised and carried out torture as part of former President George W. Bush’s national security policy must be prosecuted, a top U.N. special investigator said.
• Ben Emmerson, the U.N.’s special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights, said in addition that all CIA and other U.S. officials who used water boarding and other torture techniques must be prosecuted.
• The report has sparked a firestorm of controversy in the U.S. and abroad. President Barack Obama said the interrogation techniques “did significant damage to America’s standing in the world and made it harder to pursue our interests with allies.”
• “The individuals responsible for the criminal conspiracy ... must be brought to justice, and must face criminal penalties commensurate with the gravity of their crimes,” Emmerson said.
• “The fact that the policies revealed in this report were authorised at a high level within the U.S. government provides no excuse whatsoever. Indeed, it reinforces the need for criminal accountability.”

Business & Economy

Essar group set to ink a deal to import crude from Russia

• The Essar Group will sign a long-term crude oil import deal with Russia's Rosneft during President Vladimir Putin's visit to New Delhi, government and industry.
• “Essar will sign an MoU (memorandum of understanding) with them (Rosneft),” two Indian government sources said. “The deal will be for ten years,” an industry source familiar with the matter said.
• The Essar group operates the 405,000 barrels per day (bpd) Vadinar refinery in Gujarat and also the 296,000 bpd Stanlow refinery in northwest England, which is operating at below its capacity.
• Volumes, pricing and other details of the deal with state-controlled Rosneft, the world’s largest listed oil firm by output, were not immediately known. Essar depends heavily on Iran to feed its Vadinar refinery.
• In January, sources told Reuters that Russia and Iran were negotiating an oil-for-goods swap deal. Russian Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev was quoted on November 30 as saying the deal with Iran might be sealed soon.
• Iran Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said there was no such plan in prospect. Russia, isolated by the West over its annexation of Crimea and role in the Ukraine crisis, has a close relationship with India that dates back to the Soviet era.
• India and Russia are expected to issue a joint statement aimed at strengthening the energy partnership between the two countries.
• State-run explorer Oil India Ltd. will also sign an initial deal with Russia’s state-owned Zarubezhneft to cooperate in the hydrocarbons sector.

‘Civilised’ tax regime to attract investors: Jaitly

• India will soon raise the foreign investment cap in the insurance sector and work for making the tax regime “civilised” to attract overseas investments, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, while exuding confidence of achieving 6 per cent growth next fiscal.
• Mr. Jaitley was replying to a debate in the Lok Sabha on Supplementary Demands for Grants for an additional expenditure of over Rs. 12,500 crore. However, the actual cash outgo would be Rs. 500 crore.

India likely to improve economic growth in 2016: UN

• India’s economic growth is expected to improve to 6.3 per cent in 2016 with the country leading economic recovery in South Asia, according to a United Nations report.
• The UN World Economic Situation and Prospects 2015 (WESP) report, launched, also said India is likely to make progress in implementing economic policy reforms and help provide support to business and consumer confidence.
• It said global economic growth is forecast to continue increasing over the next two years, despite legacies from the financial crisis continuing to weigh on growth, and the emergence of new challenges, including geopolitical conflicts such as in Ukraine, and the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
• The global economy is expected to grow 3.1 per cent in 2015 and 3.3 per cent in 2016, compared with an estimated growth of 2.6 per cent for 2014, when the pace of expansion has been moderate and uneven.
• It said India, which is estimated to record a 5.4 per cent economic growth in 2014, will see GDP growth improving to 5.9 per cent next year and 6.3 per cent in 2016.
• Economic growth in South Asia is also set to gradually pick up from an estimated 4.9 per cent in 2014 to 5.4 per cent in 2015 and 5.7 per cent in 2016.
• “While the recovery will be led by India, which accounts for about 70 per cent of regional output, other economies such as Bangladesh and Iran are also projected to see stronger growth in the forecast period,” the report said.

Google News service will shut down in Spain over 'Google Tax'

• Google said it will shut down its Google News service in Spain to prevent publishers’ content from appearing on it ahead of a new law requiring the Internet search company to pay Spanish news organizations for linked content or snippets of news.
• The move marks the first time globally that Google Inc. will shutter Google News and comes ahead of a new Spanish intellectual property law going into effect Jan. 1 nicknamed the “Google Tax.”
• The company’s News product for Spain will stop linking content from Spanish publishers and close on Dec. 16, Google said in a statement.
• The law did not specify how much publishers would have to be paid by Google. Spain’s AEDE group of news publishers lobbied for the law nicknamed the “Google Tax” and Google said publishers would be forced to charge the company “for showing even the smallest snippets of their content whether they want to charge or not.”
• “As Google News shows no ads and makes no revenue, this approach is simply unsustainable,” Google said.
• Google News has long rankled newspaper publishers and other content providers who contend the service tramples on copyrights by creating a digital kiosk of headlines and story snippets gathered from other websites.
• Most venting has been limited to criticism likening Google to a freeloader, but there have been attempts to force the company to change its ways through courts.
• Google maintains it obeys all copyright laws while sending more people to websites highlighted in its News services.
• The company also allows publishers to prevent material from being displayed in Google News, an option few websites choose because the service is an important traffic source to sell ads.
• After Germany revised copyright laws last year in a way that could have required Google News to make royalty payments, Google required publishers to give consent for summarizing content and most did.

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Science & Technology

Satellite technology to assess coral reef health

• High-end satellite technology is coming to the aid of protecting earth’s largest biological structures — the coral reefs which have taken millions of years to form and are declining at alarming rates worldwide.
• Coral bleaching is one of the main reasons for increased deterioration of reef health. Corals are sensitive to changes in temperature and this aspect has come in handy for scientists to forewarn about the possibility of coral bleaching.
• When exposed to higher temperatures over an extended period of four to five weeks, the corals bleach and this in turn affects the marine ecosystem.
• Scientists at the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) are using satellite technology to glean data on Sea Surface Temperatures (SST).
• Based on an average temperature for a particular period, they assess if the coral reefs are facing thermal stress and forewarn about the probability of bleaching.
• Once they start bleaching, the corals expel the symbiotic organism (zooxanthellae) from which they derive food and die as a result. “Corals act as breeding and feeding ground for a variety of fishes.
• Corals are the forests of oceans,” said Dr. T. Srinivasa Kumar, Head of the advisory service and satellite oceanography group.
• Exploiting the potential of satellite technology, INCOIS has started the Coral Bleaching Alert System (CBAS) for Indian coral reefs located in Andaman & Nicobar Islands and elsewhere in India.
• It is also issuing coral bleaching advisories regularly on a bi-weekly basis and hosting the information on its website, besides providing it to the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests and other coastal authorities.
• According to R.S. Mahendra, scientist at INCOIS, coral reef ecosystems have been declining at an alarming rate worldwide in recent decades.
• He said various parameters like SST climatology, bleaching HotSpot (HS) and Degree of Heating Weeks (DHWs) are used to generate the data by using the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) sensor on-board National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellites.

Mountains of plastic waste floating in world’s oceans

• Believe it or not, nearly 269,000 tonnes of plastic comprising an estimated 5.25 trillion plastic particles are floating in the world’s oceans, including the Bay of Bengal.
• This estimate does not take into account the amount of plastic waste found in the shorelines, on the seabed, suspended in the water column and that consumed by marine organisms.
• The plastic particles are found in three size ranges — microplastic (less than 4.75 mm), mesoplastic (4.75-200 mm) and macroplastic (above 200 mm). The microplastic particles alone are in two size classes — 0.33-1.00 mm and 1.01-4.75 mm.
• Of the 269,000 tonnes of floating plastic waste, the larger plastic items are predominant (an estimated 233,000 tonnes).
• The results of a study by Marcus Eriksen (the first author) from the Five Gyres Institute, California, are published (December 11) in the journal PLOS ONE.
• The results are based on 24 expeditions undertaken between 2007 and 2013 across all the five sub-tropical gyres — North and South Pacific Oceans, North and South Atlantic Oceans and the Indian Ocean — coastal Australia, Bay of Bengal and the Mediterranean Sea.
• With nearly 38 per cent of plastic particles and 35.8 per cent of plastic mass, the North Pacific Ocean is the most polluted ocean in the world.
• The two northern hemisphere oceans (North Atlantic and North Pacific Oceans) together account for 55.6 per cent of plastic particles and 56.8 per cent of plastic mass found in all oceans.
• In the southern oceans, the Indian Ocean has far more plastic particles and mass than the South Atlantic and South Pacific Oceans put together.
• The expeditions collected the particles using 680 net tows and also undertook visual surveys of large plastic debris.

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Sports

Sports Minister felicitates Blind Cricket World Cup winners

• The members of the Indian team which won the Blind Cricket World Cup received Rs. 5 lakh each from Sports Minister Sarbananda Sonowal at New Delhi.
• The Indians defeated Pakistan in the final in South Africa recently. Hailing the maiden success of the Indian team in the World Cup, Sonowal said, “You have shown how, with determination and hard work, you can be world-beaters, overcoming all odds.
• “With your historic win, you have inspired the entire nation. I feel proud that our differently-abled sportspersons are not lagging behind other athletes in bringing glory to the country.”
• Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Thawar Chand Gehlot said his ministry would present Rs 2 lakh to each of the players.
• Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Vijay Sampla was also present. Earlier, the players and team officials were received at the IGI airport by Gehlot, Minister for Chemicals and Fertilizers Ananth Kumar and Sonowal.

ATK holds Goa, books semifinal spot in Indian Super League 2014

• Atletico de Kolkata scampered into the semifinals of the inaugural Indian Super League by doing what it has done best in the tournament so far — play out a draw.
• Egged on by 37,000 raucous spectators, ATK held a 10-man FC Goa 1-1 to muster the important point that sealed its place in the elite stage.
• This was the seventh draw for the host which has won only four and lost the remaining three. With FC Goa (22 points) having previously occupied the second spot, ATK crept into the third spot tallying 19 points from 14 matches and nudged Kerala Blasters FC (19 points) to the fourth spot on a better goal difference.
• ATK thus set up a re-match against FC Goa at the same venue in the first outing of the two-leg semifinal. The other semfinal will feature table topper Chennaiyin FC (23 points) and Kerala Blasters at Kochi.
• The outcome here had its own share of controversies as the host seemed to be favoured with a penalty — which Fikru scored to fetch the equaliser — though there seemed to have been no contact by the purported offender, FC Goa’s Portuguese defender Bruno Pinheiro.
• The match turned at this point — in the 66th minute — as the Goans till then had enjoyed greater control. Pinheiro was given the marching orders by American referee Baldomero Toledo, who found the Goa defender guilty of tripping Fikru inside the box.
• Television replays indicated a different story: the ATK striker apparently fell down entangling his legs in the rush to reach the ball first.
• Despite FC Goa coach Zico preferring to rest several of his key players, who figured in the 3-1 win against Chennaiyin FC in the last outing, ATK failed to make the most of it.
• Fikru, who had scored only thrice in 11 matches, failed to control a number of passes inside the box. The Ethiopian striker looked slow in his reaction allowing the Goa defenders to square off the advantage.

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Sources: Various News Papers & PIB

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