Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 12 August 2014

BJP may extend Parliament Session to enable passage of bills

The current Session of Parliament may be extended to enable the passage of bills, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Venkaiah Naidu told BJP MPs .
Government is keen to get important bills passed like the National Judicial Appointments Commission Bill, the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Bill, Apprentices (Amendment) Bill, Constitution (121st Amendment) Bill, Repealing and Amending Bill, Factories (Amendment) Bill, the Insurance Bill, the Securities Laws (Amendment) Bill and the Labour Laws (Exemption from Furnishing Returns and Maintaining Registers by Certain Establishments) Amendment Bill.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi waived off Jammu and Kashmir’s Rs. 60-crore liability towards the Food Corporation of India and announced a special Central assistance of Rs. 8,000 crore for four major road projects.
Listing ‘Prakash’ (energy), ‘Paryavaran’ (ecology) and ‘Paryatan’ (tourism) as development boosters the State needs, Mr. Modi said the development of J&K was a top priority for his government.
Mr. Modi also inaugurated two power projects — at Nemo Bazgo in Leh and at Chutak in Kargil — besides laying the foundation stone of a Rs 1,788-cr transmission line that would connect entire Ladakh region to the northern grid via Srinagar and Drass.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said it’s ethical to use unproven Ebola drugs and vaccines in the outbreak in West Africa provided the right conditions are met.
The U.N. agency issued the statement after holding a teleconference with experts to discuss the issue.
The WHO said that people can ethically receive such treatments but sidestepped the questions of who should get the limited drugs and how that should be decided.
In the biggest-ever outbreak of Ebola, two Americans have gotten an experimental Ebola treatment never tested in humans and two more treatments were reportedly on their way to treat two Liberia doctors. The developments have raised ethical questions about whether it’s right to use untested treatments in people sickened by a disease that has no licensed treatment.

The UN Human Rights Council President Baudelaire Ndong Ella announced a three-member panel to investigate the human rights violations in the occupied Palestinian territory, particularly in the conflict-torn Gaza Strip.
Ms. Ella appointed Canadian William Schabas to serve as chair of the independent international commission of inquiry, Xinhua reported.
The commission also comprises British lawyer Amal Alamuddin and Doudou Diene from Senegal.
The Council decided to establish the commission of inquiry at its 21st special session July 23, 2014, to investigate all violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, in the context of the military operations conducted since June 13.
The same session asked the commission to present its findings in March 2015.
The present Israeli offensive in Gaza that began on July 8 has killed over 1,900 Palestinians and left over 9,500 wounded, including around 2,800 children.