Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 12 January 2016

:: NATIONAL ::

India Meteorological Department to come up with different terminology for droughts

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has officially expunged the word “drought” from its vocabulary, months after it struck a contrarian note and correctly forecast one of India’s severest monsoon deficits last year.
According to a circular issued by the department, the move is part of a decision to do away with or redefine terms that are not scientifically precise.
Beginning this season, for instance, if India’s monsoon rainfall were to dip below 10 per cent of the normal and span between 20 and 40 per cent of the country’s area, it would be called a “deficient” year instead of an “All India Drought Year” as the IMD’s older manuals would say.
A more severe instance, where the deficit exceeds 40 per cent and would have been called an “All India Severe Drought Year,” will now be a “Large Deficient Year”
The agency had several definitions of drought: meteorological, hydrological and agricultural, and it was quite possible for a State to have a meteorological drought — 90 per cent shortfall of the average monsoon rainfall — but not suffer an agricultural drought —if the shortfall didn’t affect more than 20 per cent of the State’s area.

5-year jail for crew of U.S. anti-piracy ship

In one of the few cases of a large number of foreigners to be tried and convicted in India, a trial court in Tuticorin in south Tamil Nadu convicted 23 foreign nationals, all of whom were on board a detained U.S. anti-piracy vessel ‘MV Seaman Guard Ohio’, under provisions of the Arms Act.
The foreigners and 12 Indians, cited as co-accused, have been sentenced to undergo a five-year rigorous imprisonment term for illegally entering Indian waters with a huge cache of arms and ammunition in October 2013.
The Sierra Leone-flagged ship owned by Advan Fort, a U.S.-based company, was intercepted by Indian Coast Guard ship ‘Naikidevi’ on October 12, 2013 and escorted to V.O. Chidambaranar Port in Tuticorin.
The crew and private security guards on board the vessel were arrested and 35 firearms, 102 magazines and 5,682 rounds of ammunition were recovered from them

Punjab police officer question over Pathankot attack

Senior Punjab police officer Salwinder Singh was questioned by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in connection with the terror strike at the Pathankot IAF base.
The NIA, which took over the case immediately after terrorists struck inside the base during the intervening night of January 1 and 2, had summoned Mr. Singh as he was allegedly abducted by the terrorists.
Mr. Singh, who is at present a Superintendent of Police rank officer posted as Assistant Commandant of the 75th battalion of Punjab Armed Police after he was removed as SP (headquarters) Gurdaspur, had allegedly given contradictory statements about his kidnapping and sequences of events preceding and succeeding the hostage event,

SC distinguishes infants and children rape from other (Register and Login to read Full News..)

Major changes to the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) (Register and Login to read Full News..)

Temple entry restrictions- Sabarimala (Register and Login to read Full News..)

:: INTERNATIONAL ::

Afghan peace talks

Delegates from Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the United States held talks to resurrect a stalled Afghan peace process and end nearly 15 years of bloodshed, even as fighting with Taliban insurgents intensifies.
Senior officials from the four countries are meeting in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, to launch a process they hope will lead to negotiations with Taliban insurgents, who are fighting to reimpose their strict brand of Islamist rule and are not expected at talks.
Renewed peace efforts come amid spiraling violence in Afghanistan, with last year one of the bloodiest on record following the withdrawal of most foreign troops at the end of 2014.
Peace efforts last year stalled after the Taliban announced that their founder,Mullah Mohammad Omar,had been dead for two years,throwing the militant group into disarray as rival factions fought for supremacy.
The Taliban, who were ousted in 2001, remain split on whether to take part in talks. Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour's faction has shown signs of warming to the idea of eventually joining peace talks, and other groups are considering negotiating,senior members of the movement

China revamping its nuclear and conventional missile forces

The superiority of arch-rival United States in the air and sea may have driven China to revamp its nuclear and conventional missile forces and bring about sweeping changes to its military command and control architecture.
A write-up in China Military Online, the website of thePeople’s Liberation Army(PLA), quoting an in-house military expert, points out that the Second ArtilleryForce (SAF) — the institution that had exercised operation-al control over the country’s nuclear forces — had been upgraded as the PLA RocketForce (PRF).
The PRF has now been up-graded into a full-fledged new service on a par with the Army, Air Force and the Navy.Mr. Song explained that un-like its predecessor, the SAF,which was an independent arm in China’s military system, the emergence of a full-fledged service would imply having “several arms and special troops” apart from having“academies, research institutes and logistic support system
The new service, as it evolves, is expected to deploy its nuclear assets on land, sea and air. Mr. Song pointed out that after incorporating theNavy’s strategic nuclear sub-marine and the Air Force’s strategic bomber, the PRF would become the first independent service with land,sea and air nuclear forces in the world, more integrated than the nuclear forces in theU.S., Russia, Britain andFrance.
the U.S. and the former Soviet Union had signed an agreement in 1987to cut their ground-to-ground missiles, with ranges from 500to 5,500 km. As a result, America’s Pershing II and land-based Tomahawk, and the for-mer Soviet Union’s SS-4,SS-12, SS-20 and SS-23 missiles were all destroyed. TheRussian army has only two types of short-range tactical missiles.

Golden Globe Awards (Register and Login to read Full News..)

:: ECONOMY ::

In order to facilitate transfer of mines government will amend law

The government will amend the mining law in order to facilitate transfer of mines allotted for captive use to end-user industries and to unlock thousands of crore worth of investments stuck in debt-laden minerals and commodities sector, according to the Mines Ministry.
The Mines and Minerals(Development and Regulation) Act of 1957 was amended last year to ensure all mining rights for major minerals are auctioned transparently rather than allotted arbitrarily as was the case in the past.
But a clause in the law barred transfer of captive mines that were not auctioned.
Large investments such as Birla Corp’s Rs.5,000-crore purchase of two Lafarge India cement units and Kumar Mangalam Birla Group’s take-over of Jaypee Group’s cement plants in Madhya Pradesh, are stuck due to this clause.
The amended Bill, likely to be tabled in the Budget Session of Parliament, includes just one new clause that al-lows the transfer of such mining leases, subject to terms that the central government would prescribe.=
The transfer provisions will also allow mergers and acquisitions of companies and facilitate ease of doing business for companies to improve profitability and de-crease costs of the companies dependent on supply of mineral ore from captive leases
The transfer of captive mining leases, granted other-wise than through auction,would facilitate banks and financial institutions to liquidate stressed assets where accompany or its captive mining lease is mortgaged
The transfer of captive leases would be subject to the consideration of enforcingPerformance Security, Mine Development and Production Agreement and realization of an appropriate amount, if any,if found feasible at the time of framing terms and conditions

Foreign exchange reserves more than 350 billion

The country’s foreign exchange reserves, which were $350.4 billion as on September 2015, were able to support imports for 9.8 months,up from 8.9 months as on endMarch,
As on end March, 2015, foreign exchanges reserves were at $341.64 billion.
Import cover was 8.1 percent in September 2014. The country’s foreign exchange reserves were at $350.4 billion as on January 1, 2016 – the same level seen on September end.
Foreign exchanges reserves mainly consist of foreign currency assets (FCA), though there is also gold, special drawing rights and reserve tranche position in International Monetary Fund, in the basket.
Movements in the FCA occur mainly on account of purchases and sales of foreign exchange by the RBI, income arising out of the deployment of the foreign exchange reserves, external aid receipts of the Central Government and the effects of revaluation of the assets
In a rare admission in December, the RBI said it had decided to intervene in the Exchange Traded CurrencyDerivatives (ETCD) segment–in addition to spot and forward market – without specifying if it had already been active in that market.

The SEBI Board to amend the mutual fund regulations (Register and Login to read Full News..)

:: SPORTS ::

Messi got record fifth Ballon d’or

Barcelona forward Lionel Messi won his fifth world player of the year crown at theFIFA Ballon d’Or ceremony
He pipped current holder and three time winner Cristiano Ronaldo, as well as his Barcelona teammate Neymar, to the award.
Messi and Ronaldo, 30, have hogged the Ballon d’Or between them since 2008.
Barca’s Luis Enrique won the coach of the year award at the Ballon d’Or ceremony in Zurich