Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 12 November 2015

:: NATIONAL ::

Dhaka hands over top ULFA leader to India

• In what is seen as a major boost to security cooperation between the two neighbours, Bangladesh on Wednesday handed over to India Anup Chetia, a top leader of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), 18 years after his arrest in Dhaka.

• Confirming this, Bangladesh Home Minister Asaduz zaman Khan Kamal said Che-tia was “freed” after he expressed his desire to leave Bangladesh on completion of his jail term.

• Chetia, who has been in Bangladesh since his arrest on December 21, 1997, was handed over to a team of India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on the intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it is learnt.

• According to Mr. Kamal, the Bangladesh Border Guard handed over Chetia and his two prison mates — Babul Sharma and Shakti Prashad who were arrested with him — to the personnel of the Border Security Force of India.

• Chetia, one of the found-ing members of ULFA, formed in 1979 to fight for As-sam's secession from India, is wanted for murder, abductions and extortion.

• Chetia had sought asylum in Bangladesh in 2005, 2008 and in 2011 and was subsequently handed down seven years of jail terms by two courts for cross-border intrusion, carrying fake pass-ports and illegal possession of foreign currencies.

• Bangladesh has earlier handed over to India a number of top ULFA leaders, including Arabinda Rajkhowa on December 2, 2009. They have joined peace talks with the Indian government.

GSA T -15 launched successfully

• Communications satellite GSAT -15 was launched in the early hours of Wednesday from Kourou in French Guiana in South America. The 3,164-kg spacecraft will replace the ageing In-sat-3A and 4B spacecraft, which are in the same orbital slot, when they expire, the In-dian Space Research Organisation said.

• GSAT -15's 24 transponders in the Ku-band will mainly cater to direct-to-home ser-vices of Doordarshan and private broadcasters besides VSAT operators who drive Internet services. A majority of Indian private DTH operators have leased Ku-band transponders of foreign spacecraft owing to internal shortage; ISRO has earlier said the deficit would be bridged in about two years. GSAT -15 also carries the third and last transponder for GPS-augmentation or GA-GAN in the L1 and L5 bands; it will ensure backup for GPS-based satellite navigation across the region.

• European launch services company Arianespace launched GSAT -15 into space at 3.34 a.m. IST from the Guiana Space Center. Its Ariane VA-227 vehicle also lofted the 5-tonne Arab-sat-6B in the same flight. ISRO said the initial elliptical orbit of 250 km x 35,819 km, inclined at 3.9 degrees to the Equator, “was very close to the intended one.”

• Orbit manoeuvres The Master Control Facility that handles orbiting communications satellites from Hassan in Karnataka, took over the command and control of GSAT -15 immediately after it was ejected into space by the launcher.

Maharashtra leads in number of custodial death cases

• Pulling up the State government and investigating agencies for the apathy in dealing with custodial death cases in Maharashtra, the Bombay High Court recently remarked that the State ranked the highest in custodial deaths and there had not been a single conviction in any case in the past 15 years.

• The court said punishment for the guilty would act as a deterrent. From 1999 to 2014, though there were 106 custodial deaths, only 13 FIRs were registered. Five policemen had been charge-sheeted and the conviction rate is zero.

• Khwaja Yunus (27), a soft-ware engineer who came from Dubai in December 2002 to visit his family and died allegedly in police custody is a case in point. He was arrested by the Mumbai police for his alleged involvement in the Ghatkopar blast that claimed two lives and in which over 50 people were injured. More than a decade since Yunus's death, trial in the case against police officers is yet to start.

• Aniket Khicchi (20), son of vegetable vendors at Kurla, was picked up by the Vanrai police when he was out with his friends for a movie. Khicchi had charges of robbery against him for allegedly pick-ing up someone's laptop from Goregaon Sports Complex. His father pleaded for a special public prosecutor to be appointed to look into his only son's death. The trial is go-ing on at the Sessions Court and is in the final stage.

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:: INDIA AND WORLD ::

PM has wide ground to cover in London

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi's three-day visit to the U.K. beginning Thurs-day will focus on defence and strategic ties and economic relations, with deals estimated at a reported $18 billion expected to be signed during the visit.

• The highlight, however, is expected to be the address to Indians and NRIs at Lon-don's Wembley Stadium, likely to be attended by over 60,000 people Significantly, Mr. Modi will be introduced at Wembley by U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, who will also accompany him through most of the vis-it, Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar said.

• The highlights of the visit include lunch with Queen El-izabeth II, dinner and an overnight stay at Chequers court, the U.K. PM's official country retreat, as well as the first address by an Indian Prime Minister to the British Parliament. Mr. Modi and Mr. Cameron will pay respects to Mahatma Gandhi at a newly installed statue out-side Parliament, and are expected to issue several joint statements on the defence and strategic partnership, energy and climate change, development partnership, and a vision statement.

• For the first time ever, the Red Arrows aerobatics team of the British Royal Air Force will spew fumes in the tricolour of the Indian flag in a flypast on Thursday to welcome Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his visit.

• Besides a possible announcement for the purchase of 20 more Hawk Advanced Jet Trainer (AJT) aircraft for the Indian Air Force, Mr. Modi's visit will see high-level consultations on British investments in the defence sector under the Make in India programme, and stepping up of bilateral coordination over terrorism-related issues.

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:: BUSINESS AND ECONOMY ::

Government relaxes FDI norms across 15 sectors

• The Centre on Tuesday announced ‘Big Bang' Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) reforms, easing norms across 15 sectors including defence, banking, construction, single brand retail, broadcasting and civil aviation. The move is aimed at boosting the investment environment and attracting more foreign capital to the country.

• The announcement was made two days after the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance suffered a resounding defeat in the Bihar Assembly elections. It also came on the eve of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the U.K., where he could have otherwise faced tough questions on his government's major initiatives to spur foreign investment.

• For facilitating faster approvals on most of the proposals, the government also raised the threshold limit of approval by Foreign Investment Promotion Board from the earlier Rs.3,000 crore to Rs.5,000 crore. As per the existing policy, FIPB considers foreign investment proposals of in-flow up to Rs.3,000 crore and those above that limit are placed for consideration of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs.

• According to an official release, the crux of these reforms is to further ease, rationalise and simplify the process of foreign investments in the country and to put more and more FDI proposals on automatic route in-stead of Government route where time and energy of the investors is wasted.

• For the sake of ease of doing business, the Industry Ministry will soon consolidate all FDI related instructions contained in various notifications & press notes and prepare a booklet so that the investors do not have to refer to several documents of different time-frames.

• The official release said refining of foreign investment norms in construction is to facilitate the construction of 50 million houses for poor. It added that opening up of the manufacturing sector for wholesale, retail and e-commerce is aimed at motivating industries to Make In India and sell it to the customers here instead of importing from other countries.

• The struggling construction sector will be a major beneficiary as radical changes in FDI norms have been brought in to boost demand for steel, cement and spur economic activity, ultimately with an aim to help build 50 million affordable houses for the poor.

• Foreign investment up to 49 per cent has been allowed under automatic route from the earlier government approved route. Proposals for foreign investment in excess of 49 per cent will be considered by FIPB. Portfolio investment and foreign venture capital investment, which were restricted to 24 per cent, have now been hiked to 49 per cent and that too through the automatic route.

• To ensure that ownership and control remain in Indian hands, Government approval, of course, will be required in case of infusion of fresh foreign in-vestment within the permitted automatic route level, resulting in change in the ownership pattern or transfer of stake by existing investor to new foreign investor.

• The government also decided to plantation activities namely; coffee, rubber, cardamom , palm oil tree and olive oil tree plantations also for 100 per cent foreign investment under automatic route. As of now, only tea plantation was open to foreign investment.

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:: SPORTS ::

Vijay Kumar clinches centre fire pistol bronze

• Olympic silver medallist Vijay Kumar emphasised his versatility by winning the centre fire pistol bronze in the 13th Asian shooting champion-ship that concluded in the Ku-wait City on Wednesday.

• It could have been a better medal, but the 30-year-old, after being tied on 584 with Pong-pol Kulchairattana of Thailand lost the shoot-of for the silver 48-49. The gold went one point higher at 585 to Jang Dae Kyu of Korea.

• Vijay had recovered from 287 in the precision series with an impressive 297, the best in the rapid fire section. The Indian team missed the gold to Korea by two points, with Samaresh Jung faring be-low his best with a 572 while Pemba Tamang chipped in with 580.

• Swapnil Kusale had earlier won the individual and team gold in the junior men's rifle 3-position event on Tuesday, to enhance the rich haul for the In-dian team that eventually wound up with 17 gold, 14 silver and 13 bronze medals.

• Despite repeated notices from the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF), about the International Olympic Committee (IOC) revoking the Olympic quota places from the championship owing to Kuwait Olympic Association being suspended for government interference, the organisers listed the Olympic quota winners. It included six Indians — Pooja Ghatkar, Heena Sidhu, Lajja Gauswami, Sanjeet Rajput, Manavjit Singh Sandhu and Neeraj Kumar — in the list displayed on the official website Kuwait Shooting Federation.

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Sources: Various News Papers & PIB

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