Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 14 June 2015

Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 14 June 2015

:: National ::

Lalit Modi visa row: Congress wants Sushma to go, drags in Narendra Modi

The Congress demanded the resignation of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj for her help to former IPL commissioner Lalit Modi in getting British travel documents and dragged Prime Minister Narendra Modi into the raging row, saying “needle of suspicion rests” at his door.
The main opposition party also posed 11 questions to the Prime Minister, including “what happens to transparency and non-corruption promise” made by him and how the government would bring back black money if it “supports” such people who are accused of money laundering to the tune of Rs. 700 crore.
“People are asking ‘is (PM Narendra) Modi helping (Lalit) Modi,” Congress spokesman Randeep Singh Surjewala told a press conference.
Rejecting Ms. Swaraj’s defence that she helped Mr. Lalit Modi on “humanitarian grounds”, Mr. Surjewala alleged quid pro quo, saying the former IPL Commissioner had helped her husband Swaraj Kaushal in securing admission for his nephew in a U.K. university in 2013 and he enjoyed proximity to BJP leaders, including party president Amit Shah.
The AICC in-charge of communications also wondered if the government had come out with a policy to help criminals on humanitarian ground and if it would be extended to wanted terrorist Dawood Ibrahim too if he sought such a help.
“What we have witnessed today involves blatant quid pro quo, direct help to a fugitive from law, internecine warfare between the top echelons of government and unravelling of the nexus between BJP leadership and its crony criminal friends... Swaraj should immediately step down,” he said.
He sought to know if the Prime Minister was aware of Ms. Swaraj’s help to the former IPL chief and said he must come out with a statement to make facts clear.
“The role of the Prime Minister is under a cloud of suspicion as to whether there was a tacit endorsement of the action... The needle of suspicion rests at the door of the office of the Prime Minister,” he said.
Noting that Mr. Lalit Modi was wanted in cases involving money laundering of Rs. 700 crore, he took a dig at the Prime Minister over his promise of bringing back black money.
“What happens to the transparency’ and no-corruption claims of the Prime Minister when it is apparent that his own government is actively helping a fugitive from Indian law accused of financial bungling and money laundering?” he said.
The party also released several emails purportedly exchanged between Mr. Lalit Modi and British MP Keith Vaz over the issue.
According to one such email, Mr. Vaz said, “From the horse’s mouth! I will do a thank you we will need her again.”
Mr. Surjewala also sought to know if the BJP government had changed India’s stand on Mr. Lalit Modi’s extradition from the U.K. as the previous UPA dispensation had been pressing for it.
The then Finance Minister P. Chidambaram had written twice to the U.K. government besides taking up the issue in his meeting with his British counterpart in 2013, the Congress spokesman said.
“What action do the Prime Minister and Finance Ministry propose to take against Lalit Modi in light of the fresh revelations? Do they propose to compound and close all the offenses of financial bungling, illegal betting and money laundering against him...,” he asked.
Taking a swipe at the Narendra Modi government, he wondered if this is its new policy to help all fugitives of law on humanitarian grounds. “Is this declaration of policy per se not against national interest and shameful?”
Noting that the BJP had demanded resignation of the then Union Minister and Congress MP Shashi Tharoor as his wife allegedly owned a “small” stake in an IPL team, Mr. Surjewala asked if the Prime Minister and BJP will now apply the same yardsticks of “moral and constitutional propriety and accountability“.
Hinting that Mr. Lalit Modi’s equations with several BJP leaders, including Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje besides Mr. Shah, might have played a role in Ms. Swaraj’s help to him, the Congress leader wondered if it was done with the prior approval of Mr. Narendra Modi.
In one of the emails released by Congress, Mr. Vaz wrote to U.K. Visas and Immigration Director Sarah Rapson, pushing for grant of travel documents to Mr. Lalit Modi, saying, “Foreign Minister of India (Sushma Swaraj) has spoken to me making it very clear that the Indian Government has no objection to the travel document being granted which is contrary to what the refusal notice has stated... Frankly everyone has been involved in this apart from Ban-ki-Moon.”

Ex-servicemen to continue nationwide protests over OROP delay (Register and Login to read Full News..)

:: International ::

South African judge orders Sudan President Omar al-Bashir detained

A South African judge ordered authorities to prevent Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who is in South Africa for an African Union summit, from leaving the country because of an international order for his arrest, human rights activists said.
Mr. al-Bashir appeared for a group photo with other African leaders at the summit in Johannesburg on Sunday, wearing a blue three-piece suit, a tie and a smile as cameras flashed.
Earlier, a South African judge ordered authorities to prevent Mr. al-Bashir from leaving South Africa because he is wanted by the International Criminal Court, human rights activists said on Sunday.
The African National Congress, which is South Africa’s ruling party, said the South African government granted immunity “for all (summit) participants as part of the international norms for countries hosting such gathering of the A.U. or even the United Nations.”
“It is on this basis, amongst others, that the ANC calls upon government to challenge the order now being brought to compel the South African government to detain President al-Bashir,” the ANC said, adding that African and Eastern European countries “continue to unjustifiably bear the brunt of the decisions of the ICC”.
Even before Sunday’s events, the African Union had asked the International Criminal Court to stop proceedings against sitting Presidents and said it will not compel any member states to arrest a leader on behalf of the court.
Mr. al-Bashir has travelled abroad before and local authorities had not detained him at the behest of the ICC, which is based in The Hague, Netherlands.
The Southern Africa Litigation Centre, a rights group, said it secured a judge’s ruling that the government must stop Mr. al-Bashir from leaving South Africa while the court hears arguments for his arrest for alleged genocide and other crimes.
International Criminal Court prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has said South Africa is under a legal obligation to arrest Mr. al-Bashir and surrender him to the court. Her office has been in touch with South African authorities on the Sudanese President’s reported visit.
If Mr. al-Bashir is not arrested, the matter will be reported to the court’s assembly of states and the United Nations Security Council, which first referred the case of Sudan’s Darfur region to the International Criminal Court in 2005, she said.
The charges against Mr. al-Bashir, who took power in a 1989 coup, stem from reported atrocities in the conflict in Darfur, in which 300,000 people were killed and 2 million displaced in the government’s campaign, according to United Nations figures.
In March, the ICC halted proceedings against Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta after the prosecution said it did not have enough evidence against him. Mr. Kenyatta, who is attending the summit, was charged in 2011 as an “indirect co-perpetrator” in post-election violence that left more than 1,000 people dead in 2007 and 2008. He always maintained his innocence.
Kenyan Deputy President William Ruto is on trial for crimes against humanity in the election-related violence.

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:: Business and Economy ::

RINL, NMDC and Odisha govt. outfits may join hands for major steel project

Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd. (RINL) is in talks with NMDC as well some Odisha government companies for creation of a special purpose vehicle (SPV), which will set up an ultra mega steel plant in the State.
RINL Chairman-cum-Managing Director P. Madhusudan said that the concept of setting up an ultra mega steel plant in mineral rich State through SPVs was being explored. He said there could be SPVs for steel and mining.
“Rounds of discussions are now being held,” he told journalists after addressing Merchants Chamber of Commerce. The Odisha government entities include its mining corporation and its industry promotion agency.
He also said talks were being held with the Rajasthan government for an iron ore mining project at Banera tehsil of Bhilwara district, where a 200 million tonne reserve of low grade iron ore deposits are located.
It may be mentioned that RINL does not have any captive sources of two key raw materials — iron ore and coking coal.
He said even as it pursued these initiatives, it had undertaken a repair and upgrade of an existing blast furnace, which would augment capacity by one million tonne taken together with the expanded capacity of 6.3 million tonnes, to 7.3 million tonnes by March 2017.
“Given our huge land-bank, we are planning to gradually ramp up capacity to 20 million tonnes within the next two decades,” the CMD said.
On prospects of an IPO for RINL, he said this was not for the company to decide. But the fact was the company had a favourable debt equity ratio and was not looking for an additional capital. The company spent Rs.12,000 crore on its expansion of which Rs.2,500 crore was debt.
Earlier talking on the Indian steel industry, he said although the industry was going through a ‘pause’, India was poised to become the world’s second largest producer by 2020.
Admitting that there were challenges on the way, he remarked “but this will not happen on its own.” He said there were problems about land availability, paucity of infrastructure and lack of sufficient manufacturing capacity besides skill gaps.
On the issue of import from China, he said the industry was looking to the government for some recast of the import duty structure. However, some MCC members clamoured for increased efficiencies by Indian firms, saying that changed duty structure will push up input costs for the MSME sector eventually affecting the consumer.

:: Science and Technology ::

Global M&E Industry: India leads digital drive

For a change, India is found leading the world in virtualisation of content in the Media and Entertainment (M&E) business thereby creating an edge in this domain.
India’s top M&E companies namely Star India, Zee Entertainment, Sony and Colors have already adopted the digital mode in key workflow processes across the supply chain, two years ahead their western counterparts thus sharply increasing the output of their executives engaged in content creation and saving 30 to 40 per cent on cost.
In this digital drive by moving their content to the cloud, these firms are now able to have real time collaboration in the areas of production and distribution, reach out to their overseas customers in a few hours of the local telecast, supply video on demand to customers and prevent piracy.
India went from paper to paperless in the 90s, the manufacturing sector embraced Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) during the same time to transform its processes and the banking sector underwent drastic changes by adopting information technology in a big way but the M&E sector functioned the way it was.
Considering that M&E business never had a big craze for technology adoption, Indian M&E companies, which had skipped technology generations are now actually leading the revolution across the world, according experts.
While Star India adopted the digital process in all its workflow, the equivalent of ERP in manufacturing, in April 2011, others gradually followed and are now 18 to 24 months ahead of their global peers. To put things in prospective M&E companies from the U.K. and the U.S. are adopting media ERP only now.
With the change, M&E executives are now able to live in the physical world and work on several content forms in the virtual world available on digital devices without being actually present at every location, be it the place of shooting, studio or editing room. They are now able to access unedited or edited video anytime and place of their choice.
This has been made possible by an Indian company called Prime Focus Technologies (PFT), a part of the world’s largest integrated media services company Prime Focus Ltd., which has aggregated the diverse stakeholders of the TV/advertising industry on a single virtual platform shared by broadcasters, production houses, ad creative and media agencies.
“We had predicted long back that applications will soon become a utility. Generally, economic activity drives technology but ours is a classic case where technology drives economic activity in the M&E space. The Indian M&E sector was the first adopter of our Clear Media ERP, the specialised solution, which digitises the media supply chain for every media and entertainment professional in the world. Technology always tells the truth and utilisation of the Media ERP has resulted in savings of 30 to 40 per cent in terms of cost efficiencies,” said Ramki Sankaranarayanan, Founder and CEO, PFT.
With the introduction of the digital media supply chain content creation, dissemination and distribution process has become more creatively enabled. Real time collaboration is helping in the creation of better content and instant interaction has enhanced the process of content creation.
This media ERP is driving efficiencies and is helping in reduction of cycle time. It has also enabled newer revenue streams apart from curbing piracy. It has led to contextual advertising and enabling internet platforms to intelligently engage users, said experts.
The benefits are so alluring that now 85 per cent of the scripted television in Hollywood is using PFT’s solutions.
In an era of the ‘death of appointment viewing’, Mr. Sankaranarayanan said, “The next phase of evolution is Digital Next Realities where content providers have to engage customers with a better experience anytime anyplace. The success of Hotstar app by Star India with 1.4 crore downloads shows that Indians are now ready to consume content whenever wherever they want so broadcasters will have to make it accessible in the relevant preferred devices.”

:: Sports ::

New Zealand takes 2-1 ODI series lead in England

Fluent centuries by Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor powered New Zealand to a comfortable three-wicket win over England in the third one-day international in Southampton.
After England collapsed from 288 for five to 302 all out, New Zealand initially struggled in reply before Williamson and Taylor took the game away from the hosts with a clinical 206-run third-wicket stand.
The exemplary Williamson struck 12 fours in his 118 before he was caught at mid-off by Mark Wood off David Willey the ball after lofting a sweetly-timed straight six.
Grant Elliott fell for five but by the time Taylor played a ball from Willey on to his stumps for 110 his side needed only 13 off the last 4.1 overs.
Luke Ronchi tried to finish the job in spectacular style by smearing Ben Stokes over the boundary rope but was caught by Jason Roy. It only delayed the inevitable, though, and Tim Southee hit the winning runs with an over to spare.
New Zealand lead the series 2-1 with two matches left.
"300 was certainly well within the game but I think what cost us was Kane and Ross's partnership," England skipper Eoin Morgan said at the presentation ceremony.
"They played really well today and all credit to them."
After the fireworks of the first two matches which produced a combined 1,369 runs, Sunday's clash at the Rose Bowl was a slightly more sedate affair, but gripping nonetheless.
England ultimately paid for failing to bat out their allotted 50 overs and several dropped catches.
Wicketkeeper Jos Buttler allowed Taylor to escape on 67 and the same batsman was dropped by Stokes at short mid-wicket -- both off Wood who himself contrived to fumble a simple chance shortly after Williamson reached his century.
England won the toss and made a steady start before opener Alex Hales nicked one to Southee at second slip to give Ben Wheeler his first international wicket and Roy was bowled by Southee.
Captain Eoin Morgan (71) added 105 for the third wicket with Joe Root (54) but New Zealand's attack never lost control.
Stokes scored 68 from 47 balls and with Sam Billings smashing 34 off 16 balls England looked set for a charge before the wickets started tumbling.
Wheeler ended with three for 63 while Southee was the pick of the bowlers, taking three for 44.
New Zealand lost openers Martin Guptill and Brendon McCullum with less than 40 on the board, but Williamson and Taylor gave a masterclass in calm, measured batting to propel their side towards victory.