Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 16 March 2015

:: National ::

Goa can’t scrap Oct.2 as official holiday: Cong.

Even as Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar sought to dispel the controversy over removal of Gandhi Jayanti from the list of official holidays in the State stating that it could be a “mischief” or a “typing mistake,” the Congress criticised the purported move.
Congress spokesperson Anand Sharma said no State government can do it because it is a national holiday.
“They can’t do it. Gandhi is the Father of the Nation. Even last year, children were asked to go to school on October 2,” he said.
Stating that the Goa Chief Minister had already issued a clarification, a Union personnel ministry official said: “The Chief Minister said it could be a mischief or a typing mistake. The matter ends there.”
However, RSS general secretary Suresh Joshi told the media that the number of official holidays must come down for a better work culture in the country.
“According to a survey, people in India hardly work for 150-155 days a year on account of holidays,” he said.

Gandhian Narayan Desai passes away

Noted Gandhian Narayan Desai, known for his rendition of Gandhi Katha – stories on the Mahatma’s life – passed away at a private hospital in Surat at the age of 90.
“Narayanbhai Desai will be remembered as a scholarly personality who brought Gandhi ji closer to the masses. Sad to hear of his demise. RIP,” the Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted.
In 2004, Mr. Desai started a lecture series on Gandhiji called ‘Gandhi Katha,’ which he took across the world and received much acclaim for it.
“The biggest loss is of the ‘Gandhi Katha’ which was uniquely his own creation because of the way he presented the stories on Bapu. People will remember him the most for it.
His scholastic ability was in defining Bapu in the modern times,” Tushar Gandhi, great-grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, told.
Ideas of truth and non-violence were inculcated in Mr. Desai at an early age by his father Mahadev Desai, long-time personal secretary and diarist of Gandhiji.
Mr. Desai was the Chancellor of Gujarat Vidyapith from July 23, 2007, but resigned last November.
Born in Valsad in Gujarat, he grew up at the Sabarmati Ashram and Sewagram Ashram in Wardha.
Inspired by Vinobha Bhave’s Bhoodan movement, Mr. Desai travelled through the State urging the rich to distribute land among the landless.
Mr. Desai won the Sahitya Akademi Award for Gujarati in 1993 and the Jamnalal Bajaj Award in 1999 and the UNESCO-Madanjeet Singh Prize for the Promotion of Tolerance and Non-Violence in 1998. He was also associated with the anti-nuclear movement.
He is survived by his daughter and two sons. His last rites were performed on Sunday afternoon.
Chief Minister Anandiben Patel and Governor O.P. Kohli expressed their condolences on Mr. Desai’s demise.

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:: International :

Maldives President urges critics to respect verdict

The Maldives government asked its critics to respect a controversial decision to jail ex-President Mohamed Nasheed for 13 years.
The U.S., European Union and India have expressed concern over the jailing of Nasheed on anti-terror charges for ordering the detention of a judge in 2012 when he was President.
President Abdulla Yameen said Nasheed had the right to appeal and urged international partners to engage with his government “constructively”.
Mr. Yameen “calls on everyone to respect the verdict,” his office said in the first formal reaction to the court verdict given.
“The government calls on its international partners to engage constructively, based on mutual respect and dialogue in consolidating and strengthening democratic values and institutions in the country,” the statement added.
Corruption watchdog Transparency Maldives (TM) also said Nasheed had been denied adequate time to build a defence.

Vanuatu declares emergency; relief pours in

Relief supplies began arriving in cyclone-devastated Vanuatu as the Pacific nation declared a state of emergency amid reports entire villages were “blown away” when a monster storm swept through.
The official death toll in the capital Port Vila stood at six, although aid workers said this was likely just a fraction of the fatalities nationwide.
Communications were still down across most of the archipelago’s 80 islands, although the airport in Port Vila reopened with limited facilities, allowing much-needed aid in.
Two Australian air force planes landed with supplies of food, shelter, and medicine while a New Zealand military aircraft also arrived loaded with eight tonnes of tarpaulins, water containers, chainsaw packs, generators and water.
The government said it was still trying to assess the scale of the disaster unleashed when Super Cyclone Pam, a maximum category five system, vented its fury on Friday night, with winds reaching 320 km an hour.
The U.N. had unconfirmed reports that the cyclone had killed 44 people in one province alone and Oxfam said the destruction in Port Vila was massive, with 90 per cent of homes damaged.

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:: Business and Economy :

Rs. 800 cr. of Nirbhaya Fund lying unused

More than two years after the Centre set up the high profile Nirbhaya Fund with a corpus of Rs. 1000 crore, only Rs. 200 crore has been allocated so far towards various schemes to ensure women’s safety.
The fund was set up after the horrific rape and murder of a 23-year old medical student in the national capital in 2012.
Responding to an RTI query from the Bengaluru-headquartered onlinerti.com, the Union Finance Ministry said: “Nirbhaya Fund has been created as a corpus of Rs 1,000 crore in public account in the Department of Economic Affairs for the financial year 2013-14.”
The reply says that allocations from the Fund have been made in the General Budget 2014-15 with Rs. 50 crore for the ‘Scheme on Women Safety on Public Road Transport’ to be administered by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and Rs.150 crore for ‘Schemes on backend integration of distress signal from victims with mobile vans and control rooms’ to be administered by the Ministry of Home Affairs.
While the Road Transport Ministry said in its RTI reply that it had spent just over Rs. 32.92 lakh of the total Rs. 50 crore allotted to it, the Home Ministry has not yet replied to the RTI query on the deployment of the Rs. 150 crore.
“I asked for the information in September last year and a month later the Finance Ministry gave the details of the allocation amounting to Rs. 200 crore. While the Road Transport Ministry replied last month saying it has spent Rs. 32 lakh, the Home Ministry has not replied at all,” Vinoth of onlinerti.com told.

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:: Sports::

Services lifts Santosh Trophy

Services lifted the Santosh Trophy football championship after edging out host Punjab 5-4 in the tie-breaker in a nail-biting summit clash.
It was Services’ fourth title besides finishing the runner-up five times.
Services held the upper hand in the first half and initiated couple of moves only to falter. It was the same story in the second half too for the winner.
In the tie-breaker, Anthony, Vibin, Francis Zonuntulnga, Arun Tudu and Rakesh Singh scored for the winner.