Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 16 October 2014

National

Record voting in Haryana

• Haryana recorded its highest ever turnout of 73 per cent, marred by violence and allegations of booth-capturing at several places. According to Deputy Election Commissioner Umesh Sinha, there were a few sporadic incidents of violence and a re-poll in some polling stations could be ordered.
• Maharashtra recorded a turnout of 63.4 per cent, roughly four per cent higher than the 2009 Assembly polls and the Lok Sabha polls in May. DEC Sudhir Tripathi said two incidents were reported from naxal-affected Gadchiroli district. In both States, there have been seizures of cash and liquor as well as cases of “paid” news, EC officials said.
• Exit polls projected the BJP to emerge as the largest party in both Maharashtra and Haryana Assembly elections, however stopping short of majority.

Global Hand washing Day on oct. 16th

• Municipal schools in the Capital observed Global Hand washing Day on October 16th October, with students being instructed on the importance of maintaining hygiene.
• The South Delhi Municipal Corporation’s school teachers showed students the correct way to wash their hands and the benefits of doing so. The 3.41 lakh students studying in the SDMC’s primary schools also learned about the need to conserve water.
• The teachers also told students about keeping away diseases that are caused due to unhygienic conditions. In the North Delhi Municipal Corporation, a pamphlet explaining the right way to wash hands was also distributed.

Don’t complicate border situation: China

• China sharply reacted to India’s plans to construct a road network along the McMahon line in Arunachal Pradesh and expressed hope that India will not take any action which may complicate the situation before a final settlement is reached to end the boundary dispute.
• “We still need to verify the specifics. The boundary issue between China and India is left by colonial past. We need to deal with this issue properly,” Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hong Lie told a media briefing.
• He was reacting to comments by Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju stating that there was plan to construct a road network along the international boundary from Mago-Thingbu in Tawang to Vijaynagar in Changlang district of Arunachal Pradesh.
• “There is a dispute about the eastern part of the China- India border. Before final settlement is reached we hope that India will not take any action that may further complicate the situation,” Mr. Hong said. “We should create favourable conditions for the final settlement of the border issue,” he said.

SC ‘disappointed’ with Centre over clean Ganga

• The Supreme Court expressed disappointment with the Centre for its lack of a long-term vision to clean the river Ganga.
• A three-judge Bench of Justices T.S. Thakur, A.K. Goel and Ms. R. Banumathi told Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar, appearing for the Centre: “You are unable to tell us your vision stage-wise on cleaning the holy river Ganga and your ultimate aim. This case is pending in this court for the last 29 years and nothing concrete has been done. We don’t want to wait for another 29 years. We also understand it can’t be done overnight, but you should have an expert who has a vision on cleaning the Ganga like the former Delhi Metro chief Sreedharan who had a vision for the metro project.”
• Expressing his anguish Justice Thakur said: “If the discharge of industrial pollutants into the river was stopped, 30 per cent of the Ganga would be clean. Corruption was stalling the clean Ganga project and heads must roll for this.
• The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), a statutory body which is to take effective steps, is not in a position to stop the polluting units from discharging effluents into the river. Units are being allowed to run accepting bribe. This is breeding corruption and the board is not doing its work.”
• The Bench asked the Centre to explain why the post of chairperson of the CPCB has remained vacant for the past six months. It directed the CPCB to explain what action it had taken against the 215 industries situated along the Ganga which had been charged with polluting the river.

Cigarette packs to have pictorial warnings on both sides

• The Union Health Ministry has issued a notification making it mandatory for cigarette manufacturing companies to carry statutory warning against smoking on both sides of a cigarette pack and covering at least 85 per cent of the packaging.
• Beginning April 1, 2015, every cigarette packet will carry the statutory warning on both sides with pictorial depiction of throat cancer and a message in English, Hindi or any Indian language. “I have specified that 60 per cent of the space be devoted to a picture and 25 per cent to the legend,” Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said.
• “Graphic health warnings using a mixture of pictures and words are part and parcel of every country’s policy on cigarette marketing. Many studies have established that the inclusion of larger and more noticeable health warnings on packages significantly impact life expectancy rates and lead to savings on medical costs,” Dr. Vardhan said.
• A gazette notification amending the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Packaging and Labelling) Rules, 2008, was also issued. The Health Minister, who has been highlighting the perils of smoking, said it was very important to win the war against tobacco consumption.
• “Not only are families being destroyed by the rising burden of oral, throat and lung cancer, but a disproportionate share of the country’s health expenditure is going towards covering tobacco’s effects,” he said.

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Persons in news

Tamil poet named for Singapore’s highest cultural award

• Indian-origin Singaporean poet and writer K.T.M. Iqbal will be awarded Cultural Medallion, the country’s highest cultural award by President Tony Tan Keng Yam in Singapore.
• It is the highest recognition for the 74-year-old Tamil poet whose achievements include more than 200 children’s songs written for Radio Singapore in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as seven collections of poetry.
• Mr. Iqbal said he was “delighted” to receive the award which was “an incredible honour”. “My first love is poetry. We have been together for 60 years. I never imagined this would bring me the Cultural Medallion award,” The Straits Times quoted Mr. Iqbal as saying.
• Mr. Iqbal learned the basics of Venpa, a form of classical Tamil poetry from a poetry-writing workshop. “I would sit on the street in the evening to write or an idea might come when I was on the bus,” said Mr. Iqbal.
• The poet, also a retired bank executive, has received recognition in the education system of Singapore also. Mr. Iqbal’s compositions are studied in schools and some of them have appeared in the subway stations as part of efforts to bring the arts close to the community.

Science & Technology

ISRO re-positioned its Mars Orbiter

• Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has repositioned its Mars Orbiter, as the national space agency, along with its counterparts around the world, is expecting Comet Siding Spring to fly by the Red Planet on October 19.
• “We have repositioned the Mars Orbiter, as the Comet Siding Spring is expected to be close to the Mars on October 19. We have taken the Orbiter to a position farthest from the tail of the Comet so that it doesn’t affect the satellite,” A.S. Kiran Kumar, Director, Space Application Centre, Ahmedabad, said.
• ISRO, NASA and other space agencies in the world, which have sent their missions to the Red Planet, have taken precautionary measures to save their satellites from any possible collision with the space debris, which might be facilitated by the movement of the Comet near Mars.
• According to U.S. space agency NASA, Comet Siding Spring has travelled many billions of miles and would come within about 87,000 miles of Mars on October 19. The comet comes from the Oort cloud, material left over from the formation of the solar system, it said.

MAVEN beams first images from Martian atmosphere

• NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft has provided scientists their first look at a storm of Solar Energetic Particles (SEPs) in the Red Planet.
• The SEPs are streams of high-speed particles blasted from the sun during explosive solar activities like flares or coronal mass ejections (CMEs).
• Around Earth, SEP storms can damage the sensitive electronics on satellites. At Mars, they are thought to be one possible mechanism for driving atmospheric loss.
• MAVEN has clicked unprecedented ultraviolet images of the tenuous oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon coronas surrounding the Red Planet, and yielded a comprehensive map of highly-variable ozone in the atmosphere underlying the coronas, NASA reported.
• “All the instruments are showing data quality that is better than anticipated at this early stage of the mission,” said Bruce Jakosky, MAVEN Principal Investigator at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
• “It is turning out to be an easy and straightforward spacecraft to fly, at least so far. It really looks as if we are headed for an exciting science mission,” he said.
• MAVEN was launched on September 21 to help solve the mystery of how the Red Planet lost most of its atmosphere.

Stem cells appears safe to treat blindness

• An experimental treatment for blindness that uses embryonic stem cells appears to be safe, and it improved vision in more than half of the patients who got it, two early studies show.
• Researchers followed 18 patients for up to three years after treatment. The studies are the first to show safety of an embryonic stem cell treatment in humans for such a long period.
• “It’s a wonderful first step but it doesn’t prove that (stem cells) work,” said Chris Mason, chair of regenerative medicine at University College London, who was not part of the research. He said it was encouraging the studies proved the treatment is safe and dispelled fears about stem cells promoting tumor growth.
• Embryonic stem cells, which are recovered from embryos, can become any cell in the body. They are considered controversial by some because they involve destroying an embryo and some critics say adult stem cells, which are derived from tissue samples, should be used instead.
• Scientists have long thought about transforming them into specific types of cells to help treat various diseases. In the new research, scientists turned stem cells into retinal cells to treat people with macular degeneration or Stargardt’s macular dystrophy, the leading causes of blindness in adults and children.
• In each patient, the retinal cells were injected into the eye that had the worst vision. Ten of the 18 patients later reported they could see better with the treated eye than the other one.
• No safety problems were detected. The studies were paid for by the U.S. company that developed the treatment, Advanced Cell Technology, and were published online in the journal, Lancet.

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International

The focus shifts to Ukraine in Finland

• India feels that a “constructive dialogue” is the best way out of the difficult situation in the Ukraine and wants all sides to abjure violence and work towards a peaceful, negotiated solution to bring peace and stability to the area.
• This was conveyed by President Pranab Mukherjee to his Finnish counterpart Sauli Niinisto during their official talks even as the two countries signed 19 agreements that ranged from a “bio-refinery” in Numaligarh, Assam, to cooperation in the field of biotechnology, education and nuclear safety.
• India and Finland also want to double their trade of $1.5 billion in the next three years even as they focus on knowledge-based education and research cooperation.
• In this part of the world, concerns over Ukraine are running high and the Finnish President conveyed his concerns to the President during their discussions.
• Top External Affairs Ministry official Navtej Sarna said that the issues of terrorism, including the threat from the Islamic State (IS), Syria and Afghanistan also figured in the dialogue between the two leaders.
• Finland also felt that India was a “natural claimant” to a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, with Mr. Niinisto telling Mr. Mukherjee that Delhi must “play a central role in global affairs”.
• However, the Finnish leader clarified to the press that his country did not want any extension of the veto right to new members of the UN Security Council.

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Business & Economy

U.S. placed India on the ‘Priority Watch List’

• The U.S. has launched a review of India’s Intellectual Property Regime, in which the focus is to measure the engagement that New Delhi has pursued in terms of intellectual property.
• The USTR’s ‘Out-of-Cycle’ (OCR) Review follows the 2014 Special 301 Report that came out in April, in which the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) had placed India on the ‘Priority Watch List’
• It had noted that it would conduct an OCR of India focusing in particular on assessing progress made in establishing and building effective, meaningful, and constructive engagement with the Government of India on IPR issues of concern.
• “Specifically, the out-of-cycle review is focused on engagement, what type of engagement has India pursued in terms of intellectual property,” a USTR official told.
• The move comes soon after Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a high profile to the U.S. last month.
• The official said that from the U.S. government side, there had been ‘a good deal’ of engagement, including three trips since July to India one of which was specifically focused on intellectual property.
• The official added that in the joint statement released following Prime Minister Modi and President Barack Obama’s meeting also had a reference to intellectual property.

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Sports

Abhishek Verma rewrites National record

• Abhishek Verma, who won team gold and individual silver in the recently-concluded Asian Games, scored 709 points to rewrite the National record in the men’s individual compound competition in the National archery championship at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.
• In fact, it was double delight for Verma as he overhauled the previous mark to achieve his personal target set prior to the championship.
• With this the Delhi archer, who attended three felicitation ceremonies in the last two days, also bagged the men’s 50+50m gold medal.
• Khyam Poudal Chhetri and Sandeep Kumar, who shot an identical 705 each, also went past the previous National record of 702, jointly held by Verma (made in 2013) and Rajat Chauhan (2012).