Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 19 January 2015

:: National ::

The rich heritage of Rajasthan is set to come alive as the annual ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival showcases the vibrant culture of the State to the over 2 lakh visitors expected for the event.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje will inaugurate the event. Rajasthani musicians Nathoo Solanki, Chugge Khan and the Jaisalmer Boys will open the world’s largest free literary festival with the sounds of their traditional music which has become synonymous with the first day of the festival.
Also on the opening day, musicologist John Napier and Shanti Raman will speak of the tradition and challenges in archiving the oral history of the Nath Jogis. They will be joined by jogi performer Kishori Nath who will recite and perform from an ancient bardic repertoire.

West Hollywood has joined the vanguard of places that are taking steps to make transgender people feel more welcome. Last week, an ordinance took effect that abolished the traditional designation of “men” or “women” on single-stall public restrooms, a bow to the requests of the sizable community of transgender people, who do not believe they fall into either category.
Restaurants and other places with public restrooms will not have to make any changes if the bathrooms have multiple stalls, but all single-stall public restrooms have to be labelled “gender neutral”; businesses have 60 days to comply, but can do so by simply placing a gender-neutral sign on any single-stall restroom.
This sweep of legislation reflects the growing prominence and visibility of transgender people. Amazon Studios’ streaming show Transparent has received widespread critical acclaim, and the lead actor, Jeffrey Tambor, won a Golden Globe last Sunday for his performance as a man who identifies as a woman.

President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address will propose closing multibillion-dollar tax loopholes used by the wealthiest Americans, imposing a fee on big financial firms and then using the revenue to benefit the middle class, senior administration officials said .
Mr. Obama’s annual address to a joint session of Congress will continue his theme of income equality, and the administration is optimistic it will find some bipartisan support in the Republican-dominated House of Representatives and Senate.
Mr. Obama’s proposals call for reforming tax rules on trust funds, which the administration called “the single largest capital gains tax loophole” because it allows assets to be passed down untaxed to heirs of the richest Americans.
They also would raise the capital gains and dividends rates to 28 per cent, the level during the 1980s Republican presidency of Ronald Reagan.
As a way of managing financial risk that could threaten the U.S. economy, Mr. Obama also wants to impose a fee of seven basis points on the liabilities of U.S. financial firms with assets of more than $50 billion, making it more costly for them to borrow heavily.

India's strategic missile, Agni-V, will test-fired from the Wheeler Island, off the Odisha coast, on January 31.
The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), which has developed the missile, will launch it from a canister mounted on a road-mobile launcher, which is a TATRA truck.
A gas generator at the bottom of the canister will push the 17-metre long, 50-tonne Agni-V out of the canister.
The missile, which can take out targets situated more than 5,000 km away, can carry a nuclear warhead weighing 1.1 tonnes. In the launch on January 31, 2015, it will carry a dummy payload.
The missile was earlier scheduled to be test-fired in the second week of January but was postponed to the last week of January or the first week of February due to “non-technical” reasons.

Former English tennis star Tim Henman feels the newly launched International Premier Tennis League (IPTL) is the best thing to happen in Asia, where the sport is yet to pick up.
Henman, who was in the city to conduct tennis clinics for trainees adopted by the ‘HSBC Road to Wimbledon’ junior development programme, said the tournament conceived by Indian star Mahesh Bhupathi will surely help in expanding the boundaries of the sport.