Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 19 January 2016

:: NATIONAL ::

University and Minister under loop after suicide of scholar in Hyderbad

On a day of high drama following the suicide of Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula of the University of Hyderabad (UoH), a case was filed against four persons, including Union Minister of State for Labour Bandaru Dattatreya and University Vice-Chancellor P. Appa Rao.
Tension prevailed on the UoH campus ever since Rohith committed suicide on Sunday evening. On Monday, police entered the premises and removed his body.
Before he took his life, the 25-year-old Ph.D. scholar and four others, who had been suspended 14 days earlier, were sleeping in the open after expulsion from their hostels.
The suicide triggered a social media storm forcing the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) into action. It has sent a two-member fact-finding team to Hyderabad.

India-EU held talks on proposed FTA

India and the European Union on Monday held a stock-taking meeting on “outstanding issues” — including duty cut on automobiles and wines/spirits as well as easier temporary movement of skilled professionals — which had stalled talks on the proposed bilateral free trade agreement (FTA).
The FTA talks were launched in 2007 and around 16 rounds of negotiations were held till 2013.
Though after that, no negotiations have been held, India has moved ahead on many issues (that were demanded by the EU) such as permitting 49 per cent FDI in insurance, 100 per cent FDI in telecom and easing of foreign investments norms in the banking sector.
The main demands of the EU included duty cuts on automobiles, wines and spirits, while India’s demands included data security status, easier temporary movement of skilled professionals, seamless intra-corporate movement, real market access in terms of sanitary and phytosanitary (norms related with plants and animals) and technical barriers to trade measures adopted in EU.
The talks were to be restarted in August 2015, but India deferred them expressing disappointment and concern over the EU banning sale of around 700 pharma products clinically tested by GVK Biosciences.

SC for relooking the criteria of deciding the minority status (Register and Login to read Full News..)

:: INTERNATIONAL ::

China will become the lynchpin of evolving world economic structure

New structural linkages between Europe and Asia through three developmental banks that have emerged outside the post-war Bretton Woods framework are changing the global geopolitical architecture, with Eurasia at the core.
China is the lynchpin of the evolving world financial architecture. Notwithstanding the focus on the AIIB — a 57-nation lender, in which India and Russia are also major partners— China also quietly became the 67th member of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
With China on board, the EBRD is rapidly re-defining its role. In 1991, it was formed to reinforce the unipolar world that had emerged following the Soviet Union’s collapse. Its focal area of interest was Eastern Europe, which was no longer under Moscow’s shadow, and had to be rapidly integrated in the western institutional web.
China, which was steering a Eurasian Silk Road connectivity initiative, was now a major pivot of global economy. China’s growing economic and political clout had been accomplished in little over two decades of the Soviet Union’s collapse.
Eastern Europe is an example of how the world has changed. Ten years ago, those countries would have been looking for investors from Western Europe; they are now widening their portfolio and that includes China.
In recent years because of signs of weakness in the Euro Zone and so on, those countries in Eastern Europe have been trying to diversify their sources of investment.
They have looked at the Gulf, they have looked at Asia, looked at North America and China has started investing much more in Eastern Europe.
Analysts point out that the launch of the AIIB is another example of the reinforcement of economic bonds between Europe and Asia. In fact, the run-up to the formation of the bank opened cracks within the Atlantic alliance.
Despite U.S. objections, European countries, including Britain, France and Germany, joined the AIIB. Australia and South Korea—top U.S. allies in the Asia-Pacific—also decided to participate in the development bank as its founding members.

French president vows to spend on employment (Register and Login to read Full News..)

:: SCIENCE and TECHNOLOGY ::

Ice found at the surface of comet 67P

Researchers, including one of Indian-origin, have identified two large patches of water ice on the surface of comet 67P, perhaps the most studied comet in history.
The elusive ice was detected, using data collected by the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft, on the bottom part of the main lobe of the dumbbell-shaped comet, in a region called Imhotep.
It appeared as noticeably bright patches in visible light and was located on cliff walls and debris falls.
Data collected by Rosetta’s Visible Infrared and Thermal Imaging Spectrometer (VIRTIS) showed that the water ice grains in the Imhotep region came in different sizes.
Some of the grains were tiny, just tens of micrometres across, which were probably formed as a result of the comet’s 12-hour rotation.

PSLV-C31 launch in two days (Register and Login to read Full News..)

:: BUSINESS and ECONOMY ::

Merchandise export continues to shrink

India’s merchandise exports shrank for the 13th consecutive month in December 2015 during which trade deficit in goods increased the maximum since August 2015 following 179 per cent jump in gold imports.
However, according to the government, the silver lining was the services exports recording a 54.5 per cent rise during April-November 2015 to touch $179 billion, leading to less worry regarding the current account deficit.
Merchandise exports during April-December this fiscal had contracted by 18.06 per cent to $196 billion as compared to $239.9 billion during the same period in the previous financial year.
Of the 30 main items, the exports of 15 of them, including petroleum products and engineering goods, fell in December resulting in the overall merchandise exports contracting 14.75 per cent over the same month in the year earlier period to $22.3 billion.
However, this was the best showing on the export front following the contraction by 10.3 per cent since July and the third best this Merchandise imports meanwhile contracted by only 3.88 per cent to $33.96 billion due to the 179 per cent increase in gold imports to $3.8 billion (the highest since $4.95 billion in August 2015).

Increase in renewable energy share would also boost GDP (Register and Login to read Full News..)

:: SPORTS ::

India might consider conditional use of DRS

India may consider conditional use of the Decision Review System after consultation with the team management on its return from Australia.
BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur said that India was not convinced the system was foolproof but it might be inclined to consider its use if leg-before decisions were left out of the ambit of the DRS.
The ICC, meanwhile, reaffirmed its commitment to the Spirit of Cricket and bringing about positive social change through the sport, by launching ‘Cricket for Good’, its CSR programme, in association with UNICEF.