Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 22 January 2016

:: NATIONAL ::

Buckling under pressure from protests and the political backlash after the suicide of Rohith Vemula, the University of Hyderabad (UoH) administration revoked the suspension of the four students who have been camping out in the open for the last 18 days.
The withdrawal of the punishment came on a day when Chief Medical officer Captain Ravindra Kumar, Controller of Examinations Prof. V. Krishna, Chief Warden Dr. G. Nagaraju and a dozen other faculty members resigned from their administrative duties
They took exception to Union Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani’s comments on the suicide of the 26-year old research scholar.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called a meeting of his Council of Ministers for January 27, a day after Republic Day to seek a review of all decisions taken by the Cabinet, and the Cabinet Committee on Economic Afairs (CCEA) in the last one-and-a-half years of the NDA government.
At the end of 2016, the government will be half-way through its five-year term, and this year is being seen as a make-or-break one to deliver on governance and the economy.
Mr. Modi had earlier set up eight groups of secretaries to suggest innovative ideas to implement the government’s programmes, and this too is being seen as a way to keep his team on its toes.
The agenda has set of speculation that there could be a Cabinet reshuffle during the winter session of the budget session of Parliament.

Padma Bhushan recipient Mrinalini Sarabhai passed away in Ahmedabad.
Mrinalini Sarabhai was one of the most celebrated Indian classical dancers proficient in Bharatnatyam, Kathakali and Mohiniyattam.

Pope Francis has told members of the world’s wealthy political and economic elite that they should not be deaf to the cry of the poor and must consider their own role in creating inequality.
New technologies such as robotics must also not be al- lowed to replace humans with “soulless machines”, he said in a message to the World Economic Forum in Davos.
The Pope, who wrote a ma- jor encyclical on climate change and protection of the environment last year, also urged business leaders to see to it that the planet does not become “an empty garden”.
The annual Davos meeting brings together many of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful people to consider issues such as economics, climate change and war, with an eye to working on solutions to them.
It has been criticised by anti-globalisation activists and others, however, as a forum for organisations that have been responsible for the problems in the first place.
They are boosted by reports such as one from charity Oxfam estimating that 1 per cent of the world’s population owns 99 per cent of the wealth.
Pope Francis, who has made the defence of the poor a hallmark of his pa- pacy and has in the past called money “the dung of the devil”, said businesses and wealthy societies must acknowledge their role in creating poverty.

Blood-letting in global markets is dominating corridor talk as business leaders and policymakers meet in Davos, although so far the view is that it doesn’t signal a financial crisis.
As the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Switzerland wrestled with topics ranging from the impact of robots on jobs to gender and wealth inequality, the MSCI World equity index fell to its lowest level since July 2013.
If sustained, the 9.9 per cent fall in the index in January would be the worst monthly loss since 2009, towards the end of the global financial crisis.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) cut its global growth forecasts for the third time in less than a year to 3.4 per cent, as new figures showed that the Chinese economy grew at its slowest rate in a quarter of a century in 2015.
China’s rapid slowdown, combined with a dramatic fall in the price of oil, has spooked investors around the globe.

International Monetary Fund (IMF) Chief Chris- tine Lagarde said China should communi- cate better with its financial market.
The remarks were made at a session at the World Economic Forum in Davos, seen in a video feed monitored by Reuters.
Ms. Lagarde said China is “going through a list of transitions. There is a communication issue, which markets do not like.
Responding to a question on the outlook for reform of China’s State-owned enter- prises, she said that despite the size of the challenge, she believed Beijing would deliv- er such reforms.
The yuan was admitted into the SDR in November last year after the organization said it had met the criteria.

Sources: Various News Papers & PIB

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