Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 23 December 2014

National

Center firm on insurance ordinance

As the winter session of Parliament came to an end, highly placed sources said the government is determined to push through the raised cap on Foreign Direct Investment in insurance via the ordinance route.
At least two senior Ministers indicated that the Narendra Modi government was left with no other option but to effect the policy change through an ordinance.
One of them said the ordinance was necessary to “spell out the government’s intent” even though he did not expect foreign investors to immediately invest in the insurance sector in the absence of an enabling legislation.
“The makers of our Constitution have thought far ahead for every situation. For everything else, there are enough precedents,” said the other Minister, alluding to ordinances being brought in the past to push key policy decisions.
Reacting to the Opposition’s criticism that the government wanted to push through the insurance legislation before U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to India in January 2015, the Minister said: “They are the ones obsessed with Mr. Obama. We are only thinking of national interest.”
The Union Cabinet had earlier this month cleared a proposal to raise the FDI cap in insurance to 49 per cent from the current 26 per cent. The government brought in amendments to a Bill in Parliament for the necessary legislative sanction.
The Insurance Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2008, that had been listed in the legislative business of the Rajya Sabha, was not passed till the House adjourned due to frequent disruptions.
The Upper House where the ruling NDA is in a minority saw little legislative business being transacted. The Lok Sabha passed eight Bills but these could not be passed in the Rajya Sabha.
In all, 16 Bills were introduced this session — only one in the Rajya Sabha. As against 102 per cent productive hours in the Lok Sabha, the Rajya Sabha barely clocked 61 per cent. The government had planned on getting 18 Bills passed, only 10 went through.

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Sports

Use of bouncer is the right of a fast bowler says Rackemann

“He was struck on top of the nose and he went crashing down holding his face. Actually, his face was split right down the middle,” remembered the burly former Australian fast bowler, Carl Rackemann.
He was recalling a Sheffield Shield contest between Queensland and West Australia at the lively ’Gabba in the early 90s. Mike Veletta, the batsman who was hit by the Rackemann lifter, was wearing a helmet without a grill.
Rackemann, now 54, said, “Those were days when many batsmen wore helmets that did not have the grill. They felt the grill affected their overall vision. Mike (Veletta) went to hook a bouncer and he missed.”
The former Queensland paceman said, “I was really concerned for him. It was really bad. I feared the worst. He was taken in an ambulance. Thankfully, they, at the hospital, were able to stitch his face back. It was a scary moment.”
A feared and respected paceman in his time — he hustled batsmen with disconcerting lift — Rackemann’s international career was blighted by injuries. He picked up 39 wickets in 12 Tests at 29.15. In the ODI’s, Rackemann scalped 82 batsmen in 52 matches at an economy rate of 3.94.
Although saddened by Phillip Hughes’ death, he said it was a fast bowler’s right to use the bouncer whichever way he wanted to. And Rackemann said his short-pitched balls were targeted to hit the batsmen. “When you pitch short at a batsman, you aim for his ribs or his head.
It is then that you force him to play the hook or the pull or get out of the way. There is little point in bowling a bouncer that flies over the batsman’s head or is wide.”
Rackemann expected the helmets to cover a larger area, including the neck, after Hughes tragedy but said, “It remains to be seen how much they are able to do without restricting the batsman’s freedom of movement. If his movement is restricted by the helmet, it exposes him to greater risks.”
His stormy days as a paceman behind him, Rackemann now manages his 500-acre peanut farm in Kingaroy, a country town 240 km from Brisbane.

Business & economy

Snapdeal launches online Agri Store

Celebrating Kisan Diwas, e-retailing firm Snapdeal.com today announced the launch of “The Agri Store”, offering products like seeds, fertiliser and irrigation tools, among others, to farmers.
A Hindi version of the store will also be launched soon to aid farmers in making an informed decision, the company said in a statement.
“Now, farmers will be able to access products critical to their daily needs easily at the click of a button, thus bringing forth the inclusive power of digital marketplaces in the realm of agriculture as well,” Snapdeal.com CEO and Co-founder Kunal Bahl said.
Stating that the country’s 70 per cent of the population in engaged in agriculture, he said, “With the store also accessible through mobile phones, we are positive that farmers will find this a convenient and efficient way to shop.”
The Agri Store aims to offer wide variety of farm items from seeds to fertilisers, farming tools and irrigation tools.
More products and categories will be added in the coming weeks from merchants across the country to make ‘The Agri Store’ a destination of choice for farmers seeking quality products with reliable service, the statement added.
Snapdeal.com, which started in 2010, is one of the fastest growing e-commerce company in India with over 60 per cent of its orders coming from mobile phones.

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International

North Korea's Internet links restored over U.S. hacking dispute

North Korea, at the centre of a confrontation with the United States over the hacking of Sony Pictures, experienced a complete Internet outage for hours before links were restored, but U.S. officials said Washington was not involved.
U.S.-based Dyn, a company that monitors Internet infrastructure, said the reason for the outage was not known but could range from technological glitches to a hacking attack.
Several U.S. officials close to the investigations of the attack on Sony Pictures said the U.S. government had not taken any cyber action against Pyongyang.
U.S. President Barack Obama had vowed to respond to the major cyberattack, which he blamed on North Korea, "in a place and time and manner that we choose".
Dyn said North Korea's Internet links were unstable and the country later went completely offline. Links were restored at 0146 GMT, and the possibilities for the outage could be attacks by individuals, a hardware failure, or even that it was done by North Korea itself, experts said.
Matthew Prince, CEO of U.S.-based CloudFlare which protects websites from web-based attacks, said the fact that North Korea's Internet was back up "is pretty good evidence that the outage wasn't caused by a state-sponsored attack, otherwise it'd likely still be down for the count".
Almost all of North Korea's Internet links and traffic pass through China and it dismissed any suggestion that it was involved as "irresponsible".
Meanwhile, South Korea, which remains technically at war with the North, said it could not rule out the involvement of its isolated neighbour in a cyberattack on its nuclear power plant operator.
It said only non-critical data was stolen and operations were not at risk, but had asked for U.S. help in investigating.