Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 24 November 2014

National

Alimony payable from date of appeal: SC

• A husband may have to pay monthly allowance to his estranged wife from the day she applied for maintenance and not always from the date of the court order, the Supreme Court has held. The same ruling applies in favour of aged parents or children, both illegitimate and legitimate.
• A Bench of Justices J. Chelameswar and S.A. Bobde was interpreting Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code dealing with payment of maintenance.
• The court said the aim of the law was to protect women from destitution after marital relation sours and rescue senior citizens from neglect.
• The Bench said courts should not take it that payment of maintenance under the provision is only applicable from the day they order so.
• In fact, it said Section 125 empowers the courts to direct a person to pay monthly sustenance to his separated spouse, aged parents or children from the very date they had applied for maintenance.
• The judgment clarified the law on a petition filed by Jaiminiben Hirenbhai Vyas.
• Ms. Vyas had quit her job after marriage to take care of her family and children. When she separated from her husband, a family court refused to grant her maintenance on the ground that she was working before her marriage, so she would still be able to find work.
• She appealed the High Court successfully. The court overturned the lower court order and directed her husband to pay her monthly maintenance.
• However, the HC asked him to pay up only from the date of its order. Aggrieved, Ms. Vyas moved the Supreme Court.
• In his judgment, Justice Bobde wrote that courts were given two choices under Section 125 – direct payment of maintenance effective from the date of order or from the date an aggrieved relative applied for maintenance.
• The Bench held that Ms. Vyas’ circumstances “eminently justified grant of maintenance with effect from the date of the application.”

Canada province offers uranium to India

• Brad Wall, Premier of the Saskatchewan province in Canada, who was on an official visit to India from November 16-23, said the province is discussing sale of uranium to India as well as partnering in agriculture and clean coal technologies.
• Mr. Wall, leading an agricultural trade mission on his second visit to India said: “We are looking for uranium exports to India and have held preliminary discussions with officials of the Atomic Energy Commission and hope to conclude an early agreement.”
• On energy cooperation, Premier Wall said that like India, Saskatchewan province too depends on coal for about 50 per cent of its needs and to minimise carbon emissions, a clean coal technology has been developed resulting in significant carbon capture and storage.
• India and China are globally the largest users of coal and shifting to clean coal will contribute to their carbon reduction measures.
• Agriculture and trade are major focus areas and Saskatchewan province already caters to the large Indian demand for pulses and potash which is a substitute for urea.
• Saskatchewan led Canada’s exports to India in 2013 with $1 billion worth of products. Saskatchewan’s exports to India were $999 million in 2013, an increase of 69 per cent since 2007 while imports from India were $40 million in 2013, an increase of 244 per cent.
• The province accounts for 70 per cent of all Indian pulse imports and Mr. Wall held discussions with the government, traders and farmers to incorporate high-yielding varieties and the latest technologies in agricultural supply chains.

CM Naidu to sign 6 MoUs in Japan

• Six MoUs will be signed by Andhra Pradesh Government during the six-day visit to Japan by Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu.
• Seeking Japanese financial assistance and technical expertise in different fields, including building of the new capital city, Mr. Naidu will be leading an 18-member official delegation which includes Finance Minister Y. Ramakrishnudu, Municipal Administration Minister P. Narayana, MPs, Galla Jayadev and C.M. Ramesh and senior officers from different departments.
• While four of the MoUs would be with Sumitomo Corporation, one would be signed with the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Commerce.
• The sixth MoU would be with NEDO (New Energy and Industrial Technology Development) on promoting new types of clean energy.
• The MoUs with Sumitomo Corporation include agreement to set up a 4,000 MW thermal plant in Srikakulam District.

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International

Pakistan’s PM to attend 18th SAARC summit

• Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will lead a delegation to participate in the 18th SAARC Summit scheduled to be held in Kathmandu.
• The invitation to attend the summit, to be held on November 26-27, was extended by Nepal’s Foreign Minister Mahendra Bahadur Pandey who visited Pakistan on October 23 as Special Envoy of the Prime Minister of Nepal.
• Mr. Sharif will meet other leaders of SAARC countries on the sidelines to discuss issues of bilateral and regional interest, Foreign Office said.
• However, it did not say whether Mr. Sharif will meet his Indian counterpart Mr. Narendra Modi during the summit.
• The theme of this year’s summit is “Deeper Integration for Peace and Prosperity“. Pakistan attaches high importance to SAARC and is committed to its process, Foreign Office said.
• Pakistan firmly believes that given the resources, SAARC region has the potential to become the engine for global economic growth for the 21st century, it said.
• Pakistan Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry is presently in Kathmandu to represent the country in the SAARC Standing Committee Meeting, which will be followed by the SAARC Council of Ministers Meeting on November 25 and attended by Adviser to the Prime Minister on National Security & Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz.

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Persons in news

Murli Deora passes away

• Senior Congress leader and former Union Minister Murli Deora passed away after prolonged illness. He was 77 and is survived by his wife and two sons, including former MP Milind Deora.
• Murli bhai as he was known as died at around 3.25 a.m. He had been unwell and admitted to a hospital. He had come home two days back, family said.
• Mr. Deora’s mortal remains would be kept at the Mumbai Congress office, where party workers would pay their last respects from 12 noon to 2 p.m. His last rites would be performed at Chandanwadi Crematorium later in the day, the family sources said.
• Mr. Deora, who held several important portfolios during his decades-long career, first contested the civic elections in Mumbai in 1975.
• An economics graduate, Mr. Deora was Mayor of Mumbai from 1977 to 1978 and was later elected to the Lok Sabha four times from Mumbai South, a seat later held by his son, Milind, who is also a former MP and ex Union minister. Currently, he was serving his third term as a Rajya Sabha MP.
• He held the portfolio of Petroleum and Natural Gas during the UPA—1 regime. The Congress veteran had also served as the Mumbai Congress President for 22 years.
• He joined the Union Cabinet in 2006, shortly before he turned 70 and led oil diplomacy in Myanmar, Algeria and Egypt, and held talks with ministers from Sudan, Chad, Ethiopia and Comoros.
• Deora also hosted the first India—Africa Hydrocarbon Conference and Exhibition in November 2007. In July 2011, Deora became Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology.

Business & economy

Subsidies will leave next generation in debt: Arun Jaitley

• A reduction of the scope of subsidies currently being provided to the well-off appears to be on the anvil with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley questioning the justification of giving “unquantified” subsidy to “unidentifiable” sections.
• However, he maintained that some element of subsidy will have to remain for a large section, who are entitled to it since the country has several poor people who need state support.
• “Yesterday I had said why should people like you and me get an LPG subsidy and look at the kind of burden it is having on the budget.
• We have started living with the deficit budget. We just make sure that our fiscal deficit is not beyond a particular point,” he said at an interaction with PTI journalists at the agency’s headquarters here.
• Under the current dispensation, the Minister said the government targets a specific number for deficit and in turn borrows from the market to fund current expenditure.
• “You cannot have a subsidy, an unquantified amount given to an unidentified section of people. So subsidy must be a quantified amount given to an identifiable section,” he said, adding “the duplication of subsidy benefits results in losses to the exchequer to the tune of “thousands of crores.”
• “We will leave the next generation in debt so that they (next generation) levy higher taxes to pay back the loan of subsidising me, when I am not entitled to the subsidy. So this kind of an economy will keep the country in a trap,” he said.

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Science & technology

IIT-Madras will join CERN experiment

• The Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment, which is part of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, is famous for its role in the discovery of the Higgs Boson a.k.a the god particle.
• It is expected to start collecting data once again around March 2015. But this time, it will include another member from our environs — IIT-Madras.
• IIT-Madras has been accepted as a full member of the collaboration and is looking forward to make best use of the opportunity. Now, PhD students from the physics department will get to work in the collider; undergraduate students can do short summer projects at CMS; members of physics, computer science and electrical engineering departments at IIT-M can work on data analysis, grid computing and high-end detector building related to the experiment.
• “Being connected to CERN can give many more students a taste of the power of fundamental research,” says Prafulla Kumar Behera of the physics department of IIT-Madras, pointing out that this is the first IIT and, in fact, the first institute from the southern States to have become a full member of the CMS.
• It is to be noted that Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, and Bhabha Atomic Research Centre have long been members, as also Delhi and Panjab Universities.
• The key areas where they hope to work is in data analysis and upgrading of the detector, according to Dr. Behera, who also feels that the experience of building up the silicon detector will come in useful in developing indigenous technology in medical (imaging) science and R&D in general.
• At present, the CMS experiment has gone up to 8 teraelectronvolts energy (TeV) and is geared to touch 14 TeV. This will involve having to upgrade the detector to handle the radiation and increased rate of data taking, which is where the group expects to be able to contribute.
• Broadly speaking, the questions the experiment will probe are: whether the Higgs boson will undergo a decay in B quarks; whether there exist charged versions of the Higgs particle, which would mean physicists need to look beyond the standard model; whether dark matter can be produced by collision experiments and so on.

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Sports

Roger Federer seals 1st Davis Cup win for Switzerland

• Roger Federer produced a vintage performance to crush Richard Gasquet 6-4 6-2 6-2 and seal Switzerland's maiden Davis Cup title with a 3-1 win over hosts France.
• The 17-times grand slam champion shook off back problems during the weekend and recovered from defeat by Gael Monfils to hand France a third defeat in their last three finals.
• With Federer imperious on serve, there was a sense of inevitability in the air of the Pierre Mauroy stadium despite the support of a record 27,448 raucous crowd and Gasquet's decent level of play.
• He made more unforced errors than the gifted Frenchman -- 24 to 21 -- but hit an astonishing 62 winners, kneeling down before lying on his stomach after wrapping up the match with a cunning drop shot.
• The Swiss dropped only four points on serve in the opening set, which he sealed with a whipping forehand winner after breaking Gasquet in the third game.
• Varying his shots to devastating effect, Federer toyed with his opponent, who dropped serve in the first and seventh games as the Swiss bagged the second set with a drop shot having not conceded a single break point.
• Gasquet, sent to the clay court by Captain Arnaud Clement in place of Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, looked slightly better at the beginning of the third set as Federer became careless.
• But the Swiss, who withdrew from last Sunday's ATP World Tour final with a back injury, was still the sharper player and he broke on his first opportunity in the fifth game when Gasquet sent a backhand wide.
• Stan Wawrinka gave them the first point by beating Tsonga in the first singles rubber before Monfils levelled.

Sarjubala, Saweety enter finals in World Boxing Championships

• Indian boxers Sarjubala Devi (48kg) and Saweety (81kg) continued their prolific form to enter the Women’s World Boxing Championships with thumping wins and assure themselves of at least a silver each, in Jeju.
• Sarjubala, a 2011 world youth champion, defeated Thailand’s Chuthamat Raksat 38-38 40-36 39-37, while Saweety got the better of Anastasiia Chernokolenko 39-37 40-36 40-36 in her semifinal bout.
• Sarjubala opened the proceedings for India and was off the blocks aggressively against her rather slow—moving rival, who failed to capitalise on the height advantage.
• The judges unanimously gave the round to Sarjubala but Raksat staged a comeback in the next with some deftly placed right jabs on counter-attack.
• But that did not bog Sarjubala down and she came roaring back to clinch the next two rounds with some precise left hooks. Sarjubala will face Nazym Kyzaibay of Kazakhstan in the final.
• Saweety was the next to take the ring for India and she was equally dominant in her semifinal clash. The Indian was the unanimous choice of the judges all through. She will be up against Xiaoli Yang of China in the summit clash.

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Sources: Various News Papers & PIB

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