Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 25 April 2015

:: National ::

eVisa to Chinese nationals likely

• India may extend e-visa on arrival facility to Chinese nationals when Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits China from May 14 to 16, a move that has been held up for several years due to opposition from security agencies.

• The Home Secretary is expected to chair a series of meetings focussing on Chinese concerns next week, when the decision could be taken.

• Ahead of Mr. Modi’s visit, Chinese companies have raised serious issues over investing in India, also calling for an end to the government’s policy of “security clearances for countries of concern” that applies to China.

• Sources have confirmed that the Ministry of External Affairs made a representation to the Home Ministry’s policy, which “discriminates” against Chinese investors, saying that visas were being given in a manner that “lacked objectivity and predictability.”

• The issues are being taken more seriously after Chinese truck manufacturer Beiqi Foton Motor, which had announced the biggest FDI of $400 million for a plant near Pune in 2011, began to downsize its plans this February as it could not meet deadlines for setting up production because of bureaucratic hurdles.

RS passes Bill on transgender rights

• In a rare action, a private member’s Bill protecting and providing rights for transgenders was passed by the Rajya Sabha.

• The Bill also guarantees reservation in education and jobs, financial aid and social inclusion. This is the first time in 45 years that a private members' Bill has been passed by the House.

• The Rights of Transgender Persons Bill, 2014, paves the way for a law on the matter in the near future.

• The government assured the House that it would bring an updated Bill in the Lok Sabha. Sources later told that while the government “accepts the spirit and sentiment of the Bill, it has infirmities that need to be removed.”

• A Union minister said the government would bring a fresh Bill “after removing the impractical clauses.”

Smriti invites suggestions on education policy

• Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani described the decision to invite suggestions from all and sundry on the new education policy — to be unveiled later this year — as the “first ever attempt where an average citizen of the nation gets involved in policy-making which has otherwise remained the preserve of a few.”

• In an informal interaction with media persons after introducing Pune-based Nawaj Sheikh — whose logo has been selected for the new education policy — Ms. Irani said citizens and State governments had been asked to highlight bottlenecks in the education system and suggest changes.

• On how this would all be put together — given that anyone can post a suggestion on the government’s online platform ‘MyGov.in’ — the Minister said each State government would collate views drawn from villages and towns and send these reports to the Ministry.

New rules for MPs’ accommodation

• If a Member of Parliament wishes to retain, relinquish or transfer the accommodation allocated to him from the Lok Sabha or the Rajya Sabha pool of houses, he/she will have to inform the House committee concerned, the government announced.

• The government has issued a new standard operating procedure (SOP) for MPs to streamline allocation of houses. The new regulation comes in the wake of recent confusion after the same accommodation was allotted to two MPs by separate two housing committees.

• Under the new SOP, approved by the Minister of Urban Development M. Venkaiah Naidu, if the MP concerned fails to notify the housing committee about the change in accommodation, the committee can initiate eviction proceedings.

• “If a member of one House of Parliament gets elected to the other House, he or she has to vacate the accommodation they’re staying in and seek a new accommodation from the House Committee of the House of Parliament he or she has been elected to. If a Rajya Sabha member gets elected to the Lok Sabha and wants to retain the house from the Rajya Sabha pool, such a member should get an accommodation of a corresponding category transferred to the Rajya Sabha pool from the Lok Sabha House Committee. On his or her retirement or resignation from the Lok Sabha, the said house would be reverted to the RS housing pool. The same applies in case of a Lok Sabha member getting elected to the Rajya Sabha,” said an Urban Development official.

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:: International :

Iran backs China’s inclusion

• Iran has jumped decisively on the “belt and road” bandwagon, flagging its interest in linking China with its proposed natural gas pipeline to Pakistan.

• “I don't think it's too far away [for] this pipeline to be extended to China through Pakistan. That is something that would be of common interest to Iran, China and Pakistan,” Iran’s ambassador to China Ali Asghar Khaji told.

• Iran’s Press TV is reporting that China has signed an initial agreement to construct the pipeline from Gwadar to Nawabshah in the southwest of Pakistan, during President Xi Jinping’s visit to Pakistan, which concluded earlier this week.

• Gwadar is also the starting point of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which was formally inaugurated during the presidential visit. The CPEC will terminate in China’s Xinjiang province which is already an energy hub from where imported gas from Central Asia is channeled to China’s industrial heartland along the coast.

• Analysts say that extension of the Iran- Pakistan pipeline to China will be a blow to India, which had pioneered with Iran, the concept of the an Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) peace pipeline in 1995. The Iranians have blamed India of dropping out of the project under pressure from the United States in 2009. As reported, the Iranians had responded to India’s concerns, stated, in the form of non-paper in 2008, which included clarifications regarding the precise origin of the gas in Iran, as well as the point of delivery along the India-Pakistan border .

• The Wall Street Journal had earlier reported the China Petroleum Pipeline Bureau, a subsidiary of Chinese energy giant China National Petroleum Corporation, will build the 700 km pipeline to Nawabshah, which is Pakistan’s gas-distribution center in the Sindh province.

• Pakistan would build the 80 km of the pipeline from Gwadar to the Iranian border, where it would link with the already existing 900 km pipeline link to the gas fields of South Pars.

• There has been a flurry of activity in anticipation of a possible lifting of sanctions against Iran, following the nuclear framework agreement that Tehran had signed in Switzerland, with the six global powers, earlier this month. That has included the visit to Beijing by Iran’s oil minister, Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, who went on record to laud China for backing Tehran during the peak of sanctions. He went on to say that the Islamic Republic was “willing for that cooperation to continue when sanctions are removed”.

• The Iran-China relationship seemed gather greater political substance. During a meeting in Jakarta, on the sidelines commemorating 60-years of the Bandung conference, President Xi told his Iranian counterpart , Hassan Rouhani of Beijing’s intent to forge a “long term and stable energy cooperation” with Iran.

Sri Lanka to pass RTI legislation

• Sri Lanka may soon have its own RTI (Right to Information) law.

• Called the “Right to Know Information” legislation, the proposed law is part of the new regime’s 100 Days Programme.

• The present coalition government, comprising members of the two principal parties, Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the United National Party (UNP) along with those from a few other parties such as Jathika Hela Urumaya and Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, completed its 100th day.

• Announcing the government’s decision to introduce a draft bill in Parliament, Rajitha Senaratne, Cabinet Spokesperson and Health Minister, told a media conference that the Cabinet, at its meeting on Wednesday night, approved a proposal presented by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe. President Maithripala Sirisena was also present.

• While a national-level commission would be established, there would not be any such body at the level of provinces, the Minister said, replying to a query. To another question whether the clauses of exemption were so wide as to defeat the spirit behind the law, he replied in the negative and said what was now done was to come up with a Cabinet document.

• Once the Bill had been presented, Parliament could make amendments and suggestions from outside might also be incorporated. “We are quite open,” he said.

• Recalling the discussion at the Cabinet meeting, Mr Senaratne said Mr Wickremasinghe told him that media organisations had been taken into confidence while preparing the draft Bill.

• The Cabinet spokesperson said the President presented a draft proposal to the Cabinet, envisaging an electoral system that would combine features of the First Past The Post system and proportional representation (PR). The proposed system would abolish the existing PR system.

• At present, two models were under consideration. Under one of the options, the number of members in Parliament would go up from the present 225 to 238 while under another, the figure would be 255. Hinting that “there would be many more formulas,” the Minister added that there would be no reduction in the number of constituencies even though there were adverse demographic changes in certain parts of the country such as Jaffna. He explained how in places such as Jaffna and Kandy, adequate number of representatives could not be found for the given figure of constituencies. To ensure fair representation to minorities in Parliament, the revival of multi-member constituencies had been mooted.

Armenians mark 100 years since Ottoman massacre

• Armenians marked the centenary of the massacre of up to 1.5 million of their people by Ottoman forces as tensions mounted over Turkey's refusal to recognise the killings as genocide.

• In the capital Yerevan, Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian and first lady Rita Sarkisian laid a wreath at a hilltop memorial at the start of a solemn ceremony commemorating the mass killings that began in 1915.

• Under a leaden sky shedding rain, foreign diplomats followed, each holding a yellow rose to put into the wreath laid at the foot of a monumental 44-metre needle, symbolising the nation's rebirth.

• French President Francois Hollande and Russia's Vladimir Putin, who are among a handful of world leaders to visit for the anniversary, then joined the ceremony.

• Hundreds of thousands of Armenians will later join a procession to the genocide memorial — Armenia's most visited landmark — carrying candles and flowers to lay at the eternal flame.

• Members of the massive Armenian diaspora that came into existence as a result of the slaughter that went on until 1917 were also to commemorate the sombre anniversary in cities around the world.

• The patchy list of foreign dignitaries attending commemorations in Yerevan highlights the lack of international consensus over Armenia's bid to get the massacres recognised internationally as a genocide.

• Many foreign leaders shied away for fear of upsetting Ankara.

• More than 20 nations — including France and Russia — have so far recognised the Armenian genocide, a definition supported by numerous historians. Turkey has said up to 500,000 people were killed, but mostly due to war and starvation, and rejects the use of the term “genocide”.

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:: Business and Economy ::

India cannot be complacent on FAA upgrade: DGCA

• Indian aviation sector cannot be complacent after the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) upgrade and it is essential to sustain the ratings and some safety issues needs to be addressed, Director General of Civil Aviation M. Sathiyavathy said.

• “We will able to sustain our position as a leader in civil aviation, if not in the world at least as a regional player, only if we have co-operation of all the stakeholders in the industry. And that can happen only if all of us feel that safety is an important aspect as far as the aviation industry is concerned,” she said at a FICCI event in New Delhi.

• Safety issues in India came to the fore after an Air India Express plane from Dubai with 160 passengers and six crew members on board crashed while landing at Mangaluru airport in May 2010, leaving 158 passengers dead. “After the Mangaluru accident, we have not had major incident in India. But that does not imply that we should become complacent.

• There are a few incidents which are taking place, mainly because we have compromised on some of the safety aspects,” she said.

• According to her, these incidents included pilots not having their pilot proficiency certification done on a regular basis and also not undergoing the breath analyser test. “So, we in the DGCA have decided to do the oversight properly and at the same time ensure that we also play the role of facilitator for the industry to grow,” Ms. Sathiyavathy said. She also said the FAA audit focused on aspects like only few sectors of the civil aviation authority, which included aspects such as operations and the flight training organisations.

• The International Civil Aviation Organisation would do a comprehensive audit in November this year. “This audit will not only be restricted to the operations, but involve entire gamut of aviation sector including airports, air navigation, air traffic control along with whatever FAA has done,” Ms. Sathiyavathy said.

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:: Science and Technology ::

Google gives boost to mobile-friendly sites

• Google’s latest Internet revolution this week saw the web giant modify its search algorithm to favour mobile-friendly sites, in a bid to upstage Apple that U.S. media branded a “mobilegeddon.”

• U.S. technology website WIRED described algorithm switch as “likely the biggest change of the past three years.”

• “And it’s reminder of the wonderfully magnanimous yet deeply selfish way that Google uses its market power to accelerate changes across the rest of the Internet,” it added.

• The change comes in the same week as a Google announcement it will launch its own US mobile wireless service, with considerable potential savings for customers using their devices at home and for international travel. Google argues its algorithm revolution is good for users. “We want to make sure they can find content that's not only relevant and timely, but also easy to read and interact with on smaller mobile screens,” Google said in a statement to WIRED.

• More than half of Internet searches worldwide are made on mobile phones, a trend driven by figures out of developing countries where smartphone penetration is higher than computers.

• In 2011, a change to Google’s search algorithm affected 10 per cent of English-language websites, while the 2012 change impacted some four percent, according to WIRED. But the recent change, the extent of whose impact cannot yet be fully measured, has also sent shockwaves among brand owners and marketers, for whom online visibility is hugely important.

• “Google has the power of life or death over some websites. A drop in Google ranking can mean a 60 to 80 percent loss in turn over,” e-marketing firm JVWEB’s president Jonathan Vidor said.

• Even if mobile phones bring in only a small proportion of revenues, “everyone is scared Google might do something drastic,” Vidor added.

• While it threatens to throw websites that have not been adapted to smartphone technology to the bottom of search rankings, the change introduced on Tuesday has yet to cause the major impact experts had predicted. “I observed absolutely no impact,” said Benoit Sillard, director of leading French publisher CCM Benchmark, 40 per cent of whose finance, women’s and news magazines online visits are via mobile.

• “It will take at least a week before we see an initial impact, as the algorithm is going through a learning phase,” said Paul Amsellem, who heads a marketing, technology and mobile phone advertising firm, the Mobile Network Group.

• Amsellem believes “Google has just lost its mobile search bet” by placing unrealistic — and ultimately unfulfilled — hopes in websites shifting over to mobile platforms en masse.

• Mobile phone applications pioneered by Apple are still coming out on top in the race for the Internet throne. Apple had placed its bets very early in the game on mobile phone downloads, Amsellem said, giving the technology icon the lead by taking control of applications, content and graphics, making users’ experience “the best it can be.”

:: Sports ::

Bangladesh downs Pakistan

• Shakib Al Hasan’s fine all-round showing powered Bangladesh to a seven-wicket victory over Pakistan, its first Twenty20 international win over Pakistan.

• Bangladesh lost three quick wickets but chased down a 142-run target with 22 balls to spare, fired by an unbeaten 105-run stand between Shakib (57) and Sabbir Rahman (51).

• Left-arm spinner Shakib was also miserly with the ball and gave away just 17 runs in his four overs as Pakistan posted 141for five after Shahid Afridi chose to bat. Debutant left-arm paceman Mustafizur Rahman, 19, was the pick of the Bangladesh bowlers, picking up 2-20 in his four overs.

India loses to Ukraine

• India went down to Ukraine 2.5-1.5in the fifth round of the world team chess championship at Tsaghkadzor, Armenia .

• With four rounds left, India is placed fifth, on five points.

• Ukraine and China are on top of the table, with eight points each.

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Sources: Various News Papers & PIB

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