Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 26 January 2016

:: NATIONAL ::

India and France concludes Rafale deal

• India and France on Monday signed 14 agreements, including an intergovernmental agreement for the purchase of Rafale fighter jets, nuclear reactors, French railway loco-motives and a major commitment to counter terror cooperation.

• However, while the much- speculated-about Rafale agreement was inked, the financial component of the deal is yet to be finalised.

• The two leaders came together for their official bilateral talks a day before participating in the Republic Day parade.

• This is the fifth time a French President is going to be our chief guest,” Mr. Modi said, explaining that as India’s first strategic partner, and one of the first civil nuclear partners.

• In a joint statement, the two sides said they would embark on new ways of cooperation on fighting terrorism, including intelligence-sharing and joint exercises along with the annual strategic dialogues and a joint working group on counter terrorism meetings.

• They called for “decisive action to be taken against Lashkar-e-Tayibba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, the Haqqani Network and other terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda.

• They urged Pakistan to bring to justice the perpetrators of the Pathankot and Gurdaspur attacks and the 2008 Mumbai at- tack, in which two French nationals were among those killed.

President looking for clarification before giving assent to president rule in Arunachal

• President Pranab Mukherjee seemed poised to take a call on the Centre’s recommendation to impose President’s rule in Arunachal Pradesh, after he sought clarifications from Home Minister Rajnath Singh.

• The Congress called the recommendation unconstitutional, with party vice-president Rahul Gandhi directly attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Lance Naik Goswami gets Ashok chakra posthumously

• Lance Naik Mohan Nath Goswami from the Army’s elite Para Special Forces has been awarded the Ashok Chakra, the country’s highest peacetime gallantry award, posthumously for his role in saving two colleagues during an encounter with militants in Kashmir last year.

• Another of his colleague, Subedar Mahendra Singh was awarded Kirti Chakra for his valiant actions in the same operation.

• These are among the 365 gallantry awards and other defence decorations approved by President Pranab Mukherjee on the eve of the 67th Republic Day Celebrations.

• These include four Kirti Chakras, 11 Shaurya Chakras, one Bar to Sena Medal, 48 Sena Medals, four Nao Sena Medals, two Vayu Sena Medals in addition to 298 Distinguished Service medals.

Rajnikanth, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar among others in Padma Vibhushan list (Register and Login to read Full News..)

Action against source of Terror funding and areas of Money laundering (Register and Login to read Full News..)

:: INTERNATIONAL ::

Sikh removed from trump rally

• A turbaned Sikh man was forced out of Donald Trump’s rally in the U.S. State of Iowa after he interrupted the Republican presidential front runner’s speech by displaying a banner that read ‘Stop Hate’.

• The man, wearing a bright red turban, started his peace- ful protest impromptu, when Mr. Trump was addressing an impressive campaign rally on Sunday with his signature anti-Muslim speech.

• The protest started when Mr. Trump was speaking about the twin-tower terrorist attack in New York.

U.S. Blizzard take 30 life's  (Register and Login to read Full News..)

:: India and world ::

France committed 2200 crores for global development of solar energy

• French President Francois Hollande committed €300 million over the next five years for the global development of solar energy and said the real challenge was to at- tract investments worth a trillion dollars to promote the renewable source.

• Through this solar alliance, the French President said, he would like to open a new chapter to help give countries with no resources other than the sun an opportunity to produce electricity for meeting the needs of most of their people.

• The International Solar Alliance, envisaged to bring together 122 countries that lie wholly or partly between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, is an ini- tiative announced by Mr. Mo- di at the COP 21 Summit in Pa- ris in November.

• The member countries are to be those that enjoy 300 or more days in a year of bright sunlight.

• The Alliance, Mr. Hollande said, would focus on three broad areas. “First, it is about pooling together the requests of countries with a huge potential in order to reduce their cost of capital. Second, it is about opening the markets in order to reduce the cost of in- vestment. Third, it is about transferring the necessary technology and know-how from developed to developing countries,”.

Three Agreements for expanding space partnership (Register and Login to read Full News..)

:: Business and Economy ::

French companies will active part in Make in India and Skill India projects

• French companies are likely to invest almost $10 billion in India in the next five years and a major portion of this will be in the industrial sector making France an important player in the Indian government’s Make in India initiative to boost the manufacturing sector.

• France was training the Indian workforce under the ‘Skill India’ programme and was contributing actively towards it.

• French companies account for more than 10 percent of solar capacity installed in India.

• There were over 400 French firms in India with a consolidated turnover of about $20 billion and France was the third largest foreign investor in India.

• French Development Agency (FDA) to earmark 60 per cent of to- tal financial outlay to India.

• FDA, which finances development-oriented projects, operates in 70 countries. FDA committed euro 8.1 billion in 2014 in places across the world for many such projects.

Government is looking at the report given by Parthasarathi shone on Tax reforms (Register and Login to read Full News..)

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Sources: Various News Papers & PIB

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