Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 23 March 2014

World Poetry Day

The head of Unesco (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) marked World Poetry Day by extolling the virtues of one of the highest forms of linguistic and cultural expression and calling for support to those who give it life.
Unesco proclaimed March 21 as World Poetry Day in 1999, with the aim of supporting linguistic diversity through poetic expression and offering endangered languages the opportunity to be heard.

Maldives President Abdulla Yameen’s party, with the help of its coalition partners, has attained majority in parliament in elections that was held recently.
Vote counting gave the opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), led by former president Mohammad Nasheed, who was controversially ousted from power in 2012, a slim lead initially but it was soon overtaken by Yameen’s Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM).
Of the 85 constituencies, 34 seats were won by PPM while its coalition partners Jumhoory Party (JP) bagged 15 seats and the Maldives Development Alliance (MDA) five seats. Nasheed’s MDP secured only 24 seats and lost its majority in parliament.

Recently, dozens of protesters went on a 2,400-km march to northern Myanmar, calling for the cancellation of a Chinese-backed hydroelectric dam project over environmental concerns.
The $3.6 billion dam along the Irrawaddy River, which was supposed to export 90 per cent of its power to China, was suspended in 2011.
Waving banners were called for permanent cancellation of the Myitsone dam, in a suburb of the main city of Yangon.
It is a disturbing fact that the vast majority of Burmese do not have access to electricity.

Chris Gayle is set to play his 100th Test at his home ground in Jamaica when New Zealand tours the Caribbean in June.
The WICB has announced a three-match Test series and two Twenty20 Internationals between the two teams.
West Indies will then host Bangladesh for two Tests, three ODIs and a one-off T20I.

French satellites had captured new images of debris in the southern Indian Ocean, adding further weight to recent leads suggesting that the missing Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 had crashed into waters around 2,500 km west of Australia.
The French images had captured a 22 metre-long and 13-metre wide floating object.
Chinese and Australian satellites picked up images of debris in the vicinity, with the region in question lying deep in the southern Indian Ocean, rarely traversed by ships.
Four days of searches by aircraft from Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. have, as yet, failed to locate the debris spotted in the images, with efforts hampered by adverse weather conditions.
Malaysian officials said two modern reconnaissance aircraft from India — a P8-I Poseidon and a C-130 Hercules — left Subang airport to join search operations, along with two P3 Orions from Japan.

Residents of Mumbai can now buy water from an ‘ATM’, that too at an affordable price of Rs 1 per litre.
In a first-of-its-kind for Mumbaikars, non-profit group Vandana Foundation had started ‘AQUATM’, a water vending machine. It can be operated through prepaid cards.
The ATM can vend up to 1,000 litres per day.
The vending machine has been set up at Mankhurd where there are water contamination problems.

A survey conducted by the Assam Forest Department in the Manas National Park (MNP) has detected an estimated 21 nests of the critically-endangered pygmy hog (Porcula salvania).
The nests of pygmy hog — the smallest and rarest wild pig — were found in three separate locations. The survey also found pellets of the Hispid hare (Caprolagus hispidus) in almost all of 17 camp site locations.
Manas is known to be the last remaining wild habitat of the pygmy hog in the world.
During the rapid survey, direct evidence was also obtained for other grassland species such as hog deer (Hyelaphus porcinus), swamp deer (Rucervus duvaucelii), and Bengal florican (Houbaropsis bengalensis).

The world now has a larger number of virtual currencies than a total 180 recognised currencies in different parts of the globe, notwithstanding issues like bankruptcies and growing regulatory unease about bitcoin and its other digital peers.
Within an ear shot of the 200-member mark, a total of 193 virtual currencies are currently being traded across the internet, although none of them carry an official stamp from the government or banking regulator from any of the countries.
While bitcoin and other such currencies began coming into existence about four years ago, a frenzied proliferation has more than doubled their count, shows an analysis of data available with various online marketplaces for such currencies.
Apart from bitcoins, ripple, litecoin, auroracoin, peercoin and dogcoin have seen steady pickup in volume as well market value. The latest additions include teacoin, aliencoin, magic internet money and heisenberg.
However, India’s laxmicoin is yet to start as its promoters are keen on understanding the Reserve Bank of India views on this venture. The RBI has issued a public advisory, warning that such currencies are risky and not part of the traditional banking system.