Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 10 February 2020

::NATIONAL::

Chief justice of India S ABobde has stressed on the need to have a comprehensive law on making pre-litigation mediation mandatory. He said it would ensure efficiency and reduce the time of pendency for parties as well as courts.
Speaking at the third International Conference organised by the Indian Council of Arbitration (ICA ) and Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) yesterday, Justice Bobde said the time is ripe to devise such a law.
The Chief Justice of India said, though arbitration is the most preferred mode of privately resolving a big range of disputes today, it is done at the cost of mediation and conciliation which is faster and less expensive.
He said, arbitration and mediation are deeply embedded in dispute resolution mechanisms in India's commercial practices and social life.

After the security forces made their presence felt in SwabhimanAnchal, a stronghold of the CPI (Maoist), in Odisha’sMalkangiri district, the State government has lined up development projects, including livelihood programmes and irrigation facilities, besides critical road networks for the region.
SwabhimanAnchal remained outside the ambit of ......................................

With several businesses said to be affected in China due to the coronavirus, the Indian textile and clothing sector should seize the opportunity in global trade, T. Rajkumar, chairman of the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry, said.
“We expect China will take 3-4 more months to return to normalcy [following the outbreak of the coronavirus]. Indian textile and clothing exporters should be aggressive and tap overseas orders that will shift from China,” he told mediapersons here.
On the announcements in the Union Budget, Mr.Rajkumar said that abolition of anti-dumping duty on PTA would lead to 20-25% of textile mills switching over to synthetic yarn production from cotton. The anti-dumping duty on PTA was $26 to $160 a tonne depending on the country from where it was imported.
With removal of the anti-dumping duty, the raw material for production of MMF (man-made fibre) will be available at international price. At present, cotton yarn production in India is higher than synthetic yarn. Several mills will move to MMF now, he said.
Textile Secretary Ravi Capoor will visit Coimbatore on February 12-13 and hold meetings with representatives of textile associations from the southern State, Mr.Rajkumar said.

Congestion at India’s top four airports Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad will continue in the medium term as the number of air passengers has seen a rise despite the slowdown in the economy and closure of Jet .........................................

In Sri Lanka, few northern political parties have come together to form a new political alliance called the Tamil People’s National Alliance, in a bid to challenge Tamil National Alliance (TNA), the main political grouping of ethnic Tamil minorities.
The alliance under the symbol Thai Pongalpot, will be led by former Chief Minister of the Northern Province, C.V. Wigneswaran to contest the coming general election. Addressing the media after signing of MoU yesterday, Mr Wigneswaran said that they would challenge the TNA’s dominance in the north and the east.
He said, the TNA had done nothing to address the concerns of the Tamil people and the people in the North and East are tired of it. The former Chief Minister said, the alliance will fight to ensure that justice is done about the war crimes, secure the release of civilian land from Army’s control and resolve the issues faced by the displaced.
The alliance comprises Wigneswaran’s Tamil People’s Council,Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) led by Suresh Premachandran, Eelam Tamil Autonomy League of former Northern Provincial CouncilorAnanthySasitharan and Tamil Peoples’ Party of S. Sri Kantha. General elections are expected to be held in the coming April in the country.

A man who had travelled to Wuhan -- the central city at the heart of China's coronavirus crisis -- was surprised when police showed up at his door after he returned home, asking to check his temperature. The man, who had quarantined himself at home in Nanjing, eastern Jiangsu province, said he had not told anyone about his recent trip to the city.
But by trawling through travel data from .................................................

Scientists have mapped the complete genome of two basmati rice varieties, including one that is drought-tolerant and resistant to bacterial disease. The findings, published in the journal Genome Biology, also show ...............................................

India’s chief National badminton coach P. Gopi Chand was on Saturday named among the recipients of the International Olympic Committee’s 2019 Coaches Lifetime Achievement Award.
“This award, coming across Winter and Summer Olympics, and the fact that there were so many illustrious coaches in so many disciplines across the globe is something which means a huge, huge recognition for me,” Gopi Chand told The Hindu on receipt of the news.
“Frankly, I think this is not just a recognition for me but for all coaches in India. And, coming in the Olympic year, it is a huge morale-booster to badminton,” said Gopi Chand, who has won most of the prestigious awards instituted by the Government of India.
“I must thank the Government of India, Sports Authority of India and Badminton Association of India which have been very supportive in me discharging my duties as the chief National coach. But for them it would not have been possible,” he said.