Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 21 June 2018

::NATIONAL::

Prime Minister NarendraModi today said that Yoga has become one of the most powerful ‘Unifying Forces’ in the world. He was addressing a huge gathering on the 4th International Yoga Day held at the Forest Research Institute campus in Dehradun, Uttarakhand. Prime Minister performed Yogasan, Pranayama and Dhyan with about 50,000 yoga enthusiasts and volunteers at the Forest Research Institute campus.
Giving a clear-cut message to the Yoga enthusiasts all over the world, Prime Minister said that the entire world has embraced Yoga and the glimpses of this can be seen in the way International Day of Yoga is celebrated every year.
He further added that Yoga Day has become one of the biggest mass movements in the quest for good health and well-being.

Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian said on Wednesday that he was resigning, as he wished to return to the U.S. for personal reasons.
Dr. Subramanian, who started his initial three-year term as CEA on October 16, 2014, had been asked to continue for another year, which would have taken his term to October 2018. Observing that the exact date on which he would demit office had not been decided yet, the CEA said he would likely remain at his position for “a month or two.”

Disagreements over water-sharing and difficulty in acquiring non-forest land impede the Rs. 18,000-crore Ken- Betwariver interlink project.
The project, which involves deforesting a portion of the Panna Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh, was accorded clearance by the National Wildlife Board on the condition that the land lost would be made good by acquiring contiguous, revenue land. This is to ensure that wildlife corridors in the region aren’t hit.
Another hurdle is a dispute over how Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh — the two beneficiaries — will share water in the Rabi season.
Conceived as a two-part project, this is India’s first river interlinking project. It is perceived as a model plan for similar interstate river transfer missions.
While there’s a 2005 agreement between Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh on how water would be shared, Madhya Pradesh said last year that these assumptions were no longer valid and the only way to meet increased water requirements would be to include certain local water management projects — the Kotha barrage, Lower Orr and Bina complex that were envisaged in the second phase of the project — in the first phase.

A special court here on Wednesday ordered the arrest of fugitive liquor baron Vijay Mallya for his alleged involvement in a case of money laundering and cheating a consortium of banks of over Rs. 6,000 crore.
The Enforcement agency has filed the charge sheet under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, naming Mr.Mallya, his firms KFA and UBHL besides others. The ED had last year filed its first charge sheet against Mr.Mallya, now in London, in the alleged Rs. 900-crore IDBI Bank-Kingfisher Airlines loan fraud case.

Renowned music composer A.R. Rahman has been appointed as the brand ambassador of the Sikkim government. Mr.Rahman will promote and project the State’s achievements nationally and globally, a notification issued by Chief Secretary A.K. Srivastava said.

India and South Korea will align their policies for the region during the visit of South Korean President Moon Jae-in to India next month.
When President Moon visits New Delhi and holds summit with Prime Minister NarendraModi, they will link their own initiatives, Modi’s Act East policy and Moon’s New Southern policy.
As part of the deepening defence engagement, last year the two countries signed agreements to build artillery guns for the Indian Army and an inter-governmental MoU for defence industry co-operation in shipbuilding.

The U.S. Senate has ignored the Donald Trump administration’s request for inclusion of waiver provisions inthe Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA).
The act requires the Congress to impose sanctions on countries that have “significant” defence relations with Russia.
India is currently caught in the crossfire of the bipartisan law against Russia, due to its defence relations with Kremlin.
People lobbying for changes in the law in order to ensure that India’s increasing defence purchases from America won’t be interrupted by sanctions said lawmakers would be more amenable to change after the November 2018 midterm elections.

Nepal’s Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli’s visit to China, which began on Tuesday, will focus on advancing cross-border connectivity, including through a railway corridor to Kathmandu, which could be extended to India in the future.
Mr.Oli pointed out that Nepal had recently proposed some infrastructure projects covering roads, railway, energy, transmission lines with China under the Beijing-led Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Nepal has been seeking improved connectivity with China via Tibet, after New Delhi was accused of blockading essential supplies across the India-Nepal border in 2015.

North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and Chinese President Xi Jinping came to an understanding on issues discussed at a summit of the two leaders, including denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.
Mr. Kim also promised during a meeting with Mr. Xi in Beijing to cooperate with Chinese officials to secure ”true peace” in the process of “opening a new future” on the Korean peninsula.
It was widely expected that Mr. Kim would visit Beijing to brief Mr. Xi on his summit with Mr. Trump, which included Pyongyang agreeing to hand over the remains of troops missing from the 1950-53 Korean War.

Bids have been received for the strategic stake sale in helicopter services provider Pawan Hans, Civil Aviation Secretary R.N. Choubey said on Wednesday.
A profit-making entity, Pawan Hans is a joint venture between the central government and ONGC.
Under the disinvestment proposal, the government offered to offload its entire 51% stake in the company.

New concept of a ‘Train Captain’ has been introduced by the railways who will be overall in charge of the train as decided by the Railway Board recently.
Railways has different people for different roles like the TTE for allotting berths and checking tickets, air-conditioning mechanic, linen in-charge attendant, sanitary staff, security and so on which led to no one being overall in charge of the train.
The ‘Captain’ will be sporting a badge and his name and mobile number will be made available for the passengers so that he can be directly contacted for any train related issue like a deficiency of service or any complaint during the course of the journey.
The captaincy is being handed over to the senior-most among the travelling ticket examiner (TTE) in the train from the starting point.
The next ‘captain’ in the zone to coordinate on board services will be on Telangana Express starting on Thursday morning from Hyderabad to New Delhi.