Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 01 July 2014

Chief Justice of India R.M. Lodha made a frontal attack on the Centre

Chief Justice of India R.M. Lodha made a frontal attack on the Centre for unilaterally segregating senior advocate Gopal Subramanium’s name for elevation as a Supreme Court judge without his knowledge and concurrence.
Speaking at a farewell function for Justice B.S. Chauhan on his superannuation, the CJI said “the segregation of Mr. Gopal Subramanium’s name was done unilaterally by the Executive without my knowledge and concurrence which was not proper.”
Referring to the appointment controversy, the CJI said: “This is one subject which is non-negotiable. At no cost the independence of the judiciary will be allowed to be compromised. I will not hold my office if I feel that the independence of the institution of the judiciary has been compromised. I failed to understand that the appointment to a high constitutional position has been dealt with in a casual manner.

Ibrahim Awwad al-Badri, commander of the insurgent group Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams (ISIS), has vowed war against several countries, including India, in a Ramzan speech released online.
The reference to India, the first in an ISIS manifesto, raises new concerns for the safety of the almost hundred of its nations trapped in Iraqi cities controlled by the Islamist group, which is battling the governments of Iraq and Syria.
The Ramzan speech by Mr al-Badri — also known by the pseudonym Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi — calls on believers to take up arms during the month of penitence, and “terrify the enemies of Allah and seek death in the places where you expect to find it, for the dunya (worldly life) will come to an end”.
“Muslims’ rights”, Mr. al-Badri states in his speech, are forcibly seized in China, India, Palestine, Somalia, the Arabian Peninsula, the Caucasus, Sham (the Levant), Egypt, Iraq, Indonesia, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Ahvaz, Iran (by the rafidah (shia)), Pakistan, Tunisia, Libya, Algeria and Morocco, in the East and in the West.

Iraq’s new Parliament broke up in chaos, with lawmakers threatening each other or walking out despite global calls for fractious politicians to form a government needed to face a Sunni militant onslaught.
After a break called to calm soaring tempers, so many Sunni and Kurdish deputies stayed away that the quorum was lost, so a Speaker could not be elected as was constitutionally required, and the session ended in disarray.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s bid for a third term has been battered by the jihadist-led offensive that has seized large chunks of five provinces, adding fuel to dissatisfaction over persistent allegations of sectarianism and monopolising power.
The latest crisis has alarmed world leaders, displaced hundreds of thousands of people and polarised Iraq’s Shia, Sunni and Kurdish populations.
The disunity quickly manifested itself in what was the opening session of a parliament elected in April, which included walkouts, threats and confusion over the constitution.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) upheld France’s controversial burqaban, rejecting arguments that outlawing full-face veils breaches religious freedom.
In a case brought by a 24-year-old French woman with the support of a British legal team, the court ruled that France was justified in introducing the ban in the interests of social cohesion.
The court emphasised that states should be allowed a degree of discretion — “a wide margin of appreciation” — on a policy issue which is subject to significant differences of opinion. Two of the 17 judges who spent several months deliberating on the case dissented from the majority view that the ban did not breach the European Convention on Human Rights’ provisions protecting the freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

Seeking to address data gap problems, a Reserve Bank of India panel, made a case for compilation of separate indices on producer price, labour force, urban wages and household indebtedness with a view to improving monetary policy formulation.
To address major data gaps in monetary policy-making, the committee recommends the compilation of various indicators, such as producer price index, services sector output and price index, labour force survey, urban wages, retail sales, construction activity survey, and surveys of household indebtedness through co-ordination with the relevant government agencies.
The panel, headed by RBI Executive Director Deepak Mohanty, said: “with increasing integration with the global economy and the growing complexity of the economic structure, information needs have increased considerably and data gaps are being experienced in various domains of central banking.