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Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 01 November 2014

National

Delhi Declaration pushes for better education

• Education Ministers and officials of eight South Asian countries have resolved to collaborate on increased use of information technology and improving the quality of education.
• At the second meeting of Education Ministers of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), representatives of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka issued a joint statement titled “The New Delhi Declaration on Education.” Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani chaired the meeting.
• The priority areas of action decided upon include enhancing the learning and development readiness of pre-school children, ensuring education for all, expanding skill development, facilitating mutual recognition of qualifications and mobility of students and teachers and expanding alternative ways of learning such as open and distance education.
• The Ministers discussed India’s use of information and communication technology in education, development and sharing of e-resources, connectivity, e-learning and Massive Open Online Courses.
• Agencies reported that Mukhtar Ahmed, Chairman of Pakistan’s Higher Education Commission, proposed a SAARC education and research network for sharing information.

NIA announces reward on Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen suspects

• The National Investigation Agency (NIA) announced rewards ranging from Rs.3 lakh to Rs.10 lakh on 12 suspected members of banned terror outfit Jamaat-ul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) in connection with the Bardhaman blast case.
• It has identified Sajid, a suspected Bangladeshi national, as the head of the Bardhaman module. The accused had been staying at Mukimnagar in Murshidabad. A bounty of Rs.10 lakh has been declared on him.
• The other suspects on whom the NIA has declared a reward of Rs.10 lakh each are Kausar, Nasirullah, Talha Sheikh and Maulana Yusuf Sheikh. The agency suspects that Kausar, also a Bangladeshi national, was actively involved in smuggling improvised explosive devices to his country. “Nasirullah and Talha are also suspected to be from Bangladesh,” said an official.
• Absconding suspect Abul Kalam, Burhan Sheikh, Rejaul Karim and Jahirul Shaikh carry a reward of Rs.3 lakh each, while a bounty of Rs.5 lakh each has been announced on Amjad Ali Sheikh, Sahanur Alom and Habibur Rahman Sheikh.
• Photographs of 10 of the suspects have also been released for their identification. According to the NIA, seven of the suspects are said to be from different parts of West Bengal and Assam.
• “All the 12 suspects have been declared proclaimed offenders by court in connection with the Bardhaman blast case or the conspiracy hatched by the JMB,” said the official.

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International

Heavy security as Israel reopens Jerusalem Holy site

• Israel reopened a contested Jerusalem holy site and deployed more than 1,000 security personnel following clashes the previous day between Palestinians and Israeli riot police that had ratcheted up already heightened tensions in the city.
• Small groups of Palestinian worshippers made their way through a series of Israeli checkpoints to the site known to Jews as the ‘Temple Mount’ and to Muslims as the ‘Noble Sanctuary’ under leaden gray skies and pouring rain.
• No clashes were reported after prayer services ended around mid-day, though Israeli security personnel fired several volleys of tear gas canisters at dozens of rock-throwing Palestinian youths gathered at the Qalandiya checkpoint near the West Bank city of Ramallah.
• The Jerusalem holy site has been a flashpoint between devotees of the two faiths for decades, underscoring the incendiary nature of the religious component in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
• A visit there by then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon in 2000 set off the last Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule. It remains a potent symbol for the two peoples’ competing territorial claims.
• Israeli authorities had said they were limiting access to the site to Muslim men over 50 in an attempt to dampen the prospects for violence triggered by Thursday’s killing of a Palestinian man suspected of attempting to assassinate a hard-line Jewish activist.

Drones seen over French nuclear power plants

• French authorities said that they had detected drones over two nuclear power plants, the latest in a baffling series of incidents across the country.
• A spokesman for security forces said: “Drone-type machines overflew two nuclear plants during the night. They were detected by police in charge of protecting the plants and staff.”
• “These machines were not neutralised because they did not represent a direct threat” to the nuclear facilities, the spokesman added.
• It is against French law to fly within a five km radius of a nuclear plant.

PM Sheikh Hasina urges India to flush out Bangladeshi militants

• Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has asked New Delhi to flush out Bangladeshi terrorists operating from India.
• Two people killed in a recent blast at Bardhaman in West Bengal were found to be Bangladeshis and members of the outlawed militant outfit Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).
• In an interview with Kolkata-based Bengali daily Anandabazar Patrika, Ms. Hazina said: “India needs to take action to destroy Bangladeshi militants operating from India much in the same way as Indian militants have been obliterated from Bangladesh’s soil.”
• She said it was painful to know that “Bangladesh’s terrorists are getting sanctuary in West Bengal and hatching a conspiracy against the government.”
• The Prime Minister, however, said the people of West Bengal, who had extended total support to the Bangladesh liberation war, “will not tolerate such a thing.”
• She told the interviewer: “We have destroyed the bases of the anti-Indian terrorists from our soil, we have kept our promises, and we have not spared anybody… now it is India’s turn.”

Trilateral Coast Guard exercise ‘Dosti-XII’ ends

• A four-day trilateral Coast Guard exercise ‘Dosti-XII’ among India, Maldives and Sri Lanka off the Maldives coast ended. Five ships and two aircraft participated in the event.
• “Two ships from Indian Coast Guard, Samar with Integral Helicopter, Rajdoot along with a Dornier aircraft, one ship from Sri Lankan Samudura and two ships from Maldives, Huravee and Shaheed Ali participated,” a Coast Guard release said.
• ‘Dosti’ was institutionalised in 1991 as bilateral exercise between the Indian Coast Guard and the Maldives National Security Service. Sri Lanka became part of the exercise in 2012.

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Business & economy

Core industries’ growth drops to 1.9 % in September

• Growth of the eight core industries dropped to 1.9 per cent in September from 9 per cent in the same month last year due to fall in output of crude oil, natural gas, refinery products and fertilizer. The growth stood at 5.8 per cent in August.
• Crude oil, natural gas, refinery products and fertilizer output registered a drop of 1.1 per cent, 6.2 per cent, 2.5 per cent and 11.6 per cent, respectively, in the month under review, according to the data released by the Commerce and Industry Ministry.
• Expansion in other four sectors — coal, cement, steel and electricity — stood at 7.2 per cent, 3.2 per cent, 4 per cent and 3.8 per cent, respectively, against a rise of 13.6 per cent, 12.1 per cent, 10.7 per cent and 12.9 per cent rise, respective, in September, 2013.
• During the April-September period, the eight sectors grew by 4 per cent against 5 per cent in the same period a year-ago.

World Bank will create 300 new posts in India

• The World Bank plans to slash 500 jobs in the next three years globally, even as it looks to create up to 300 new positions in India to meet business needs.
• The global lender’s decision to trim 500 jobs and cancel about 70 existing open vacancies comes after reviewing its ‘business strategies’ for months.

Fiscal deficit touches 83% of full-year target in first 6 months

• The fiscal deficit reached nearly 83 per cent of its full-year target in the first half of this fiscal, giving the government a tough job meeting its budget target even with help from a fall in global crude prices that will reduce the oil subsidy bill.
• A 25 per cent fall in oil prices since June has helped Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government contain oil and fertilizer subsidies, but revenue growth has been slow. In his maiden budget, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had targeted a reduction in the fiscal deficit to 4.1 per cent of the gross domestic product in the current fiscal year, down from 4.5 per cent in the previous year.
• Prime Minister Modi ordered bureaucrats to stop flying first-class, as part of austerity drive aimed at reducing discretionary spending by 10 per cent in the fiscal year to March, 2015.
• The fiscal deficit was Rs.4.39 lakh crore ($71.5 billion) during April-September, or 82.6 per cent of the full-year target, government data showed on Friday.
• The deficit was 76 per cent during the comparable period in the previous fiscal year. Net tax receipts totalled Rs.3.23 lakh crore ($52.60 billion) in six months of the fiscal year.
• Officials are worried that slow growth in tax collections could force the government to cut capital spending as it has done in the past two years, in order to maintain its credit ratings.
• The government aims to raise about $9.5 billion from the sale of shares in state-run companies and minority stakes in private companies this fiscal year, but it has still to start the process.

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Sports

Lawis Hamilton emerges the fastest

• Lewis Hamilton topped the charts ahead of Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg in opening free practice session for United States Grand Prix.
• The 29-year-old Briton clocked a best lap time of 1m 39.941s to finish two-tenths of a second clear of the German after the pair took its time to get into top form at the Circuit of the Americas.
• Hamilton leads Rosberg by 17 points with three races remaining, including the final Abu Dhabi Grand Prix where double points will be awarded.
• McLaren’s Jenson Button, the 2009 champion, was third fastest ahead of Russian Daniil Kvyat of Toro Rosso, Dane Kevin Magnussen in the second McLaren and two-time champion Fernando Alonso of Ferrari.
• Last year’s winner and four-time champion Sebastian Vettel was seventh ahead of Felipe Nasr, making an impression as the Williams test driver, Nico Hulkenberg of Force India and Dutch teenager Max Verstappen, back in action for Toro Rosso, after his first outing in Japan.
• Vettel’s Red Bull teammate Daniel Ricciardo suffered an engine failure and wound up 17th out of 18 cars on the smallest F1 grid for a decade since the Monaco Grand Prix.

Science & technology

Virgin Galactic spaceship test flight ends in fatal crash

• A suborbital passenger spaceship being developed by Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic company crashed during a test flight near the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, killing one pilot and seriously injuring the other, officials said.
• The crash of the vehicle, undergoing its first powered test flight since January over the Mojave Desert, 95 miles (150km) north of Los Angeles, came days after another private space company, Orbital Sciences Corp, lost a rocket in an explosion moments after liftoff in Virginia.
• The back-to-back accidents dealt a considerable blow to the fledgling commercial space launch industry, which has been taking on more work traditionally done by the US government while expanding for-profit space markets, including tourism.
• Television footage of the Virgin Galactic crash site showed wreckage of the spacecraft lying in two large pieces on the ground, and the company said the spacecraft was destroyed. Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood said a debris field was spread over more than a mile.
• One spaceship pilot was killed in the crash and his body was found in the wreckage, while the second pilot, who ejected and parachuted to the ground, survived with serious injuries, Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood said. The survivor was found more than a mile from the main wreckage site, he said.