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Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 02 May 2014

Pressure on Switzerland to disclose bank info

India has strongly objected to Switzerland’s denial of information about account details of certain Indians at HSBC’s Swiss bank branches, in whose cases “incriminating evidence of tax evasion” have been found .
In a strongly-worded letter to his Swiss counterpart, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram has also warned that an effective exchange of tax-related information was “extremely important” for economic co-operation between the two countries and Switzerland must honour its “rights and duties” agreed to in their bilateral Direct Tax Avoidance Convention (DTAC).
Mr. Chidambaram also said that the interpretation made by Switzerland that it can not share information as per India’s request was not in accordance with international standards.
Under global pressure, Switzerland has agreed to ease its banking secrecy laws in recent years and it also signed a revised tax treaty with India in 2011 to facilitate greater flow of information about alleged black money.
However, it has refused to share information with India about the accounts mentioned in the so-called ‘HSBC list’ which India had received from France through a bilateral treaty.

Senate Republicans deployed a filibuster to block a White House proposal to increase the U.S. minimum wage by $2.85 to $10.10 per hour, thereby denying President Barack Obama an important election-year policy achievement.
With mid-term elections scheduled for November 2014, the defeat of the Bill on the floor of the Senate, by a vote of 54 ‘ayes’ and 42 ‘nays’ – short of the 60 votes required for passage – could spell trouble for Democrats.
Although polls have shown that more than 60 per cent of Americans support raising the minimum wage, a measure that Mr. Obama promised in his state-of-the-union address in January, all Senate Republicans but one, Robert Corker of Tennessee, voted against holding a debate on the Bill and getting it passed.
While he appeared frustrated with the proceedings on Capitol Hill and slammed Republicans for preventing “a raise for 28 million hard-working Americans,” he emphasised that several U.S. States had taken the matter into their hands and raised the minimum wage through State Legislatures.
For the Democrats the Bill represented a key component of its broader ‘Fair Shot for All’ midterm campaign, a platform that aimed to project the party as a supporter of the common man, in opposition to Republican pandering to special interests.

Stressing that its IPR regime complies with international laws, India bluntly said it will not take part in any unilateral investigation by the US on its intellectual property rights.
A day after the US Trade Representative (USTR) released its Special 301 report, which kept India out of the Priority Foreign Country list, Commerce Secretary Rajeev Kher said all issues between the two countries, including those related to IPR, should be discussed at the Trade Policy Forum. The US-India Trade Policy Forum is the principal platform for dialogue between the countries, with focus groups on agriculture, investment, IPR, services and tariff and non-tariff barriers.
India has clearly conveyed to the US that the government of India will not subject itself to the investigations. The secretary said India has addressed all concerns of US pharma companies with regard to compulsory licenses (CL), ever-greening of patents, data exclusivity and patent linkage.
The US industry had raised the matter of India’s rejection of patents for Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Sprycel and Novartis AG’s Glivec.

Tunisian lawmakers have adopted a sweeping new electoral law that paves the way for general elections later this year and is a milestone in this country’s new democracy.
The law requires party lists for legislative elections to be half women and half men. It also allows members of the authoritarian regime ousted in 2011 to run for office.
The members of the National Constituent Assembly approved the law after weeks of heated debate over its 270 articles. The overall law was approved 132-11 with nine abstentions.
Tunisia’s path to democracy has been rocky but is seen as a model for other countries, after street protests overthrew a dictator and unleashed uprisings across the region known as the Arab Spring.

Japan’s unemployment rate was flat at 3.6 per cent in March.
The number of jobless declined in March for the 46th consecutive month, falling by 340,000 from a year earlier to 2.46 million people,according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications .
Manufacturers added 190,000 jobs to reach 10.61 million on payrolls, and medical and welfare services saw an increase of 210,000 employees to 7.48 million, while transport and mailing industries eliminated 110,000 positions to 3.32 million.

India has become the number-one ranked Twenty20 International (T20I) side after the annual update of the Reliance ICC T20I Team Rankings, which was recently announced .
India has swapped places with ICC World Twenty20 Bangladesh 2014 champion Sri Lanka.
In the past 12 months, India has lost just one T20I (against Sri Lanka in the recent ICC WT20 Final in Bangladesh), while Sri Lanka has lost four matches. The 2013-2014 results are weighted at 100 per cent whereas, the results in 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 are now weighted at 50 per cent. Therefore, Sri Lanka’s strong performances in those two earlier years now count for less.
In the other major change, the West Indies has slipped two places. This drop has moved Australia and New Zealand up by one place each.