Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 05 January 2016

:: NATIONAL ::

Pathankot operation still continue after three days

Counter-terror operations at the Pathankot air- base stretched into the third evening, the government was weighing its options on whether to go ahead with the Foreign Secretary level talks scheduled for next week.
By dusk on Monday, senior military officials in Pathankot announced that they had killed a total of five terrorists, while sources in Delhi said the sixth one may have been blown to pieces in a controlled explosion carried out by the security forces around noon in the airbase.
By then, it had been more than 60 hours since the terrorists and security forces be- gan exchanging fire.
The long-drawn-out terrorist attack revived memories of the Mumbai attacks of 2008, when 10 terrorists held the city to ransom for three days.
However, given the fact that there was specific intelligence and the attack was in a very limited area, questions continued to linger over the way the entire Pathankot operation was coordinated and conducted.

North east jolted by earthquake in Manipur

Nine persons were killed and over 120 seriously injured as an earthquake measuring 6.7 on the Richter scale hit Manipur early on Monday, damaging several buildings, including government offices, schools and hospitals.
The epicentre of the quake which struck at 4.30 a.m., was at KabuiKjulen, 10 km from Noney sub-division of Manipur’s Tamenglong district.
People were jolted by the quake across the northeastern and eastern States including Assam, Tripura, West Bengal, Odisha and Jharkhand.
While seven persons, including a teenaged girl, were killed in Manipur, one person each died in Bihar and West Bengal.
Two teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) were deployed in Manipur and rapid action squads of the State Health Department were despatched to the affected areas. Another NDRF team was sent to Assam.

Terrorists in Pathankot attack received training in Pakistan (Register and Login to read Full News..)

India will come up with its own model for global warming (Register and Login to read Full News..)

:: INTERNATIONAL ::

Crisis between Shia and Sunni deepened in west Asia

Iran’s Foreign Ministry accused Saudi Arabia of stoking regional tension after the kingdom broke of diplomatic relations and said Iranian embassy staff must leave.
By severing diplomatic relations, Saudi Arabia is “continuing the policy of increasing tension and clashes in the region.
Saudi Arabia announced its measures after its embassy in Tehran was firebombed and its interior destroyed by a mob who attacked the building in protest at the kingdom’s execution of a Shia cleric.

Difference between Shia and Sunni (Register and Login to read Full News..)

:: SCIENCE and TECHNOLOGY ::

Snowflake corals posing threat to marine ecology near Kanyakumari

Coloniesof snowflake coral (Carijoariisei), an invasive species recently documented of the coast of Thiruvananthapuram and Kanyakumari, could pose a serious threat to the marine ecology of the region, according to scientists.
Scuba divers working for Friends of Marine Life (FML), a local NGO, have recorded the presence of several colonies of the fast-growing alien species amid barnacle clusters on the rocky reef of the coast of Kovalam in Thiruvananthapuram and Enayam, Kanyakumari.
The documentation was done as part of a research project harnessing the traditional knowledge of the fishermen community to assess the marine biodiversity of the region.
The snowflake coral is known to inhabit reefs and underwater structures such as shipwrecks and piers, attaching itself to metal, concrete and even plastic.
It is considered an invasive species because of its capacity todominate space and crowd out other marine organisms.

:: INDIA and WORLD ::

Bus service between India and Nepal

A friendship bus service between India and Nepal via Champawat in Uttarakhand resumed after a gap of 27 years, much to the delight of people on either side of the border who have family and trade ties with each other.
These air-conditioned buses with free Wi-Fi facility, painted with Indian and Nepalese flags, will enter the Nepalese district of Kanchanpur at 6 a.m. everyday and start for Delhi, and return from there at 6 p.m.
No special documents are required to travel in these buses.
The service was suspended 27 years ago in the wake of the Indo-Nepal Trade and Transit Treaty.

:: BUSINESS and ECONOMY ::

Union government will set up rail regulator

The Union government has come out with a concept paper proposing to set up a rail regulator for fixing fares and ensuring level- playing field for private in- vestments in railway infrastructure.
To ensure that the pro- posed regulator, Rail Development Authority of India, doesn’t meet Parliamentary hurdles, the Railways Ministry initially plans to set it up through an executive order and later on widen its powers.
The proposal to set up a rail authority was announced by Rail Minister Suresh Prabhu while tabling the Rail Budget for 2015-16 last year.
The proposed rail authority will be mandated to set passenger and freight tariff, en- sure fair play and level-playing field for private investments in Railways, maintain efficiency and performance standards, disseminate information such as statistics and forecasts related to the sector.
The Rail Development Authority would be an independent body, housed outside the Ministry of Railways but funded through the annual railway budget sanctioned by the Parliament.
The approved Budget would be placed at the disposal of the regulatory authority. It would also be permitted to arrange funds through adjudication fees, penalties levied and any other source as specified in the proposed Act.
The proposal for setting up a regulator comes at a time when the estimated losses in passenger segment has ballooned from Rs 6159 crore in 2004-05 to provisional estimate of over Rs 30,000 crore in 2015-16, primarily due to sharp increases in input costs and no proportionate in- crease in fares over the same period.
Recently, the government had increased tatkal booking charges by up to 33 per cent for travel in sleeper class, AC- III tier, AC-II tier and executive class through an executive order.
Keeping fares within affordable limits has led to cross- subsidisation of passenger services leading to erosion ofrailway’s market share in freight.
The total share of rail- ways in the total transportation of freight traffic has declined from 89 per cent in 1950-51 to 36 per cent in 2007-08.

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:: SPORTS ::

Lodha panel submits its report on cricket reform

Living up to its promise of regaining the “purity of the game” and restoring the dignity of the players, the Lodha Committee has suggested sweeping reforms in the structuring and governance of cricket in the country.
One of the most significant suggestions the panel makes is the formation of separate governing bodies for the Indian Premier League and the Board of Control for Cricket in India.
Also recommended is the setting up of a Players’ Association to safeguard the interests of the cricketers.
Suggesting a uniform constitution for the Board and its affiliates, the panel aims to reduce the number of members in the all-powerful Working Commit- tee to nine from 14, with the president, vice-president, secretary, treasurer and joint-secretary. As a result, there will only be one vice-president instead of five.
The strength of the IPL Governing Council, it is recommended, should be reduced to nine and include two representatives from the franchisees, nominees of the Players’ Association and the Comptroller & Auditor General’s office.
The Players’ Association, to be constituted by the Board, should include former Union Home Secretary G.K. Pillai as the chairman, former India players Mohinder Amarnath, Anil Kumble and Diana Edulji as members of the Steering Committee.
The PA would not act like a union, and all the costs of running the association would be met by the BCCI,” Justice Lodha announced at a press conference after releasing the report.
Former first-class players, five years after retirement, would become part of the association.
In 2005-06, Kumble was the principal negotiator for the players in a fight for an enhanced share in the profitsearned by the Board.
He had then drafted the terms for player contracts, and was instrumental in securing the players a share of the profits in the International Cricket Council conducted events.
During his term as president of the Karnataka State Cricket Association, he took steps to make every decision transparent. These initiatives did not escape the notice of the Lodha Committee.
The panel, in a significant departure from the past, suggests that one individual hold only one post in cricket administration. The office-bearers would have to choose between positions in respective state associations and the parent body.
In a move that was evidently pushed by the players, the senior selection committee, the report recommends, should comprise only three members, instead of five at present.
The Lodha Committee also calls for dividing the governance into two parts: cricketing and non-cricketing.
The non-cricketing management will be handled by six professional managers headed by a CEO, and the cricket matters — like selection, coaching and performance evaluation — should be left to the players.
Another key recommendation tackled the fact that three units from one state now enjoy the power to vote. For example, Maharashtra and Gujarat have three full members each. But Bihar has no representation at all in the Board.
The Committee recommended that one association should represent an entire state.
The Lodha Committee comprising retired judges, Justice R.M. Lodha, Justice Ashok Bhan and Justice R.V. Raveendran — was formed by the Supreme Court in January last year.