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Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 08 April 2014

Mamata Banerjee’s face-off with EC

Recently ,West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee threatened to defy an Election Commission of India (EC) order of transferring eight officials and dared the poll watchdog to take action against her for not complying, her administration had to eat humble pie as EC held its ground and asked her government to implement it’s order.
But Banerjee accused deputy election commissioner Vinod Zutshi of playing into the hands of Congress and BJP and sought his removal from the poll panel.
She accused him of being a tainted official with criminal cases pending against him. She also alleged that Zutshi was misleading the EC.
Of the eight officials that EC wanted transferred, it said seven were found to have favoured the ruling Trinamool Congress party in the run-up to the general election. EC barred these officials from taking any poll-related responsibility.

'Know your candidates' tool

Google recently announced the launch of a new tool as part of its elections portal offering 'google.co.in/elections', called 'Know Your Candidates'.
The new tool will allow citizens to get easy access to relevant information about political candidates contesting from their constituency and their incumbent Member of Parliament. This tool integrates publicly available information sourced from Indian organizations such as the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), PRS Legislative Research and Liberty Institute India.
The tool will provide information for each sitting Lok Sabha MP and contesting candidates such as their disclosed educational background, financial details and social media presence (wherever available) including video bios of the candidates provided by Ping networks. Mapped onto Google Maps interface, citizens will be able to find the information by using pin codes of their area or by zooming on their locality on the map. The tool will be updated regularly to provide information about all candidates as they get finalised and will be made available at least a week before the voting day in each constituency.
Google created its first elections tools seven years ago when our engineers noticed a huge increase in search traffic around the election period in the United States.
Today over 20 countries including Malaysia, Thailand, and now, India have elections pages that aid voters during election periods. Google aims to encourage people to be more participative and engage with candidates. It also allows voters to have a deeper understanding of politics and governance through engagement with the candidates.

Pakistan Protection bill

The Nawaz Sharif Government managed to get the Protection of Pakistan (Amendment) Bill passed in the National Assembly,but the Opposition parties, which tore up the bill in the House are determined to take the fight to the Supreme Court.
The controversial law which started off as an ordinance, was referred to the Standing Committee on Interior and Narcotics which debated the bill and approved it while proposing some amendments.
The bill, which is expected to give more powers to the security forces to tackle terrorism and powers to search and arrest apart from preventive detention of up to 90 days and excluding the public from proceedings of the special court.
The ordinance, which was notified in January, was not approved by the Senate and the bill too is going to run into difficulties in the Upper House.
The ordinance is not very different from the bill, and members of the Opposition feared that Pakistan could be turned into a police state using this law and its stringent provisions would be misused. While there are no two opinions about the need to tackle terrorism, there are provisions in the existing law which could be efficiently implemented, some felt.

NATO and the Ukrainian Crisis

Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula has placed the spotlight on NATO. Russia’s military incursion into Ukraine was a wake-up call for the 28-member western alliance.
Since the end of the Cold War, the western alliance has been trying to redefine its mission.
Poland and Romania are NATO members that border Ukraine on the west. Russia has amassed thousands of troops on its border on the other side of Ukraine, prompting some western experts to say an incursion into Eastern Ukraine is likely.
As a result of Russia’s military intervention in Crimea, NATO has suspended all civilian and military cooperation with Moscow. NATO officials say they will review their relationship with Moscow in view of Russia’s actions.

Electronic Travel Authorisation

The move to grant in principle approval for Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) to travellers from 180 countries to India will boost tourism in the country,according to the tourism Secretary Parvez Dewan.
Travelling to India will be made easy once the ETA to visit the country becomes operational.
ETA will allow foreign travellers to apply for a visa from home and receive an online confirmation in five working days, is expected to become operational by October. Barring eight prior reference countries, which include Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Nigeria and Sri Lanka, government has decided to give e-visa to all the 180 countries.
India had considerably relaxed its visa regime and expanded the Visa-on-Arrival (VoA) scheme.
India launched the VoA scheme in January 2010 for citizens of five countries – Finland, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand and Singapore — visiting India for tourism purposes. The scheme was later extended to six more countries in January 2011.

Tectonic plates of Earth

The tectonic plates of earth took around one billion years to form.The outermost layer of earth, or lithosphere, was weakened by movement in viscous layers below it. Around four billion years ago, cooler parts of crust of earth were pulled downwards into the warmer upper mantle and it damaged the surrounding crust. It continued until the weak areas formed plate boundaries.
To investigate how the plates formed, Bercovici and Yanick Ricard of University of Lyon in France developed a computer model of earth's crust as it may have existed billions of years ago.
The model included a low-pressure zone at the base of the crust which caused a piece of the crust to sink into the upper mantle - mimicking conditions thought to have occurred early in the earth's history.
As the process repeated over time, it created a large tectonic plate with an active subduction zone.
Prior studies suggested the age of the plates based on evidence of subduction gathered from minerals preserved in ancient rocks.
In geology, subduction is the process that takes place at convergent boundaries by which one tectonic plate moves under another tectonic plate and sinks into the mantle as the plates converge.
The oldest such specimens are four-billion-year-old zircons found in the Jack Hills of Australia that appear to have formed at temperatures and pressures that are indicative of subduction.

The newest Laureus Ambassador

Spain’s young MotoGP world champion Marc Marquez has been appointed the newest Laureus Ambassador.
Marquez, the youngest ever MotoGP world champion, at 20 years 266 days, a feat for which he received the Laureus World Breakthrough of the Year Award last month, was welcomed into the Laureus Family by motor cycle legend and Laureus World Sports Academy member Mick Doohan.