Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 08 March 2014

International Women's Day

Google is celebrating International Women's Day with a homepage doodle featuring footage of women from around the world including the education rights campaigner Malala Yousafzai and the British businesswoman and charity worker, Camila Batmanghelidjh.
The search engine's creative team put together the doodle, which features 27 female chromosomes and a video package with the faces of more than 100 women as well as a musical soundtrack from the Belgian-Congolese vocal group Zap Mama. Others who make an appearance include the President of Lithuania, Dalia Grybauskaitė.
The doodle was designed by Google with the intention of providing "a glimpse" of what some women across the world are doing and to focus in a positive way on their lives.
International Women's Day has been observed since in the early 1900s, a time of turbulence in the industrialized world that saw booming population growth and the rise of radical ideologies. The first National Woman's Day (NWD) in the US was observed across the United States on 28 February, 1909.

External Affairs Ministry said that India was yet to take a final call on the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution on Sri Lanka.
There was an Indian initiative to try and build on the existing confidence-building measures between itself and Sri Lanka.
Currently, they have a form which is a single-entry thing. Because there is now trade going on, they require more than one entry.
Referring to the stalling of trade because of the arrest of a Pakistani truck driver for narcotic smuggling, India informed Pakistan that there was no provision in the standard operating procedures for intra-Kashmir trade that entailed the release of a driver or anyone else who came across the LoC if he was involved in criminal activities.

A Beijing-bound Malaysian Airlines plane that went missing with 239 people on board, including five Indians, crashed into the sea off Vietnam’s southern Phu Quoc Island.
The plane disappeared in the night somewhere over South China Sea while enroute to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur.
Those on board include 152 Chinese, 38 Malaysians, 5 Indians, 7 Indonesians, 6 Australians, 3 French, 4 including an infant from the US, 2 New Zealanders, 2 Ukrainians, 2 Canadians, 1 each from Russia, Italy, Taiwan, Netherlands and Austria.
Malaysia Airlines is currently working with the authorities who have activated their Search and Rescue team to locate the aircraft.

No decision on relaxing import curbs have been taken till now. It will be taken only after the final current account deficit (CAD) number is firmed up.
Any decision on relaxing import curbs, such as lowering import duty or removing the ‘80:20 scheme’ may have to wait.
Chidambaram said that any relaxation in the restrictions“can be revisited only after final CAD numbers are out. Had CAD not been contained and fiscal deficit not brought down sharply, the consequences would have been enormous.”
Bullion traders say the curbs have jeopardised the demand and supply chain.

Petronas' plan to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal on Canada's Pacific coast edged closer to reality, as the Malaysian energy giant secured a third equity and offtake partner for the massive gas export project.
India's largest oil refiner also agreed to an offtake deal for 1.2 million tonnes of LNG each year, or about 10 per cent of the project's annual exports.
Petronas' Pacific NorthWest project is just one of about a dozen LNG terminals proposed for British Columbia's rugged Pacific coast, as top global energy firms scramble to build the facilities to export cheap Canadian gas to hungry Asian markets.
Indian companies, like their Asian peers, have been scouting for oil and gas assets abroad to meet rising domestic demand.

India's campaign came to a premature halt in the All-England Badminton Championship with country's ace shuttler Saina Nehwal bowing out in the quarterfinals of the women's singles event.
Seventh seeded Saina lost in straight games 17-21 10-21 against Chinese fourth seed Shixian Wang in l quarterfinal duel which lasted for 43 minutes.
In the semi-finals, Wang will take on compatriot and second seed Yihan Wang, who beat Korea's Yeon Ju Bae 21-8 21-13 in another quarterfinal contest.
Saina was the only Indian left in the championships as World No. 10 P V Sindhu found the going tough on her debut and lost to Sun Yu of China in the first round.