Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 09 September 2014

MoU to develop Waqf properties

The National Waqf Development Corporation (NAWADCO) and the National Building Construction Corporation signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to develop Waqf properties in Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka.
Union Minority Affairs Minister Najma Heptullah said NAWADCO had identified two properties in Rajasthan, six in Madhya Pradesh and seven in Karnataka and one piece of land in Delhi for development as institutional and commercial projects.
The public-sector NAWADCO was established last December with an authorised share capital of Rs. 500 crore to mobilise resources for developing Waqf properties in a Shariah-compliant way.
The resources generated by such development of Waqf properties will be used for the welfare of Muslims.
NAWADCO was set up on the recommendations of the Sachar committee report, which estimated that Waqf properties, if properly developed, could fetch an annual income of Rs. 1.2 lakh crore.

India has formally signed a free trade agreement for services and investments with ASEAN. Philippines, now the only ASEAN country yet to sign the pact, is also expected to do so soon.
All ASEAN members — Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam — are expected to get the agreement ratified by their Parliaments after which it will be formally adopted during the next India–ASEAN summit later this year.
The services agreement will open up opportunities of movement of both manpower and investments.
The pact will allow India to leverage its competitive edge in the areas of finance, education, health, IT, telecommunications and transport.
This will be especially helpful for balancing India’s deficit with ASEAN countries in trade of goods.
The India–ASEAN Agreement on trade in goods was operationalised in 2010.
Key to India’s interests is a brief annex in the agreement on the movement of natural persons that defines business visitors, intra corporate transferees (managers, executives and specialists) and contractual service suppliers.

The Supreme Court stayed the execution of the death sentence of Surinder Koli for killing children at his employer’s house in Nithari village in Noida in 2006.
The reprieve for Koli was packed with drama as the stay order came in the early hours of Monday.
Lawyer Indira Jaising and her team of lawyers knocked on the doors of Chief Justice of India-designate H.L. Dattu’s official residence in Lutyen's Delhi at 1.30 a.m. even as the city slept. They sought a fresh review into the death sentence.
Koli was due to be hanged at the Chaudhary Charan Singh district jail in Meerut in a few hours. Jail officials said Koli was spending his last hours reading the Bhagvad Gita and answered questions with a blank expression. But the hanging was not carried out; Ms. Jaising and her lawyer team prevailed.

The Supreme Court described as “serious” the allegation against Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Director Ranjit Sinha that he frequently met accused persons in the 2G scam at his residence.
“The averments made against you are serious,” a Bench of Justices H.L. Dattu and S.A. Bobde told senior lawyer Vikas Singh, counsel for the CBI chief, while hearing advocate Prashant Bhushan’s allegations against Mr. Sinha.
The Bench said it was closely watching the agency’s investigation of the 2G scam cases and would not let anyone sabotage the criminal trial.
“The Supreme Court wants a fair trial. If we find there was some derailment of the entire investigation, the court will take a particular view,” the Bench said.

Following complaints raised by US companies on India's intellectual property rights (IPR) regime, the Modi Government has decided to come out with a policy framework on by early 2015.
It has also at decided to disallow foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail, Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said .
The Minister, however, added that at the moment there was no move to reverse the notification by the UPA government to open up the multi-brand retail sector, allowing up to 51 per cent FDI.

R. Kamal Bawa, president, the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), India, and Distinguished Professor, University of Massachusetts, Boston, is among the three winners of the MIDORI Prize for Biodiversity, 2014.
The winners were announced in Tokyo and Montreal.
The other two who bagged the prize are Alfred Oteng-Yeboah, Chair, Ghana National Biodiversity Committee, and Bibiana Vila, principal researcher, National Research Council and Director, Vicunas, Camelids and Environment (VICAM), Argentina.
The MIDORI prize is a biennial international prize given by the AEON Environmental Foundation and the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to honour individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity at global, regional or local levels.
According to a press release, each recipient will be given a wooden plaque, a commemorative gift and $100,000 to support their work in safeguarding biodiversity.
They will be honoured at an award ceremony in Pyeongchang in South Korea on October 15