Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 16 April 2015

:: National ::

Janata parties are finally a Parivar

After weeks of vacillation, leaders of six Janata Parivar parties announced their decision to merge into one entity .
With 30 MPs, the new party will be the third largest bloc behind the Congress (68) and the BJP (47) in the Rajya Sabha, where the Modi government continues to be in a minority. In the Lok Sabha, the party will have 15 MPs, making it the eighth largest in the House.
Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh — at whose residence the leaders met — will head the party and the parliamentary board, but the name, flag, symbol, policy and party programme will be finalised by a six-member committee later.
While the SP leader will head the committee, its members will be H.D. Deve Gowda (Janata Dal-S), Sharad Yadav (Janata Dal-United), Om Prakash Chautala (Indian National Lok Dal) , Kamal Morarka (Samajwadi Janata Party) and Ram Gopal Yadav (SP).
Initially, an understanding had been reached on naming the outfit the Samajwadi Janata Dal, and accepting the SP symbol, the bicycle. But with Jitan Ram Manjhi, the former Bihar CM, who broke away from the JD(U) last month to form his own outfit, saying he would claim the JD(U) flag and symbol, the Sharad Yadav-Nitish Kumar-led party is having second thoughts about giving up its emblems.

Panel on Official Secrets Act to meet

A high-level committee formed by the Centre to look into the provisions of the Official Secrets Act in the light of the Right to Information Act will meet for the first time in North Bloc, Home Ministry sources said .
The committee, comprising Home Secretary L.C. Goyal, Law Secretary P.K. Malhotra and Secretary, Department of Personnel and Training, Sanjay Kothari, was constituted in February, but notified only recently.
The meeting will start the process to do away with excessive secrecy through amendments in the Official Secrets Act, a law enacted by the British in 1923, official sources said.

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:: International :

White paper on Tibet denounces ‘middle way’

The Chinese government has issued a white paper on Tibet, which rejected the “middle way” path advocated by the Dalai Lama.
Titled “Tibet’s Path of Development Is Driven by an Irresistible Historical Tide”, the document observes that rather than pursuing autonomy, the “middle way” of Dalai Lama is a cover for gaining independence.
Xinhua reported that the “middle way” negates a sound developmental path and is an attempt to establish a “state within a state” on Chinese territory as an interim step towards the ultimate goal of full independence.
The white paper states that in tune with the improvement of relations between China and the United States in late 1970s, Dalai Lama’s group shifted its attempts from achieving open independence to achieving disguised independence by cloaking them with what is called the “middle way.”
The document counselled that, “The only sensible alternative is for the Dalai Lama and his supporters to accept that Tibet has been part of China since antiquity, to abandon their goals of dividing China and seeking independence for Tibet, and to begin to act in the interests of Tibet and the country at large.”
The government said that the Dalai Lama and his supporters had little understanding of modern Tibet and, instead, held “a sentimental attachment to the old theocratic feudal serfdom”.
An e-mailed response from Dharamsala , where Dalai Lama lives in exile said that the “middle way Policy seeks genuine autonomy within the framework of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China which is a win-win proposition for all parties and one lauded throughout the world including various governments”.

Pak. test fires ballistic missile

Pakistan successfully test fired a new ballistic missile which is capable of carrying both conventional and nuclear warheads up to a distance of 1,300 km, bringing many Indian cities under its range.
The launch of intermediate-range Ghauri missile conducted by a Strategic Missile Group of the Army Strategic Forces Command (ASFC) was aimed at testing the operational and technical readiness of the command, the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) said.
The successful launch has been commended by President Mamnoon Hussain and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

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:: Business and Economy ::

Jayant Sinha bats for full convertibility

India needs to take many policy measures over a period of time, including moving towards full capital account convertibility, to become a leading global economy, Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha has said.
“There are many policy measures and many things that we have to do over a period of time, if indeed India has to become a leading global economy... We have to make it possible for our capital markets to be broader, deeper and for that to happen, capital account convertibility also becomes important,” Sinha told reporters .
“Definitely, we have to play our rightful, responsible role in the global economy, we have to move in that direction (capital account convertibility),” he added.
The Minister’s statement assumes significance as Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan had recently said that the central bank was looking at allowing full capital account convertibility in a few years.
Stating that the RBI was fairly open to capital inflows, the Governor had said: “The only place today that we have some restrictions is inflows into debt, especially very short-term debt.”
Full capital convertibility means a foreign investor can repatriate his money into his own local currency at will, which is not allowed in the country as of now.
Stressing that the old age traditional support system for retired people is increasingly eroding in India, Mr. Sinha highlighted on the need for making National Pension System (NPS) universal.
“We are going to support retired people. If we will make NPS universal, then we will have a pool of savings, which can finance infrastructure projects,” he said.
NPS was initially introduced for the central government employees joining on or after January 1, 2004. Later, in order to facilitate organised entities, including public sector organisations, a customised version of NPS, known as NPS-Corporate Sector Model, was introduced in December 2011.

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:: Science and Technology ::

Flipkart & flipside

Even as it pulled out of talks on joining Airtel Zero, native e-commerce major Flipkart asserted that “it has always believed in the concept of Net Neutrality.” Net Neutrality provides equal treatment for all traffic on the Net by Internet service providers. Airtel Zero, a platform launched by Airtel last week, allows subscribers free browsing of websites of companies that join the platform for a fee. That Flipkart junked its plan to join Airtel Zero is a shot in the arm for advocates of Net Neutrality.
Nevertheless, the Flipkart pull-out has raised many questions.
Are Flipkart bosses so naive not to know the implications of a platform such as Airtel Zero for the overall Internet ecosystem?
How come they suddenly wake up to reiterate their support to Net Neutrality?
Flipkart is an iconic brand in the burgeoning Indian e-commerce space. Perhaps, this has emboldened its bosses to ignore the unwritten rules in their pursuit for faster growth.
The pull out from talks with Airtel appears to be have been necessitated by the strong adverse reaction from netizens across the country. A combination of rising tide of support for Net Neutrality and down-rating of its apps by customers has indeed forced Flipkart to quit talks. But for its iconic status, Flipkart’s actions — its initial talks with Airtel and the subsequent pull out — would have gone unnoticed. Again, its iconic status has ensured national headlines for whatever Flipkart does.
Looking from this angle, Flipkart’s ‘righting’ action has given a huge fillip to the protagonists of Net Neutrality. It is a wake up call for Airtel and telcos to rework their strategies. The telcos need to look at innovative ways of offering value added services to boost their revenues within the overall framework of Net Neutrality.
In the evolving dynamics of the world, however, disruptions are going to be the order of the day. We have seen how many old economy players were consigned to the pages of history due to technological changes that could not be really termed disruptive in that period and context.
Technological changes are happening at a rapid pace now. Instead of raising new walls of protectionism, the world will be better served if companies across the value chain — be it telcos or e-commerce players or content providers — reconfigure their businesses so as to remain flexible and cost-effective all the time in an environment that is prone to quicker pace of technological disruptions.

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:: Sports ::

India remains No. 2 in ODI rankings

India has retained its second position in the One-Day International rankings list after finishing as semifinalists in the recent ICC Cricket World Cup.
With 116 points, India is just six points behind world champion Australia and is followed by South Africa (112), Sri Lanka (108), New Zealand (107), England (101) and Pakistan (95).
Pakistan, however, is in danger of losing its seventh place if it loses 3-0 to Bangladesh in the three-match ODI series, starting in Mirpur .
But, it has a chance to reduce England’s six-point advantage by one if it wins the series 3-0, while a 2-1 victory would see Azhar Ali’s team remain on 95 points.