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Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 16 May 2014

Modi’s win

Narendra Modi trounced his Congress rival Madhusudan Mistry by a staggering 5,70,128 votes in Vadodara but failed to break the record of highest margin of victory set by Anil Basu of the CPI(M).
The BJP’s prime ministerial candidate’s margin of victory in his first outing in the Lok Sabha polls is the second best after Mr. Basu, a seven-time MP, who scripted history winning the Arambagh seat in West Bengal by 5,92,502 votes, 22,374 more than Mr. Modi, in 2004.
The earlier record was held by LJP chief Ramvilas Paswan, who as a Janata Dal candidate, had won the Hajipur seat in Bihar by a whopping 5,04,448 votes in 1989.
Mr. Paswan, whose party is now in the NDA, had then broken his own record set in 1977 when he had won the seat as Bhartiya Lok Dal nominee by a margin of 4,24,545 votes.
After Mr. Paswan in 1989 and Mr. Basu in 2004, Modi is the third politician to have won a seat by a margin of over 5 lakh votes.

Although final results are not expected until later, the scale of the predicted victory is such that the ruling Congress party has admitted defeat.
BJP leader Narendra Modi tweeted: "India has won. Good times ahead."
This is the most resounding victory for a political party in India for 30 years.
But many Indians still have profound concerns over Mr Modi because of claims he did little to stop the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat, in which at least 1,000 people died, most of them Muslims - allegations he has always denied and over which he was never charged.
The election result will be a crushing blow to the Congress party, which is led by the Nehru-Gandhi family and has dominated Indian politics since independence.
It reflects voter anger with Congress, which has been mired in serious corruption scandals andwhose leadership has been considered ineffective in recent years, according to analy sts.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission may have jeopardised prospects for “net neutrality,” a principle requiring non-discrimination by Internet service providers between their client websites, when it voted in favour of a proposal to allow ISPs to charge higher fees to those who seek to deliver higher-quality content in the U.S.
Effectively giving a green light for plans to create Internet “fast lanes,” with paid priority accorded to relatively deep-pocketed service providers such as NetFlix and YouTube, the FCC passed the proposal by a 3-2 vote among its commissioners, along party lines.
While the vote does not signal a final outcome in the deliberations on preserving net neutrality, and the public will now be allowed to comment on the proposal before a final ruling is enacted later this year, the decision flies in the face of intensifying protest by 100 top tech companies including Google, Facebook, Twitter and Amazon.
Their concern is that smaller companies that are unable to pay for high-speed data delivery may face “additional obstacles against bigger rivals,” and the higher prices charged by these websites to overcome these barriers could get passed on to individual consumers.

Protesters and police clashed in Sao Paulo , as demonstrations against the World Cup and rallies calling for improved public services erupted in several Brazilian cities.
Officers in Brazil's largest city fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters who set piles of rubbish alight to barricade a central avenue.
Demonstrators blasted the billions spent to host next month's football tournament and said they wanted to draw attention to what they called a lack of investment to improve poor public services.
Protesters staged a soccer game with dirty tactics, and one man put on a costume of a giant skeleton dressed as a Brazil player.

The Supreme Court ordered the temporary closure of nearly half of the iron ore mines in top producing state Odisha due to non-renewal of years-old leases, in a blow to local steel mills that depend heavily on high-quality ore from the state.
Odisha, which allows exports of only half of total iron ore output, produced more than 70 million tonnes in the last fiscal year from 56 operating mines.
The move is unlikely to lift global iron ore prices given the limited flows from Odisha to international markets, but it could force Indian steelmakers to source the raw material overseas and soak up some of a forecast global supply surplus.
The 26 suspended mines produced about 40 million tonnes.
The verdict could force steelmakers to cut output or import expensive iron ore.