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Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 17 January 2015

:: National ::

Sri Lanka’s new govt. to start ties with India ‘on a clean slate’

Sri Lanka’s new government will start its relationship with India on a “clean slate,” Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera told ahead of his departure to New Delhi.
Coinciding with his trip, the Sri Lankan government released 15 Indian fishermen in its custody, and officials said the Sri Lankan fishermen, currently in Indian prisons, were also being released.
Mr. Samaraweera said the visit was intended to put the two countries’ relationship back on track after it was “at times strained” when President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government was in power.
In addition to holding bilateral discussions with his counterpart Sushma Swaraj, Minister Samaraweera will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Congress President Sonia Gandhi over the next couple of days.
Following Sri Lanka’s January 8 elections in which President Rajapaksa was defeated by his former Cabinet member, New Delhi wasted no time in reaching out to the new leadership.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the first international leader to congratulate President Maithripala Sirisena, just as clear signs of his victory began emerging on the morning of January 9.
Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj called Mr. Samaraweera soon after he assumed charge as Foreign Minister and invited him to New Delhi. The two leaders are long time friends, and have interacted closely when they held the telecommunications portfolio on either side of the Palk Strait in the 1990s.
“The fact that as Foreign Minister I have undertaken my first overseas visit to India signifies the importance that President Sirisena’s government places on strengthening and improving bilateral ties with India,” Mr. Samaraweera said.

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:: International ::

U.S. think tank flags readiness of Pak nuclear weapons

Evidence has emerged this week suggesting that Pakistan may have accelerated its covert nuclear weapons development programme and rendered operational a nuclear reactor structure located near a heavy water reactor, in a complex that is likely geared toward the production of plutonium.
High-resolution satellite imagery dated January 15, 2015, shows that external construction of the Khushab complex’s fourth reactor is complete and it has “become operational.”
If, as the evidence suggests, Pakistan is accelerating its nuclear weapons programme, it may heighten tensions with New Delhi, where the subject is likely to come up when Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets U.S.

President Barack Obama during Republic Day celebrations next week. (Register and Login to read Full News..)

:: Sports ::

Sania wins first title of the season in Sydney Open doubles

India’s Sania Mirza won her first title of the season and 23rd of her career when she and Bethanie Mattek-Sands shocked top-seeded Americans Abigail Spears and Raquel Kops-Jones in the summit clash of the Apia International.
The unseeded Indo-American combine humbled the top seeds 6-3, 6-3 in just 69 minutes.

:: Science & Technology ::

2014 Earth's hottest year on record: scientists

2014 was Earth's hottest on record in new evidence that people are disrupting the climate by burning fossil fuels that release greenhouse gases into the air, two U.S. government agencies said.
The White House said the studies, by the U.S. space agency NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), showed climate change was happening now and that action was needed to cut rising world greenhouse gas emissions.
The 10 warmest years since records began in the 19th century have all been since 1997, the data showed. Last year was the warmest, ahead of 2010, undermining claims by some skeptics that global warming has stopped in recent years.
Record temperatures in 2014 were spread around the globe, including most of Europe stretching into northern Africa, the western United States, far eastern Russia into western Alaska, parts of interior South America, parts of eastern and western coastal Australia and elsewhere, NASA and NOAA said.
"While the ranking of individual years can be affected by chaotic weather patterns, the long-term trends are attributable to drivers of climate change that right now are dominated by human emissions of greenhouse gases," said Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies in New York.
"The data shows quite clearly that it's the greenhouse gas trends that are responsible for the majority of the trends," he told reporters. Emissions were still rising "so we may anticipate further record highs in the years to come."
U.N. studies show there already are more extremes of heat and rainfall and project ever more disruptions to food and water supplies. Sea levels are rising, threatening millions of people living near coasts, as ice melts from Greenland to Antarctica.