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Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 20 December 2015

:: NATIONAL ::

A Delhi court on Saturday granted unconditional bail to Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi in the National Herald case of cheating and misappropriation.
Senior Congress leaders P. Chidambaram, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, Ambika Soni, Mani Shankar Aiyar and Salman Khurshid stood behind Ms. Gandhi.
The court also granted bail to the other accused — Congress general secretary Oscar Fernandes, treasurer Motilal Vora and the Gandhi family loyalist Suman Du- bey — on the same terms and conditions.

In a dramatic twist 24 hours before Justice (re- tired) Virendra Singh is scheduled to swear in for an eight-year term as the Uttar Pradesh Lokayukta, the controversy over his candidature refused to die down
The petition, filed by Lucknow resident and journalist Sachchidanand Gupta through advocate Kamini Jaiswal, alleged that the Akhilesh Yadav government placed “incorrect facts” to compel the Supreme Court on December 16 to exercise its rare, extraordinary powers under Article 142 of the Constitution to appoint Justice Singh, considered close to Samajvadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav’s family, as the anti-corruption ombudsman.
The name of Justice (retd.) Virendra Singh was objected to by the Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court after which his name was dropped, and the Chief Minister had assured him that the name would not be pursued further.

For the first time since the nearly five-year-old Syrian civil war began, world powers agreed on at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to embrace a plan for a ceasefire and a peace process that holds the distant prospect of ending the conflict.
A resolution adopted unanimously by the Security Council reflected a months-long effort by American and Russian officials, who have long been at odds over the future of Syria, to find com- mon national interests to stop the killing, even if they cannot yet agree on Syria’s ultimate future.
The resolution makes no mention of whether Syria’s President, Bashar Al-Assad, would be able to run in new elections, which it says must be held within 18 months of the beginning of political talks.
That process will begin sometime in January at the earliest, Mr. Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, conceded.
The remaining gap between the Russian and American sides became obvious at the very end of a news conference that involved Mr. Kerry and Mr. Lavrov.
Mr. Kerry noted that 80 per cent of Russian air strikes were hitting opposition groups fighting Mr. Assad, not the forces of the Islamic State extremist group.
Mr. Lavrov shot back that for two-and-a-half months, Russia had asked the U.S. to coordinate military operations.

The next three days in Parliament are extremely crucial. Govt is going to be push for the insolvency and bankruptcy law before Parliament in the next three days.
Arbitration and Conciliation Bill, which has already been passed by the Lok Sabha, provides for a fast-track mechanism to complete adjudication. The Bill would come up before the Rajya Sabha in these three days.
With a view to promoting ease of doing business and spurring economic activities, a government-appointed panel had last month suggested a modern bankruptcy law to deal with insolvency cases within 180 days that may arise on account of business failures or economic downturns.

In order to make the best utilisation of the time in the run-up to the World T20 championship in March, the National selectors have chosen to experiment by picking a few youngsters and recalling some experienced players for India’s five ODIs and three T20s in Australia in January.
Following the selection committee meeting, the selectors drafted Punjab left-arm pacer Brainder Singh Sran and Himachal Pradesh all-rounder Rishi Dhawan into the ODI side, and uncapped medium-fast bowler Hardik Pandya into the T20 squad.

Sources: Various News Papers & PIB

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