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Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 24 May 2014

FDI from India in Ireland

Plagued by rising unemployment, Ireland has stepped up efforts to attract investment from emerging countries, including India, by projecting itself as the gateway for the European Union (EU) market.
The Investment and Development Agency (IDA), Ireland, responsible for inward investments, is targeting a five-fold jump in foreign direct investment (FDI) from India by 2020. IDA Ireland officials are reaching out to Indian companies and leading business groups to promote Ireland as a preferred investment destination to do business with Europe.
About 30 Indian companies, including 19 through IDA’s initiatives, have already set up base in Ireland.
Ireland is targeting companies in the area of life sciences, medical technologies, electronics, software, financial services, digital media and high-end manufacturing.
In 2013, Indian companies accounted for 2.4 per cent of all FDI projects into Ireland and IDA Ireland plans to double FDI from India by 2016 and five-fold by 2020.

According to data ,the rising tide of female voters in 2014 might have had a concrete impact on the outcome of these elections.
Despite the Election Commission’s efforts to get more women registered to vote, the number of female electors (those registered to vote) grew much slower than the number of male electors, between 2009 and 2014.
Men registered to vote outnumber women by over 40 million, giving the electorate a sex ratio of 908 female electors for every 1,000 male electors. This is even more adverse than the sex ratio of the general population, which stood at 943 in the 2011 Census.
Yet female turnouts (the number of women who actually voted, as a proportion of all those registered) have grown much faster than for men; the female turnout grew by nearly ten percentage points between the last election and this election,. As a result, male voters outnumber female voters by just 32 million, and the gender gap in voting is the closest it has ever been.

Veteran mango cultivator Kalimullah has developed a new variety of mango and named it “Namo aam” after Prime Minister-designate Narendra Modi.
The new genus has the salient features of “Husn—e—Aara”, known for its beauty, and “Dussehri” which is popular for its taste. The new variety is named after and dedicated to Narendra Modi.
Kalimullah, who is popularly known as the “Mango King”, had in the past developed several different mango cross breeds to suit the personality of dignitaries. He said that the new variety would suit Modi.

Boeing has delivered the fourth P-8I maritime patrol aircraft to India, which the aviation company described as a milestone.
In all India has placed orders for eight P-8I maritime aircraft.
The latest state-of-the-art maritime patrol aircraft departed from Boeing Field in Seattle and arrived May 21 at Naval Air Station Rajali.
Based on the company’s Next-Generation 737 commercial airplane, the P-8I is the Indian Navy variant of the P-8A Poseidon that Boeing has developed for the US Navy.
The Indian Navy is putting the first three P-8Is through their paces operationally, and the P-8I delivered today will begin flight trials in the coming months.
The P-8I incorporates not only India-unique design features, but also India-built subsystems that are tailored to the country’s maritime patrol requirements.

Just at the time Ukraine was to elect a new President the rebellious Russian-speaking regions ramped up their rebellion against Kiev, deciding to form a new independent state.
The formation of Novorossiya, or New Russia, as the eastern part of Ukraine was called in the 19th century, was announced at a meeting of pro-independence activists from Ukraine’s eight southeast provinces in Donetsk.
Novorossiya will initially be made up of the “People’s Republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk, which declared their independence . It is planned that six more regions — Nikoyayev, Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Zaporozhie and Kherson, will join the new state after holding referendums on independence, similar to those held in Donetsk and Luhansk held in May.