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Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 25 April 2014

Stay on release of Rajiv Gandhi murder convicts

In a major setback to the Tamil Nadu government the Supreme Court has extended the stay of an order passed on February 19 directing the release of seven life convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.
On February 20, the court had directed the Tamil Nadu government to maintain status quo in its decision to release the three convicts Sriharan alies Murugan, T.Suthendraraja alia Santhan and A.G. Perarivalan allias Arivu, whose death sentence was commuted to life term on February 18 as well as in the release of four other convicts Nalini, Robert Pious, Jayakumar and Ravichandran. On Friday the court said the interim order of staying the release would continue till the final decision was rendered by the five-judge constitution Bench.
A bench of Chief Justice P. Sathasivam and Justices Ranjan Gogoi and N.V. Ramana, while extending the stay, referred to a Constitution Bench the issues raised by the Centre on the powers of the State government to release the convicts after the same had been rejected by the President or the Governor in exercise of their clemency powers. The Bench gave this verdict on the writ petition filed by the Centre challenging the Tamil nadu government's decision to release the seven convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.
The Bench framed seven questions to be considered by the Constitution Bench, including whether the State could exercise its remission powers to release a life convict after the same had been exercised by the President or the Governor or by the apex court by commuting the death sentence into life term.; what was the meaning of `consultation’ contemplated in Section 432 Cr.P.C. and whether it would mean concurrence with the Central government; whether imprisonment for life would mean imprisonment for the rest of life without remission; whether the court could evolve a special category of sentence in certain cases and substitute death sentence into life sentence for rest of life and make such an order beyond the power of remission and which was the appropriate government, either the State or the Centre or there could be two parallel government which could exercise the power of remission.

Russia's new credit rating

The Standard & Poor’s credit agency has recently cut Russia’s credit rating for the first time in more than five years, citing the capital flight and risk to investment in the wake of the Ukraine crisis.
Russia’s economic growth slowed to 0.8 percent in the first quarter — sharply worse than earlier forecast — while spooked investors pulled about $70 billion out of the country in 2013. However, the cut in Russia’s rating from BBB to BBB- is the most tangible economic result of Russia’s policies toward Ukraine so far.
BBB- is just a step above a speculative or non-investment grade.
S&P said in a statement that they revised Russia's rating because the tense situation “could see additional significant outflows of both domestic and foreign capital from the Russian economy.”
Rating agencies had not cut Russia’s sovereign rating since December 2008.

World's Tallest Building

Kingdom Tower will be 568 feet taller than Khalifa Tower, the current Guinness World Record holder in neighboring Dubai, once it is completed. The tower is the first phase of Jeddah Economic Company's approximately $20 billion, 17 million-square-foot Kingdom City project, of which it will be the focal point. Saudi Arabia's Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, a nephew of Saudi King Abdullah, is chairman of the Kingdom Holding Company, a partner in JEC.
Foundation work for the $1.2 billion skyscraper began in December, and above-ground work will start April 27. The 200-floor tower will be located in Jeddah, a culturally significant city near the Red Sea that is known as the gateway to Mecca.
Kingdom Tower will house a Four Seasons hotel, luxury condominiums, office space and an observatory.

Rape in conflict

A new UN report names 21 countries where rape and other sexual violence has been committed in current and recent conflicts - from Afghanistan and Central African Republic to Myanmar and Syria.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's report, says there is now unprecedented political momentum globally to end conflict-related sexual violence but more action is needed regionally and nationally to respond to these crimes.
Covering 21 countries of concern in Europe, Asia, Africa, South America and the Middle East, the report shows that sexual violence in conflict is truly is a global crime.
The report identifies 34 armed groups - including militias, rebel groups and government security forces - suspected of rape and sexual violence in conflict situations.

Badminton Asian Championship

For the first time after their reunion, doubles duo of Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa made it to the quarterfinals of an event outside India.
The pair stunned third seeds A Duanganong and V Kunchala 21-11, 21-18 in the pre-quarters of the Badminton Asian Championship in Gimcheon, South Korea.
PV Sindhu and RMV Gurusaidutt joined the doubles specialists in the quarterfinals. While Sindhu defeated Eriko Hirose for the first time in her career 14-21, 21-13, 21-18, Guru registered a hard-fought victory over Wang Tzu Wei of Chinese Taipei 17-21, 21-13, 21-19.

Helix’s twisted cousin

The helix is a complex shape found in many natural settings. It is commonly illustrated by the shape of DNA molecules. The roots of some plants also burrow as helices, like corkscrews winding downward in search of richer soil. But during an experiment at Harvard University, mechanical engineers were surprised when a pair of rubber ribbons expected to form a helix did not, buckling into a shape rarely observed in nature.
Every helix winds in a left or right direction. The engineers observed what they called a hemihelix: a helix that changes its direction midway. The region along which it changes its direction is called aperversion. Charles Darwin observed plant tendrils forming hemihelices in 1888.
Starting with two strips of an elastic polymer of different lengths, the engineers stretched the shorter one to be the same length as the other. Then, while maintaining the stretching force, they joined the strips side-by-side. As the force was dwindled, the bi-strip twisted and bent to create either a helix or a hemihelix.
As energy due to stretching flows through the strip, the strip twists to reduce the load it bears. However, imperfections in the material could cause the strip to buckle at certain places, where perversions form and the chirality reverses.