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Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 9 April 2015

:: National ::

India ranks lower than even Nepal

Out of 133 countries rated on indicators of well-being such as health, water and sanitation, personal safety, access to opportunity, tolerance, inclusion, personal freedom and choice India has secured the 101th place.
This is lower than India’s rank, of 93, for GDP per capita income. Even Nepal and Bangladesh rank higher than India on the Social Progress Index (SPI) ratings to be released globally.Norway has bagged the first rank; the U.S. is at the 16th place.
On the parameter ‘Tolerance and inclusion’ India ranks 128th and is at the 120th place on ‘health and wellness’ that, says economist and executive director of the SPI, Michael Green, is the toughest parameter for a country to excel at. As a country becomes richer while tackling sanitation and water becomes easier, tougher challenges emerge such as air pollution and obesity. The U.S. despite its high levels of spending on health and wellness ranks 68th.
Even harder to tackle are freedom and tolerance, he says. “The most striking findings for India are the worst performance on the tolerance and inclusion front…It’s a complex problem in a diverse country…another thing I will be watching for as India grows economically is when obesity as a crisis will start hitting.”
The SPI was launched in 2013 and is based on 52 indicators of countries’ social and environmental performance. It includes no economic indicators and measures outcomes. The UN’s Human Development Index and Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness Index are also alternate measures for well being but they use GDP or other economic measures.
Focusing exclusively on GDP implies measuring progress in purely monetary terms and failing to consider the wider picture of the real things that matter to real people. “GDP isn’t bad but it’s not the whole story… alongside economic growth social progress is more important for policymaking.”

Nasim Zaidi set to become new CEC

Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi will become the next Chief Election Commissioner later this month.
The Law Ministry has initiated the file for the appointment as incumbent, H.S. Brahma retires on April 19. Mr. Zaidi will have a tenure up to July 2017, when he attains the age of 65.

Voluntary retirement no excuse to skip alimony, says apex court

Deciding the case of a man who took voluntary retirement and stopped paying maintenance to his divorced wife, the Supreme Court held that he has to continue paying her as long as he is “healthy, able-bodied and is in a position to support himself.”
In a judgment, a Bench of Justices Dipak Misra and Prafulla C. Pant said reasons given by estranged husbands to skip payment are bald excuses. “These have no acceptability in law,” Justice Misra, who authored the verdict, said.
The right to get maintenance is “absolute” for a woman, and she cannot be reduced to the state of a “beggar” after being compelled to leave her matrimonial home. “If the husband is able-bodied and is in a position to support himself, he is under the legal obligation to support his wife, for the wife’s right to receive maintenance under Section 125 Cr.PC, unless disqualified, is an absolute right,” the court held in its April 6 judgment. The court held that the obligation of the man to pay maintenance is “heightened” when the couple’s children are with the wife. Again, the amount of maintenance should not be that which would only mean their “mere survival.”
As per law, she should lead a life similar to the one she would have in her husband’s house. “And that is where the status and strata of the husband comes into play and that is where the legal obligation of the husband becomes a prominent one,” Justice Misra wrote.
The court was deciding the case of an ex-Armyman who took VRS so that he did not have to pay her the monthly maintenance of Rs. 4,000.

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:: International :

Need for a complete model to measure growth: SPI official

Unlike GDP, a country cannot boost its SPI score just by improving the lives of the most well off, or even the majority. At any level of GDP per capita, countries with lower poverty tend to have higher social progress, the SPI shows.
“Richer countries do better on the SPI as more GDP in general makes lives better but that is not the whole story…there is good correlation between GDP and social progress but not perfect correlation as other things matter…and therefore there is need for a complete model not just a GDP methodology,” says executive director of the Social Progress Index, Michael Green.
As the GDP is increasingly seen as an adequate measure of only economic progress but not overall well-being, the World Bank, OECD and European Commission are in discussions to adopt measures of social progress as an indicator of inclusive growth.
“Time is right for new thinking…The inequality debate over the last ten years has showed that there is need to bring inclusion on board. Kuznets when he created the GDP knew and said it was not perfect,” Dr. Green says. The concept of GDP was introduced in the 1930s by economist Simon Kuznets, who warned at the time that “the welfare of a nation can… scarcely be inferred from a measurement of a national income” such as GDP.
The European Commission is set to create an SPI for the regions of the European Union. Paraguay is using it to guide an inclusive national development plan for 2030. Cities across Latin America, such as Rio de Janeiro and Bogota, are setting up SPIs to guide urban renewal strategies.
World Bank, OECD and European Commission planning to adopt social progress index.

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:: Business and Economy ::

Women directors: erring companies to face minimum Rs.50,000 fine

Taking to task the companies without a woman director, SEBI announced a minimum Rs.50,000 fine on them and warned of further action, including against promoters and directors, for non-compliance beyond September.
Without naming the companies that failed to appoint at least one woman director within the stipulated deadline of March 31, SEBI announced a four-stage penalty structure wherein fines increase with the passage of time. The fines would multiply for the companies listed on multiple exchanges.
As per estimates, more than 1,000 companies on the BSE and nearly 200 on the NSE are in non-compliance of the requirement, which was first announced by SEBI in February last year with an initial deadline of October 1, 2014, that was later extended by six months.
The listed companies complying between April 1 and June 30 will have to pay only Rs. 50,000 as penalty. Those complying between July 1 and September 30 this year would need to pay Rs.50,000 and an additional Rs.1,000 per day till the date of compliance.
The listed companies complying on or after October 1, 2015, will have to pay Rs. 1.42 lakh, plus Rs. 5,000 per day till the date of compliance.
“For any non-compliance beyond September 30, 2015, SEBI may take any other action, against the non-compliant entities, their promoters and/or directors or issue such directions in accordance with law, as considered appropriate,” the regulator said in a circular.

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:: Science and Technology ::

After 12 days, IRNSS-1D reaches its space home

Navigation satellite IRNSS-1D reached its space home, 12 days after it was launched from Sriharikota.
After tests and validations, it is expected to be put to work and beam signals from early May, joining its three siblings — IRNSS-1A, 1B and 1C — that are already in orbit, according to senior officials of Indian Space Research Organisation.
IRNSS-1D is the fourth of the seven-satellite Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System; the constellation was conceived to give location-related information across the country and is loosely called the Indian version of the popular GPS which the U.S. military owns and operates.
The satellite reached its home after four orbit manoeuvres were conducted since its launch on March 28. It is now slotted at about 36,000 km from Earth at 111 degrees East longitude.
It is expected to be put to work and beam signals from early May,

:: Sports ::

Wisden honour for Kumar Sangakkara and Meg Lanning

Sri Lanka great Kumar Sangakkara has been named as the Leading Cricketer in the World in the 2015 Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack.
Meanwhile Australia’s Meg Lanning has been chosen as the cricket ‘Bible’s’ inaugural Leading Woman Cricketer in the World — the first time the England-based annual has bestowed such an award in 152 editions of continuous publication dating back to 1864.
Sangakkara joined India’s Virender Sehwag as the only two players to be named as Wisden’s Leading Cricketer in the World for a second occasion.
The 37-year-old left-handed batsman and wicketkeeper won the award after a stellar 2014 that saw Sangakkara score an all-time record 2,868 international runs in the calendar year, including a triple century.
His feats, which added to an already brilliant career, included a man-of-the-match performance in Sri Lanka’s World Twenty20 final win over India last year.
Sangakkara also scored his first Test hundred at Lord’s last season, a century which came during Sri Lanka’s Test series win over England.
He later confirmed Wisden’s judgment by scoring a record four successive hundreds at the recent World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.
Lanning, who at the age of 21 became the youngest person ever to captain Australia, led her side to the World Twenty20 title and finished 2014 at the top of both the women’s one-day international and Twenty20 batting rankings.
Wisden’s Five Cricketers of the Year is an award dating back to 1889 and is generally based on a player’s performances in the preceding English season.
By tradition, it can only be won once in a career and the 2015 list included Sri Lanka captain Angelo Mathews, England rising stars Moeen Ali and Gary Ballance and two notable county players in Adam Lyth and Jeetan Patel.
Booth’s critique of the ECB was broad and scathing, the Wisden editor writing: “A few wins might have deflected attention from a charge sheet that would include the mishandling of the Kevin Pietersen affair, worrying Test attendances outside London, a head-in-the-sand attitude to the one-day team, and — not yet a decade after the 2005 Ashes had presented English cricket with a golden chance to attract a new generation to the sport — a fall in the number of recreational players.
“National selector James Whitaker had called (Alastair) Cook ‘our exceptional leader’; Paul Downton, the ECB’s new managing director, hailed [Peter] Moores as the ‘outstanding coach of his generation’; chairman Giles Clarke trumpeted Downton as a ‘man of great judgment’.

Shyam Kumar bags gold

Shyam Kumar struck gold as India signed off a creditable second with three medals in the Thailand invitation international boxing tournament in Pattaya.
The Indian boxers fetched one gold and two bronze medals.
Shyam defeated Surajit Thong Anand of Thailand 3-0 in the light flyweight (49kg) division. Rohit Tokas (60kg) and Manjit (69kg) settled for bronze medals after losing in the semifinals.
While Rohit lost to Darkhan Zhumsakbayev of Kazakhstan 2-1, Manjit was beaten by local favourite Apichet Saensit 2-1.