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Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 01 April 2014

Hate Speech

The possible shift of a good section of traditional Congress voters after party nominee Imran Masood’s hate speech video against BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi may well turn the fortune towards an unexpected aspirant.
The hate speech by Mr. Masood and his 14-day judicial remand are the main topic of conversation among urbanites as well as in hukkah panchayats in rural areas.
Mr. Masood delivered the speech at a meeting at Talehi Bujurg, near Deoband, in September 2013 when he was in the Samajwadi Party.
Although he apologised, when the hate speech went viral on private television channels, he turned defiant after he was arrested. He told journalists that he would go to jail a hundred times as he had committed no wrong by threatening to chop Mr. Modi into small pieces if he came to Uttar Pradesh.
Mr. Masood is the nephew of the former Union Minister, Rashid Masood, who is in jail on being convicted in the medical admissions scam. The Samajwadi Party has fielded Mr. Rashid Masood’s son, Shahjan Masood, who was given the ticket after withdrawing the same from Mr. Imran Masood.

Authorities in Washington state said they believe 22 people are still missing in the deadly mudslide that has killed at least 24 people. That is down from the 30 people they previously considered missing. The Snohomish County medical examiner’s office said it has positively identified 18 of the 24 victims in the official death toll.
Snohomish County Executive Director Gary Haakenson says the remains of three additional victims were found , but they have not yet been included in the medical examiner’s official numbers. The slide struck a rural area northeast of Seattle on March 22.
Estimated financial losses have reached $10 million, adding that about 30 families need assistance with housing, along with personal and household goods. The estimated losses include nearly $7 million in structures and more than $3 million in their contents.

According to an USTR report, Indian policies pose barriers to American trade and the US will keep pressing India to remove obstacles to smoothen business relation. Noting that it is holding talks with India both at bilateral and the World Trade Organisation level, the 2014 report of the UN Trade Representative (USTR) on “Technical Barriers to Trade” listed out some of the issues obstructing trade relations.
Indian policies on wholesale foods labelling, security regulations on telecom equipment, safety testing requirements for electronics and IT equipment and proposed amendment to the hazardous waste act as trade barriers.
According to the report, the proposed Fifth Amendment to the Hazardous Waste Act, published in November 2013, but not notified to the WTO, sets out conditions for the import and movement of used and refurbished electrical and electronic equipment (EEE).
US electronics and IT goods manufacturers have raised concerns about the Indian Department of Electronics and Information Technology’s (DEITY) September 2012 order that mandates compulsory registration for 15 categories of imported electronic and IT goods.
The policy, originally set to take effect from April 2013, mandates exporters to register their products with laboratories affiliated or certified by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS).

The Indian Air Force has ruled out that the C-130J Super Hercules transport aircraft could have crashed due to suspected counterfeit Chinese parts. The Air Force also said that it had already sent some of the equipment to the US for physical verification by its manufacturer Lockheed Martin.
The Air Force stressed that such parts were alleged to be present only in the display systems of the aircraft and it could not have caused the crash in which five personnel were killed .
A committee of the US Senate in its probe in 2012 had suggested that counterfeit parts such as memory chips supplied by a Chinese company were used in C-130J planes produced between a specific period.
The Air Force has already sent the black box of the C-130J transport aircraft that crashed near Gwalior to the US to seek the assistance of its manufacturer Lockheed Martin in decoding the data.

Researchers at J. Craig Venter Institute, Maryland have created a synthetic chromosome from yeast paving the way for a new field of study. The team spent years sequencing the DNA of a simple yeast cell known as Saccharomyces Cerevislae, a kind of yeast used to brew beer.
The Venter team, which consisted of many university students and researchers decoded just one of the yeasts 16 chromosomes, entering the data into a software system that allowed the team to recompose and alter at will. The software was used as a sort of “build your own” chromosome. By rearranging the DNA totally new versions of the yeast could be synthesized. According to Jef Boeke the director of New York University’s institute for system genetics Over 50,000 changes were made to the DNA coding of the chromosome.
The yeast is used as a representative of Eukaryotes which is to say an organism that contains a nucleolus and structures inside of a membrane. All animals and plants have Eukaryotes as cells making this yeast a good subject of study with at least a third of its chromosome relating to humans.

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan has kept the key policy rate (repo) unchanged since retail inflation still remains “sticky” but introduced steps to increase liquidity and contain volatility in the money market.
The RBI, in its first bimonthly monetary policy statement, left the short-term lending rate or repo rate unchanged at 8 per cent and the cash reserve ratio static at 4 per cent. It halved the overnight call money rate to 0.25 per cent and increased the 7-day and 14-day repo limits to 0.75 per cent from 0.50 per cent.
On liquidity moves, Mr. Rajan said the primary objective is to improve transmission of policy impulses across the interest spectrum and improve liquidity in the system.
The RBI pegged 2014-15 GDP growth at a central estimate of 5.5 per cent. It said the FY'14 current account deficit would be about 2 per cent of GDP.

The second edition of the Indian Badminton League (IBL) will be held from September 30 to October 15.
The governing council has decided to allow franchisees to increase the team strength from 11 in the first year to 13 players. Each franchisee can pick two more players — Indian or foreign — which will further intensify the competition.
The league will be played in Six Indian cities — Delhi, Lucknow, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad and Bengaluru.