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Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 23 May 2014

Myntra acquired by Flipkart

Flipkart India Pvt Ltd, the country’s largest e-commerce firm, has acquired rival Myntra.com in the largest-ever deal in the country’s e-commerce market.
The current policy does not allow FDI in business-to-consumer e-commerce even as 100 per cent FDI is allowed in business-to-business e-commerce.
Myntra co-founder and chief executive Mukesh Bansal will head the fashion business of both Myntra and Flipkart, and Myntra will operate as an independent entity and retain its website, while Flipkart will continue selling apparel on its site.
The Flipkart-Myntra deal comes amid a strong revival of interest in the Indian e-commerce market, but the trigger clearly is the need for consolidation to fight global majors Amazon and eBay Inc.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi has rejected the resignation offer made by Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, following decimation of the party in the State in the Lok Sabha elections
Mr. Gogoi met Ms. Gandhi and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, after which he went into a huddle with more than a dozen of his supporters, mostly State Ministers, MLAs and two former Union Ministers, at his residence here.
Ms. Gandhi has authorised Mr. Gogoi to revamp the party in the state.
As a first step, he will reshuffle his council of Ministers after June 1, when he completes three years in office in his third term.
The Congress has won just three of 14 Lok Sabha seats in Assam.

Indian Consulate in Afghanistan’s Herat province was recently attacked by heavily armed gunmen, who were also carrying rocket-propelled grenades.
Afghan police officials said that three gunmen armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades opened fire on the consulate from a nearby home. Police killed two of them, though one continued to fire on security forces.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
India has invested in some major infrastructure projects in Afghanistan like Salma hydroelectric dam in Herat province and the Afghan parliament building in Kabul.
India’s development assistance programme for Afghanistan currently stands at $two billion, making it the leading donor nation among all regional countries.
Afghanistan has experienced a rise in the Taliban attacks as foreign troops plan to withdraw from the war-torn country by the end of the year.
In August last year, a failed bombing against the Indian Consulate in Jalalabad city near the border with Pakistan killed nine people, including six children. No Indian officials were hurt.
The Indian Embassy in Kabul was attacked twice in 2008 and 2009 that left 75 people dead.

Russia and China vetoed a resolution to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court for possible prosecution of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the country’s three-year civil war.
This was the fourth time Russia - a close ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government - and China have blocked UN Security Council action on Syria during the three-year civil war that has killed more than 150,000 people.
US Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, said the victims of the conflict “deserve to have history record those who stood with them and those who were willing to raise their hands to deny them a chance at justice.”
There were more than 60 co-sponsors of the French-drafted resolution, diplomats said. The resolution was put to a vote with the knowledge that it would be vetoed. The remaining 13 members of the council voted in favour of the resolution.
The ICC prosecutor cannot investigate the situation in Syria without a referral from the 15-member Security Council because Damascus is not a member of the Rome Statute that established The Hague-based court a decade ago. The Security Council has previously referred Libya and Darfur, Sudan to the ICC.

India's oldest Test cricketer Madhav Mantri, the maternal uncle of the legendary Sunil Gavaskar, due to old age complications. He was 92 and died a bachelor.
Mantri was a wicket-keeper-batsman who played only four Test matches, one in India (1951), two in England (1952) and his last in Dhaka (1954-55 in the then East Pakistan), compiling 63 runs and accounting for 8 catches and a stumping.
His most impressive performance with the bat in Tests was a 75-run partnership. He made 39 and also put on as opener with Pankaj Roy in the first Test in England on the disastrous 1952 tour in which India lost all four games.
Mantri was incidentally one of four batsmen dismissed for 0 by fiery Fred Truman against India on the same tour in the second innings of the Leeds Test, when the visitors were tottering at 0 for 4 before captain Vijay Hazare and all rounder Dattu Phadkar scored half centuries and took the score to 165 and forced England to bat again. But he was a consistent performer in Ranji Trophy and a mentor for the likes of Polly Umrigar and Bapu Nadkarni.