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Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 06 June 2014

Sumitra Mahajan

Eight-term member Sumitra Mahajan was unanimously elected Speaker of the 16th Lok Sabha, becoming the second woman presiding officer of the Lower House after her predecessor Meira Kumar.
71-year-old Mahajan, the longest-serving woman MP, was elected after a motion moved by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and seconded by BJP veteran L K Advani was adopted by voice vote called by Protem Speaker Kamal Nath.
13 similar motions proposed and seconded by several parties in the ruling NDA as also in the opposition supporting Mahajan were also approved by the House.
An active parliamentarian, she has not only headed important committees, but has also been a keen debater and avid questioner inside the House, often seen putting ministers on the mat with her calm but firm interventions.
The mild-mannered Mahajan has over the years emerged as a force to reckon with in Indore where she never lost since she first became an MP in 1989 and a generation of opposition leaders have been waiting to trounce her.
She, however, had lost the Indore Assembly election thrice before becoming an MP.
Ms. Mahajan won her Lok Sabha seat for the eighth consecutive time in this election by an impressive margin of 4.67 lakh votes.
Within the BJP, Ms. Mahajan has grown from being President of the BJP Mahila Morcha in Madhya Pradesh in 1990 to being the national general secretary in 1998.

Keeping his focus on the neighbours, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has decided to make his first trip abroad to India's closest ally, Bhutan.
While a date for Mr. Modi's visit will be finalised during the advance team's visit, sources confirmed that it will be his first visit to a foreign country. With this decision Mr. Modi is making it clear that the neighbourhood is his immediate priority. He began his tenure in office by inviting all the SAARC leaders to his swearing in, and will travel to Kathmandu for the SAARC summit slated for November.
The decision to visit Bhutan, with whom India holds the closest ties, is the third surprise announcement from the government, after decisions to invite SAARC leaders and to visit the US for bilateral talks and the UNGA in September.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was kept out of the summit of world leaders but dominated the meeting as President Barack Obama and his counterparts from the G-7 group of major economies sought the Kremlin chief’s renewed cooperation to end the Ukraine crisis.
In March, the U.S. and its most important allies retaliated for Mr. Putin’s military occupation and subsequent annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula by suspending Russia’s membership in what had been the G-8 club of rich countries.
They also nixed Mr. Putin’s plan to hold the meeting in Sochi, the city Russia lavished billions on to host the 2014 Winter Olympics.
Mr. Obama, however, has no plans to meet with Mr. Putin — a clear indication the U.S. is more reluctant than its European peers about renewing the dialogue.
The meeting was not expected to produce any major decisions. Many observers criticise the format as being mostly a talking shop since the role of setting rules for global economic governance in the wake of the 2008-2009 financial crisis has shifted to the wider Group of 20, which also includes emerging economies like China, India and Brazil.

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are urging China to focus on controlling risks from rapidly rising debt due to its reliance on credit-fuelled growth.
The World Bank said Beijing should pay close attention to rising credit, especially in its largely unregulated informal lending market, and reduce debts owed by local governments.
Rising debts owed by local governments and uncertainty about informal lending have fuelled concerns China’s economic slowdown might cause a rise in defaults and hurt its financial system.
Chinese regulators have taken steps to cool credit growth but still are allowing a relatively fast expansion to support economic growth that slowed to 7.4 percent in the three months ending in March.
By the country’s broadest measure, total outstanding debt rose from the equivalent of 124 percent of gross domestic product in 2007 to more than 200 percent in 2013, according to the World Bank.
Corporate debt in Chinese economy , at the equivalent of 125 percent of GDP, is “among the highest in Asia.

India, which accounts for the third largest online user base globally after China and the U.S., has had the lowest internet penetration growth in Asia Pacific (APAC) at 17.4 per cent so far this year, research firm eMarketer said in a report.
However, it left behind major emerging markets in APAC like China and Indonesia in terms of growth in online users as of May 2014.
Asia-Pacific will boast of over 1.33 billion internet users this year, the largest online population of any region in the world.
The research firm said there is a clear split between developed internet economies South Korea, Japan and Australia, which all have at least three-quarters of their total populations online and less developed, but growing, markets like Indonesia and India.
South Korea accounted for the highest 78.9 per cent of the internet penetration growth in Asia Pacific followed by Japan (77.3 per cent), Australia (76 per cent), China (48.5 per cent) and Indonesia (33 per cent).

Cybercriminals are most likely to use names of famous footballers like Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi to lure netizens to malicious webpages designed to infect them with malware, cyber security firm McAfee said.
McAfee, part of Intel Security, has brought out ‘Red Card Club’ list showcasing the top 11 Brazil-bound football players whose web pages are considered to be risky for fans to search for online.
Other names in include Spain’s Iker Cassillas, Karim Ziani (Algeria), Karim Benzema (France), Paulinho (Brazil), Edinson Cavani (Uruguay), Fernando Torres (Spain), Eden Hazard (Belgium) and Gerard Pique (Spain).