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Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 01 August 2014

Sushma confronts Kerry with snooping

In India’s strongest statement on the issue yet, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj called the U.S. surveillance of Indian entities “unacceptable”, and said she had taken up the issue of “snooping” by the National Security Agency (NSA) with Secretary of State John Kerry during the fifth India-U.S. strategic dialogue.
The U.S. Secretary of State’s visit is first high-level interaction at the political level after the new government came to power.
No breakthroughs marked the strategic dialogue between India and the U.S. on the trade facilitation talks at the WTO. While talks were still in progress in Geneva, the deadline for India to sign the Trade Facilitation Agreement expired on Friday.
Ms. Swaraj said, “There is growing global partnership to the relationship.” While Mr. Kerry said “India and the U.S. are indispensable partners in 21st century. There are incredible possibilities in our relationship.”
Given the lack of breakthrough in talks over WTO, pharma concerns, patent rights and U.S. restrictions on visas for skilled Indians, Mr. Kerry conceded, “We know we have a lot of homework to do. We need to break down barriers in trade.”

Plans are afoot to set up the country’s largest ultra mega solar plant in Madhya Pradesh’s Rewa district. The plant, to produce 700 MW of electricity, would require an investment of Rs 4,000 crore. The country’s biggest solar plant with a capacity of 130 MW is situated in Neemuch district of the state.
Thirteen hectares of land spread over four villages of Barseta, Ramnagar, Latar and Badwaar has been chosen for locating the plant in Gurh tehsil of Rewa. The State government would set up the plant as a joint venture with the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Power Grip Corporation and the Solar Energy Corporation of India .
The government is promoting generation of renewable energy by providing various fiscal and financial incentives such as capital and interest subsidy, concessional excise and customs duties to encourage Indian and foreign investors to invest in new renewable energy sector.

A New York court struck what appeared to be a deathblow to the case brought by victims of the 1984 poison gas disaster in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, when it ruled in favour of the defendant, the Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), finding that the company could not be sued for ongoing contamination from the chemical plant.
The Bhopal gas tragedy, considered India’s worst industrial disaster, occurred on December 2 1984 at the UCIL pesticide plant and in its wake many thousands of people were injured from exposure to methyl isocyanate gas and other chemicals and several thousands were killed.
While EarthRights International said that they were “confident [that evidence surrounding Couvaras’ role] will lead to a reversal of the erroneous decision on appeal,” Judge Keenan further ruled that the Government of Madhya Pradesh would also not be held liable for a clean-up of contamination at the site of the disaster.

Sierra Leone leader Ernest Bai Koroma declared a state of emergency as the country struggled to contain the deadly ebola epidemic.
The impoverished country, along with neighbouring Guinea and Liberia, is struggling to contain an epidemic that has infected 1,200 people and left 672 dead across the region since the start of the year.
Mr. Koroma announced a raft of measures as part of the state of emergency, including quarantining ebola-hit areas and deploying security forces to protect medical workers. He banned all public meetings not related to ebola and cancelled foreign trips by ministers and other government officials, exempting only “absolutely essential engagements.”
The largest recorded Ebola outbreak in history has led the US Peace Corps to evacuate hundreds of volunteers from three affected West African countries.
Ebola has no vaccine and no specific treatment, with a fatality rate of at least 60 per cent.
Fears that the outbreak could spread to other continents have been growing with European and Asian countries on alert.

Sources: Various News Papers & PIB

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