(FREE) UPSC Current Affairs 2024 PDF

Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 13 November 2014

National

PM Modi calls for global partnership ‘against all terrorism’

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for rejecting any linkages between religion and terrorism and said that comprehensive response against terrorism requires a genuinely international partnership “against all terrorism”.
• Addressing the East Asia Summit, Mr. Modi said that India supports the EAS declaration on the Islamic State terrorist group, according to tweets posted by External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin.
• The rise of jihadist group Islamic State, which indulges in brutal killings and has declared a caliphate in areas overrun by it in Syria and Iraq, is a major cause of concern in the world.
• Mr. Modi said that the challenges of terrorism and extremism have increased and nations “have to ensure that cyber and space remain a source of connectivity and prosperity, not new theatres for conflict”.
• In reference to the territorial conflicts in the South China Sea, he said that “following international law and norms is important for peace and stability in South China Sea as well”.
• “In a world of inter-dependence and globalization, there is no option but to follow international laws and norms,” he stressed.
• Referring to the Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa, he said it has highlighted the importance of international cooperation in combating pandemics.
• Mr. Modi informed the gathering that India has contributed $12 million in the efforts against Ebola. On India’s outreach to Southeast Asian countries, Mr. Modi said his government has moved with “a great sense of priority and speed” to turn the ‘Look East Policy’ into ‘Act East Policy’’.

Chennai will host Global Investors' Meet (GIM) in May 2015

• The Tamil Nadu Government announced that the Global Investors' Meet (GIM) would be held during May 23-24 next year in Chennai to showcase the ample endowments and boundless potential of the State.
• Among the sectors that would be highlighted were electronics and electronics hardware, textiles, agro and food processing, IT/ITES, automobiles and auto components, chemicals and petrochemicals, engineering and heavy engineering, Infrastructure including roads and minor port development, industrial parks and SEZs, urban infrastructure and renewable energy.
• The government, in the budget for 2014-2015, set apart Rs. 100 crore for the proposed event.
• An exhibition which would display the State’s competitive strengths, investment opportunities, avenues of collaboration, investment facilitation mechanisms and financial support would be held during the event.
• Partner nations such as Japan, USA, France, Germany, UK and South Korea and other partner organisations would take part in the exhibition.
• The GIM would be preceded by focused discussions with potential investors from the shortlisted sectors so that a large number of MoUs could be signed during the Meet.
• PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) had been selected as a knowledge partner for the event and the Tamil Nadu Industrial Guidance & Export Promotion Bureau (Guidance Bureau) will function as the Secretariat for conducting the event, according to the release.

BJP wins trust vote in Maharashtra, began innings in Assembly

• The first Bharatiya Janata Party-led minority government in Maharashtra began its innings in the Assembly on a stormy note, winning the trust motion through a controversial voice vote and having its way in the election of the Speaker.
• Minutes after the newly elected Speaker Haribhau Bagde declared that the trust motion had been passed through a voice vote, Shiv Sena and Congress members accused him of having violated the rules by not commending the motion to vote.
• Later in the day, they continued their protest during the address of Governor Ch. Vidyasagar Rao at the joint session of the Assembly and the Council. They said continuance of the Devendra Fadnavis government was “unconstitutional” as it had not obtained the trust of the House.
• Earlier, amid din, the Speaker announced, “The motion has been passed.” When Sena and Congress members protested, Mr. Bagde said that it was too late.
• The Sena said the Speaker jumped to the trust vote by skipping recognition of the Leader of the Opposition.
• The Speaker told presspersons that when the agenda was made, he was not in office and he took the call to put the trust motion to vote first as it made no sense to talk of a Leader of the Opposition without a government.

KSCSTE announced Science literature awards (Register and Login to read Full News..)

International

U.S.-China deal to limit emission of greenhouse gases

• China and the United States have agreed on a timetable to limit emission of greenhouse gases — a decision that will impose fresh pressure on India not to obstruct a binding treaty on climate change next year.
• The breakthrough was achieved during talks between visiting U.S. President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, ending a 20-year discord between the world’s two leading economies on how to combat climate change.
• In a joint announcement, the U.S. agreed to reduce by 2025 its emission of greenhouse gases by 26 per cent to 28 per cent below its 2005 level. China stated its intent to peak emissions of carbon dioxide in 2030, if not earlier.
• It also agreed to raise the share of non-fossil fuels to 20 per cent, in its primary energy mix, in the next 16 years. This would entail China shifting towards clean energy generated by nuclear, wind, solar and such zero-emitting resources.

Australia-India sign pact to enhance skill development

• Australia and India have decided to map common standards on job roles and further strengthen bilateral cooperation on skill development. The Indian Government has also decided to expand the capacities of 12,000 industrial training institutes.
• At the ‘3rd India Australia Skills Conference: Skills for Better Business’ in Mumbai, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between the National Skill Development Corporation, India (NSDC) and TAFE Directors, Australia, on Technical and Vocational Education and Training cooperation.
• The purpose is to further strengthen cooperation between the two to enhance and extend bilateral cooperation between Australia and India, a statement noted. The aim is to contribute positively to the development of technical and vocational education and training related linkages between India and Australia, it added.
• Bandaru Dattatreya, Minister for Labour and Employment, was present at the signing. In a statement, he said that with India going to add 10 million people to the work force each year, for the next 15 years, they would all need to be skilled and employed.
• He informed the ministry had launched a scheme for flexi memorandum of understandings between industry and industrial training institutes, which would lead to a minimum of 80 per cent of placement in the industry.
• Around three years ago, the India-Australia engagement on skills development had made an initial foray. The project has made rapid progress. It may be recalled that during the visit of the Indian delegation to Australia in July 2014, five sectors were identified and one or more critical job roles were taken up for developing the Indo-Australian Trans National Standards.

Kurdish forces block IS supply route to Kobane

• Kurdish forces blocked a road Islamic State (IS) militants use to resupply their forces in a Syrian town on the Turkish border, a town official and a monitoring group said, the first major gain against the jihadists after weeks of violence.
• Iraqi-Kurdish peshmerga forces crossed into Kobane on October 31 to help the besieged Kurdish YPG and YPJ fighters in the town. The combined forces have now cut off the road which leads southeast to the village of Hilnij.
• Despite having limited strategic significance, the battle in Kobane, also known as Ayn al-Arab, has become a powerful symbol in the fight against IS. The hard-line Sunni Muslim group has captured large expanses of Iraq and Syria and declared an Islamic “caliphate”.
• Idris Nassan, a local official in Kobane, said by telephone that anti-IS forces had taken the strategic hill of Mistanour and the road which runs along the side of the hill.
• The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that Kurdish forces had not taken Mistanour hill but had started fighting on the road to Hilnij, preventing IS fighters from using it to resupply.
• Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga have helped forces in Kobane take some villages around Kobane but the lines of control in the town remain the same.
• The town has become a test of the U.S.-led coalition’s ability to halt the advance of the hard-line insurgents. It is one of the few areas in Syria where it can coordinate air strikes with operations by an effective ground force.

Ensure aid to Rohingya Muslims: Ban Ki-Moon (Register and Login to read Full News..)

Business & economy

Department of Telecom blinks, agrees to take 150 MHz spectrum from Defence

• The Department of Telecom and the Ministry of Defence have finally agreed on the contours of how spectrum will be earmarked for use by the armed forces and mobile operators.
• The issue has been hanging fire since 2009 as a result of which the Defence forces had put on hold all fresh allocation of spectrum for mobile services. The new deal has been done keeping in mind the interest of the Defence forces more than that of the mobile players.
• For example, one of the sticking points was the amount of spectrum to be vacated by the Defence between the 1700 MHz band and the 2000 MHz band, considered to be the ideal frequency bands for mobile operations.
• While the DoT had been insisting on getting at least 230 MHz between these frequency bands, it has managed to get only 150 MHz, which was what the Defence had agreed to release initially.
• The DoT has moved a note seeking the Cabinet’s approval for creating an exclusive Defence Band for use by the armed forces.
• The spectrum usage charges have also been waived for this, which if collected would have resulted in additional revenues of Rs. 47,000 crore a year to the Government.
• However, this can partly be made up by the DoT when it puts the newly acquired 150 MHz spectrum for sale. But it could take some time before this spectrum gets freed; it may be available for auction only in the latter half of next year.

Five global banks slapped fines totalling $3.4 b for forex market rigging

• British, American and Swiss regulators slapped fines totalling $3.4 billion ( Rs.20, 900 crore) on five banks after a global regulatory probe found them guilty of rigging the foreign exchange market.
• Five banks, including HSBC, Citibank, JP Morgan Chase, the Royal Bank of Scotland and UBS, have been fined £1.1 billion ($1.7 billion) by Britain’s market regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority for failings over foreign exchange operations.
• Simultaneously, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission imposed fines totalling $1.4 billion on the same five banks while UBS faced an additional fine of $138 million from the Swiss regulator, FINMA.
• The FCA slapped a fine of £225.5 million on Citibank, while HSBC faced a penalty of £216 million. JP Morgan Chase, RBS and UBS were fined £222.1 million, £217 million, and £233 million respectively.
• The fines related to failure to control business practices in the banks’ G10 foreign exchange trading operations, a market that FCA said was “systematically important.”
• The banks failed in their responsibility to manage obvious risks that included conflicts of interest and confidentiality, the FCA said.
• “Between January 1, 2008 and October 15, 2013 ineffective controls at the banks allowed G10 spot FX traders to put the banks’ interests ahead of those of their clients, other market participants and the wider UK financial system.” As a result, traders were able to behave “unacceptably” as they shared confidential information, often colluding with other traders, and attempted to manipulate G10 spot FX currency rates.
• “Today’s record fines mark the gravity of the failings we found and firms need to take responsibility for putting it right,” said Martin Wheatley, Chief Executive of the FCA.

Retail inflation declined to 5.5% in October (Register and Login to read Full News..)

Science & technology

Controlling mosquitoes from breeding vital to prevent diseases

• Money spent on controlling mosquitoes will have little impact if community participation in maintaining its environment is poor. By preventing mosquitoes from breeding, all diseases caused by them — malaria, dengue, filaria, chikungunya and Japanese encephalitis — can be prevented, say public health experts.
• While laying emphasis on the fact that cleanliness must begin at home, they say containers used to store water must be cleaned every week and overhead tanks remain covered. “Clean your containers by scrubbing the insides with brush and dry it completely before storing water again,” explains an entomologist attached to the Tamil Nadu Health Department.
• The insides of large storage containers like tanks must be cleaned using bleaching powder as it will eliminate mosquito eggs, he adds.
• It is necessary to follow these steps as they would prevent the aquatic stage in mosquito’s breeding cycle — from egg-laying to pupae stages. The aquatic stage lasts from a week to 10 days.
• “Mosquitoes lay eggs only in water. While Culex mosquito, which spreads filaria, prefers polluted water, dengue-spreading mosquitoes prefer clean water.
• The Health Department deploys health workers to conduct survey of history of fever and travel to monitor disease prevalence but there is little they can do to prevent diseases if the community ignores cleanliness,” the entomologist adds.
• Community medicine experts say improper disposal of plastic waste on streets and near water bodies also add to the disease burden. Mosquitoes require still water to breed and so clean water bodies ideally should not pose problems. Yet, residents near water bodies also face a serious threat.
• “Though they keep away from water bodies, garbage along their edges is favourable breeding ground for mosquitoes,” says Arun Murugan, associate professor, Department of Community Medicine, Government Kilpauk Medical College.

Karnataka has mangrove patches: study

• Scientists analysed a set of satellite imagery to discover mangrove, an unlikely ecological wealth on Karnataka’s coast that successive forest surveys of India have completely missed out. In fact, the State has a sizeable stretch of mangrove forests, a vibrant saline-water ecosystem generally associated with India’s east coast.
• In a paper published recently in the journal Geophysics & Remote Sensing, researchers identify 300 hectares of mangrove forest in Karnataka, spread over three coastal districts. Mangrove shrubs, known best for a thriving aquatic life nurtured within their mesh of stilt-roots also serve a vital socio-economic function.
• They act as “green shields” buffering the coastline against sea erosion, and the potentially devastating impacts of cyclones and tsunami.
• Its impact-reducing potential was best evident along the east coast after tsunami struck India in December 2004. The team looked at high spatial resolution, multi spectral data to infer the geographical distribution and status of mangroves, including plant species, along the coast. And they found that while mangroves have been declining in several parts of the world from timber harvesting and pollution, these forests in Karnataka have in fact grown spatially over the last two decades.
• At the confluence of four rivers — Aghanashini, Gangavali, Sharavati and Venkatapura — and the Arabian Sea “is a long stretch of dense and tall mangrove vegetation… with a high number of mangrove plant species” locally known as Kandla or Sundari, says the paper. Mangroves exist and are growing in the districts of Udupi, Dakshina Kannada and Uttara Kannada.
• “The rejuvenation owes entirely to local conservation efforts, both by forest officials and communities, in reforestation and protection,” said lead author of the research paper T.V. Ramachandra, professor with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru.
• These patches of mangroves went unrecorded by the Forest Survey because they are not very large, said co-author Bharath Setturu, of IISc. “FSI also only recently began using remote sensing and relied largely on ground-reporting.”
• A devastating super cyclone of 1999, followed by the 2004 tsunami raised awareness about the irreplaceability of mangroves, he added. The rate of expansion indicates the mangrove’s resilience and ability to occupy new habitats, the paper says.
• In Aghnashini estuary, mangroves grew by four per cent between 1989 and 2010. A decline in shrimp culture in the 1990s led to a natural regeneration of mangroves, aided by reforestation with select mangrove species.

Nano materials in cancer treatment (Register and Login to read Full News..)

Sports

Maana Patel, Saurabh and P.S. Madhu swim to new marks

• India’s new wonder girl of swimming, Maana Patel of Gujarat, bettered her own mark in the women’s 100m backstroke at the 68th senior National aquatic championship.
• The opening day saw two more records in the men’s section with Saurabh Sangvekar of Maharashtra and Services’ P.S. Madhu eclipsing the previous bests while winning the 400m freestyle and 100m backstroke events respectively.
• The 14-year-old Maana maintained the sequence of creating records that she had started in the senior nationals at Thiruvananthapuram last year. Manaa cut short her previous best of 1:06.58 (set in 2013) by recording 1:05.47 in the 100m backstroke heats. She won the final but could not better the timing set in the morning.
• “I felt a lot energised in the heats and also enjoyed a nice rhythm to get that timing in the heats. I could not warn up properly ahead of the final and that seemed to upset the tempo,” said Maana, who has won five gold medals in the junior Nationals with a record in each effort.
• Saurabh’s outstanding performance in the first event of the day — where he beat the defending champion Sajan Prakash of Railways to win the men’s 400m freestyle with a record timing — lit up the proceedings.
• Saurabh made a perfect start and led all along to win in 3:56.17 seconds, erasing the record of 3:58.51 set by Sajan in the previous Nationals. “I had timed 3.59 in the Incheon Asian Games. Since then I am targeting 3.54 and am happy to reach nearer to it today,” said Saurabh.
• Madhu peaked at the right moment as clocked a record-breaking 57.95 seconds to beat back the challenges of M. Arvind of Karnataka and Rohit Havaldar of Maharashtra, who had the top two positions in the heats.