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Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 10 January 2016

:: NATIONAL ::

In view of the growing doubt over the Foreign Secretary-level talks of January 15, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called up Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Saturday to highlight the need to stay the course for dialogue.
Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmed Chaudhry had reiterated that Pakistan will not allow terrorists to use its territory to launch attacks on the other countries.
Mr. Sharif also maintained the anti-terror commitment and said: “Pakistan is swiftly carrying out investigations in a transparent manner and will bring out the truth. The world will see our effectiveness and sincerity in this regard.”

India’s immunisation programme, in dire need of expanding the number of vaccines on the list, will receive a boost with Gavi the Vaccine Alliance pledging to spend up to $ 500 million between 2016 and 2021.
In addition to introducing new vaccines into the schedule, the idea is also to reach the unreached and increase access to vaccines for millions of children in India.
Under the new partnership strategy, Gavi will allocate the $ 500 million in two tranches — $ 100 million to support the country’s current immunisation programmeand enhance reach, and $ 400 million for country-wide introduction of new vaccines for diarrhoea and pneumonia, cervical cancer, and Rubella with measles.
India is due to begin transitioning away from Gavi support from 2017 and is expected to begin fully self-financing all its vaccine programmes by 2021, according to sources at Gavi.
India has a huge birth cohort of about 27 million. While historically India has been slow in introducing new vaccines, over the last few years, we have seen a definite speeding up of the programmes.

Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the United States will hold talks in Islamabad on Monday aimed at reviving the Afghan peace process.
Talks do not include the Taliban, who have been battling the U.S.-backed government for nearly 15 years and have recently stepped up their attacks.
Pakistan is believed to have influence over the Taliban, but relations with Kabul have been tense in recent months.
The twocountries have long accused each other of backing the Taliban and other insurgents operating along their porous border.
Taliban leaders are widely believed to be based in Pakistani cities near the Afghan border, including Quetta and Peshawar.
The Taliban have intensified attacks in recent weeks and come close to taking over strategically important districts in southernHelmand province, the world’s premier poppy-producing region.
Almost all the world’s heroin is made from opium grown in southern Afghanistan.

The government is considering giving Aadhaar cards to non-resident Indians and a decision on it will be taken soon, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said while inviting the diaspora community to actively participate in India’s growth story.
Ms. Swaraj said it had been decided that women workers would be al- lowed to go to Gulf countries for employment only through the government agencies to ensure they were not duped by recruiting agents or firms.
The PBD, webcast by almost all Indian Missions and Posts, was organised for the first time by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) after the government’s decision to merge Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs (MOIA) with it.
Earlier the MOIA used to host the event. January 9 was chosen as the day for PBD as it was on this day in 1915 that Mahatma Gandhi, the “greatest Pravasi,” returned home from South Africa to lead India’s freedom struggle.
Asking the diaspora to participate in government’s various flagship programmes including the Skill India, the Digital India and the Clean Ganga initiatives.
She said Prime Minister NarendraModi wanted the Aadhaar card scheme to be extended to the NRIs.

China’s decision to push the value of its currency lower has opened a new front of worry for global investors: a potential wave of currency devaluations among the so called Asian tigers — South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan.
Such an outcome, a number of foreign exchange specialists say, would put a further damper on global growth expectations, which already are being revised downward as China’s once-booming economy retrenches.
The dollar’s strong run recently — together with the plunge in the price of oil and other commodities — has damaged fragile emerging- market economies like Brazil, Turkey and South Africa; the dollar has risen 130 percent against the Brazilian real andthe South African rand since mid-2011.
The currencies of fast- growing Asian countries, including India, have largely been insulated, thanks to their better-performing economies and their ability to stockpile large foreign currency reserve positions.
But having a strong currency at a time when manufacturing competitors like Japan and China have weaker currencies leads to a sharp fall in exports, which have been the economic lifeblood of these countries for decades.

The world’s top women tennis pair of Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis started the New Year on a brilliant note by clinching the women’s doubles Brisbane International title..
The top-seeded pair took just an hour and 10 minutes to beat German wild card pair of Angelique Kerber and Andrea Petkovic7-5, 6-1.
This is the Indo-Swiss pair’s 26th win in a row and thefirst title of 2016.