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Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 16 October 2018

::NATIONAL::

PM urges global leaders to have stronger cooperation to reduce energy cost

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a meeting with global oil and gas experts and CEOs on Monday, made a strong case for a stronger partnership between oil producers and consumers to reduce the cost of energy.
“During the interaction, global CEOs and experts appreciated the steps taken by the Union Government over the last four years, for ease of doing business, and specifically in the energy sector in India,” the government said in a release following the meeting. “The experts made a special mention of India’s competitive ranking from the upstream investment point of view which has gone up from 56 to 44.”
Among the corporates at the meeting were Saudi Aramco, ADNOC, BP, Rosneft, IHS Markit, Pioneer Natural Resources Company, Emerson Electric Company, Tellurian, Mubadala Investment Company, Schlumberger Ltd., Wood Mackenzie, World Bank, International Energy Agency (IEA), NIPFP, Brookings India and various Indian companies involved in both upstream and downstream operations.
Prime Minister highlighted the significant positioning of India in the oil and gas market,” the release added. “He noted that the oil market is producer driven; and both the quantity and prices are determined by the oil producing countries. Though there is enough production, the unique features of marketing in the oil sector have pushed up the oil prices.”
“Prime Minister Modi made a strong case for a partnership between the producers and consumers, in the oil market, as it exists in other markets,” the release added. “This will help stabilise the global economy which is on path of recovery.”
India to forge alliances with developing nations ahead of climate change talks
Ahead of the December climate talks in Katowice, Poland, India is having discussions with 40 countries, including China, to forge alliances and compel developed countries to make good on promises, made over the years, to provide enough finance and technology to stem runaway global warming.
Over the years, developed countries have promised to provide $100 billion annually to developing countries to check such warming.
The ‘Like Minded Developing Countries’ (India, China, Venezuela and Iran) and BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India, China) are networks that are formed to lend weight to developing country concerns.
“There are constant fora where we interact…video calls, meetings. However not all COPs would result in big bang announcements…some are about compelling countries to make good on outstanding commitments,” said a government official familiar with climate change negotiations.
The COP, in 2015, made a historic decision in Paris to take steps to ensure that the earth didn’t warm 2C over the pre-industrial era. The agreement is set to come into force from 2020.
While the United States has since pulled out from the accord, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change this month released a report that compiled scientific evidence to show that the planet as of today was on course to reaching the 1.5C mark by 2030-2052 and to halt it would require global, carbon dioxide emissions to be half of 2017 levels by 2030. Experts are unanimous that this is a Herculean task.

::ECONOMY::

RBI deadline for local storage of payment data ends

With the central bank’s deadline for payment players to store data locally in India coming to an end on Monday, it is believed that about 15 entities out of the total 78 are yet to fully comply with the directive.
Further, some of the largest entities that are not yet compliant are in constant dialogue with the RBI after having completed a “significant amount of work” towards compliance, said banking sources.
While it could not be immediately confirmed, it is believed that some of the biggest payment processing players are yet to fully comply with the RBI diktat that was issued in April. Email queries sent to American Express, Visa and Mastercard remained unanswered till the time of going to press.
Khushroo Panthaky, Director, Grant Thornton Advisory, was of the view that while some of the non-compliant companies were believed to be meeting policy makers seeking a review of the RBI decision, it was only fair that they should be told to comply as most players had already complied.
Meanwhile, sources familiar with the matter said that since the RBI had not hinted at any extension of the deadline, it was likely that the banking regulator would act against non-compliant entities if found that the delay was on account of avoidable issues.
“The belated clamour now for only storing a mirror image within India is contrary to RBI’s stated intent which is not only about easy access of data but of protecting Indian citizens’ data against rampant sharing outside India, as a public policy process. There is no real cause for delaying the compliance,” said an expert.

India’s trade deficit goes lowest in 5 months

India’s trade deficit shrank to its lowest in five months in September, at $13.98 billion, even as exports contracted for the first time in as many months, according to official data released on Monday.
The data from the government’s mid-year assessment of India’s trade shows that merchandise exports registered a growth of 19.93% in rupee terms and 12.54% in U.S. dollar terms.
“This decline is entirely due to the base effect resulting from September 2017 being an abnormally high growth month of about 26% in dollar terms due to the imminent cut off then for drawbacks at pre-GST rates,” the statement added.
“Though the data shows a marginal negative growth in the month of September, primarily due to high base effect last year, the aggregate value of exports in this September is much more than in the month of April, June and July of 2018 in which we recorded as high as 17% growth,” said Ganesh Kumar Gupta, president of the Federation of Indian Export Organisations.
During September, the major commodity groups that saw a strong export growth included petroleum products (26.8%), organic and inorganic chemicals (16.9%), drugs and pharmaceuticals (3.8%) and cotton yarn/fabs./made-ups, handloom products, etc. (3.6%) and plastic and linoleum (28.2%) in dollar terms. “Imports in April-September 2018 exhibited a positive growth of 16.16% in U.S. dollar terms,” the statement said.
“In September 2018, imports exhibited a positive growth of 10.45% in U.S. dollar terms (which is the lowest in last five months) and 23.78% in rupee terms.”

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::INTERNATIONAL::

UN command forces & koreas to discuss border disarmament

The rival Koreas and the U.S.-led United Nations Command were meeting Tuesday to discuss efforts to disarm a military zone the rivals control within their shared border under a peace agreement between the Koreas.
South Korea’s Defense Ministry said the talks at the Panmunjom border village mark the first meeting between the Koreas and the U.N. Command to discuss ways to demilitarize the village’s Joint Security Area.
The Korean militaries in past weeks have been clearing mines from the area following a broad agreement meant to reduce military tensions that was forged between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in in their summit last month.
The military agreement between the Koreas also calls for the creation of buffer zones along their land and sea boundaries, a no-fly zone above the border and the removal of 11 front-line guard posts by December.
Some military experts say South Korea is at risk of conceding some of its conventional military strength before the North takes any material steps toward giving up its nuclear weapons program, the goal of global diplomatic efforts.
The Joint Security Area has been used for diplomatic engagements but was also a site of occasional bloodshed during the Cold War, including the killing of two American army officers by ax-wielding North Korean soldiers in 1976. It was also where a defecting North Korean soldier fled south last year in a hail of bullets fired by his former comrades.

India-France to expand strategic cooperation

India and France are in discussions for a bilateral tri-service military exercise to take forward the strategic cooperation while also exploring ways to operationalise the logistics agreement. These issues were discussed during the visit of Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to Paris last week.
This will be India’s third such joint exercise. The first joint tri-service exercise was held with Russia in October last year and has finalised one with the U.S. to be held next year
India and France currently hold bilateral exercises between individual services Shakti, Varuna and Garuda respectively for the Army, Navy and Air Force.
India and France signed a logistics pact in March this year which gives access to their militaries to each other’s bases for logistics support. While the agreement gives India access to French military bases all over the world on a “reciprocal basis,” of particular interest for New Delhi are the three French bases in the Indian Ocean Reunion Island, Djibouti and Abu Dhabi.
These three bases would give the Indian Navy and the Air Force operational turnaround to the far end of the Indian Ocean, improving its monitoring and surveillance of the region, in the backdrop of increased Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR).
India has signed a series of logistics agreements recently beginning with the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) with the U.S., which will increase its operational footprint in the IOR.

::SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY::

National Centre for Cell Science (NCCS) is set to become a repository of MDR bacteria and fungi

On September 25, the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) authorised the National Centre for Microbial Resource (NCMR) at NCCS to function as a bio-repository for multidrug-resistant microbes/infective agents. The bio-repository will receive, store, maintain¸ preserve and characterise these microbes.
The notification said that the NCMR would take necessary steps to facilitate clinicians, scientists and others to handle multidrug-resistant microbe samples.
Currently, the National Centre for Disease Control and the Indian Council of Medical Research carry out anti-microbial resistance surveillance in various geographical regions and settings. But these two bodies only collect data and not microbe samples.
Multidrug-resistant microbes received from different settings in the same city and from other across the country will help shed light on the spread and resistance pattern of these microbes.
Since antibiotics are widely used in livestock and poultry as growth promoters, particularly in poultry, the NCMR hopes veterinary hospitals will also share samples from livestock where antibiotics are used as a growth promoter. Besides livestock, Antibiotics are also widely used in aquaculture.
NCCS plans to study the samples collected at the repository to develop new antibiotics and anti-fungals and test the effectiveness of new drugs.

::SPORTS::

Former Srilankan cricket legend charged for breaching ICC anti-corruption code

Sri Lankan batting legend Sanath Jayasuriya was on Monday charged on two counts for breaching the ICC anti-corruption code and given two weeks to respond by cricket’s world governing body.
However, the ICC did not specify what exactly prompted its action against the celebrated cricketer, who is a World Cup winner and played 110 Tests and 445 ODIs.
Jayasuriya has been charged with two offences under the ICC anti-corruption code. After signing off from international cricket, Jayasuriya also tried his hands at politics and in 2010 became an elected member of the Sri Lankan parliament, a stint which ended in 2015. He also served as a minister.