laex.in file · Web viewa) PM Modis 5-nation tour of Central Asia beginning July 6 is expected to cover a gamut of issues from increasing trade and investment to counter-terrorism

Current Affairs from The Hindu DATE:04-07-15

S.NO. NEWS ITEM SYLLUBUS ESSENCE OF THE ARTICLE1. India keeps away

from vote against Israel in UN (Pages 1 and 10)

a) I.R a) The govt denied what appeared to be a major shift in Indias policy on Israel (particularly on UN votes related to the Palestinian cause), after it restrained from a vote against Israel at the UNHRC in Geneva.

2. PMs Central Asia trip to give impetus to trade, energy security (Page 10)

a) I.R a) PM Modis 5-nation tour of Central Asia beginning July 6 is expected to cover a gamut of issues from increasing trade and investment to counter-terrorism mechanisms, from improved surface connectivity to energy security.

3. Evidence weakens for BBC story on MQM-RAW links (Page 10)

a) I.R a) The credibility of claims made in a recent BBC report that the Indian intelligence agency RAW funded Pakistans MQM, have been seriously weakened following a statement by Britains Metropolitan police.

4. Tsipras dismisses Europes warnings (Page 12)

a) International a) Greek PM Tsipras rejected European warnings that Greeks will be deciding on their future in Eurozone in a referendum, saying negotiations would continue for a better deal with international creditors after the vote.

5. Rebels in new bid to capture Aleppo (Page 12)

a) International a) Sources said that Islamic militants and rebels in Syria launched fresh attacks on govt-held neighbourhoods in Aleppo, setting off some of the heaviest fighting in months in the contested northern city.

6. Cuba si, Yankee si (Page 9)

a) International a) As it heads closer to the world and to democracy, the big question is whether Raul Castros Cuba can safeguard the gains of Fidel Castros revolution while losing the hardships.

7. Centre brings black money law into force (Page 10)

a) National

b) Polity

a) Having advanced enforcement of the Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act by eight months through an executive order, the Union govt also notified the rules under the Act.

8. 30 p.c. of rural households landless (Pages 1 and 11)

a) National

b) Social issue

a) Nearly 19 percent of Indias rural population in 2011 lacked at least one of seven socio-economic parameters used to estimate deprivation that include source of income, the presence of an able and literate adult and quality dwelling.

9. Tribal alienation in an unequal India (Page 8)

a) National

b) Social issue

a) Thanks to the caste system, India has always been an unequal society. What is even more worrying is that inequality appears to have deepened in the past two decades.

10. Health costs a) National a) Early results from an official survey on expenditure

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forcing families into debt (Page 7)

b) Social issue

on health and education show that people are spending far beyond their means on these requirements.

11. Indian researchers identify a blazar (Page 7)

a) S&T

b) Geography

a) For over a year, one of the brightest objects to be spotted in space by humankind remained a mystery. It took an international group of astronomers (led by researchers from the Bengaluru-based Indian Institute of Astrophysics) to identify it as a blazer.

S.NO. NEWS ITEM SYLLUBUS BACKGROUND IMPORTANT POINTS1. India keeps away

from vote against Israel in UN (Pages 1 and 10)

a) I.R a) India – Israel relations

b) Gaza conflict

c) Palestinian issue

d) United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC)

e) International Criminal Court

a) Govt denied what appeared to be a major shift in Indias policy on Israel (particularly on UN votes related to Palestinian cause), after it restrained from a vote against Israel at the UNHRC in Geneva.

b) The resolution had welcomed the UNHRC report, which found evidence of alleged war crime committed by both Israel and Hamas during Gaza conflict in 2014, particularly calling for accountability of Israeli officials.

c) Significantly, India had voted against Israel and in favour of UNHRC resolution in July 2014 that had instituted this very inquiry report into the Gaza violence in which more than 2300 had been killed in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza.

d) However the govt denied any policy shift, indicating that India restrained because the UNHRC resolution had included a reference to taking

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Israel to International Criminal Court, which India considers intrusive. Fortyone countries voted in favour of the resolution against Israel, while only US voted against.

e) Indias abstention in the UNHRC vote against Israel, comes on the back of a number of decisions by the Modi govt that have indicated a growing closeness with Israel and a shift away from past policy.

2. PMs Central Asia trip to give impetus to trade, energy security (Page 10)

a) I.R a) India – Central Asia relations

b) Trade ties

c) Counter-terrorism

d) Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit

e) BRICS summit

f) Greece debt crisis

a) PM Modis 5-nation tour of Central Asia beginning July 6 is expected to cover a gamut of issues from increasing trade and investment to counter-terrorism mechanisms, from improved surface connectivity to energy security.

b) He will also attend SCO meeting and the BRICS summit in Ufa (Russia) on June 9 and 10, but there is no word yet on whether he will hold sideline meetings with his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif and Chinese President Xi Jingping, who will also be present.

c) India is expected to raise the issue of bail to 26/11 mastermind Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi with Pakistan. It is also expected to bring up Chinas decision to block Indias bid to seek action against Pak at UN.

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d) At SCO, India (which has been an observer since 2005) is expected to get permanent membership of the six-nation grouping of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. India had applied for membership in 2014 and has participated at ministerial-level at summits of the grouping.

e) On whether the Greece economic crisis would be on the agenda at BRICS, official said the members hope that fragile balance of global economy is not disrupted by the ongoing crisis and whatever is the economic developments in Greece, there wont be any effect beyond Europe.

3. Evidence weakens for BBC story on MQM-RAW links (Page 10)

a) I.R a) India – Pakistan relations

b) Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM)

c) RAW

a) The credibility of claims made in a recent BBC report that the Indian intelligence agency RAW funded Pakistans MQM, have been seriously weakened following a statement by Britains Metropolitan police.

b) The BBC story had quoted a senior MQM source as having acknowledged such payments in interrogation sessions with the Met police. The police are investigating charges of money laundering against the London-based MQM leader, Altaf Hussain. India had dismissed the charges as untrue.

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4. Tsipras dismisses Europes warnings (Page 12)

a) International a) Greece debt crisis

b) European Union (EU)

c) European Commission

d) European Central Bank (ECB)

e) International Monetary Fund (IMF)

a) Greek PM Tsipras rejected European warnings that Greeks will be deciding on their future in Eurozone in a referendum, saying negotiations would continue for a better deal with international creditors after the vote.

b) He said a report by IMF (which argued that Greeces massive public debt could not be sustained without significant writedowns) showed his advice to reject the lenders terms.

c) European Commission President and German Finance Minister dismissed Tsipras version that his govt would be able to move smoothly to negotiate more favourable terms if Greeks backed his rejection.

5. Rebels in new bid to capture Aleppo (Page 12)

a) International a) Islamic State (IS)

b) Syria and Iraq crisis

c) Al-Qaedas

d) Nusra Front

e) Aleppo

f) Syrian Observatory for Human Rights

a) Sources said that Islamic militants and rebels in Syria launched fresh attacks on govt-held neighbourhoods in Aleppo, setting off some of the heaviest fighting in months in the contested northern city.

b) The fighting is part of a new coordinated offensive in Aleppo by a newly-formed coalition between al-Qaedas branch in Syria, Nusra Front, and ultra-conservative Ahrar al-Sham group, and other rebels. The groups said they seek to liberate Aleppo under their coalition called Ansar al-

5


Sharia.

c) A former industrial and commercial hub, Aleppo has been carved up between govt and rebel-held neighbourhoods since 2012. With the city devastated by three years of fighting, many of its residents have long fled.

d) The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attacks started with concentrated rocket attacks targeting the govt-held Zahra neighborhood in western Aleppo, where some of the Syrian armys key military installations are located.

6. Cuba si, Yankee si (Page 9)

a) International a) US – Cuba relations

b) US ban against Cuba

c) Cubas situation

d) Cuban Missile Crisis

e) Fidel Castros revolution

a) Imperial Washington had severed diplomatic ties with Havana in 1961, after Fidel Castro led a victorious revolution removing US-backed dictatorship in Cuba. A year later, Malecon (Havana) served as a backdrop for the Cuban Missile Crisis, the only time when the world came close to a nuclear war on account of the brinkmanship between the US and the USSR.

b) According to the author, by contributing to a non-violent end to US-Cuba hostility, Obama has partially justified the Nobel Peace Prize he won in 2009. In some ways, he has acted under compulsion

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because US policy of isolating Cuba had actually resulted in Washington itself getting isolated in Latin America.

c) The credit for peacemaking must go equally to Cuban president Raul Castro, who has surprised everyone with his courageous foreign policy change without letting the US succeed at regime change in Cuba.

d) There were other dramatic transitions. One, he has initiated process of bringing to fore younger leaders who do not belong to the Castro clan. And two, he has unveiled bold economic and governance reforms without undermining stability of communist partys rule - a seminal lesson that both China and Cuba learnt after Mikhail Gorbachevs perestroika led to the collapse of the communist-ruled Soviet Union.

e) He has proved to be a pragmatic and effective leader, intent on transforming Cubas highly inefficient Soviet-style economy, which left country relatively poor and incapable of sustaining its famed cradle-to-grave social security system.

f) Besides Cubas fabulous beaches, what also attracts

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tourists is their admiration for the determination with which Cuba has survived unjustified economic ban imposed by US. His reforms are necessitated by another important factor. The lack of professional and wealth-generation opportunities in Cuba prompt thousands of young Cubans to migrate to US, both legally and illegally, each year.

g) Undoubtedly, Cuba will be very different in coming years, more prosperous, and more democratic. However, with Raul Castro set to step down in 2018, most commentators are discussing one big question - Will the small nation be able to safeguard the gains of Fidel Castros revolution - its spirit of internationalism, its alternative model of social sector development, a largely crime-free society, safety and empowerment of women, better race relations, and a very clean Cuba?

7. Centre brings black money law into force (Page 10)

a) National

b) Polity

a) Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act

b) Section 86 (1) of the Act

c) Section 1(3) of the main Act

a) Having advanced enforcement of the Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act by eight months through an executive order, the Union govt also notified the rules under the Act.

b) Official said that Section

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d) Parliament 86 (1) of the Act empowers the Central govt to order to remove difficulties not inconsistent with the provisions of the main Act as a delegate of Parliament. But in the instant situation, the govt has actually amended Section 1(3) of main Act by altering the date when the Act shall come into force from April 1 2016 to July 1 2015.

c) He said this is patently illegal as otherwise has not been provided in the Act. A delegated legislation cannot amend the parent legislation. Parliament alone could have altered the date of coming into force of the Act.

d) Section 1(3) states that save as otherwise provided in this Act, it shall come into force on 1st day of April 2016 and Section 86(1) provides that if any difficulty arises in giving effect to the provisions of this Act, the Central Govt may (by order) not inconsistent with the provisions of this Act, remove the difficulty.

8. 30 p.c. of rural households landless (Pages 1 and 11)

a) National

b) Social issue

a) Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) 2011

b) Census of India 2011

c) Ministry of Rural Development

a) Nearly 19 percent of Indias rural population in 2011 lacked at least one of seven socio-economic parameters used to estimate deprivation that include source of income, the presence of an able and literate adult and quality dwelling.

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d) Planning Commission

e) Poverty

f) Below Poverty Line (BPL)

b) The first socio-economic and caste census in India since 1934, the SECC 2011 was released by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

c) Among crucial findings of exercise (conducted by Ministry of Rural Development) was that about 30 percent of rural households are landless and derive a major part of their income from manual, casual labour. The second most common form of deprivation was literacy with close to a quarter (23.5 percent) of rural households having no literate adults above the age of 25.

d) However, the data related only to the socio-economic parameters of the SECC 2011. The detailed caste-based data that will include figures for the Other Backward Classes will be placed before Parliament.

e) The extent of and approach to deprivation captured by the SECC 2011 contrasts with the poverty estimates of erstwhile Planning Commission, which were income-based. As per the Commissions last estimate, in 2011-12, 25.7 percent of Indias rural population was BPL ie. with an income below Rs. 816 per capita per month.

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f) The SECC 2011 has found that 36 percent of the 884 million people in rural India are illiterate. This is higher than the 32 percent recorded by the Census of India 2011.

g) The performance within States is hugely varied, with an alarming 47.6 percent of rural Rajasthanis remaining illiterate, compared to 9.3 percent in Lakshadweep and 11.4 percent in Kerala.

h) Delhi performs the best when it comes to percentage of its rural population that has completed graduate studies - at 9.6 percent, its performance is almost thrice as good as the national average.

9. Tribal alienation in an unequal India (Page 8)

a) National

b) Social issue

a) Global inequality

b) Poverty

c) Kuznets Curve

d) Economic growth

e) Sustainable Development

f) Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA)

g) Panchayati raj institutions

h) Gram sabha

a) The Boston Consulting Groups 15th annual report (Winning the Growth Game: Global Wealth 2015) has received extensive coverage in the Indian media. The report comes on top of Global Wealth Databook 2014 from Credit Suisse, which provides a much more accurate and comprehensive picture of the trends in global inequality.

b) Global Wealth Databook reveals some shocking facts. The richest 1 percent of Indians today own nearly half (49 percent) of Indias personal wealth. Rest of us 99 percent

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are left to share the remainder among ourselves. And that too is very unequally shared. The top 10 percent Indians own nearly three-quarters (74 percent) of countrys personal wealth. The remaining 90 percent share a less quarter.

c) At the other end of the spectrum, of the worlds poorest 20 percent people, nearly one in four are Indians. Just to show by contrast, Chinas share is a just 3 percent. One view of Indias inequality is that this is nothing to be worried about. This is the normal progression of economic development.

d) A set of expanding industries located in an urban area induces further development of economic activity throughout its zone of influence. For some years, this generates increasingly large differentials in income and development, but after reaching a maximum level, inequality begins to decline, in the manner of an inverted U, what economists call Kuznets Curve.

e) Now, there is no doubt that poverty has declined significantly in recent times in India. But even nearly three decades after economic reforms and high growth, inequality continues to rise and wealth has

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become even more concentrated at the top. This kind of regressive change surely has a link with the crony capitalism of the last three decades.

f) Meanwhile, millions of Indians do not find themselves a part of the growth story. And there is growing resentment over this gaping inequality. Inequality in India operates on multiple axes - of gender, class, caste, region, religion and ethnicity. But perhaps the worst suffering is of Indias tribal people, who suffer a double effect of both disadvantaged region and ethnicity.

g) Official data on all indicators of development reveal that Indias tribal people are the worst off in terms of income, health, education, nutrition, infrastructure and governance. They have also been unfortunately at the receiving end of the injustices of development process itself. Around 40 percent of 60 million people displaced following development projects in India are tribals.

h) Inequality is important not only because of the acute perception of injustice it creates. Even economists have recently argued that inequality

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can also be destructive to growth by increasing the risk of crisis or making it difficult for the poor to invest in education. They conclude that reduced inequality and sustained growth may thus be two sides of the same coin.

i) What then are the elements of a vision of development much more inclusive and empowering of those left out? First, the overall direction of growth needs to change. It is clear that some models of growth are inherently more inclusive than others, which is why our focus should be not just on GDP growth itself, but on achieving a growth process that is as inclusive as possible.

j) It is also clear that sustainability has to be at core of our development strategy. This is because poorest regions of India are also the most eco-fragile. If we truly want to build tribal incomes, we need to offer them a range of sustainable livelihoods, including non-pesticide managed agriculture, an imperative also for the health of Indian consumers, as well as for reducing the escalating financial and ecological costs of farming.

k) Much better state capacities in regions of high

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poverty are also an urgent requirement. For these regions suffer not just from widespread market failure but also govt failure. A crucial reason why the poor are unable to take advantage of the possibilities opened up by growth even within their districts is the absence of requisite health and education facilities.

l) Globally, India spends among the lowest share of its national income on public provision of health and education. These are the sectors in most urgent need of govt reform. Programmes meant for poverty elimination such as the MGNREGA do not work as they are meant to because the requisite human resources do not exist precisely where these programmes are most desperately required.

m) Most of all, the excluded regions and people need better governance, which is much more participatory in nature, for only then will the slogan of cooperative federalism really acquire concrete substance. Panchayati raj institutions (including the gram sabha) need to be empowered and activated for this purpose.

n) Indian policymakers must recognise the urgent need to

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redefine the very meaning of reforms so as to make them pro-poor, rather than only pro-corporate. Without these reforms, inequality in India will continue to increase and create dangerous tensions, threatening the very survival of the delicate fabric of Indian democracy.

10. Health costs forcing families into debt (Page 7)

a) National

b) Social issue

a) Healthcare

b) Cardiovascular diseases

c) National Sample Survey Office (NSSO)

a) From Jan to June last year, the NSSO collected data from 66,000 households on their utilisation of, and expenditure on, education and health. The data show the growing dominance of the private sector in health and education.

b) Allopathy dominates in both rural and urban areas and across all income groups. This despite the fact that treatment in a private hospital costs four times as much as it does in a public hospital on an average, with the treatment of cancer and cardiovascular diseases proving to be most expensive.

11. Indian researchers identify a blazar (Page 7)

a) S&T

b) Geography

a) Blazar

b) Supermassive blackhole

c) Galaxy

d) Milky Way

a) For over a year, one of the brightest objects to be spotted in space by humankind remained a mystery. It took an international group of astronomers to identify it as a blazer.

b) A blazar is one of the most energetic phenomena known. It exists at the centre of a galaxy where a supermassive blackhole (which is millions of

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times larger in mass than the sun) has been formed.

c) On April 19 2014, a former-undetected object nearly 10 billion light years away suddenly emitted light. The emission was calculated as being ten thousand times stronger than the light emitted by entire Milky Way galaxy.

d) They have calculated that the blazar is powered by a blackhole that is at least 250 million times as bigger than sun and emitted light more than 500 billion times the suns emission.

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Documents

laex.in file · Web viewa) PM Modis 5-nation tour of Central Asia beginning July 6 is expected to cover a gamut of issues from increasing trade and investment to counter-terrorism