Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 26 July 2017

::National::

AYUSH treatment

• With questions about the credibility of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH) systems of medicine being raised time and again, the Karnataka Health and Family Welfare

• Department has now embarked on the task of validating the treatment methods through documentation and research.

India admitted to transgression

• China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi has claimed that the “Indian side...admitted” to entering Chinese territory, the first time a top leader of the country has weighed in on the protracted stand-off in the Sikkim area.

• China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi has claimed that the “Indian side...admitted” to entering Chinese territory, the first time a top leader of the country has weighed in on the protracted stand-off in the Sikkim area.

• It was not clear how the reported comments by the unnamed Indian officials led him to conclude that India was admitting to border transgression.

• It is the first time that such a senior person in the Chinese hierarchy has commented on the dispute, which has been dominated by shrill rhetoric in the state-owned media with almost daily commentaries attacking India with nationalistic warnings.

• There was no immediate reaction from the Indian government.

• The Chinese media commentaries and the Foreign Ministry spokesmen have demanded that India withdraw its troops from Doklam in the southernmost part of Tibet, in an area also claimed by Bhutan.

President Ram Nath Kovind:

• India’s new President Ram Nath Kovind flagged pluralism and unity in diversity as cornerstones of the country’s success.

• Mr. Kovind said the “key to India’s success is its diversity. Our diversity is the core that makes us so unique.”

• Nations, were “not built by governments alone” and required national pride, in the soil and water of the country, in its diversity and inclusiveness, in its culture and “in the little things we do everyday.”

Central government may not sell Air India’s stake

• The central government may not sell Air India’s domestic and international operations separately.

• This might come as a hurdle to low-cost airline IndiGo’s plan to acquire its international operations.

• “AI’s business cannot be split merely based on an expression of interest from a single private player. If we sell lucrative assets separately, it will make the divestment of the domestic unit and subsidiaries tricky.

• The government’s concern is that Air India’s valuation may further take a hit if it hives off Air India into two companies and invites bids for its domestic and international operations.

Yash Pal dead is no more:

• Scientist, communicator and institution builder, Dr Yash Pal, 90, who died in Noida, belonged to an era of scientists who espoused ‘Make In India’ decades before it became a politico-marketing cliché.

• Pal passed at the Max hospital in Noida, his son Rahul Pal, also a scientist with the Science and Technology Ministry’s Department of Biotechnology.

• In the 1970s, as director of the Space Applications Centre, a wing of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) set up to conceptualise applications for satellite technology for societal needs, Pal put together a team of young scientists from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Mumbai to develop remote-sensing technologies, disregarding suggestions that scientists be sent to the U.S. for training.

• “Where did the Americans, who had launched their remote sensing satellite only a year back, send their people for training?” was his classic retort.

• Pal, born in Jhang (in erstwhile undivided Punjab), had earned a doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

• He began his career as a professor at the TIFR. He went on to hold several senior position in government as Chief Consultant with the Planning Commission from in 1983, Secretary,Department of Science and

• Technologyfrom 1984 to 1986) and as chairman of the University Grants Commission (UGC) for five years from 1986 to 1991.

• A scientist of international repute, Pal was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1976 and India’s second highest civilian honour, the Padma Vibhushan, in 2013.

• He made significant contributions in the field of science and to the study of cosmic rays, high-energy physics, astrophysics.

• In 1993 he led the MHRD panel on the issue of overburdening school children. The report of the committee, entitled Learning without Burden , remains a seminal document on Indian education.

• He also chaired the NCERT’s steering committee for the National Curriculum Frameworkin 2005. As chairman of the UGC he chaired a committee to suggest reforms to higher education in India in 2009.

• A well known science communicator, Pal brought galaxies and cosmic rays to living rooms across India via ‘Turning Point’, an extremely popular science show on Doordarshan.

Centre gives 35 names for High Court judges

• The Law Ministry has forwarded the names of 35 candidates to the SC collegium for appointment as judges in five High Courts, as recommended by the HC collegiums of Madras, Kerala, Karnataka, Jharkhand and Gujarat. The government has forwarded the names following a background check by the Intelligence Bureau.

• It is learnt that most candidates are from the subordinate judiciary. The five HCs had a vacancy of 97 judges as on July 1.

::INTERNATIONAL::

Hambantota port deal revised

• Sri Lanka’s Cabinet cleared a revised deal for the Chinese-built port in Hambantota, the government said. The modified agreement, the government added, was more profitable to Sri Lanka and also addressed security concerns raised by other countries.

• Srilankan Cabinet gave final approval to sell 70% stake in the southern port to the state-run China Merchants Port Holdings for $1.12 billion.

• Some [diplomatic] missions here were worried that the port would be used as a military naval base. As per the revised agreement Sri Lanka will manage the port security.

• While the Chinese would manage port operations, no naval ship, including Chinese ones, can call at Hambantota without Srilanka permission.

• India’s apprehensions about the apparently growing Chinese presence in the island nation are well known, given the two countries’ competing strategic interests here. The Hambantota port is part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

• Beijing’s stake in the port and its plan to acquire 15,000 acres of adjoining land to help Colombo set up an industrial zone have strengthened the fears of those wary of China’s growth in the region.

• The Hambantota port was built with Chinese loans in 2010 during Mr. Rajapaksa’s term. Deeming the project a “white elephant”, the MaithripalaSirisena-RanilWickremesinghe government decided in late 2016 to sell 80% stake in the port to the Chinese company in order to tackle the $8 billion debt Sri Lanka owes China.

• Under the agreement, Colombo will receive $1.12 billion for a 99-year lease.

Iran’s tech sector blooms under shield of sanctions

• The names may be unfamiliar but the services are immediately recognisable: Snapp is Iran’s answer to Uber, Digikala is its Amazon, and Pintapin its Booking.com.

• U.S. sanctions have protected the Islamic republic’s tech sector, barring Silicon Valley from profiting from one of the world’s most promising emerging markets, and giving a free run to domestic start-ups to recreate their services.

• Even some Californian mumbo-jumbo has been imported: one booth at the Elecomp tech fair in Tehran this week claimed it was “Creating Artificial Mindfulness”.

• But don’t dare call them copycats transplanting a foreign business model to Iran is never straightforward.

• Pintapin’s staff are not just building a website, they are transforming Iran’s entire hotel industry. “Up until very recently, a lot of travel arrangements were done completely offline through phone calls and faxes and traditional models that really belong in the last century.

• Half the company’s time is spent convincing hotels to give up pen-and-paper reservations and start automating their business.

• Some Iranians have found ways to profit from sanctions: one company at Elecomp buys Amazon products from the U.S. and ships them to Iranians for a small surcharge.

• But isolation has been a very mixed blessing. There are two sides to the coin. When you are under sanctions, you have an opportunity to do many things yourself. But generally, it’s not a good thing... you can’t live like an island in this world.”

• But generally, it [sanctions] is not a good thing. you can’t live like an island in this world.

China fires back at U.S. accusations over aerial encounter

• China denied its fighter jet pilots operated dangerously during an encounter with a U.S. surveillance plane in international airspace in which the American pilot took evasive action to avoid a possible collision.

• Mr. Ren criticised frequent close-in surveillance runs by U.S. planes as raising the chance of accidents, saying such missions “threatened China’s national security, harmed China-U.S. sea-air military safety, endangered the safety of pilots from the two sides and were the root cause of China-U.S. sea-air unexpected incidents”.

• U.S. Navy Captian Jeff Davis said the Chinese fighters intercepted the U.S. EP-3 surveillance plane on Sunday in international airspace between the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea, in an area he described as west of the Korean Peninsula.

• China in 2013 declared an air defence identification zone over a partly contested portion of the East China Sea, demanding foreign aircraft declare their presence and follow Chinese orders.

• The U.S. and others swiftly dismissed the zone as invalid and have largely ignored it. It wasn’t clear if Sunday’s encounter took place inside the zone.

• Such incidents continue to occur despite an agreement between the two sides to prevent them from sparking an international crisis, as happened in April 2001 when a Chinese jet fighter collided with a U.S. EP-3.

• That led to the death of the Chinese pilot and China’s detention of the U.S. air crew for 10 days after their crippled plane landed at a PLA air base in Hainan.

• While China has long chafed at U.S. surveillance operations targeting its military, the PLA itself has been conducting such missions further and further from its home ports.

::BUSINESS::

RCEP talks

• India’s reservations regarding the potential adverse impact of eliminating duties on its local manufacturing and job creation is understood to be slowing down the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiations.

• The RCEP is a proposed mega Free Trade Agreement (FTA) involving 16 Asia Pacific nations including India and China, and aims, among other things, to liberalise investment norms in the region, besides boosting trade by dismantling most tariff and non-tariff barriers.

• While most RCEP countries have agreed to quickly eliminate barriers affecting goods trade, India is seeking more time to do so, and that is delaying the negotiations.

• The talks have already missed many deadlines and it looks like the negotiators won’t be able to conclude it this year.

• Asia Pacific is a fast growing region, but trade between countries in the region is affected by several barriers. If RCEP talks are not concluded quickly and these barriers are not eliminated, the region will miss out on many opportunities.

• Meanwhile, Indian companies and industry bodies, including CII, flagged their concerns. The Centre’s ‘Make In India’ initiative to boost manufacturing and job creation could be hit by a hurried pact.

• India’s trade deficit [annual] with RCEP nations is about $100 billion, and half of this is with China alone even without an FTA with China.

• Post India’s FTA with ASEAN, Japan and Korea [who are all RCEP members], our trade deficit with them have increased, and the government needs to take this into account during RCEP negotiations.

• Eliminating duties under the RCEP will impact many sectors including steel, aluminium, auto-components, many engineering items and readymade garments.

• CII Trade Policy Committee chairman Deep Kapuria said while many countries were urging greater focus on duty elimination, India ought to highlight the need for removal of non-tariff barriers including those in China.

Insurance companies can no longer retain unclaimed amounts

• Insurance companies can no longer retain unclaimed amounts of policyholders if those accruals are more than 10 years old. Such sums need to be, instead, transferred to the Senior Citizens’ Welfare Fund (SCWF) of the Centre.

• All insurers having unclaimed amounts of policyholders for a period of more than 10 years as on September 30, 2017 need to transfer the same to the SCWF on or before March 1, 2018.

• The direction from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India has come in the backdrop of the amendment made in April to the Senior Citizens’ Welfare Fund Rules.

• The amendment expanded the purview beyond the unclaimed amounts in small savings and other saving schemes of the Centre, PPF and EPF.

• It brought in unclaimed amount lying with banks, including cooperative banks and RRBs; dividend accounts, deposits and debentures of companies coming under the Companies Act; insurance companies and Coal Mines PF.

• Minister of State for Finance Santosh Kumar Gangwar had informed the Lok Sabha that unclaimed deposits as on March 31, 2016, with insurers (life and non-life) totalled Rs. 11,725.45 crore, rising sharply from the Rs. 7,227.23 crore in the previous year.

• Details as to how much of the unclaimed amounts was more than ten years were not immediately available. Unclaimed amounts include sum payable as death claim, maturity claim, survival benefit, premium due for refund and indemnity claims.

Indian dairy industry:

• The Indian dairy sector, providing livelihood to 15 crore farmers, would be severely hit if import duties on milk and milk products were eliminated under any Free Trade Agreement (FTA) including the Regional

• Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), according to the local dairy cooperative Amul.

• Separately, farmers’ organisations have threatened to hold nationwide protests if the dairy sector is opened up under the RCEP the proposed mega-regional FTA involving 16 Asia Pacific nations including India or any other FTA including those proposed separately with Australia and New Zealand.

• As against 15 crore dairy farmers in India, there were only 12,000 of them in New Zealand and 6,300 in Australia.

• Currently, the duty on milk and milk products ranges from 40% to 60%, which gives the local industry enough protection to build its competitiveness.

• However, if the duty is drastically reduced or eliminated under any FTA, the local industry would find it difficult to compete against producers, particularly from RCEP members like Australia and New Zealand which control more than 35% of the global dairy trade and in excess of 50% of the intra-RCEP trade.

Rs. 7 lakh crore for highways

• The Centre will invest about Rs. 7 lakh crore in developing national highways in the next five years, the Road Transport and Highways Ministry said in a statement.

• Estimated a fund requirement of about Rs. 6.92 lakh crore for the development of National Highways in the country during the next five years.

• The funds would be sourced through gross budgetary support, central road fund and toll remittances, among others.

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