Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 3 September 2017

Daily Current Affairs for IAS Exams

Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 3 September 2017

::National::

Ragging in educational institutions is truly alive and kicking

Ragging in educational institutions is truly alive and kicking. Four out of every ten students admitted to higher educational institutions have been victims, a study commissioned by UGC has found.
The study, titled ‘Psychosocial Study of Ragging in Selected Educational Institutions in India’, was done during 2013-14 in 37 colleges and universities across the country.
It scrutinised the experiences of 10,632 students from different demographic profiles.
The study encompassed 13 colleges from the northern parts of India, 10 from the south, six from the east and eight from western India. The surveyed institutions included nine medical colleges, 11 engineering colleges and nine ‘degree’ colleges and universities.
The practice continues despite multiple judgements by the Supreme Court over the past two decades seeking to curb it.
The court in 1999 and 2007 issued guidelines to curb ragging and felt the need again in 2009 to set up a committee of mental health and public health professionals to study the menace.
The study finds ragging is more prevalent among hostel residents at 45.9%, when compared with the 32.5% incidence seen among day scholars.
The incidence was more in professional courses such as medicine and engineering — approximately 48.3% in medical colleges and 44.5% in engineering colleges.
The figure is 28.8% for other courses. Instances of ragging was much higher among males.
The study examines ragging incidents reported in major media outlets between January 2007 and September 2013, and analyses 717 cases. The highest number of 97 was reported from Uttar Pradesh.
According to the study, factors such as individual appearance, region of origin, language spoken, sexuality, and caste were factors involved in the incidents.
About 20.7% of students who admitted to having been ragged said they were targeted for their looks and appearance. About 15.6% attributed it to their region of origin and 12.2% to their mother tongue.
The report states that the ability or inability to speak English often becomes a basis for discrimination and a factor in ragging.
Academicians and researchers said that during field visits it was observed that ragging was less prevalent in institutions that promoted a healthy interaction between teachers and students, and when there was a sense of community on the campus.
Surveillance tools such as CCTV cameras proved to be ineffectual as they often induced a sense of complacency among administrators.
Curiously, of the students who admitted to being ragged, 32.6% said they enjoyed the experience, while 45.1% admitted to feeling bad only initially.
Negative emotional experiences such as feeling angry was reported by 19.1% students, 12.1% said they felt helpless, and 8.6% felt ashamed and humiliated.
The results show that 33.8% of students felt ragging helps build confidence and develop personality traits, and 34.8% felt it toughened them mentally. As many as 35.7% felt ragging prepares a student to deal with the harsh world outside.

Ninth summit of BRICS to start in China

The ninth summit of BRICS, a grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, will begin.
New Delhi and Beijing are unlikely to allow their differences over the Doklam plateau to cloud their support for the emerging economies and the Global South.
Analysts say that having benefited from open trade and investments, India is unlikely to let geopolitics or its close ties with Washington come in the way of joining China and the emerging economies in fostering a new wave of globalisation.
Notwithstanding the major points of convergence on a global canvas, a possible one-on-one meeting between President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Apart from the emerging countries, the region, including South Asia and the 10-nation Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), would have a special interest in picking new signals shaping New Delhi-Beijing ties.
Of late, India’s pursuit of the Indo-Pacific doctrine, focussed on an energetic engagement of the ASEAN and island territories in the Pacific, with a strong Indian diaspora presence, is feeding into the broadening India-China equation.
Despite rejection of terrorism, India has been calling for the early endorsement of the U.N. convention of terrorism.
The Chinese are opposed to any formulation that would indirectly slam the role of Pakistan in global terrorism.

Nepal will discuss connectivity and trade with Beijing

Indicating China’s continuous push into South Asia, Nepal will discuss connectivity and trade with Beijing immediately after the end of the BRICS summit.
The reports came within hours of Kathmandu’s Ambassador to Beijing indicating that Nepal will fast-track bilateral discussions on the One Belt One Road (OBOR) policy of China.
Deputy Prime Minister of Nepal Krishna Bahadur Mahara will travel to Beijing on September 6 for talks on OBOR. The visit comes days after Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba visited India.
Setting the backdrop for the visit, Leelamani Paudel, Nepal’s Ambassador to China, said that OBOR would benefit Nepal and the same could also reach India.
Nepal remained equidistant during the two-month Doklam standoff between India and China though there have been reports of growing pressure on Kathmandu to take a side.

Buxa reserve part of tiger augmentation programme

Tigers will roar again at Buxa Tiger Reserve in West Bengal. Located in Alipurduar district, the reserve, parts of which border Bhutan, has been identified for the tiger augmentation programme by NTCA.
Notified as a tiger reserve in 1983, Buxa consists of moist, deciduous and evergreen forests. It stretches to a length of 50 km from west to east and 35 km from north to south.
Over the past few years, the number of tigers in the Buxa reserve has been hotly debated by wildlife enthusiasts.
There were tigers in the reserve, almost no sighting of the big cats raised questions about their presence. The survey of tigers in 2011 based on DNA analyses of scat put the number of tigers at 20.
The Sunderbans in south Bengal is home to about 100 tigers. Experts have consciously decided not to augment tigers in the Buxa reserve from the Sunderbans, a completely different mangrove ecosystem.
Instead, tigers from the forest reserves of Assam, which have a similar flora and fauna, will be introduced in Buxa.
The reserve is located very close to Assam’s Manas Tiger Reserve, and some experts believe that animals from Manas often come to Buxa using Bhutan as a corridor.
The initial plan is to introduce six tigers at Buxa, but this poses a challenge to forest officials as there is human habitation in the area.
The tiger reserve has an area of about 757.9 sq km, of which 390 sq km lies in the core area and 367 sq km in the buffer zone. There are about 38 villages in Buxa and 49 villages in the fringe area.
A number of tea gardens are located on the periphery of the reserve.
Besides the population pressure, another major challenge at Buxa is the broad gauge rail line passing through the reserve, connecting Siliguri and Alipurduar.
There are also common clouded leopards, jungle cats and fishing cats. The herbivore list includes elephants, Indian gaur, chital, sambars, barking deer and hog deer.
It is home to at least 68 species of mammals, 41 species of reptiles and more than 246 species of birds, four species of amphibians, 73 species of fishes and over a hundred species of butterflies and moths.

::International::

US space agency to be headed by former Navy pilot

U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he plans to appoint James Bridenstine, a former Navy pilot and Republican congressman, to head the U.S. space agency NASA.
Mr. Bridenstine, 42, who backed Mr. Trump during the U.S. presidential campaign, had long been considered the favourite for the job of NASA administrator.
But the nomination drew fire from two U.S. Senators from Florida.
Mr. Bridenstine, who was elected to Congress from Oklahoma in 2012, is a member of the House Armed Services Committee and the Committee on Science, Space and Technology.
According to the trade publication SpaceNews, Mr. Bridenstine has been a big proponent of giving the private sector a larger role in space.

::Business and Economy::

Implementation of GST has not gone well for many rice millers,

Implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) has not gone well for many rice millers, especially those who produce branded rice in the southern States.
Gummadi Venkateswara Rao, chairman of All India Rice Millers’ Federation, said that earlier, some States had nil tax on rice while some had 5% tax.
Under GST, there is no tax on rice and hence, prices have come down in many places.
However, branded rice, which is just 2% to 3 % of the market, attracts a 5% rate.
Similarly, rice bran sold for solvent purposes attracts 5% GST while there is no tax on bran meant for cattle or poultry feed. More than half the volume goes to the feed industry. GST on bran should be removed.
Awareness on rice brands had been high in Tamil Nadu and there are more than 100 brands in the State.

Two-wheeler manufacturers recorded a significant jump in sales in August

Led by Royal Enfield, TVS Motor and Honda MotoCorp, two-wheeler manufacturers recorded a significant jump in sales in August, due to a favourable monsoon and the forthcoming festive season.
TVS Motor Company, which makes two- and three-wheelers, saw 16% growth for August 2017 at 3.18 lakh units, said a company statement.
The company’s total exports grew by 33.7% (from 34,097 units to 45,604 units) in August 2017.
Royal Enfield, which makes the iconic Bullet motorcycles, recorded a close to 22% growth in sales at 67,977 vehicles against 55,721 units sold in the comparable period a year earlier. While the domestic business grew 22%, international business rose 12%.