(Current Affairs For SSC Exams) International India and World |November 2015

November-2014

Pakistan Taliban threatens to attack India

Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (Jamaat ul-Ahrar), the group that claimed responsibility for the suicide attack at a Pakistani check post near the Wagah border that killed 61 people, has threatened attacks on India next. In a telephone interview to agency Reuters, the spokesperson of the group Ehsanullah Ehsan (assumed name) said. “I have already conveyed it to Modi... that if our suicide bombers can carry out attacks.
On this side of the border, they can easily do it on other side of the border in India,” he told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.
“I told him that his hands are red with the blood of Kashmiri mujahideen (fighters) and innocent people of Gujarat for which he would have to pay the price.”
Ehsan was probably referring to an earlier message on his twitter account, which said, “You (Modi) are the killer of hundreds of Muslims. We wl (will) take the revenge of innocent people of Kashmir and Gugrat” (sic).” The message has since been deleted, but sources said PM Modi has been briefed about the threat since, and security agencies are taking the threat “very seriously”.

U.S.-India pact paves the way for global trade deal

Decks have been cleared for a possible global trade deal after India and the U.S agreed on the way forward to break the logjam in global trade negotiations. With the agreement in place, India is all set to move its proposal on food security before the WTO’s General Council at its next meeting scheduled for early December.
This proposal will seek to make open-ended the interim protection of a ‘peace clause’ that was agreed to at the Bali Ministerial last December.
The clause safeguards support prices for farmers against the WTO’s limits on agricultural subsidies. India was in danger of breaching these subsidy caps
India wants to make sure that this protection would be available in perpetuity, should a permanent solution to the problem of the WTO agriculture subsidy caps not be found. Whether the Bali Declaration provides that the ‘peace clause’ could be available beyond 2017 was open to interpretation.
Announcing that an agreement had been reached with the U.S, Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Nirmala Sitharaman said on Thursday that the U.S had agreed that India’s right to protect its right to food security cannot be denied by the WTO, paving the way for removing the imperfections in the Bali Ministerial package.
U.S Trade Representative Michael Froman also released a statement which said the agreement with India reflected shared understandings regarding the WTO’s work on food security.
Sources on the Indian side indicated that the resolution was possible after an understanding was reached with the U.S that India’s subsidies are not trade-distorting and aimed at achieving food security. India, on the other hand, was able to reassure the U.S that it was not opposed to trade facilitation and in fact was on course to implement it.

Germany hopeful of solution over language row soon

Even as a row continued to simmer over the Human Resource Development Ministry’s decision to take off German from the third language slot of the Kendriya Vidyalaya curriculum, Germany hoped a solution would be found soon.
German Ambassador Michael Steiner said a solution would be found to allow the language to be taught in these schools.
He expressed confidence that after raising the issue with the Union government, both sides would be able to work out a way that would take care of children’s desire to learn foreign languages.
Human Resource Minister Smriti Irani said an investigation had been ordered since the existing arrangement violated the three-language formula.
After an MoU between the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan and the German government in 2011, German was added to the third language list.

Australia-India sign pact to enhance skill development

Australia and India have decided to map common standards on job roles and further strengthen bilateral cooperation on skill development. The Indian Government has also decided to expand the capacities of 12,000 industrial training institutes.
At the ‘3rd India Australia Skills Conference: Skills for Better Business’ in Mumbai, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between the National Skill Development Corporation, India (NSDC) and TAFE Directors, Australia, on Technical and Vocational Education and Training cooperation.
The purpose is to further strengthen cooperation between the two to enhance and extend bilateral cooperation between Australia and India, a statement noted. The aim is to contribute positively to the development of technical and vocational education and training related linkages between India and Australia, it added.
Bandaru Dattatreya, Minister for Labour and Employment, was present at the signing. In a statement, he said that with India going to add 10 million people to the work force each year, for the next 15 years, they would all need to be skilled and employed.
He informed the ministry had launched a scheme for flexi memorandum of understandings between industry and industrial training institutes, which would lead to a minimum of 80 per cent of placement in the industry.
Around three years ago, the India-Australia engagement on skills development had made an initial foray. The project has made rapid progress. It may be recalled that during the visit of the Indian delegation to Australia in July 2014, five sectors were identified and one or more critical job roles were taken up for developing the Indo-Australian Trans National Standards.

India-Australia seek early closure of civil nuclear deal

India and Australia sought early conclusion of negotiations for a comprehensive economic partnership agreement and a closure on the civil nuclear deal as Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his counterpart Tony Abbott held talks in Canberra.
After the two leaders held talks, India and Australia signed five pacts on social security, transfer of sentenced prisoners, combating narcotics trade, tourism, and Arts and Culture.
“We also agreed on seeking early closure on the civil nuclear agreement, which will give Australia a chance to participate in one of the most secure and safe nuclear energy programme in the world,” Mr. Modi said in a statement to the media at a joint press conference with Abbott.
Later, while addressing the Parliament, Australian Prime Minister Abbott said, “If all goes well, Australia will export uranium to India under suitable safeguards because cleaner energy is one of the most important contributions that Australia can make to wider world.”

Musharraf warns of proxy war with India in Afghanistan

The departure of Nato combat forces from Afghanistan could push India and Pakistan towards a proxy war in the troubled state, Pakistan’s former military ruler General Pervez Musharraf warned in an interview with AFP.
As Pakistan’s ruler, Musharraf was a key US ally in its “war on terror”, but he now lives under tight security in his Karachi home, facing Taliban death threats and a litany of criminal cases dating back to his near decade-long rule that ended in 2008.
The 71-year-old — who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999 — praised new Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who made his first official trip to Pakistan last week in a bid to reset fractious ties with Islamabad.
Pakistan’s support is seen as crucial to Afghan peace as US-led forces pull out by the end of this year after 13 years battling the Taliban.
But the former strongman said calming tension between India and Pakistan — running high at the moment after some of the worst cross-border firing in years — is key to peace in Afghanistan.
“The danger for Pakistan is... the Indian influence in Afghanistan,” he told AFP at his house in Karachi.
“That is another danger for the whole region and for Pakistan because Indian involvement there has an anti-Pakistan connotation. They (India) want to create an anti-Pakistan Afghanistan.”

UNICEF wants to support India in ‘Clean India Mission’

UNICEF hailed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious ‘Swachh Bharat’ mission and offered its support to the government to successfully implement the programme, particularly in rural India.
“We are really welcoming this initiative....We are really putting everything we can to support this initiative,” UNICEF India Representative Louis-Georges Arsenault said in New Delhi.
Noting that hygiene and sanitation in many Indian districts, particularly in Uttar Pradesh are “very weak,” Arsenault expressed hope that the new initiative would help spread awareness among people about hygiene in their surroundings.
He was reacting to a question on UNICEF’s role in cleanliness and the new initiative of the government.
UNICEF officials said that the organisation’s long standing support for improving water supply, sanitation and hygiene stems from a firm conviction and based on sound evidence that these are central to ensuring the rights of children.
UNICEF supports the Centre and State Governments in developing and implementing a range of replicable intervention models for sanitation, hygiene and water supply.
On October 2, Modi launched the ambitious Swachh Bharat campaign that was joined by Chief Ministers, lawmakers and prominent personalities from various fields, along with lakhs of countrymen in a drive that is expected to cost nearly Rs, 2 lakh crore.
Trilateral Coast Guard exercise ‘Dosti-XII’ ends
A four-day trilateral Coast Guard exercise ‘Dosti-XII’ among India, Maldives and Sri Lanka off the Maldives coast ended. Five ships and two aircraft participated in the event.
“Two ships from Indian Coast Guard, Samar with Integral Helicopter, Rajdoot along with a Dornier aircraft, one ship from Sri Lankan Samudura and two ships from Maldives, Huravee and Shaheed Ali participated,” a Coast Guard release said.
‘Dosti’ was institutionalised in 1991 as bilateral exercise between the Indian Coast Guard and the Maldives National Security Service. Sri Lanka became part of the exercise in 2012.

New GDP data with 2011-12 as base year in Jan 2015

Seeking to present a more realistic picture of the economy, the government will release a new series of national accounts with 2011-12 as base year for computing the economic growth rate.
The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data based on the new series will be released for three consecutive years from 2011-12 in January next year.
At present, the GDP is computed on 2004-05 base year. “The new series will better reflect the economy as it would include more sectors. However, it would be difficult to say whether there would be any significant change in growth rates for the previous years,” National Statistical Commission Chairman Pronab Sen, who was associated with formulation of the new series, said.