Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 29 September 2015

:: India & world ::

U.S., India sign $3-bn defence deal

• A few hours before Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Barack Obama met in New York, the two sides signed final agreements for the purchase of two of the most advanced American helicopters in a deal worth about $3 billion.

• Ministry of Defence spokesperson Sitanshu Kar announced on his official Twitter handle: “Contract for purchase of 15 Chinook and 22 Apache helicopters signed.” Just an hour after the official announcement, Mr. Modi and Mr. Obama met in New York with a warm hug.

• According to officials, the deal value is worth about $3 billion (Rs 19,800 crore) and would be completed in four years. The agreements were signed in the headquarters of the Ministry of Defence in South Block.

• For the Chinook helicopters, the agreement was signed between representatives of MoD and Boeing. For Apache, there were two separate contracts —one between MoD and Boeing representatives and the other between the governments to cover parts of the deal under the Foreign Military Sales programme.

• The contracts mark yet another significant step in rapidly expanding military ties between the two sides that would be discomforting to China, while drawing the contours of a broader coalition emerging in the region. Unlike the previous UPA government, which was reluctant to be seen to be doing U.S. bidding in the region, the Modi government has been receptive to U.S. deals and joint exercises. In a first, the latest Malabar exercise between the U.S. and India has been expanded to include Japan.

• The latest deal would ensure that the U.S. remains the one of India’s biggest military suppliers for some years to come. The U.S. has signed over $10 billion worth of defence deals with India in the past decade or so. This inclu-des P-8I maritime surveillance planes, C-130J Super Hercules and C-17 Globemaster-III transport aircraft.

Africa-India summit venue far from ready

• Despite prominently displaying Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s slogans on cleanliness, the Indira Gandhi Sports Complex here is not yet clean enough to host the Africa-India summit beginning on October 26.

• Though diplomats refused to acknowledge the messy condition of the venue, indeed an alarming situation prevails in “K.D. Jadhav Wrestling Stadium” of the sports complex where workers are battling gigantic puddles of water, broken ceiling patches, water pipes, bird nests, and animal excreta deposited over a period of time.

• A few labourers who have recently begun to renovate the stadium are mostly limited to the ground floor leaving the upper floors to be cleaned during the brief period ahead. Apart from stray dog menace, workers say frequent sighting of snakes is another matter which requires them to remain alert. However, this aspect seems to be taken care of by a good number of mongooses that are seen darting across the arena on a good day.

• According to workers, a major nuisance for the heads of states and the army of diplomats, unless preventive measures are installed, will be the presence of a few aggressive kites and pigeons which have turned the high roofs of the gymnastics and wrestling wings into their nesting habitat.

Russia proposes global contact group to resolve Syrian crisis

• Efforts to resolve the crisis in Syria may be taken up by an international “contact group”, including Russia, Iran, the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt, it emerged on Monday, hours before Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin were to hold their first meeting in over two years. Mikhail Bogdanov, the Russian deputy foreign minster, said the group could meet by October the RIA news agency reported from Moscow.

• The group conspicuously excludes Britain and France, both permanent veto-wielding members of the UN Security Council who are hostile to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, as well as China.

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