18 November 2015

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Bomb downed plane in Egypt: Russia  –    (International Relation)

  • Hours after confirming for the first time on Tuesday that a bomb brought down a Russian charter jet over the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt more than two weeks ago, killing all 224 people aboard, Russia joined France in bombing Islamic State (IS) targets in Syria.
  • Russian news reports said a Russian submarine had fired cruise missiles at IS targets in the same area.

 

Emerging market fund managers bearish on India  –    (Economics)

  • For the first time since October 2014, India has fallen out of favour among emerging market and Asian fund managers with its rating falling to neutral from being the most overweight. China has replaced India as the economy on which fund managers are most bullish on, as per the fund manager survey released by the Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BofA ML).
  • “Based on our Asia-Pacific ex-Japan investor panellists, India has fallen out of favour from being most overweight to neutral, something not seen since October 2014.

 

Govt. gives clean chit to ex-CJI  –    (Indian Polity)

  • The government on Tuesday gave a clean chit in the Supreme Court to the former Chief Justice of India, K.G. Balakrishnan, in a case connected to ‘benami’ property transactions involving his relatives.
  • Appearing before a Bench led by Justice Dipak Misra, Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi said enquiries against the former CJI might set a “very dangerous precedent.”

 

Post-Paris, West may tighten asylum policies  –    (International Relation)

  • As Paris grapples with the aftermath of the terror strikes, a new kind of fear has emerged over the expected clampdown on the liberal asylum policies of Western nations. Matthew Guy, leader of the Opposition in the Australian state of Victoria, told The Hindu that a clampdown on the liberal refugee and asylum policy will be the expected outcome.
  • “The conservative parties in the liberal West will be strengthened and they will demand tighter controls on who gets to enter France, Germany and other western countries. The worst affected will be the humanitarian cases but sadly refugee policies will never be the same,” he told The Hindu .

 

Well-stocked granaries may help hold rice price line, says trade body  –     (Governance)

  • Amid concern that the price of rice may be next to shoot up after those of pulses and onion, trade bodies put forth divergent views.
  • V.S. Sethia, former president and currently a governing council member of the All-India Rice Export Association, told The Hindu that apprehensions of a sharp rise in rice price were baseless as ample stock of regular (non-basmati) varieties were available.

 

Karnataka objects to T.N.’s plea for Cauvery water  –    (Indian Polity)

  • The applicant Tamil Nadu has drawn 98.436 tmcft of water as on 1.11.2015, leaving 26.547 tmcft of live storage at the Mettur reservoir.
  • The expected inflows into the Mettur reservoir would be 43.349 tmcft in the remaining period of 92 days from 1.11.2015 to 31.01.2016, having regard to the performance of the basin in the past 41 years from 1974-75 to 2014-15,” Karnataka said in its response filed through advocate V.N. Raghupathy and settled by senior advocate Fali Nariman.

 

Gujral doctrine for Modi darbar  –    (Indian Polity)

  • Narendra Modi’s foreign policy towards India’s neighbours suffers from an empathy deficit and is characterised by a disregard for the sensibilities of other countries. It is time for him to take a cue from the Gujral Doctrine which had ‘non-reciprocal magnanimity’ as a prime feature.

 

The case for the Rajya Sabha   –    (Indian Polity)

  • Another parliamentary session will be upon us in 10 days’ time. Both the government and the Opposition must be bracing for a stormy winter sitting. Besides routine obstructions in both Houses, the National Democratic Alliance is certain to be confronted once again with the inescapable reality that it is woefully short of a majority in the 245-member Rajya Sabha.
  • We may hear yet again the now-familiar lament that the ‘indirectly elected’ Council of States is preventing the government of the day, with a comfortable majority in the ‘directly elected’ House of the People, from implementing its legislative agenda.

 

 

A clean-up act with a short sweep   –     (Environment)

  •  New Delhi is in the news again as respirable particulate matter is said to have crossed hazardous limits. On the one hand, this is environmental damage that affects everyone, while on the other, it is damage with multiple determinants — vehicle exhaust, construction dust, Diwali firecrackers, pollution caused by the burning of paddy stumps and agricultural residue, and, of course, apathy.
  • In quantifying environmental damage, there are at least two stumbling blocks: identifying when the damage started and what its impact will be; and finding the source and cause of damage.

 

 

Paris attacks complicate Europe’s strained border controls   –    (International Relation)

  • The increasing likelihood that one of the Paris attackers entered Europe with a Syrian passport last month, amid the hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing war and persecution, has alarmed leaders and reinvigorated talk about tightening border controls.
  • But after months of discussion on exactly that point — and as many leaders and others warned that infiltration by would-be attackers was a grim possibility — Europe is no closer to resolving the issue, or even agreeing on what must be done to reduce that risk.

 

Greece strikes deal for €12-billion bailout funds   –    (International Relation)

  • Greece announced Tuesday it has struck a deal with its international creditors to unblock some €12 billion in much-needed bailout loans.
  • “We have reached agreement on everything, including the 48 additional measures” that should allow the €12 billion to be paid out on Friday, Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos told reporters after marathon talks.

 

What is the economic cost of terrorism?  –    (International Relation)

  •  It feels frivolous to ask about the cost of terror after the horrific Paris attacks, but it is one of the central issues with which policymakers and investors are grappling.
  • The conventional wisdom is that an act of terrorism accounts for a mere blip in economic damage. Economists often point to research showing that after the Madrid train bombings in 2004 and the London subway bombings in 2005, gross domestic product in those countries barely budged and showed little direct correlation to the attacks.

 

India, Bangladesh vow to end border killings  –    (International Relation)

  •  Delhi and Dhaka have agreed to bring border killings to an end and stressed greater awareness among citizens to avert such incidents in the future.
  • This was decided at the home secretary-level meeting between India and Bangladesh, when the issue of killing along the border came up prominently.

 

India’s Internet user base to touch 402 mn by December, surpassing U.S.   –     (Science And Technology)

  • The number of Internet users in India is expected to touch 402 million by December, a 49 per cent jump over last year, making India home to the second largest online user base after China, according to a report released by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and IMRB International.
  • India, which currently has the third largest Internet user base in the world after China and the U.S., had about 375 million Internet users in October. By December, India is expected to overtake the U.S. and also will become the first country to have largest Internet users in a free market democratic setup, according to the report released on Tuesday.