21 September 2015

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Blackbuck conservation reserve proposed in Chamarajanagar  –    (Environment)

  •       There is a proposal for a blackbuck conservation reserve at Ummathur and Bagli villages in Chamarajanagar district to sustain their numbers in the wild.
  •      The concept was mooted by the Chief Conservator of Forests of Chamarajanagar Circle under section 36-A of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.
  •      A threatened species, which was bordering on the verge of extinction due to extensive hunting in the pre-Independence days, their numbers are confined to a few reserves scattered across India.

 

Experts differ on Netaji’s disappearance  –    (Indian culture)

  • With different scholars having different takes on whether Netaji Subhas Bose died in an air crash in Taiwan in 1945, the controversy over his disappearance is unlikely to die soon.

 

India, Japan, U.S. plan to push ties to next level  –   (International relation)

  •       India, the U.S. and Japan are set to raise their trilateral engagement to the ministerial level, with a meeting of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry planned on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly
  •       “Noting India’s ‘Act East’ policy and the United States’ rebalance to Asia, the leaders committed to work more closely with other Asia Pacific countries through consultations, dialogues and joint exercises. They underlined the importance of their trilateral dialogue with Japan and decided to explore holding this dialogue among their Foreign Ministers,” the joint statement had said.

 

Hindutva 2.0’s new caste challenge  –    (Governance)

  •       The Mandal 2.0 politics proposed by the Lalu-Nitish alliance seeks to aggregate smaller caste groups by calling the BJP a party of the upper castes. Mr. Modi’s campaign talks about ‘jungle raj’, a euphemism for the Yadav social dominance
  •      Forcing the dominant castes to loosen their grip on power while integrating numerically insignificant caste groups has been an essential component of Hindutva 2.0. This strategy is being put on test in Bihar.

 

Rekindling the disarmament momentum  –    (International Relation)

  • India today has a unique opportunity to rekindle the global nuclear disarmament momentum, and to kick-start this ambitious but useful project, New Delhi should offer to sign the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT).
  • India’s resistance to the CTBT has lost relevance as it does not intend to conduct any more tests; signing the Treaty can be a bargaining chip in the new global nuclear order.

 

Nepal adopts first democratic Constitution    –    (International Relation)

  •        On Sunday, Nepal adopted its first democratic Constitution, a historic step for a nation that has seen war, a palace massacre and devastating earthquakes since a campaign to create a modern state began more than 65 years ago.
  •        It creates seven states in a secular, federal system, but is opposed by some groups who wanted to re-establish Nepal as a Hindu nation, and others who feel it is unfavourable to people in the plains, near India.
  •       Nepal’s 239-year old monarchy was abolished in 2008, seven years after an unhinged crown prince killed the king and eight members of his family at the height of a Maoist uprising. Disgruntled royalist politicians voted against the charter on Wednesday, while some parties from the southern lowlands abstained.

 

Federal Reserve’s inaction is big news  –    (Economics)

  •       In one of the most anticipated events in the global economic calendar the U.S. Federal Reserve decided to hold rates for now thereby prolonging global uncertainty.
  •        In maintaining the status quo the Fed appears to have bowed to strong headwinds originating from a slowing Chinese economy. It is also recognition that despite its resilience, the U.S. economy is not strong enough to do away with stimulus.

 

Amber light for the RBI  –    (Economics)

  •        The U.S. Federal Reserve’s decision last week to leave interest rates unchanged offers an amber signal for Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan as he prepares to make the fourth bi-monthly monetary policy statement for the fiscal year on September 29.
  •       The Fed’s move in delaying the much-anticipated start of ‘normalisation’ of interest rates provides some elbow room to Mr. Rajan as it removes, for now, the risk of rate arbitrage seeking capital outflows.