Current Affairs 07 & 08 March 2014

The Indian Ocean-centred maritime security trilateral

• The Indian Ocean-centred maritime security trilateral between India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives will be expanded to include two more island countries.
• Seychelles and Mauritius attended the third meeting of the trilateral as they were very interested to participate in future interactions.
• Beginning in 2011 as a concept, the trilateral has reached a state of preparedness from where it is capable of responding to illegal activity such as piracy.
• By training people to work together, the trilateral has also built up capacity in responding to search and rescue and oil spills. Sri Lanka and India have also expanded their joint naval exercises to include Maldives.

PIOs coming for surrogacy don’t need visas anymore

• Overseas Citizens of India (OCIs) and Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs) can now fly to the country without a medical visa for commissioning surrogacy. Foreigners will, however, have to continue obtaining a visa.
• A Home Ministry order says a couple with an OCI or PIO card, married for at least two years, would have to take permission only from the Foreigners’ Regional Registration Office (FRRO) or the Foreigners’ Registration Office (FRO). However they must, carry a letter from their country, issued by the Foreign Ministry or the Embassy here, saying it recognised surrogacy and that the child born thus would be permitted entry as the couple’s biological offspring.
• The OCI card is issued to foreign nationals who were eligible to become citizens of India on January 26, 1950, or were Indian citizens on or after that date with eligibility based on lineage. The PIO card is issued to a person of Indian origin who is a citizen of any country other than Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Afghanistan, China or Nepal or who has held an Indian passport at any time or is the spouse of an Indian citizen or a Person of Indian Origin.

Emergency rule lifted in Tunisia

• Tunisia's president has lifted a state of emergency in force since the 2011 uprising that ousted dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali , despite a string of recent jihadist attacks.
• The country has been rocked by sporadic violence since the January 2011 revolution, which ignited the Arab Spring across North Africa and the Middle East.
• In November, Marzouki extended the emergency rule for eight months, meaning it has ended four months earlier than scheduled.
• The end to the state of emergency however "does not limit the capacity of the security services to implement the law and does not preclude any request for military support should it be needed,"
• Emergency rule amounted to "a restriction of rights, freedoms, the movement of people and goods" as Tunisia's political crisis was ending and security conditions improving.
• Much of the deadly violence witnessed in Tunisia since the uprising has been blamed on Ansar al-Sharia, a hardline Islamist movement accused of having links to Al-Qaeda.

World's first 3D fingerprint

• A team of Michigan State University computer scientists led by Indian Institute of Technology(IIT) Kanpur alum Anil Jain have built the first three-dimensional model of a human fingerprint.
• Jain, a University Distinguished Professor of computer science and engineering, and his team did was develop a method that takes a two-dimensional image of a fingerprint and maps it to a 3-D finger surface.
• The 3-D finger surface, complete with all the ridges and valleys that make up the human fingerprint, is made using a 3-D printer. It creates what Jain's team called a fingerprint "phantom."
• While the 3-D model doesn't yet have the exact texture or feel of a real finger, it could advance fingerprint sensing and matching technology.

Commitment of Google to involve more women into technology sector

• The Reserve Bank said that India is fully committed to bring in reforms in the over—the—counter (OTC) derivatives markets, but its pace and nature will depend on the domestic market conditions.
• However, the pace and scope of reform implementation depend on the domestic market conditions and characteristics,” it said in a report on ‘OTC Derivatives Market Reforms’
• In response to the financial crisis that began in 2008, G—20 had initiated a series of reforms designed to strengthen regulation and oversight of the financial system and tasked the Financial Stability Board (FSB) with coordinating the reforms and assessing their implementation.
• In India, the OTC derivative products were introduced by RBI in a phased manner, keeping in view the hedging needs of the real sector.

All England Championship: Saina enters quarterfinals

• India’s top badminton star Saina Nehwal laboured past American Beiwen Zhang in testing three games to reach the women’s singles quarter-finals of the All-England badminton championships.
• The Commonwealth Games gold medallist next faces fourth seed Chinese Wang Shixian, brushed aside the challenge of Ireland’s Chloe Magee of 21-15, 21-12 in her second round match.
• Saina is the only Indian left in the championships.

 

International Women's Day

• Google is celebrating International Women's Day with a homepage doodle featuring footage of women from around the world including the education rights campaigner Malala Yousafzai and the British businesswoman and charity worker, Camila Batmanghelidjh.
• The search engine's creative team put together the doodle, which features 27 female chromosomes and a video package with the faces of more than 100 women as well as a musical soundtrack from the Belgian-Congolese vocal group Zap Mama. Others who make an appearance include the President of Lithuania, Dalia Grybauskaitė.
• The doodle was designed by Google with the intention of providing "a glimpse" of what some women across the world are doing and to focus in a positive way on their lives.
• International Women's Day has been observed since in the early 1900s, a time of turbulence in the industrialized world that saw booming population growth and the rise of radical ideologies. The first National Woman's Day (NWD) in the US was observed across the United States on 28 February, 1909.

India’s final call on UNHRC resolution

• External Affairs Ministry said that India was yet to take a final call on the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution on Sri Lanka.
• There was an Indian initiative to try and build on the existing confidence-building measures between itself and Sri Lanka.
• Currently, they have a form which is a single-entry thing. Because there is now trade going on, they require more than one entry.
• Referring to the stalling of trade because of the arrest of a Pakistani truck driver for narcotic smuggling, India informed Pakistan that there was no provision in the standard operating procedures for intra-Kashmir trade that entailed the release of a driver or anyone else who came across the LoC if he was involved in criminal activities.

Crash of Malaysia Airlines plane

• A Beijing-bound Malaysian Airlines plane that went missing with 239 people on board, including five Indians, crashed into the sea off Vietnam’s southern Phu Quoc Island.
• The plane disappeared in the night somewhere over South China Sea while enroute to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur.
• Those on board include 152 Chinese, 38 Malaysians, 5 Indians, 7 Indonesians, 6 Australians, 3 French, 4 including an infant from the US, 2 New Zealanders, 2 Ukrainians, 2 Canadians, 1 each from Russia, Italy, Taiwan, Netherlands and Austria.
• Malaysia Airlines is currently working with the authorities who have activated their Search and Rescue team to locate the aircraft.

Curbs on gold import

• No decision on relaxing import curbs have been taken till now. It will be taken only after the final current account deficit (CAD) number is firmed up.
• Any decision on relaxing import curbs, such as lowering import duty or removing the ‘80:20 scheme’ may have to wait.
• Chidambaram said that any relaxation in the restrictions“can be revisited only after final CAD numbers are out. Had CAD not been contained and fiscal deficit not brought down sharply, the consequences would have been enormous.”
• Bullion traders say the curbs have jeopardised the demand and supply chain.

Petronas' Pacific NorthWest project

• Petronas' plan to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal on Canada's Pacific coast edged closer to reality, as the Malaysian energy giant secured a third equity and offtake partner for the massive gas export project.
• India's largest oil refiner also agreed to an offtake deal for 1.2 million tonnes of LNG each year, or about 10 per cent of the project's annual exports.
• Petronas' Pacific NorthWest project is just one of about a dozen LNG terminals proposed for British Columbia's rugged Pacific coast, as top global energy firms scramble to build the facilities to export cheap Canadian gas to hungry Asian markets.
• Indian companies, like their Asian peers, have been scouting for oil and gas assets abroad to meet rising domestic demand.

Saina crashes out of All-England Championship

• India's campaign came to a premature halt in the All-England Badminton Championship with country's ace shuttler Saina Nehwal bowing out in the quarterfinals of the women's singles event.
• Seventh seeded Saina lost in straight games 17-21 10-21 against Chinese fourth seed Shixian Wang in l quarterfinal duel which lasted for 43 minutes.
• In the semi-finals, Wang will take on compatriot and second seed Yihan Wang, who beat Korea's Yeon Ju Bae 21-8 21-13 in another quarterfinal contest.
• Saina was the only Indian left in the championships as World No. 10 P V Sindhu found the going tough on her debut and lost to Sun Yu of China in the first round.

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