Current Affairs from The Hindu DATE:22-05-15
S.NO. NEWS ITEM
SYLLUBUS
1.
PMs Dhaka visit a) I.R
to yield road, port
connectivity
(Page 10)
2.
PM has achieved a) I.R
aims of China
visit, says Gen.
Singh (Page 10)
3.
4.
India may offer a)
credit for building
houses in land
released by Sri
Lankan Army
(Page 12)
March of the IS a)
(Page 8)
5.
The distant goal a)
of cooperative
federalism (Page
9)
6.
RBI wins battle to a)
keep debt
management role b)
(Pages 1 and 10)
7.
Japan unveils
a)
$110 billion plan
(Page 13)
8.
Nelong Valley
a)
opens for tourists
first time since
1962 (Page 7)
Blue whales
a)
churn sea off
Maharashtra
(Page 7)
9.
I.R
ESSENCE OF THE ARTICLE
a) India and Bangladesh will sign a series of
agreements during PM Modis visit to Dhaka in June,
ushering in plans for road, rail and port connectivity and
energy tie-ups.
a) Minister of State for External Affairs General (retd)
V.K. Singh said that India has made substantial progress
in giving the way for resolving outstanding issues with
China.
a) India (which is funding the construction of 50,000
houses for internally-displaced Tamils in Sri Lanka) may
offer a line of credit, this time for building houses in
lands released by the Army from the high security zones.
International a) The Islamic States recent takeover of the Iraqi city
of Ramadi, followed by its seizure of the historic city of
Palmyra in Syria suggests that rumours of the impending
demise of the armed group are vastly exaggerated.
National
a)
For working Indias federal system, one has to go
beyond brute parliamentary majorities and struggle with
the multilevel govt-opposition matrix, which is the
architecture of Centre-State power-sharing.
National
a) With the Union Finance Ministry reworking its
proposal for setting up the Public Debt Management
Economy
Authority, the RBI has won its biggest battle in its 80year history.
Economy
a) Japan unveiled a plan to provide $110 billion in aid
for Asian infrastructure projects, as China prepares to
launch a new institutional lender that is seen as
encroaching on the regional financial hit of Tokyo and its
ally Washington.
Geography a) The beautiful Nelong Valley near the India-China
border (which was closed for civilians after the 1962
war) has been opened for tourists.
Geography
a) The blue whale is back in the sea off Maharashtra
coast after a gap of almost a century. A mother-calf pair
was recently spotted in the waters near Kunkeshwar in
Sindhudurg district.
1
Current Affairs from The Hindu DATE:22-05-15
S.NO. NEWS ITEM
SYLLUBUS
1.
PMs Dhaka visit a) I.R
to yield road, port
connectivity
(Page 10)
BACKGROUND
IMPORTANT POINTS
a) India – Bangladesh a) India and Bangladesh will
relations
sign a series of agreements
during PM Modis visit to
Dhaka in June, ushering in
b) Indias projects in
plans for road, rail and port
Bangladesh
connectivity and energy tie-ups.
Modi and his Bangladeshi
c) Energy ties
counterpart Sheikh Hasina will
d) Chinas projects in flag off a Kolkata-DhakaTripura bus service.
Bangladesh
e) Pyra deep-sea port
project
b) The two countries are in
talks to set up bus links from
Dhaka to Shillong and
Guwahati, and may sign energy
pacts to share power generated
in the northeastern States.
c) Dismissing concerns about
China (which had reportedly
decided to invest in the Pyra
deep-sea port project) as seeing
ghosts in the neighbourhood,
the High Commissioner said
Bangladesh wanted a
consortium of countries to
invest in, and benefit from, the
deep-sea port.
2.
PM has achieved a)
aims of China
visit, says Gen.
Singh (Page 10)
I.R
d) He said that India and
Bangladesh should move to
bridge the suspicion gap and
put inter-regional connectivity
first.
a) India – China
a) Minister of State for
relations
External Affairs General (retd)
V.K. Singh said that India has
b) Border dispute
made substantial progress in
giving the way for resolving
c) Indias Look East or
outstanding issues with China.
Act East policy
b) Referring to PM Modis
recent visit to China, Mongolia
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Current Affairs from The Hindu DATE:22-05-15
and South Korea, he said Indias
foreign policy has graduated
from Look East to Act East.
c) He said an indication of
improving relations between the
two countries was the absence
of incidents of border violations
when Modi was in China.
3.
India may offer a)
credit for
building houses
in land released
by Sri Lankan
Army (Page 12)
I.R
a) India – Sri Lanka
relations
b) Indias housing
projects in Sri Lanka
d) On the issue of China
continuing to show an incorrect
map of India (excluding J&K
and Arunachal Pradesh), he said
the issue has been raised
diplomatically.
a) India (which is funding the
construction of 50,000 houses
for internally-displaced Tamils
in Sri Lanka) may offer a line
of credit, this time for building
houses in lands released by the
Army from high security zones.
b) It is learnt that
approximately, 52,000 houses
are required to be constructed in
the Northern and Eastern
Provinces, where Tamils live in
large numbers.
4.
March of the IS
(Page 8)
a)
International
a)
b)
c) Explaining how UN
agencies are providing help for
those who want to start their
lives afresh in the released
lands, the Minister said his
Ministry had released an
amount of Rs 24 million to take
care of immediate requirements
of the people.
Islamic State (IS)
a) The ISs recent takeover of
Iraqi city of Ramadi, followed
Syria and Iraq crisis by its seizure of the historic city
of Palmyra in Syria suggests
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Current Affairs from The Hindu DATE:22-05-15
c)
Palmyra
d)
Ramadi
that rumours of the impending
demise of the armed group are
vastly exaggerated.
b) Months of aerial bombing
by US-led forces may have
weakened the spine of insurgent
organisation and led to the loss
of some of the vast areas it
holds across Iraq and Syria.
c) The resistance shown by
Kurdish fighters both in Syria
and Iraq belonging to Peoples
Protection Units and Kurdistan
Regional Govt respectively has
forced the IS to retreat from
places such as Kobane and the
adjoining Kurd-held territory
close to Mosul in Iraq.
d) The group has also
suffered significant losses in
Tikrit, the former stronghold of
ex-President Saddam Hussein.
But these losses apart, the
resilience of the group has been
evident in its capture of Ramadi
in largely Sunni-populated and
vast desert province of Anbar.
e) The weaknesses of the
Iraqi army (still to recover from
its disbandment following US
invasion) are evident. PM
Haider al-Abadis resort to help
from the radical Shia militias
might have the support of the
Sunni councils in Anbar, but
this could only worsen what is
clearly a conflict that has its
origins in heightened sectarian
violence in post-US-invasion
Iraq.
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Current Affairs from The Hindu DATE:22-05-15
f) The IS has cunningly used
as buffers vast territories in
Syria and Iraq that it controls.
The Syrian regime has been
fighting too many battles
against a variety of rebel forces.
It lost some to rebel groups
supported by Saudi Arabia and
Turkey in Idlib recently, and its
tactical retreats from IS-held
territory in the past have come
to haunt Bashar-al Assads
forces with the loss of Palmyra.
g) The ancient city (which
used to be a Silk route hub) is
rich in historic and cultural
artefacts; the IS is expected to
engage in destruction here as
well. It is clear that parcelled
form of offensive action against
the IS is not working well.
5.
The distant goal a)
of cooperative
federalism (Page
9)
National
h) The IS is bound to
collpase; it cannot forever
sustain itself against a
multiplicity of forces - the
Syrians, the Iraqi army, the
Kurds and the US-led allies.
But as long as there is no
concerted action from all these
forces targeting the IS in any
cohesive manner, it will remain
resilient and leave even more
brutal trails of destruction in its
wake than it has until now.
a) PM Modi seeks to carve
a) Cooperative
his place in history as the man
federalism
who righted the wrongs in
b) National Institution history and gave back to
Indians a sense of pride in their
for Transforming India
country, a pride he claims they
(NITI) Aayog
did not have before. He seeks to
transform India beyond
c) Planning
recognition, so that history will
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Current Affairs from The Hindu DATE:22-05-15
Commission
d) National
Development Council
(NDC)
e)
f)
g)
record a before and after so
striking that the past would pale
into insignificance.
b) Hence, the NITI Aayog,
which is slowly unfolding as a
half-baked clone of the
Interstate Council
institution it sought to replace.
Article 263
Visualised as a vehicle of new
cooperative federalism, it was
Finance Commission initially projected as a think
tank that would throw the
overbearing financial
allocations-cum-approvals role
that so angered CMs.
c) On the one hand, what is
projected is a patriarchal joint
family model presided over by
a good will Centre. There is
also another model of States
competing to deliver better
governance under a new
dispensation based on mutual
trust and cooperation. However,
States often accuse Centre of
not practising what it addresses,
notably when it comes to fiscal
discipline and downsizing govt.
d) Superimposed on Aayog is
a Council of CMs (similar to
the NDC), which presumably
died a natural death along with
the Commission that wished it
into existence. We now have a
Plan (2012-17) up for mid-term
review. Groups of CMs are
working on blueprints for
transforming India, notably
with fewer central schemes and
greater autonomy for the States.
e) If Modi is serious about
cooperative federalism, there is
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Current Affairs from The Hindu DATE:22-05-15
now a possible opening for a
development in reducing central
ministries, which have become
bloated on the back of central
schemes.
f) For a long time federalists
have been demanding that the
Centre cut down or totally wind
up some of the ministries that
deal with subjects in State List.
With fewer schemes in these
areas, cooperative federalism
demands that the responsibility
for managing them also be
shifted where it rightfully
belongs, that is, the State and
local levels.
g) It is significant that the
legitimacy of the two bodies
that have been created to push
forward the new federalism
idea is again rooted in a Union
Cabinet Resolution rather than
being located in Constitution.
The existing and largely
underutilised Interstate Council
(created under Article 263 and
mandated to deal with
coordination between States)
has been totally ignored. This
raises question of what the new
vision of cooperative federalism
entails, beyond coordination.
h) Sharing of powers and
responsibilities between the 3
levels of govt is a key element
of the concept, which involves
participative policymaking.
This is particularly important in
areas of concurrent
responsibility, where the Centre
has had a tendency to ride
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Current Affairs from The Hindu DATE:22-05-15
roughshod over the States by
occupying the common
legislative space.
i) A reform of the seventh
schedule lists in the direction of
greater empowerment of States
would be consistent with the
logic of increased financial
transfers and cooperative
federalism. Locating the right
level for making and
implementing policy is a central
feature of the cooperative
responsibility matrix.
j) An idea which was added
to the initial mix of objectives
stated by Modi was competitive
federalism, where States would
struggle with each other to
attract investments and also
hopefully provide better public
goods and services. What has
become increasingly evident is
that the States are unevenly
equipped to engage in fair
competition, since regional
disparities in the provision of
basic needs and social sector
services are very large.
k) Moreover, there are vast
differences in governance
capabilities and while special
category States, the Planning
Commission may have
weakened away with it, the
need for asymmetric federalism
remains. Equity may not be
central to the mandate of the
Finance Commission but no
govt which supports
cooperative federalism can
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Current Affairs from The Hindu DATE:22-05-15
afford to ignore it.
l) As the NITI Aayog was
finding its feet and the Union
govt was preparing its first full
budget, the 14th Finance
Commission gave a decisive
push towards greater devolution
of financial resources towards
the States. It simultaneously
occupied the resourceallocation space vacated by the
Planning Commission by
transferring a substantial
portion of revenues directly to
the States. It thus shaped the
direction in which the central
govt could now move towards
cooperative federalism.
m) A key element in
strengthening cooperative
federalism is the respect for the
mandate of elected govts, even
those run by opposition parties.
In an era where the party
system is fragmented along
federal lines, the need is still
felt to include State parties in
federal coalitions, even when
technically not necessary. The
way alliance partners are
treated thus becomes an
important element in federal
functioning.
n) The 2014 State Assembly
elections showed that even
long-standing allies are not
immune to being at receiving
end of coercive tactics. They
now see the central majoritys
expansionist ambitions as a
threat to their own continued
existence. Under these
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Current Affairs from The Hindu DATE:22-05-15
circumstances, cooperative
federalism with oppositionruled States becomes an
altogether more difficult
proposition, given absence of a
viable working relationship.
o) The performance in Modis
first year of office does not hold
forth the promise of a system
where power would be
devolved to the people through
an effective decentralisation
and devolution package going
all the way down to local
bodies of self-government.
6.
RBI wins battle a)
to keep debt
management role b)
(Pages 1 and 10)
National
Economy
a) Public Debt
Management Authority
(PDMA)
b)
RBI Act
p) For working Indias federal
system, one has to go beyond
brute parliamentary majorities
and struggle with the multilevel
govt-opposition matrix, which
constitutes the architecture of
federal power-sharing. It is far
from clear whether Modi has
either the will or the inclination
to make any decisive moves in
this direction.
a) With the Union Finance
Ministry reworking its proposal
for setting up PDMA, the RBI
has won its biggest battle in its
80-year history.
b) The authority will be set
up through an executive order.
The Finance Ministry has put
on backburner its earlier move
of amending the RBI Act for
setting up the authority. The
new plan is to move
amendments to the RBI Act for
statutory status to the authority
and for full transfer of control
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Current Affairs from The Hindu DATE:22-05-15
not before another year or two.
c) It has now been decided
that the transfer of control over
the management of govt debt
from RBI will not be complete.
The RBI has opposed the
Ministrys earlier proposal of
complete transfer of control to
the authority and not wanting to
adopt a confrontational
position, the Finance Minister
has decided not to disturb the
RBI set-up.
d) In Parliament last month,
Union Finance Minister Jaitley
withdrew the amendments to
the RBI Act announced in his
Budget speech in February.
7.
Japan unveils
a)
$110 billion plan
(Page 13)
Economy
e) With the RBI retaining
control over the Centres
borrowings, Governor Rajans
views appear to have prevailed.
a) Asian Development a) Japan unveiled a plan to
Bank (ADB)
provide $110 billion in aid for
Asian infrastructure projects, as
b) Asian Infrastructure China prepares to launch a new
Investment Bank (AIIB) institutional lender that is seen
as encroaching on the regional
financial hit of Tokyo and its
c) World Bank
ally Washington.
d) G7
b) The amount of Japanese
funds (to be invested over five
e) G20
years) tops the expected $100
billion capitalisation of the
AIIB, the China-sponsored
lender scheduled to begin
operations next year.
c) Japan said it wants to
focus on high quality aid, for
example, by helping recipients
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Current Affairs from The Hindu DATE:22-05-15
tap its expertise in reducing
pollution while building roads
and railways. Thats an implicit
contract with the AIIB, whose
projects Washington has said
may not adequately safeguard
the environment.
d) About half the funds will
be extended by state affiliated
agencies in charge of aid and
loans and the rest in
cooperation with ADB. Japan
hopes the aid will help draw
private funds to help meet the
vast demand for infrastructure
in Asia.
e) The US and Japan were
caught off guard when a total of
57 countries, including Group
of 7 members Britain, Germany
and France jumped on board the
AIIB bandwagon by March.
f) The two allies have stayed
out of the China-led institution,
seen as a rival to US-dominated
World Bank and Japan-led
ADB, citing concerns about
transparency and governance although Tokyo for one is
keeping its options open.
g) Finance officials said
Japans aid plan had long been
in the works as part of a Group
of 20 commit to meet global
needs. But worried that Japan
may look less pro-active than
Beijing, Tokyo also wants to
showcase its support for the
region.
h)
Japanese and Chinese
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Current Affairs from The Hindu DATE:22-05-15
8.
Nelong Valley
a)
opens for tourists
first time since
1962 (Page 7)
Geography
a)
Nelong Valley
b) Gangotri National
Park
c)
Snow leopard
d) Himalayan blue
sheep
9.
Blue whales
churn sea off
Maharashtra
(Page 7)
a)
Geography
e)
Tibetan Plateau
a)
Blue whales
b)
Brydes whales
finance officials will meet in
Beijing on June 6 and may
discuss the AIIB, but Tokyo
looks unlikely to make a
decision on joining any time
soon.
a) The beautiful Nelong
Valley near the India-China
border (which was closed for
civilians after the 1962 war) has
been opened for tourists. The
valley (45 km ahead of the
border) falls under the Gangotri
National Park in Uttarkashi
district.
b) At 11,600 feet, the valley
is a cold desert, home to the
snow leopard and Himalayan
blue sheep and offering a view
of the Tibetan Plateau.
a) The blue whale is back in
the sea off Maharashtra coast
after a gap of almost a century.
A mother-calf pair was recently
spotted in the waters near
Kunkeshwar in Sindhudurg
district. The equally rare Brydes
whales were sighted four times
around the same time.
b) Blue whales are marine
mammals and they are the
largest animals on Earth. They
can reach an average length of
23-27 metres, with the largest
known being 33 metres.
13