Focus June 2015 Magzine

FOCUS
FOCUS
Dear Students,
FOCUS is a Rau’s IAS Study Circle’s monthly publication of current affairs analysis. The publication, as the
name suggests, focuses solely on such current affair items and newspaper editorials which are relevant to
the dynamic segments of the General Studies’ syllabus and are important themes for the Essay paper of the
Civil Services Examination.
FOCUS is not just a collection of current affairs and general knowledge items, it is in fact a collective effort
of experienced trainers and educators in varied themes of General Studies to analyse these news items,
research and provide background and related information, lend a generalist viewpoint to these news pieces
and thus prepare critical notes for the study of General Studies’ papers.
Features:
1. All news items are categorized and clubbed theme-wise (International, India & the World, National,
Polity & Governance, Science & Technology, Defence and so on)
2. Maps and figures, wherever relevant, have been provided with news
3. Background information has been added to make news understandable in totality
4. Related and additional information
5. News Analysis
6. Must read editorials of the month
7. Essay
8. Assignment (Questions)
9. All in a very simple and lucid format
How to use?
1. This issue is broadly divided into twenty seven parts:
a) Parts One to Twenty One are different themes under which all news items have been categorized.
b) Part Twenty Two contains all the important editorials from different sources which we consider are a
must read for all aspirants.
c) Part Twenty Three contains important articles which we consider are a must read for all aspirants.
d) Part Twenty Four on Essay.
e) Part Twenty Five contains a bunch of multiple choice questions on current affairs incorporated with
emphasis on Preliminary General Studies - Paper I and 15 descriptive type questions for various core
sections of the Main exam.
f) Part Twenty Six contains solutions and explanations to multiple choice questions incorporated in
FOCUS-May, 2015 issue.
g) Part Twenty Seven: Focus Special
2. Study maps and figures carefully. It will add depth to your knowledge.
3. Never miss the ‘Background’ of any news. UPSC asks questions from the background of the news.
4. Use ‘Related Information’ and ‘Additional Information’ to create extra dimensions to your answer.
5. News Analysis and Editorial will help you develop views about an issue. UPSC asks questions based
upon your views regarding an issue.
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FOCUS: RAU’S HOUSE JOURNAL ON CURRENT AFFAIRS ANALYSIS | JUNE 2015
FOCUS
6. Make a collection of all these issues/publications and keep revising them as these notes will not only
help you answer many questions in the General Studies papers but will also be very helpful for the
Essay paper.
Further Assistance:
1. For further understanding of any current affair items or editorials, please consult the respective
thematic faculty member/professor.
2. For clarity on practice multiple choice questions (MCQs) given in this issue, please consult the FOCUS
team.
3. For clarity on question on GS Main Exam, please consult respective thematic faculty.
The sources for all the news items and other related information are:
1. The Hindu
2. The Times of India
3. The Indian Express
4. Asian Age
5. The Tribune
6. The Economic Times
7. Frontline
8. Economic and Political Weekly
9. World Focus
10. BBC
Good Luck!
RAU’S IAS STUDY CIRCLE
ESSAY WRITING
The Study Circle invites and encourages students to write essay on any or both of the below mentioned topics and
submit to the office for inclusion in the July, 2015 issue. Essays can be submitted on any of the following issues:-
1. Women’s empowerment: challenges and prospects.

2. How should a civil servant conduct himself/herself?
• Word limit: Desired word limit is 1500-2000 words.

• Clarity of thought, lucidity in expression, coherence and analytical thinking is expected from the students.
• Timelines: All essays must be submitted either as hard copies at the Office or emailed as soft copies to
focus@rauias.com latest by July 31, 2015. No extension in the date of submission will be considered.
• Students can submit essay on either of the topics. Do remember to mention your Name and Batch number along
with the essay.
Note: The best essay(s) on the basis of merit and relevance to the topic will be published in the forthcoming issue.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART ONE | INTERNATIONAL 8

1. Greece’s Debt Crisis 7
2. Hong Kong vetoes China-backed electoral reform proposal 9
3. Nepal parties reach long-awaited deal 9
4. Ruling party loses majority in Turkey elections 10
5. Vatican signs first treaty with 'State of Palestine', Israel angered 11
6. Myanmar military retains veto after constitution change vote fails 11
7. Obamacare subsidies preserved in US Supreme Court ruling 12
8. Sri Lankan Cabinet increases Parliament size to 237 13
9. Sri Lanka’s President dissolves Parliament 13
10. Africa creates TFTA - Cape to Cairo free-trade zone 14
11. Palestinian unity government resigns 15
PART TWO | INDIA AND THE WORLD 16

1. India and Bangladesh sign deals 16
2. Kolkata-Agartala bus service via Dhaka 16
3. BCIM economic corridor project 16
4. India signs motor vehicle pact with three nations 17
5. Army hits militants across the Myanmar border 18
PART THREE | NATIONAL NEWS 19

1. PM launches three ambitious schemes for transforming urban India 19
2. Rule of Law Index: India scores a mixed bag 20
3. NCR gets bigger 21
PART FOUR | ECONOMY 22

1. India among top 10 countries to attract highest FDI: UNCTAD 22
2. Australia to join China-led AIIB as founding member 23
3. India signs pact on automatic exchange of tax information 24
4. Households using PDS double in seven years 24
5. India ranked best for investment: Baseline Profitability Index (BPI) 25
6. China-led AIIB development bank holds signing ceremony 26
PART FIVE | POLITY AND GOVERNANCE 27

1. President gives nod to re-promulgation of land ordinance 27
PART SIX | SOCIAL ISSUES 28

1. Literacy rate at 71% in rural India, 86% in urban: Survey 28
PART SEVEN| SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 29

1. Rosetta comet mission extended 29
2. ISRO's GAGAN to provide navigational support to Railways 30
3. World's thinnest light bulb created from graphene 30
PART EIGHT| ENERGY 31

1. Government raises solar power target to 100,000 MW by 2022 31
PART NINE| DEFENCE 32

1. India, US ink new 10-year defence framework 32
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2. Pinaka Mark-II rocket successfully test-fired 32
PART TEN| ENVIRONMENT, ECOLOGY & BIODIVERSITY 33

1. Half of mammals face habitat loss: ZSI 33
2. Scientists document ‘virgin births’ of endangered sawfish in Florida 34
3. Yellow-breasted buntings 'being eaten to extinction by China' 35
4. India richer by 349 new species 35
5. India’s only double coconut tree artificially pollinated 36
6. Yeti crab found in Antarctica 36
7. Greenhouse gases: India fourth biggest emitter 36
8. Maharashtra gets ‘State butterfly’ 37
PART ELEVEN| HEALTH 38

1. Breakthrough in treating leucoderma 38
2. First-ever potential treatment for MERS identified 38
PART TWELVE| COMMITTEES AND REPORTS 39

1. Bibek Debroy panel report 39
PART THIRTEEN| CONFERENCES AND SUMMITS 40

1. G7 Summit 40
PART FOURTEEN| SPORTS 41

1. French Open 41
2. Golf: Jordan Spieth wins the 2015 U.S. Open 41
PART FIFTEEN| ORGANISATION IN NEWS 42

1. European Central Bank 42
PART SIXTEEN| PERSONALITIES 43

1. Archana Ramasundaram 43
2. Charles Correa 43
3. Christopher Lee 43
4. James Horner 43
5. K.V. Chowdary 44
6. Nek Chand Saini 44
7. Steffi Graf 44
8. Sister Nirmala 45
9. Vijai Singh 45
10. Zaheer Abbas 45
PART SEVENTEEN| AWARDS 46

1. Sanjay Subrahmanyan 46
2. Bangladesh Liberation War award for Vajpayee 46
3. Sangeet Natak Akademi fellowships 47
PART EIGHTEEN| PLACES 48

1. Nathu La 48
PART NINETEEN| HISTORY AND CULTURE 49

1. Rare inscription bearing Biblical name found in Israel 49
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2. Magna Carta 49
3. Inscription of the Chola emperor Rajendra I 49
4. Azhagankulam gives evidence of ancient trade 50
PART TWENTY| BOOKS AND AUTHORS 51

1. Catholic Orientalism 51
PART TWENTY ONE| MISCELLANEOUS 52

1. International Yoga Day 52
2. World Environment Day (WED) 52
PART TWENTY TWO| EDITORIALS 53

1. How not to make a state 53
2. A new Bengal bilateral 53
3. Asia’s worries rising over Chinese activity 54
4. Bad loans grow 55
5. The makings of a game-changer 55
6. Sub-optimal accord 56
7. The big BBIN advantage 56
8. Battling Islamic State 57
9. Moment to reckon with 58
10. A perverse view of crime and punishment 58
11. Success, sobriety 59
12. The zeal for yoga 60
13. A measure of privacy 60
14. The OROP struggle 61
15. The Ukraine imbroglio 61
16. Setback for Erdogan 62
17. Humanitarian challenge 62
18. A symbol, some myths 63
19. Test of integrity 64
20. The blight of militarization 64
21. An ideal judgment on same-sex marriage 65
22. A key right from Telangana 66
23. Coping with the heat 66
24. PM’s Mission Israel: A visit long overdue 67
25. Cuba’s victory 67
26. Skilling up 68
27. Positive expansion 68
28. Hong Kong needs balance 69
29. Snuff out narcotics nexus 70
30. Building India 2.0 70
31. Give the IIMs their freedom 71
32. The Taliban challenge 72
33. Needed, a new urban vision 72
34. Back to the past 73
35. The promise of freight corridors 73
36. By the Yamuna 74
37. A house for India 74
38. In poor company 75
39. New Great Wall of China 76
40. Government push for going cashless is welcome 76
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART TWENTY THREE| ARTICLES 78

1. Rohingyas- Nowhere people 78
2. Delhi- Capital stand-off 81
3. Girls in school, a report card 83
PART TWENTY FOUR| ESSAY 85

1. Is democracy in India a success? 85
2. Terrorism and world peace 88
PART TWENTY FIVE | ASSIGNMENT QUESTIONS 92

PART TWENTY SIX| SOLUTIONS 97
PART TWENTY SEVEN| FOCUS SPECIAL 98
WOMEN AND LAND- WHY IS IT IMPORTANT? 98
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PART ONE | INTERNATIONAL
1. Greece’s Debt Crisis

Greece, the weak link in the Eurozone, is inching closer to defaulting on its debt. If the country goes bankrupt or
decides to leave the 19-nation Eurozone, the situation could create instability in the region and reverberate
around the globe....
WHAT'S THE LATEST?

• The European Central Bank said
that it would not expand the
emergency loan program that
has been propping up Greek
banks in recent times. But at the
same time, the bank did not cut
off support entirely, giving the
Greek government some extra
flexibility in the coming days.
• Meanwhile in Greece, the
Parliament approved a request
from Prime Minister Alexis
Tsipras for a public referendum
on Greece's debt negotiations.
Tsipras said he was calling the
referendum because Greece's
creditors — the International
Monetary Fund (IMF), the
European Central Bank (ECB) and the Eurozone countries had refused to negotiate in good faith and present a
fair compromise.
• The approval came after Eurozone finance ministers rejected Greece's request to extend its existing bailout
program past a deadline.
WHY DO GREECE AND EUROPE DISAGREE?

• With Greece nearly bankrupt, the government struck a deal with European officials on February 20 to extend the
bailout program for at least four months and give Athens €7 billion in funds, if Tsipras made structural changes.
But creditors say the plans Greece has submitted fall short, and they accuse Tsipras of trying to roll back the
austerity measures unilaterally.
• Greece needs a deal to keep paying its creditors and to finance government operations. Athens seems to be
betting that its creditors will want to reach a compromise to avoid the huge unknowns that could arise if Greece
defaults or possibly leaves the Eurozone.
HOW DID GREECE GET TO THIS POINT?

• Greece became the epicenter of Europe's debt crisis after Wall Street imploded in 2008. With global financial
markets still reeling, Greece announced in October 2009 that it had been understating its deficit figures for years,
raising alarms about the soundness of Greek finances. Suddenly, Greece was shut out from borrowing in the
financial markets. By the spring of 2010, it was veering toward bankruptcy, which threatened to set off a new
financial crisis.
• To avert calamity, the so-called troika: the IMF, the European Central Bank and the European Commission
issued the first of two international bailouts for Greece, which would eventually total more than 240 billion
euros.
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• The bailouts came with conditions. Lenders imposed harsh austerity terms, requiring deep budget cuts and
steep tax increases.
• They also required Greece to overhaul its economy by streamlining the government, ending tax evasion and
making Greece an easier place to do business.
IF GREECE HAS RECEIVED BILLIONS IN BAILOUTS, WHY IS THERE STILL A CRISIS?

• The money was supposed to buy Greece time to stabilize its finances and quell market fears that the euro union
itself could break up.
• While it has helped, Greece's economic problems haven't gone away. The economy has shrunk by a quarter in
five years, and unemployment is above 25 percent. The bailout money mainly goes toward paying off Greece's
international loans, rather than making its way into the economy.
• And the government still has a staggering debt load that it cannot begin to pay down unless a recovery takes
hold. Many economists, and many Greeks, blame the austerity measures for much of the country's continuing
problems.
• The leftist Syriza party rode to power this year promising to renegotiate the bailout. Tsipras said that austerity
had created a "humanitarian crisis" in Greece. But the country's exasperated creditors, especially Germany,
blame Athens for failing to conduct the economic overhauls required under its bailout. They don't want to
change the rules for Greece.
IF THINGS ARE SO BAD, SHOULDN'T GREECE JUST LEAVE THE EUROZONE?

• At the height of the debt crisis a few years ago, many experts worried that Greece's problems would spill over
into the rest of the world. If Greece defaulted on its debt and exited the Eurozone, it could create global financial
shocks bigger than the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
• Some people argue that if Greece were to leave the currency union now, it wouldn't be such a catastrophe.
• Europe has put up safeguards to limit the financial contagion, in an effort to keep the problems from spreading
to other countries. Greece, just a tiny part of the Eurozone economy, could regain financial autonomy with its
own economy, these people contend and the Eurozone would actually be better off without a country that seems
to constantly need its neighbours’ support.
• Others say that's too simplistic a view. Despite the frustration of endless negotiations, European political leaders
see a united Europe as an imperative. They worry that if Greece were to default and leave the Eurozone, it could
ignite turmoil in the financial markets that might stall the budding recovery in Europe and impede the United
States' rebound.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

• Tsipras has said he doesn't want to take Greece out of the euro currency union. Chancellor Angela Merkel of
Germany, Europe's paymaster, says the Eurozone must stay together but not at any cost.
• Right now, Greece must work out a deal to get some of the €7 billion to meet looming debt payments. It also has
billions more in additional payments coming due later this year to the IMF and the European Central Bank. As a
result, Greece might need to try securing yet another multibillion-euro bailout package, its third since 2010.
• The coming referendum could test whether Greek citizens want to stay in the Eurozone. New elections could
also be held if Greece's financial situation worsens. Or Greece could test the willingness of Russia or China to
help should talks with Europe falter.
RELATED INFORMATION: EUROZONE

• The Eurozone is a monetary union of 19 European Union (EU) member states that have adopted the euro (€) as
their common currency and sole legal tender.
• The Eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy,
Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain. Other EU states
(except for Denmark and the United Kingdom) are obliged to join once they meet the criteria to do so.
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• Monetary policy of the zone is the responsibility of the European Central Bank (ECB) which is governed by a
president and a board of the heads of national central banks.
2. Hong Kong vetoes China-backed electoral reform proposal

Hong Kong's legislature vetoed a China-backed electoral reform package criticized by opposition pro-democracy
lawmakers and activists as undemocratic, easing for now the prospect of fresh mass protests in the financial hub.
• The rejection had been
expected and will likely
appease some activists who
had demanded a veto of
what they call a "fake"
democratic model for how
the Chinese-controlled
territory chooses its next
leader in 2017.
• But it was a setback for
Beijing's Communist
leaders, who said in
response that they remained
committed to universal
suffrage for Hong Kong but
signaled no further
concessions to the pro-
democracy opposition.
• Beijing had pressured and cajoled the city's pro-democracy lawmakers to back the blueprint that would have
allowed a direct vote for the city's chief executive, but with only pre-screened, pro-Beijing candidates on the
ballot.
3. Nepal parties reach long-awaited deal

Political leaders in Nepal signed a deal on a long-awaited new constitution. The deal comes weeks after an
earthquake that killed thousands and piled pressure on politicians to end a stalemate that has paralysed the
country.
• Nepal’s lawmakers began work on a new national constitution in 2008 following a decade-long Maoist
insurgency that left an estimated 16,000 people
dead and brought down the monarchy. But the
political parties were unable to reach
agreement and the resulting uncertainty left
Nepal in a state of political limbo.
WHAT'S BEEN AGREED?

• 16-point agreement divides Nepal into eight
federal states, the boundaries of which will be
decided by a federal commission. The names
of the states will be decided by a two-thirds
majority vote in assemblies to be set up in each
state.
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• Nepal will have a parliamentary form of government with two houses. The lower house will have 275 members,
60% of whom will be directly elected, while 40% will be elected through proportional representation. The upper
house will have 45 seats.
• The prime minister will have executive powers and be chosen from the biggest party or coalition in parliament.
The country will also have a ceremonial president elected by parliament and provincial assemblies.
• A constitutional court will be set up for 10 years to resolve disputes.
WHAT'S THE TIMETABLE?

• It's expected a draft constitution will be ready by July. It will then need to be approved by a two-thirds majority
in parliament.
• A federal commission will then have six months to draw up the borders of the eight provinces and submit a
proposal for approval in parliament, though there are fears this process could drag on for years.
WHAT ARE THE STUMBLING BLOCKS?

• The deal has been criticised as incomplete as it has yet to decide on the boundaries or names of the new
provinces.
• There are fears that the commission to decide the boundaries could be politically influenced. Many small
political parties which represent ethnic groups and people from the southern plains, the Terai, have already
voiced their opposition. It's unclear whether their demands for better representation will be met.
WILL IT REALLY HAPPEN?

• After years of deadlock over the new constitution this is a significant breakthrough which sees the end of the
division between Nepal's Maoists, who have been campaigning for federalism, and the country's established
political elite who have been reluctanct to cede power from Kathmandu.
• But the deal could fall through because it does not resolve the differences between the country's main parties
and its marginalised social and ethnic groups who feel excluded from this deal.
4. Ruling party loses majority in Turkey elections

Turkey faced the prospect of political turmoil after the ruling AK Party (AKP) lost its parliamentary majority in
polls, dealing a blow to President Tayyip Erdogan's ambitions to acquire sweeping new powers.
• Erdogan, Turkey's most popular modern leader but not one used to compromise and negotiation, had hoped a
crushing victory for the AKP would allow it to change the constitution and create a more powerful U.S.-style
presidency. But the AKP, while remaining the biggest party, failed even to achieve a simple majority.
• The result could also prompt some soul searching in the
AKP, Turkey's dominant political movement for more
than a decade, where in recent years religious
conservatives, with Erdogan's support, have gained the
ascendancy at the expense of liberal elements.
• The precarious outcome may stir concern in Western
capitals too that see NATO member Turkey as an
important island of political stability bordering Syria, Iraq
and Iran. Nearly two million Syrian refugees now live in
Turkish camps, Islamic State militants stand on the
country's borders and the United States keeps an air base at Incirlik, in south-east Turkey
• The swing away from the President and AK may have had numerous causes. Some voters may have been
disillusioned by Erdogan's increasingly bellicose tone, others wary of his plans to amass further power or
alarmed by recent graft scandals around the government that Erdogan ascribed to attempts to topple him and
which he cited in launching a purge of the judiciary.
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5. Vatican signs first treaty with 'State of Palestine', Israel angered

The Vatican signed its first treaty with the "State of Palestine", calling for courageous decisions to end the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict and backing a two-state solution.
• The treaty, which made official the Vatican's de facto recognition of
Palestine since 2012, angered Israel, which called it a hasty step that
would damage the prospects for advancing a peace agreement. Israel
also said it could have implications on its future diplomatic relations
with the Vatican.
• Palestine said it hoped it would help recognition of the right of the
Palestinian people to self-determination, freedom and dignity in an
independent state of their own, free from the shackles of occupation.
INCREASINGLY PROACTIVE ROLE

• The accord, which concerns the Catholic Church's activities in areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority, also
confirmed the Vatican's increasingly proactive role in foreign policy under Pope Francis. Last year, it brokered
the historic resumption of ties between the United States and Cuba.
• The Vatican is particularly keen to have a greater diplomatic role in the Middle East, from where many
Christians have fled because of conflicts in Syria, Iraq and other countries.
• There are about 100,000 Catholics of the Roman and Greek Melkite rites in Israel and the Palestinian territories,
most of them Palestinians.
U.N. RESOLUTION
• The U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution in 2012 recognizing Palestine as an observer non-member
state. This was welcomed at the time by the Vatican, which has the same observer non-member status at the
United Nations.
• Since then the Vatican has de facto recognized a "State of Palestine" and the pope referred to it by that name
when he visited the Holy Land last year.
• Some 135 members of the United Nations recognize Palestine, nearly 70 percent of the total. By comparison, 160
of the UN's 193 members recognize Israel.
• Last October, Sweden became the first major European country to acknowledge Palestine, a decision that drew
condemnation from Israel and has since led to tense relations between the two.
6. Myanmar military retains veto after constitution change vote fails

A move to amend Myanmar's constitution to remove the military's legislative veto on key decisions fell short of
the required 75 percent support in parliament, preserving the armed forces' powerful political role in the Asian
nation.
• The result was no surprise given that a quarter of the
seats in the house are, by law, held by the military, which
ruled Myanmar for half a century until 2011. The
proposal aimed to trim the share of house votes needed
to amend the constitution to 70 percent.
• Another vote on a clause that effectively bars Nobel
laureate Aung San Suu Kyi from becoming president also
failed. The motion voted on would have only partially
amended that article, however, meaning the 70-year-old
democracy icon would still have been ineligible had it
been passed.
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• Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy (NLD) won the last free election by a landslide in 1990 - a result
ignored by the junta - cannot become president because her two children are British citizens, as was her late
husband.
A LIMIT ON DEMOCRATIC REFORMS

• The NLD suffered persecution under the former junta and says the military's ability to shoot down changes to
the constitution puts a limit on democratic reforms in Myanmar, where a general election is expected in
November.
• Critics see it as an enshrined safeguard to protect the armed forces' sizeable economic and political interests.
• The NLD's attempts to change the constitution prior to the election have met with resistance from the military
and the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), which has former officers and businessmen
with ties to the army among its ranks.
The European Union as a whole does not recognize Palestine, taking the same view as the United States that an
independent country can emerge only via negotiations with Israel, not through a process of unilateral
recognition.
7. Obamacare subsidies preserved in US Supreme Court ruling

The US Supreme Court upheld a key portion of President Barack Obama's healthcare law, preserving health
insurance for millions of Americans.
• In the decision, the US Supreme
Court said that tax subsidies that
make health insurance affordable
for low-income individuals can
continue.
• The upholding of the law cements
President Obama's biggest
legislative victory. Limiting the
subsidies could have unravelled
Mr Obama's signature healthcare
reforms, which Mr Obama
considers a major part of his
presidential legacy.
• Republicans have vowed to continue fighting the law. Congressional Republicans have voted more than 50
times to undo the law.
BACKGROUND
• Unlike in many other western countries, the US does not have a single-payer healthcare system. Private
companies, rather than the US government, provide health insurance for US citizens.
• The enactment of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) - one of Mr Obama's most significant and controversial
domestic achievements - in 2010 mandated that every American had to purchase private insurance. It provided
the subsidies to allow many to do so.
• In 2012, the mandate portion of the law was challenged in the court. The justices ruled to preserve it.
• Had the court made the opposite decision, an estimated 8.7 million people in the US would have been at risk of
losing the aid that makes healthcare affordable.
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8. Sri Lankan Cabinet increases Parliament size to 237

Conscious of strong opposition to its earlier decision on retaining the size of Parliament at 225 as part of the
proposed 20th Constitutional Amendment, the Sri Lankan Cabinet decided to increase the number of Members
of Parliament to 237.
• Parties representing upcountry Tamils or Indian Tamils including constituents of the newly-formed Tamil
Progressive Alliance (TPA) were particularly unhappy over the original decision and they had expressed their
opposition in unequivocal terms. To thrash out the differences, the Cabinet took the move.
A COMBINATION OF FPTP AND PR

• Of 237, 145 members will be elected through the system of First Past The Post (FPTP) whereas the remaining 92
will be under Proportional Representation (PR). Within the tally of 92, the component of district PR will have 55
members and the national list will have 37.
• Armed with the Cabinet’s approval, the government would notify the draft proposal in the gazette shortly to
invite suggestions and comments from the public. Subsequently, the Parliament would take up the matter for
consideration and adoption.
RELATED INFORMATION
• A FIRST-PAST-THE-POST (FPTP), or winner-takes-all, election is one that is won by the candidate receiving
more votes than any others.
PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION (PR)

• Proportional Representation (PR) characterizes electoral systems by which divisions in an electorate are reflected
proportionately in the elected body. If 30% of the electorate support a particular political party, then roughly
30% of seats will be won by that party. The essence of such systems is that all votes contribute to the result: not
just a plurality, or a bare majority, of them.
9. Sri Lanka’s President dissolves Parliament

Sri Lanka's President dissolved Parliament in an effort to
consolidate power and push through political reforms.
• President Maithripala Sirisena, who was elected in a Jan.
8 poll, needs parliamentary support to push through
reforms he has promised, including limits on the powers
of the executive presidency.
• The timing of declaring the parliamentary elections is also
important. The United Nations Human Rights Council is
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expected to release a report in September on human rights abuses during the final phase of the war against the
Tamil insurgency in 2009.
• The report could affect an attempt by Sirisena's predecessor, Mahinda Rajapaksa to stage a comeback.
• One of Sri Lanka's key parties, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), is split between Sirisena and Rajapaksa, who
defeated the Tamil separatists in 2009.
10. Africa creates TFTA - Cape to Cairo free-trade zone

African leaders agreed to create
the continent's largest free-trade
zone, covering 26 countries in an
area from Cape Town (South
Africa) to Cairo (Egypt).
• The deal, signed in Egypt, is
intended to ease the movement of
goods across member countries
which represent more than half
the continent's GDP (gross
domestic product).
• Since the end of colonial rule,
governments have been discussing
ways to boost intra-African trade.
The poor state of roads, railways
and airlines has made it difficult.
• Three existing trade blocs - the
Southern African Development
Community (SADC); the East
African Community (EAC) and
the Common Market for Eastern
and Southern Africa (COMESA) -
are to be united into a single new
zone.
• The idea behind it is to remove
trade barriers on most goods,
making them cheaper, and
stimulating $1tn worth of
economic activity across the region of more than 600 million people.
• However, concluding the deal in Egypt will merely be the first step and it will need to be approved by each
country's parliament, before the wheels are set in motion.
ANALYSIS
• With TFTA comes into fruition a century-old dream to link the continent from the Cape to Cairo. Explorers and
freedom fighters alike all shared the vision to integrate African economies.
• And on paper it looks like a progressive step for a continent that has seen average growth rates of 5% in recent
years.
• However, it needs parliamentary endorsements from all member-nations and once governments start reading
the fine print, the mood may change.
• Many of them have small economies that produce few exportable goods. A free-trade protocol would mean they
would have to compete with larger industries that could threaten their economies.
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• Africa's many regional blocs have not really aided continental trade so far and the African Development Bank
has often said that the focus should rather be on developing infrastructure.
• Nevertheless if TFTA agreement is implemented in a reasonable time-frame and there is sufficient political will
to follow through, then it marks a new beginning for local trade.
11. Palestinian unity government resigns

The Palestinian unity government, formed only a year
ago, resigned after President Mahmoud Abbas said it was
unable to operate in the Gaza Strip.
• The resignation came after it emerged that the Gaza
Strip's rulers Hamas held separate indirect talks with
Israel.
• Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah had handed his
resignation to President Mahmoud Abbas, and Abbas had
ordered him to form a new government. Various
Palestinian factions, including Hamas, are to be consulted
before a new government is formed.
• Abbas earlier announced that the government would
resign, as Hamas sources said the group was holding
separate, indirect talks with Israel on ways to firm up an
informal ceasefire agreement that took hold last August, ending a 50-day war in Gaza.
15
PART TWO | INDIA AND THE WORLD
1. India and Bangladesh sign deals

India and Bangladesh signed and exchanged 22 instruments, including one letter of consent on a range of
issues......
• Much stress was laid on augmenting power
generation and supply. The Palatna project
will be operational and 100 MW of power
will go to Bangladesh, while overall supply
will be augmented from 500 to 1,000 MW.
• Both sides also claimed to have made
substantial advance in connectivity. India
will get access to its north-eastern States
through Bangladesh, while Bangladesh will
have access to Nepal and Bhutan.
Moreover, the Bangladesh shipping
industry will substantially gain from an
agreement on waterways connectivity.
• India has also agreed to remove all barriers to ensure unfettered bilateral trade to narrow the trade imbalance.
India will now provide a second credit line of $2 billion to the neighbouring country.
• One of the key contentious issues between India and Bangladesh — the sharing of Teesta river waters — finally
made it to the joint statement, reaffirming India’s commitment to settle the issue.
• India addressed another long-standing demand of its neighbour — to stop the construction of the Tipaimukh
Hydro-Electric Power Project on the Barak river on the eastern edge of Bangladesh..
2. Kolkata-Agartala bus service via Dhaka

India and Bangladesh started the Kolkata-Dhaka-Agartala bus
service. The service is a step towards facilitating the journey of
Indian citizens between Kolkata and Agartala.
• The Kolkata-Dhaka bus service was introduced in 1999. Since then,
there has been a demand for connectivity with Tripura. The
successful run of Kolkata-Dhaka service brightened the scope for
another service in the northeastern sector. While Agartala-Dhaka
service was introduced in 2003, requests started pouring in for a
direct link.
• The existing route between Kolkata and Agartala by road has been
a complex one with an estimated distance of 1,650 kilometres. The
journey through the narrow 'chicken neck' territory via Guwahati
and Shillong takes around two days. But the new route via Dhaka
would bring down the distance to 470 kilometres.
3. BCIM economic corridor project

China and India are adding fresh momentum to the establishment of the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar
(BCIM) economic corridor, which is expected to develop gradually before more ambitious goals are achieved.
16
• The project will link Kolkata with Kunming, the capital of China’s Yunnan province, passing through Myanmar
and Bangladesh, with Mandalay and Dhaka among the focal points. The focus on linking provinces and States
— in this case, Yunnan and West Bengal — seems to have given a new impulse to galvanising the plan.
• The main artery of the 2,800-km, K (Kolkata)-2-K (Kunming) corridor is nearly ready. A stretch of less than 200
km, from Kalewa to Monywa in Myanmar, needs to be upgraded as an all-weather road.
ACTUAL ROUTE
• From the West Bengal capital, the corridor will head
towards Benapole, a border crossing town in Bangladesh.
After passing through Dhaka and Sylhet, it will re-enter
the Indian territory near Silchar in Assam. The rest of the
passage will be connected with Imphal and then will pass
through the India-built Tamu-Kalewa friendship road in
Myanmar.
• Mandalay will be the next focal point of the corridor
before the road enters Yunnan, after crossing Lashio and
Muse in Myanmar. The Chinese stretch extends from Ruili
before reaching Kunming through Longling and Dali.
• The central corridor can be connected with two
supplementary passages to the north and the south.
Starting from Kunming, the northern passage heads towards Myitkyina, capital of Kachin state in Myanmar,
before extending to Ledo in Assam. After crossing Dibrugarh and Guwahati, this road enters northern
Bangladesh and joins the central corridor inside the country, before reaching Kolkata.
PROBLEMS
• At present, this route is problematic because it enters a small portion of Arunachal Pradesh over which India
and China have a territorial dispute. Besides, a part of this stretch is insurgency-prone, and therefore unsafe.
• The China pointed out that the BCIM corridor would be incomplete without drawing Mizoram into the
framework through the Kaladan multi-modal transit transport project. Under this plan, Mizoram would be
connected with Myanmar’s port of Sittwe, through the Kaladan River, and the passage will provide all the
landlocked north-eastern States access to the sea. Compared with the land route, Sittwe provides these States
access to Kolkata, just 539 km away.
• China also acknowledged that one of the strategic factors driving the corridor was reduction of reliance on the
Straits of Malacca, militarily dominated by the U.S.
4. India signs motor vehicle pact with three nations

India signed a motor vehicles agreement with three SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation)
nations — Bhutan, Bangladesh and Nepal — that envisages seamless transit of passenger and cargo vehicles
among these countries.
• Though a seamless cargo movement between the South Asian neighbours is
expected to take much longer, recent agreement at Bhutan’s capital
Thimphu is expected to remove bottlenecks by allowing people easy access.
• The agreement signed will not only reduce transport costs, but also enhance
multi-modal transport and transit facilities, enabling increased connectivity
and promotion of greater trade among the four countries.
• As per the agreement, the four countries will carry out a six-month work
plan from July for the implementation of the BBIN MVA (Bangladesh,
Bhutan, India, Nepal motor vehicles agreement ) in accordance with the
17
preparation of bilateral, perhaps trilateral or quadrilateral, agreements and protocols, installation of the
prerequisites for implementing the approved agreements, among others.
• A similar motor agreement with Myanmar and Thailand is on the cards.
5. Army hits militants across the Myanmar border

• In the aftermath of the Manipur
ambush recently, the Army and the
Assam Rifles killed over 50 insurgents
of NSCN (K) in two operations along
the India-Myanmar border in
Nagaland and Manipur.
• The killings took place in encounters in
Ukhrul and Chandel districts of
Manipur.
• While Army officials declined to say if
the operations were carried out across
the border in Myanmar, they said they
were in communication with Myanmar
authorities and expect such cooperation
in the future too.
RELATED INFORMATION: NSCN (K)

• The National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) was formed in 1980 by Isak Chishi Swu, Thuingaleng
Muivah and S.S. Khaplang. Later, a disagreement surfaced within the outfit leaders over the issue of
commencing dialogue with the Indian Government. In April 1988, the NSCN split into two factions; the NSCN-
K led by S S Khaplang, and the NSCN-IM, led by Isak Chishi Swu and Thuingaleng Muivah. The split was
accompanied by a spate of violence and clashes between the factions.
Objective: The objective of the NSCN was to establish a sovereign State by unifying all the Naga-inhabited
areas in the North East of India and Northern Burma which the organization and the people of the area
proposed as ‘Nagalim’. Unification of all Naga tribes under one administration and 'liberating' Nagalim from
India is listed as one of the supposed main objectives of the organization.
18
PART THREE | NATIONAL NEWS
1. PM launches three ambitious schemes for transforming urban India

Minister Narendra Modi launched three government flagship schemes aimed at changing the face of urban
India—Smart Cities mission, Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) and
Housing for All mission—with an expected expenditure of around Rs.4 trillion over the next few years....
• The Housing for
all scheme or
Pradhan Mantri
Awas Yojana that
aims to provide
at least 20 million
homes to people
belonging to the
economically
weaker sections
and lower income
categories over
the next seven
years is expected
to cost around
Rs.3 trillion. The
Smart City and
AMRUT projects
are expected to
cost Rs.48,000
crore and
Rs.50,000 crore,
respectively, over
the next five
years.
• Given the
multiplier
potential of
construction, the
schemes will also help create jobs and give a fillip to the economy. The three schemes aim to meet the needs of
around 40% of India’s population.
THE SELECTION OF CITIES

• The 100 smart cities will be selected on the basis of a city challenge competition. In the first stage, each state and
Union Territory will give a score to their cities on the basis of four parameters, including existing service levels,
institutional systems and capacities, self-financing and past track records. States will nominate top cities based
on the scores. The 100 cities will then prepare smart city plans, which will be evaluated again. The top 20 cities
will be finally selected for funding in the first phase.
• Under AMRUT, which replaces the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), funds will
be allocated in view of the urban population and number of cities/towns in each state/UT. Without availability
of land and all necessary clearances, no project shall be included in the mission. States will transfer funds to
19
urban local bodies within seven days of transfer by the centre and no diversion of funds will be allowed, failing
which penal interest would be charged in addition to action by the centre.
• Under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, the selection will be based on the number of urban poor and slum
dwellers. Under Housing for All mission in urban areas, two crore houses will be built. First right will be given
to women.
2. Rule of Law Index: India scores a mixed bag

India figures in the top 50 countries in the world for an effective criminal justice system, according to a new
study that ranks countries on how the rule of law is experienced by citizens. However, the study finds that it is
among the worst performing countries when it comes to civil justice.
• The Rule of Law Index 2015, released by the U.S.-based World Justice Project (WJP), analyses 102 countries
worldwide. The data, collected in 2013, measures how the rule of law is experienced in practical, everyday
situations using 47 indicators across eight categories — constraints on government powers, absence of
corruption, open government, fundamental rights, order and security, regulatory enforcement, civil justice, and
criminal justice.
• According to the Index, India’s overall rule of law performance places it in the third position out of six countries
in the South Asian region, 10th out of 25 among lower middle income countries, and 59th out of 102 countries
worldwide.
• The top overall performer in the WJP Rule of Law Index 2015 was Denmark while in the South Asia region, the
top performer was Nepal.
• India’s performance for criminal justice places it at 44 rank globally, Number 1 in South Asia and number 4
among lower middle income countries. The surveys analysed whether the criminal investigation and
adjudication system is effective, whether it was impartial and free of corruption and whether the rights of the
accused were protected.
20
LOW RANKING IN CIVIL JUSTICE

• In stark contrast, the corresponding ranking in civil justice for India is 88 globally, third in South Asia and 19th
among lower middle income countries. The survey looked at accessibility to civil justice, which includes general
awareness of available remedies, availability and affordability of legal advice and representation, and absence of
excessive or unreasonable fees and hurdles.
FOUR DIMENSIONS
• India ranks high in the category of Open Government, placing it 37th globally and at three among lower middle
income countries. The open government index uses four dimensions to measure government openness —
publicised laws and government data, right to information, civic participation and complaint mechanisms.
• The country performs worst however, in the category of order and security, placing at 90 worldwide, fourth in
South Asia and 20 among lower middle income countries. The measures used for this category are absence of
crime; absence of civil conflict, including terrorism and armed conflict; and absence of violence as a socially
acceptable means to redress personal grievances.
• Driving down India’s score are the perceptions of corruption, of the effectiveness of the civil justice system, the
regulatory enforcement environment and the criminal justice system, all of which reflect that less than half of the
respondents showed faith in these systems’ ability to deliver justice. India did comparatively better in people’s
minds in terms of government freedom.
3. NCR gets bigger

• The National Capital Region (NCR) included
two districts of Haryana (Jind and Karnal) and
one of Uttar Pradesh (Muzzafarnagar) under its
wing.
• The proposal was approved at the meeting of
the NCR Planning Board (NCRPB) which was
chaired by Union Urban Development Minister
M Venkaiah Naidu.
• With its 11 districts included, 57 per cent of
Haryana’s area has now become a part of the
NCR.
21
PART FOUR | ECONOMY
PART FOUR | ECONOMY
1. India among top 10 countries to attract highest FDI: UNCTAD

India regained its position in the list of top 10 destinations for foreign direct investments (FDI) in 2014, after
failing to make it to the list a year ago, according to the World Investment Report 2015 released by the United
Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). India is ranked ninth in the latest report; it was
15th last year......
• During 2014, FDI
inflows into India
jumped 22% to $34
billion at a time
when global FDI
fell by 16%.
UNCTAD
projected global
FDI flows to rise
11% to $1.4 trillion
in 2015.
• India’s rank as a
top prospective
host country for
FDI also rose to
third place from
fourth place in an
UNCTAD survey
for the period 2015-
17.
• However, India fell to the seventh rank from sixth last year in the survey as a source country for FDI for 2014-
2016 period.
• FDI inflows to India are likely to maintain an upward trend in 2015 as economic recovery gains ground, the
report said. In terms of the sectoral composition of FDI inflows, manufacturing is likely to gain strength, as
policy efforts to revitalize the industrial sector are sustained including, for example, the Make In India initiative
launched in mid-2014, it added.
OTHER FINDINGS
• The report identified the automotive industry as one of the sectors in which India has the potential of becoming
a world leader. Cumulative FDI inflows to the automotive industry from April 2000 to November 2014
amounted to $11.4 billion, according to data from the Indian government.
• The country accounted for the majority of so-called greenfield investment projects announced by global auto
makers and first-tier parts suppliers in South Asia during 2013-14, including 12 projects above $100 million.
• Inward FDI has led to the emergence of a number of industrial clusters in India, including those in the national
capital region (Delhi-Gurgaon-Faridabad) in the north, Maharashtra state (Mumbai-Nasik-Aurangabad) in the
west, and Tamil Nadu (Chennai-Hosur) in the south, according to the report.
GLOBAL SCENE
• The report revealed that China became the largest recipient of FDI in 2014, followed by Hong Kong and the US.
Developing economies, as a group, attracted $681 billion worth of FDI and remain the leading region by share of
global investment inflows.
22
PART FOUR | ECONOMY
• In 2014, nine of the 20 largest investor countries were developing or transition economies with firms from
developing Asia now investing abroad more than any other region. Developing economies accounted for a
record 35% of global FDI outflows, the report said, up from 13% in 2007.
RELATED INFORMATION: UNCTAD

• The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) was established in 1964 as a permanent
intergovernmental body.
• UNCTAD is the principal organ of the United Nations General Assembly dealing with trade, investment, and
development issues.
• The creation of UNCTAD was based on concerns of developing countries over the international market, multi-
national corporations, and great disparity between developed nations and developing nations. It was
established to provide a forum where the developing countries could discuss the problems relating to their
economic development.
• UNCTAD is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.
2. Australia to join China-led AIIB as founding member
• Australia said that it will join the China-led infrastructure bank, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), as
a founding member.
• More than 50 members have signed up to the lender, which is widely seen as a rival to the Western-led World
Bank.
• The US and Japan have refused to join, however. Both countries have raised concerns over the bank's standards
of governance, while there are concerns in the US that the AIIB could be used by China to extend its political
influence.
• The Beijing-based lender will help finance construction of roads, ports, railways and other infrastructure projects
in Asia.
23
PART FOUR | ECONOMY
• The UK, France, Germany and Iran are also among its members.
3. India signs pact on automatic exchange of tax information

• In keeping with what was decided at the G20 Finance Ministers meeting in September last year, India joined the
Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement (MCAA) on Automatic Exchange of Financial Account
Information.
• To be able to comply with the new system, amendments have been made to the Income Tax Act, 1961. Necessary
rules and guidelines are being formulated in consultation with financial institutions.
• The new system, dubbed the Common Reporting Standards (CRS) on Automatic Exchange of Information
(AEOI), is very wide in scope and obliges the treaty partners to exchange a wide range of financial information,
including that about the ultimate controlling persons and beneficial owners of entities.
• Previously, information was exchanged between countries on the basis of specific requests relating to cases of
tax evasion and other financial crimes. AEOI, when fully implemented, sets up a system wherein bulk taxpayer
information will periodically be sent by the source country of income to the country of residence of the taxpayer.
4. Households using PDS double in seven years

New official data show that the proportion of Indian households (HHs) using the Public Distribution System
(PDS) has nearly doubled over seven years. These households are relying more on the PDS and less on open
market sources than before.
• The National Sample Survey
Office’s (NSSO) report on the
‘Public Distribution System
and Other Sources of
Household Consumption’
was released recently and
looks at findings from a
nationally representative
survey on the use of the PDS
conducted in 2011-12.
• The report finds that the
proportion of households
which reported consuming
grain purchased through the PDS was up to 46 per cent of all households in the case of rice and 34 per cent in
the case of wheat for rural India, which is a near doubling since 2004-05, and an increase over 2009-10.
• In urban India, the proportion of households reporting they bought wheat from a ration shop has more than
tripled in seven years to 19 per cent, while the proportion of urban households buying PDS rice has nearly
doubled to 23 per cent.
PER CAPITA CONSUMPTION

• Simultaneously, the monthly per capita consumption of grain bought from the PDS has grown in both rural and
urban areas, while the amount of grain bought from other market sources – while still accounting for the
majority of an individual’s consumption — has fallen.
CENTRALITY OF THE PDS

• The numbers also clearly show the centrality of the PDS to poor households; the proportion of a family’s food
consumption that comes from the PDS is highest among the poorest five per cent, and then falls slowly as
families get richer. Even among the richest five per cent in rural India, the PDS accounts for 20 per cent of rice
consumption and ten per cent of wheat consumption.
24
PART FOUR | ECONOMY
STATEWISE STATUS
• Among States, nearly 90 per cent of households in rural Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh report consuming
PDS rice, and over 75 per cent in Kerala and Karnataka. Over 70 per cent of households in Karnataka and 60 per
cent of households in Tamil Nadu told the NSSO that they consume PDS wheat as well.
IMPROVED FUNCTIONING
• Activists attribute the rise in the number of households consuming grain from ration shops to the improved
functioning of the PDS in several States. Economists Reetika Khera and Jean Dreze have shown that diversion in
PDS grain has declined sharply in several States, including Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Odisha, and attribute this to
the expansion and improvement of the PDS in those States. Many other studies have shown similarly.
RELATED INFORMATION: NSSO

• The National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) is an organisation under the Ministry of Statistics of the Government
of India. It is the largest organisation in India conducting regular socio-economic surveys. It was established in
1950.
5. India ranked best for investment: Baseline Profitability Index (BPI)

A ranking of destinations
for attractiveness to
foreign investors has
placed India at the top
among 110 countries.
China has secured the
65th position and the
U.S. is at the 50th. In the
2014 index, India was at
the sixth position and
Hong Kong was number
one.
• The ranking is based on
an index for baseline
profitability that assumes
that three factors affect
the ultimate success of a
foreign investment: how
much the value of an
asset grows; the
preservation of that value
while the asset is owned;
and the ease of repatriation of proceeds from selling the asset. The index combines measures for each of these
factors into a summary statistic that conveys a country’s basic attractiveness for investment.
HIGH RETURNS
• A high ranking indicates high returns and improving economic institutions. The index, thus, compares how
local policies and conditions affect the same investment in different countries. Or how the value of the principal
and the return will change depending only on where the investment is made.
• In 2014, the average BPI score across all countries was 0.99; this year it is 1.03 — meaning the expected returns
over the next five years are about three-quarters of a per cent higher a year.
25
PART FOUR | ECONOMY
LOWER RANK IN CORRUPTION INDEX HELPED INDIA

• Local factors can erode profits. These include payment of bribes and kickbacks, the risk of which is compared
across countries using the Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, a measure for the
perceived levels of public-sector corruption worldwide.
• India came first in the Baseline Profitability Index helped by its improved ranking in the Transparency
International’s Corruption Perception Index — in 2014, the country was at the 85th position out of 175 countries
as compared to its ranking of 94 out of 177 countries in 2013.
6. China-led AIIB development bank holds signing ceremony

China hosted the signing
ceremony of the Asian
Infrastructure Investment Bank
(AIIB), a new international
financial institution set to rival
the World Bank and Asian
Development Bank.
• The UK, Germany, Australia and
South Korea are among the
founding members. Japan and
the US, which oppose the AIIB,
are the most prominent
countries not to join.
• The US has questioned the
governance standards at the new
institution, which it sees as
spreading Chinese "soft power",
and tried to persuade others to
stay away.
• Most Asian countries and
countries from the Middle East
and Latin America have joined,
with the launch of the Beijing-
led bank being hailed as a
diplomatic and strategic success
for China.
ECONOMIC AGENDA
• The AIIB, which was created in
October by 21 countries, led by
China, will fund Asian energy,
transport and infrastructure projects. The AIIB will begin with authorised capital of $50bn, eventually to be
raised to $100bn.
• It is one of several institutions China has created to push its own economic agenda, largely driven by frustration
over its lack of influence in the big global financial institutions such as the World Bank.
• It serves an important economic objective too. China wants to move away from building infrastructure at home.
Its engineering giants need somewhere else to build ports, roads and cities.
26
PART FIVE | POLITY AND GOVERNANCE
PART FIVE | POLITY AND GOVERNANCE
1. President gives nod to re-promulgation of land ordinance

President Pranab Mukherjee re-promulgated for the third time the Land Ordinance that prescribes processes for
acquisition of land for public projects.
• Despite Opposition protests, the Union
Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister
Narendra Modi recommended to the
President the re-issuance of the
ordinance on the ground that it was
necessary for maintaining continuity
and providing a framework to
compensate people whose land had
been acquired.
• While an ordinance is valid for six
months, it has to be endorsed by
Parliament within six weeks of the first
sitting. However, due to stiff resistance
from Opposition parties to certain
provisions, the earlier land ordinance
promulgated during the break in the budget session — after proroguing the Rajya Sabha — was not taken up at
all in the second half of the session.
• Instead the joint Parliamentary Committee comprising members from both the Houses was set up to scrutinise
the Bill.
BACKGROUND
• The government had moved nine amendments to the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land
Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013.
• The amendments related to exemption of five types of projects from certain provisions of the Act, quantum of
compensation and rehabilitation and resettlement, return of unutilised land, redress mechanism, and provision
of employment to a member of the family of farm labourer displaced.
• However, the proposed Bill does not include the two crucial provisions for taking consent of the land owner and
the Social Impact Assessment of displacement in certain cases. These have become the bone of contention
between the government and Opposition parties.
27
PART SIX | SOCIAL ISSUES
PART SIX | SOCIAL ISSUES
1. Literacy rate at 71% in rural India, 86% in urban: Survey

Literacy rate in rural areas was pegged at 71 per cent last year, compared to 86 per cent in urban areas, while
among the age group of seven years and above, male literacy rate was found higher than the female literacy rate,
according to NSSO (National Sample Survey Office) survey released recently.
• The details are part of a survey on 'Social Consumption: Education' during the
National Sample Survey (NSS) 71st Round, January to June 2014, conducted by
the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) under the Ministry of Statistics and
Programme Implementation.
FINDINGS
• According to its findings, literacy rate among age group of seven years and
above in the country was 75 per cent. In rural areas, it was 71 per cent
compared to 86 per cent in urban areas.
• Adult literacy (age 15 years and above) rate in India was around 71 per cent.
For adults also, literacy rate in rural areas was lower than that in urban areas. In rural areas, adult literacy rate
was 64 per cent compared to 84 per cent in urban areas.
PHYSICAL ACCESS TO EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

• No significant difference between rural and urban India existed in terms of distance for physical access to
primary schooling. In both rural and urban areas, nearly 99 per cent households reported availability of primary
school within 2 kms from the house, the survey said.
• For accessing educational institutions providing higher level of learning, say upper primary or secondary, a
lower proportion of households in rural areas compared to that in urban areas reported existence of such
facilities within 2 kms, it added.
HIGHER EDUCATION
• The proportion of persons having completed higher level of education, say, graduation and above, was more in
the urban areas than in the rural areas. In the rural areas, nearly 4.5 per cent of males and 2.2 per cent of females
completed education level of graduation and above, while in the urban areas 17 per cent of males and 13 per
cent of females completed this level of education.
ROLE OF GOVERNMENT INSTITUTIONS

• In rural areas, 72 per cent of the students at primary level, 76 per cent at upper primary level and 64 per cent at
secondary and higher secondary level attended government institutions, the survey said. While in urban areas,
31 per cent at primary level, 38 per cent at upper primary level as well as secondary and higher secondary level,
attended government institutions, it added.
EXPENDITURE
• At primary level, expenditure per student in urban areas was Rs 10,083, more than four times than that in rural
areas, pegged at Rs 2,811.
• Average expenditure on technical education in private aided and unaided institutions varied between nearly
1.5-2.5 times of that in government institutions.
• Nearly 46 per cent of expenditure for general education and 73 per cent of the expenditure for technical
education was on course fee.
28
PART SEVEN | SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
PART SEVEN| SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
1. Rosetta comet mission extended

Google formally opened its first Asian start-up “campus” in Seoul. Campus Seoul is housed in the capital’s
upscale Gangnam district which has become a focal point for the Korean start-up community.
• Europe announced that
its comet-chasing
mission Rosetta would
be extended until
September 2016 and
may end with the
dying mothership
touching down on the
Comet
67P/Churyumov-
Gerasimenko.
• Rosetta thus would
rejoin its payload, the
robot lab Philae, which
it has nurtured
throughout a journey
spanning billions of
kilometres.
BACKGROUND
• Launched in 2004, the mission has been applauded as a milestone in space exploration. It comprises an orbiter
and a lander, which seek to unveil the secrets of comets — primordial clusters of ice and dust that may shed
light on how life developed on Earth. After a 10-year chase, the pair caught up with 67P last August.
• In November, Philae was landed on the comet surface, and it carried out a range of experiments before its stored
battery power gave out. But the lander has revived, thanks to sunlight bathing its solar panels as the comet zips
closer to the Sun.
• By the end of September 2016, as the comet moves far away from the Sun again, there will no longer be enough
solar power to run Rosetta’s set of scientific instrumentation efficiently.
RELATED INFORMATION: ROSETTA STONE

• The ESA’s (European Space Agency) Rosetta mission is named after the Rosetta Stone, a slab of volcanic basalt
found near the Egyptian town of Rashid (Rosetta) in 1799.
• The stone revolutionised our understanding of the past. By comparing the three carved inscriptions on the stone
(written in two forms of Egyptian and Greek), historians were able to decipher the mysterious hieroglyphics –
the written language of ancient Egypt. As a result of this breakthrough, scholars were able to piece together the
history of a lost culture.
• The Rosetta Stone provided the key to an ancient civilisation. In the same way, it is expected that ESA’s
(European Space Agency) Rosetta mission will allow scientists to unlock the mysteries of the oldest building
blocks of our Solar System: comets.
ESA
• The European Space Agency (ESA) is an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to the exploration of space.
• It was established in 1975. It is headquartered in Paris, France.
• It uses the spaceport- Guiana Space Centre - at Kourou, French Guiana.
29
PART SEVEN | SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
2. ISRO's GAGAN to provide navigational support to Railways

• ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) said it will provide navigational support to the country's Railways
through 'GAGAN' (GPS-aided geo-augmented navigation) system.
• ISRO will provide satellite-generated information to the railways through space technology-based tools that will
provide safety at unmanned level crossings.
GAGAN
• GAGAN is an indigenous navigational guide system developed by ISRO on the lines of GPS system of the US.
GAGAN was jointly developed by the ISRO and Airports Authority of India (AAI) with a view to assist aircraft
in accurate landing.
• The GAGAN signal is being broadcast through two Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) satellites - GSAT8 and
GSAT10.
3. World's thinnest light bulb created from graphene

• Graphene, a form of carbon famous for being stronger than steel
and more conductive than copper, can add another wonder to the
list: making light.
• Researchers have developed a light-emitting graphene transistor
that works in the same way as the filament in a light bulb.
• Scientists have long wanted to create a tiny "light bulb" to place
on a chip, enabling what is called photonic circuits, which run on
light rather than electric current. The problem has been one of size
and temperature — incandescent filaments must get extremely
hot before they can produce visible light.
• This new graphene device, however, is so efficient and tiny, the resulting technology could offer new ways to
make displays or study high-temperature phenomena at small scales, the researchers said.
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PART EIGHT | ENERGY
PART EIGHT| ENERGY
1. Government raises solar power target to 100,000 MW by 2022

• The government raised the solar power generation
capacity addition target under Jawaharlal Nehru
National Solar Mission (JNNSM) by five times to
1,00,000 MW by 2022.
• With this ambitious target, India will become one of
the world’s largest green energy producers,
surpassing several developed countries.
• The target will principally comprise of 40 GW
(solar) rooftop and 60 GW through large and
medium scale grid connected solar power projects.
• The total investment in setting up 100 GW will be
around Rs. 6,00,000 crore. The capital subsidy will be provided for Rooftop Solar projects in various cities and
towns, for Viability Gap Funding (VGF) based projects to be developed through the Solar Energy Corporation of
India (SECI) and for decentralised generation through small solar projects.
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PART NINE | DEFENCE
PART NINE| DEFENCE
1. India, US ink new 10-year defence framework

India and the US inked an expansive new defence framework to bolster their strategic partnership over the next
10 years, even as they discussed maritime security and the Asia-Pacific in the backdrop of China's assertive
behaviour in the South China Sea.
• The new 10-year framework, which
builds on the earlier one inked in 2005,
charts out the road ahead for further
expansion in bilateral defence ties,
ranging from collaboration in maritime
security, joint exercises and intelligence-
sharing to the drive against terrorism
and proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction.
DEFENCE TRADE AND

TECHNOLOGY INITIATIVE (DTTI)
• Under the defence trade and technology
initiative (DTTI), the two countries
finalized project agreements for co-
development and co-production of
mobile generators or electric hybrid
power sources as well as chemical-
biological warfare protection gear for
soldiers.
• These two are among the four
"pathfinder projects" identified under the DTTI — the others are Raven mini unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)
and "roll-on, roll-off" mission modules for C-130J Super Hercules aircraft. (Roll-on, roll-off modules increase the
capability of the C 130J beyond core transportation to that of a multi-mission platform.)
• Though the first four projects are relatively modest, the two sides are also working on joint development of jet
engines and aircraft carrier design and construction technologies, which includes EMALS (electromagnetic
aircraft launch systems).
2. Pinaka Mark-II rocket successfully test-fired

• An advanced version of the indigenously developed Pinaka Mark-II
rocket was successfully test-fired from Army's Chandan firing range
near Pokhran (Rajasthan) using a multi-barrel launcher. Pinaka Mark-II
rocket, with a range of more than 60-km, is capable of acting as a force-
multiplier.
• Jointly developed by the Defence Research and Development
Organisation and the Indian Army, this multi-barrel rocket launcher has
high operational mobility, flexibility and accuracy as the major
characteristics, which give the weapon an edge in modern artillery
warfare for the Indian Armed Forces.
• Pinaka-I has already been inducted into the Army and was also put into
field testing for assessing its capability during the Kargil war. Its quick reaction time and high rate of fire gives
an edge to the Army during low-intensity warlike situation. The system is capable to incorporate several types
of warheads.
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PART TEN | ENVIRONMENT, ECOLOGY & BIODIVERSITY
PART TEN| ENVIRONMENT, ECOLOGY & BIODIVERSITY
1. Half of mammals face habitat loss: ZSI

In a unique initiative, the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) has published a book containing a consolidated
documentation and listing of all the scheduled or protected species of mammals found in India...
• The book, An Identification Manual for Scheduled Mammals of India, provides detailed information on
scheduled mammals, their status as per IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red list of
Threatened Species.
HOME TO 428 SPECIES OF MAMMALS

• India is home to 428 species of mammals out of which more than 60 per cent — about 251 species — are under
protected or Scheduled categories of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. The 428 species of mammals in
India contribute to about 8 per cent of the total mammal species found in the World.
• About 50 per cent of mammalian fauna of India have shrunk in their distributional range due to various
anthropogenic pressures. Already four mammal species — Cheetah, Banteng, Sumatran Rhinoceros and Javan
Rhinoceros — are extinct in India.
LESSER-KNOWN CATEGORY
• Out of the 251 Schedule mammals species listed under the India Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 and documented
in the publication, about 180 fall under the “lesser-known” category, and very little information is available
about their habitat, behaviour, and population.
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PART TEN | ENVIRNMENT, ECOLOGY & BIODIVERSITY
• Around 78 species of mammals are included in Schedule I of Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, implying
that highest priority is placed on the conservation of these animals in the country. While the Schedule I
mammals constitute well known species like tiger, elephant and Indian rhinoceros, “lesser known” species such
as clouded leopard, snow leopard, gaur, desert cat, Niligiri tahr, swamp deer, sloth bear and Tibetan, sand fox
are also included in the list.
CRITICALLY ENDANGERED
• The book also lists the mammals that fall in the “Critically Endangered” category of the IUCN. These animals
are: pygmy hog, Malabar civet, large rock rat and kondana rat. As per the IUCN status 29 mammals (such as,
Chinese Pangolin, fishing cat, Gangetic dolphin, golden langur, hispid hare etc.) in the country come under the
“endangered” category.
RELATED INFORMATION: ZSI

• The Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) is a premier Indian organisation in zoological research and studies. It was
established in 1916 to promote the survey, exploration and research of the fauna in the region.
• The activities of the ZSI are coordinated by the Conservation and Survey Division in the Ministry of
Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC).
IUCN
• The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field
of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources.
• It is involved in data gathering and analysis, research, field projects, advocacy, lobbying and education. The
organization is best known to the wider public for compiling and publishing the IUCN Red List of Threatened
Species, which assesses the conservation status of species worldwide.
• IUCN was established in 1948. Its full legal name is International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural
Resources.
2. Scientists document ‘virgin births’ of endangered sawfish in Florida

Scientists have documented in Florida (U.S.) a series of “virgin births,” reproduction without mating, in a
critically endangered sawfish species pushed to the brink of extinction by over-fishing and habitat destruction.
• The scientists said it marks the first time the
phenomenon called parthenogenesis has been
seen in a vertebrate in the wild. Some females
may be resorting to asexual reproduction
because smalltooth sawfish numbers are so low
that mating opportunities may not exist, they
said.
PARTHENOGENESIS
• In parthenogenesis, a female’s egg cell can
develop into a baby without being fertilized by
a male’s sperm cell. In making an egg cell, a
precursor cell divides into four cells. The one
that eventually becomes the egg cell retains key
cellular structures and the gel-like cytoplasm. The other three hold extra genetic material.
• In parthenogenesis, one of those cells essentially acts as a sperm cell and fuses with the egg. This “fertilized” egg
possesses about half the mother’s genetic diversity, a trait allowing parthenogenesis to be detected through
genetic testing.
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SMALLTOOTH SAWFISH
• Sawfish, a type of ray, have a flattened shark-shaped body and a long, flat snout with pairs of teeth on the side
used to find, stun and kill prey. They grow up to 18 feet long.
• Their population collapse follows habitat loss and “unintentional” over-fishing, being caught in nets targeting
other species. They received U.S. federal endangered species protection in 2003.
3. Yellow-breasted buntings 'being eaten to extinction by China'

• A bird that was once one of the most abundant in Europe and Asia is
being hunted to near extinction because of Chinese eating habits,
according to a study published.
• The population of the yellow-breasted bunting (Emberiza aureola) has
plunged by 90% since 1980, all but disappearing from eastern Europe,
Japan and large parts of Russia, said the study, published in the
Conservation Biology journal.
RICE BIRD
• Following initial population declines, China in 1997 banned the hunting
of the species, known in the country as the “rice bird”. However, millions of these birds, along with other
songbirds, were still being killed for food and sold on the black market as late as 2013, said the study.It said
consumption of these birds has increased as a result of economic growth and prosperity in east Asia.
• The birds breed north of the Himalayas and spend their winters in warmer southeast Asia, passing through
eastern China where they have been hunted for more than 2,000 years. At their wintering grounds, they gather
in huge flocks at night-time roosts, making them easy prey for trappers using nets.
• Yellow-breasted buntings have since 2013 been classified by the International Union for the Conservation of
Nature as an “endangered” species due to rapid population decline from trapping outside their breeding
grounds.
• The songbird, which nests on the ground in open scrubs, is distinctive for its yellow underparts.
4. India richer by 349 new species

• At a time when plants and animals are under threat
across the world, nature lovers and conservationists in
India have reasons to feel happy. Scientists and
taxonomists of the Botanical Survey of India (BSI) and
Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) have discovered 349 new
species of flora and fauna in the past one year.
BIODIVERSITY HOTSPOTS
• Scientists of both BSI and ZSI agree that the Western
Ghats and the northeast are biodiversity hotspots where
most new species were found.
• According to scientists of the BSI, the Western Ghats
accounted for 22 per cent of the new discoveries, while the Eastern Himalayas and the north-eastern States each
accounted for 15 per cent of the species found.
• While most of the new species of amphibians were discovered from the Western Ghats, majority of fish species
were from north-east India.
• Apart from the new species, the BSI and ZSI have also added many ‘new records’. Animals and plants that are
found elsewhere in the world but have been spotted in India for the first time are called ‘new records.’
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PART TEN | ENVIRNMENT, ECOLOGY & BIODIVERSITY
5. India’s only double coconut tree artificially pollinated

Scientists at the Indian Botanical Garden in West Bengal’s Howrah district carried out artificial pollination of
the only double coconut tree in India, which bears the largest seed known to science.
• One of the rare and globally threatened species of
palm, the double coconut (Lodoicea maldivica) tree
was planted at the botanical garden in 1894 and the
artificial pollination is a result of decades of work
by scientists of the Botanical Survey of India (BSI).
• This species of palm is diecious (where male and
female flowers are borne on different plants).
Successful pollination means that we can have
another Lodoicea maldivica in the country.
• The palm tree is located in the large palm house of
the Botanical Garden which has the largest
collection of palms in South East Asia with around
110 palm species.
LONGEST SURVIVING PALM

• The Double Coconut tree not only bears the largest seed known to science — weighing around 25 kg — but this
unique species is also the longest surviving palm which can live for as long as 1,000 years. The palm tree also
bears the largest leaf among palms and one leaf can thatch a small hut.
6. Yeti crab found in Antarctica

• The first species of Yeti crab, from hydrothermal vent
systems in Antarctica, was discovered by a team of British
scientists.
• Named after world-renowned British deep-sea and polar
biologist professor Paul Tyler, the species Kiwa Tyleri
belongs to a group of squat lobsters known as Kiwaidae.
• Yeti crab is famous for its body, which is densely covered by
bristles - known as setae - and bacteria, giving it a fur-like
appearance. Kiwa Tyleri's appearance allows it to harvest
the dense bacterial mats, which overgrow the surfaces of
vent chimneys, on which it depends for food from the
chemosynthetic bacteria.
• For most of its life, Kiwa Tyleri is trapped within the warm
water environment of the vent chimney. The species is unable to move between vent sites because of the hostile,
low temperature (about zero degrees Celsius), polar environment in between.
• Crabs and lobsters, which are a characteristic of the global oceans, show an extremely low species number in
polar seas. Hydrothermal vent systems found in the Southern Ocean, therefore, present a unique warm-water
refuge to Yeti crabs.
7. Greenhouse gases: India fourth biggest emitter

As the global community gears up for the crucial Paris climate summit, the World Resources Institute (WRI) —
a global research organization — has come out with its latest analyses of the country-wise emissions of climate-
damaging greenhouse gases. It shows India despite being the fourth largest carbon emitter continues to be far
behind the other three top big emitters in terms of per capita emission.
36
• Though the data, released by the WRI,

cannot be used as an excuse by India
for not acting against its emission, such
figures will certainly give the country
an upper hand while negotiating for a
global climate deal. India invariably
uses the 'per capita' yardstick while
insisting on more comprehensive
actions from rich nations.
• However, developing countries like
China, Mexico and Brazil too are way
ahead of India in terms of their per
capita contribution to the overall
emissions. And, this is the reason why
a section within the government in
India has time and again argued not to
compare the country's action with that
of the Chinese goal.
• The WRI analysis is based on data from its Climate Analysis Indicators Tool (CAIT) that has recently released its
emission figures for the year 2012. It also came out with details as how the various economic sectors have
contributed to the overall emission.
LARGEST EMITTERS CONTRIBUTE A MAJORITY OF GLOBAL EMISSIONS

• According to the figures, the largest emitters contribute a majority of global emissions as the top 10 emitters
contribute over 72% of global greenhouse gas emissions. On the other hand, the lowest 100 emitters contribute
less than 3%. It also shows the energy sector is the dominant source of greenhouse gas emissions. It contributes
more than 75% of global emissions.
• The analysis also shows that emission sources vary by country. While the energy sector dominates, industrial
emissions in China contribute more than 3% of global emissions and new data from the Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) indicate that agriculture contributes a notable share of Brazil's and Australia's emissions.
Mitigation policy options that countries pursue should therefore align with their national circumstances, the
WRI suggested while sharing and analyzing the figures.
• Six of the top 10 emitters are developing countries. According to the data, China contributes approximately 25%
of global emissions, making it the top emitter. India, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico and Iran are also contributing
relatively large shares of global emissions as their economies grow.
8. Maharashtra gets ‘State butterfly’

• Maharashtra has become the first State in the country to have a
‘State butterfly.’ It declared the Blue Mormon (Papilio
polymnestor) as the State butterfly.
• The Blue Mormon is a large, swallowtail butterfly found
primarily in Sri Lanka and India, mainly restricted to the
Western Ghats of Maharashtra, South India and coastal belts. It
may occasionally be spotted in the Maharashtrian mainland
between Vidarbha and Western Maharashtra.
• It is reportedly the second largest butterfly found in India, just
smaller than the southern birdwing. Easily identifiable, the Blue
Mormon boasts exquisite velvet-like black wings with bright
blue spots.
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PART ELEVEN | HEALTH
PART ELEVEN| HEALTH
1. Breakthrough in treating leucoderma

• In a first, a medication for treating rheumatoid arthritis restored skin colour in a patient suffering from vitiligo.
The results of the study were published in the journal ‘JAMA Dermatology’.
• Leucoderma is a condition that causes skin to lose its pigmentation or colour. As a result, people with vitiligo
have white patches on the skin. In an advanced stage, most of the body skin can lose its pigmentation.
• Current treatments, such as steroid creams and light therapy, fall short as they are not reliably effective in
reversing the disease. Researchers from Yale University used a medication for rheumatoid arthritis called
‘tofacitinib citrate’ to successfully treat the patient suffering from vitiligo.
RELATED INFORMATION: DERMATOLOGY

• Dermatology is the branch of medicine dealing with the hair, nails, skin and its diseases.
2. First-ever potential treatment for MERS identified

Scientists have for the first time identified two promising drug candidates to prevent and treat the deadly Middle
East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) disease.
• Researchers discovered and validated two therapeutics that show early
promise in preventing and treating the disease, which can cause severe
respiratory symptoms, and has a death rate of 40 per cent.
• These therapeutics are the first to succeed in protecting and treating
animal models of the MERS virus, researchers said.
• The research was done in collaboration with Regeneron, a
biopharmaceutical company based in Tarrytown, New York.
SIMILAR TO SARS
• MERS was first discovered in 2012 in Saudi Arabia. It appears that the
disease spread to humans from camels, who may themselves been
infected by bats.
• Research has shown that it is similar to Severe Acute Respiratory
Syndrome (SARS); both are caused by Coronaviruses, both cause respiratory problems, and both are often fatal.
38
PART TWELVE | COMMITTEES AND REPORTS
PART TWELVE| COMMITTEES AND REPORTS
1. Bibek Debroy panel report

The much-awaited Bibek Debroy committee report on the restructuring of Indian Railways lays down a five-year
roadmap to evolve a statutory rail regulator, scrap the Rail Budget and make room for more players in an “open
access” regime which turns the Railways into just another train-service provider in the country.....
• Instead of an aggressive approach as was seen in the interim report submitted in March for comments, the final
report, calls for more gradual changes.
• Pushed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the high-level committee was formed to restructure the Railways and
suggest ways for resource mobilisation.
RAILWAY REGULATORY AUTHORITY

• The report makes the existence of an independent, quasi-judicial Railway Regulatory Authority of India a
prerequisite in five years for reforms like un-bundling and restructuring of Railways. The Rail Budget as we
know it, should cease to exist after that, it says.
• The Regulator will work under the policy framed by the Ministry. It will be up to the Regulator to decide
technical standards, set freight rates and resolve disputes. The Regulator can recommend fare revisions but these
will not be binding on the Railway Ministry, it says, leaving scope, presumably, for the political dispensation of
the day to take a call.
PREPARATORY WORK
• The first five years will see preparatory work: migration to a commercial accounting system (to figure out the
social cost burden) in two years; uniform induction system of all new Human Resource; and devolution of
powers to General Managers, Divisional Railway Managers and Station Managers.
• In the new report, the committee has left the job of figuring out how to do this preparatory work to the Minister
of Railways under supervision of the PMO (Prime Minister's Office) and aided by a dedicated group of officers.
There is room for allowing outside experts to help in this too.
• The Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation Limited (DFCCL), the report recommends, should be made
autonomous and separated from Indian Railways so that it gives non-discriminatory access to both Indian
Railways and private operators. Operators should be able to pay directly to DFCCL without having to interact
with Railways.
LIBERALIZATION NOT PRIVATIZATION

• As the tone of the interim report on the subject of private entry was criticised by unions and the bureaucracy, the
final report is more cautious.
• It needs to be understood that this Committee does not recommend privatization of Indian Railways, it says,
adding, it does, however endorse private entry with the proviso of an independent regulator. It also says it
prefers use of the word liberalization and not privatization or deregulation, as both the latter are apt to
misinterpretation.
RELATED INFORMATION: SEPARATE RAIL BUDGET

• Following the recommendation of the Acworth Committee, headed by British railway economist William
Acworth, the railway finances of India were separated from the general government finances in 1924, a practise
which continues in independent India to date.
39
PART FOURTEEN | SPORTS
PART THIRTEEN| CONFERENCES AND SUMMITS
1. G7 Summit
Leaders of the world's major industrial democracies resolved to wean their energy-hungry economies off carbon
fuels, marking a major step in the battle against global warming that raises the chances of a U.N. climate deal
later this year.
GREEK DEBT CRISIS

• Meeting in Schloss Elmau at the foot of Germany's highest mountain,
the Zugspitze, the G7 leaders pressed Greece to accept painful
economic reforms to resolve its debt crisis.
• Greece's leftist government recently rejected proposals for a cash-for-
reforms deal put forward by European lenders and the International
Monetary Fund, but has yet to put forward its own alternative to
unlock aid funds.
FIRM STANCE ON RUSSIA

• The leaders took a firm stance on Russia's involvement in the Ukraine
conflict. In the communique, the leaders said they expected Russia to stop its support for separatist forces in
Ukraine.
• They agreed that existing sanctions against Russia would remain in place until Moscow and Russian-backed
rebels in eastern Ukraine fully respect a ceasefire negotiated in Minsk in February, and said they could escalate
sanctions if needed.
CLIMATE CHANGE
• On climate change, the G7 leaders pledged to develop long-term low-carbon strategies and abandon fossil fuels
by the end of the century.
• The leaders invited other countries to join them in their drive, saying they would accelerate access to renewable
energy in Africa and intensify their support for vulnerable countries' own efforts to manage climate change.
• The G7 stopped short of agreeing any immediate collective targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions but
they said a U.N. climate conference later this year should reach a deal with legal force, including through
binding rules, to combat climate change.
• The G7 leaders supported a reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions within a range recommended by the
United Nations (U. N.) climate change panel, and backed a global target for limiting the rise in average global
temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) compared with pre-industrial levels.
• Their accord helps set up the U.N. Paris conference, at which some 200 countries will try to reach agreement on
limiting the rise in global temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius and seal a new worldwide agreement to curb
greenhouse gas emissions.
RELATED INFORMATION: G7
• The Group of Seven (G7, formerly G8) is a governmental forum of leading advanced economies in the world.
The forum originated with a 1975 summit hosted by France that brought together representatives of six
governments: France, West Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, thus leading to
the name Group of Six or G6.
• The summit became known as the Group of Seven or G7 in 1976 with the addition of Canada. Russia was added
to the group from 1998, which then became known as the G8; Russia was, however, suspended in 2014.
40
PART THIRTEEN | CONFERENCES AND SUMMITS
PART FOURTEEN| SPORTS
1. French Open
• The 2015 French Open tennis tournament took place at
the Stade Roland Garros.
• Stan Wawrinka won his first French Open title,
defeating Djokovic in the final.
• Serena Williams defeated Šafářová in the final and won
her third French Open title, 20th Grand Slam Singles
title, and third Career Grand Slam.
RELATED INFORMATION: GRAND SLAM

• The Grand Slam tournaments, or Majors, are the four
most important annual tennis events.
• The Grand Slam itinerary consists of the Australian Open in mid January, the French Open in May and June,
Wimbledon in June and July, and the US Open in August and September.
• The Australian and US tournaments are played on hard courts, the French on clay, and Wimbledon on grass.
• Wimbledon is the oldest, founded in 1877, followed by the US in 1881, the French in 1891, and the Australian in
1905. However, of these four, only Wimbledon was a major before 1924/25, the time when all four became
designated Grand Slam tournaments.
2. Golf: Jordan Spieth wins the 2015 U.S. Open

• Jordan Spieth won the 2015 U.S. Open to become the younger
golfer ever, at 21 years old, to hold the first two legs of a grand
slam.
• The last player to hold both the Masters and U.S. Open titles in
the same year was Tiger Woods in 2002.
41
PART FIFTEEN | PERSONALITIES
PART FIFTEEN| ORGANISATION IN NEWS
1. European Central Bank

Recently, the European Central Bank said it would not expand an emergency loan program that has been
propping up Greek banks in recent times while the Greek government has been trying to reach a new debt deal
with international creditors.
• The European Central Bank (ECB) is the central bank for
the euro and administers monetary policy of the
Eurozone, which consists of 19 European Union (EU)
member states and is one of the largest currency areas
in the world.
• It is one of the world's most important central banks and
is one of the seven institutions of the European Union
(EU) listed in the Treaty on European Union (TEU). The
capital stock of the bank is owned by the central banks of all 28 EU member states.
• The Treaty of Amsterdam established the bank in 1998, and it is headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany. The
President of the ECB is Mario Draghi, former governor of the Bank of Italy.
WHAT DOES THE ECB DO?

• The European Central Bank (ECB) manages the euro and frames and implements EU economic and monetary
policy. Its main aim is to keep prices stable, thereby supporting economic growth and job creation.
• It sets the interest rates at which it lends to commercial banks in the eurozone (also known as the euro area),
thus controlling money supply and inflation.
• It manages the eurozone's foreign currency reserves and the buying or selling of currencies to balance exchange
rates.
• It ensures that financial markets and institutions are well supervised by national authorities, and that payment
systems work well.
• It ensures the safety and soundness of the European banking system.
• It authorises production of euro banknotes by eurozone countries.
• It monitors price trends and assesses risks to price stability.
42
PART SIXTEEN | PERSONALITIES
PART SIXTEEN| PERSONALITIES
1. Archana Ramasundaram
• Archana Ramasundaram was posted as Director, National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). The Appointments
Committee of the Union Cabinet approved her posting.
RELATED INFORMATION: NCRB

• The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) is an Indian government agency responsible for collecting and
analysing crime data as defined by the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
• NCRB is headquartered in New Delhi and is part of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), Government of India.
2. Charles Correa
• Leading Indian architect Charles Correa passed away. Mr Correa played a
defining role in developing architecture of post-Independence India and designed
some of the most outstanding structures. He was the man behind the Mahatma
Gandhi Memorial in Ahmedabad and Madhya Pradesh Assembly building.
• In the 1970s, he was the chief architect of Navi Mumbai, the new city that came up
across the harbour from Mumbai, and was later appointed the first chairman of
the National Commission on Urbanisation. Mr Correa is also known for
pioneering work on low-income housing.
• He won several national and international awards. He was honoured with the
Padma Shri in 1972 and Padma Vibhushan, the second highest civilian honour, in
2006.
• Mr Correa taught at several universities in India and abroad and received awards including the Aga Khan
Award for Architecture, the Praemium Imperiale of Japan and the Royal Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of
British Architects (RIBA), which billed him as "India's greatest architect".
• He founded the Urban Design Research Institute in Mumbai in 1984.
3. Christopher Lee
• Sir Christopher Lee, a towering British movie actor, passed away.
• The actor, who made his name playing Dracula and Frankenstein's
monster in the Hammer horror films, appeared in more than 250 movies.
• He was best-known for his villainous roles - including Scaramanga in
James Bond and evil wizard Saruman in The Lord of the Rings. The actor's
other credits include The Wicker Man and Star Wars.
4. James Horner
• James Horner, the Hollywood composer who wrote the Oscar-winning score
for Titanic, passed away.
• The musician worked on three James Cameron films, as well as A Beautiful
Mind, Braveheart, Troy and Apollo 13.
• He won one Oscar for the Titanic film score and another for its theme song. The
musician shared his second Oscar with lyricist Will Jennings for best original
song, the hugely successful My Heart Will Go On, sung by Celine Dion.
43
5. K.V. Chowdary
• The government appointed former chairman of the Central Board of Direct Taxes K.V. Chowdary as the Central
Vigilance Commissioner (CVC).
6. Nek Chand Saini
• Rock Garden creator and Padma awardee Nek Chand Saini passed away.
• Nek Chand was born in Berian Kalan village, now in Pakistan. He emigrated to India with his family and settled
in Chandigarh in 1950. It's here that his transformation from a public transport official to creative genius
acclaimed the world over took place.
• Pursuing a vision, Nek Chand started off by clearing an area of jungle on the city's outskirts. He amassed stones,
bricks and materials retrieved from the city's rubbish heaps in order to construct the Rock Garden. Today this
extends over two hectares and is adorned by several hundred sculptures lined up on a series of terraces, arches,
waterfalls and winding paths.
• In 1972, the municipal authorities discovered this marvel, and decided to
provide a team of labourers and financial support to enable him to continue
his work. The site, which came to be known as the Rock Garden, was officially
recognised in 1976, and is a key tourist attraction of Chandigarh.
7. Steffi Graf
• Kerala Tourism has roped in Steffi Graf for endorsing its upcoming campaign
to promote Ayurveda.
• The tennis legend, who has 22 Grand Slam singles titles to her credit, will
endorse print campaigns and television commercials to promote Ayurveda in
national and international tourist circuits.
44
8. Sister Nirmala
• Sister Nirmala, the nun who succeeded Mother Teresa as the head of a charity in Kolkata, passed away.
• She took over the running of the charity after Mother Teresa died in 1997 and ran it for 12 years before Sister
Mary Prema took over in 2009.
• The Missionaries of Charity cares for the homeless and dying in Kolkata.
9. Vijai Singh
• The government appointed Information Commissioner Vijai Singh as the Chief Information Commissioner
(CIC).
10. Zaheer Abbas

• Former Pakistan captain Zaheer Abbas assumed the role of the ICC (International Cricket Council) President.
RELATED INFORMATION: ICC

• The International Cricket Council (ICC) is the international governing body of cricket.
• It was founded as the Imperial Cricket Conference in 1909 by representatives from England, Australia and South
Africa, renamed the International Cricket Conference in 1965, and took up its current name in 1989.
• It is headquartered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Its Chairman is N. Srinivasan.
45
PART SEVENTEEN | AWARDS
PART SEVENTEEN| AWARDS
1. Sanjay Subrahmanyan
• Vocalist Sanjay Subrahmanyan — one of the foremost south Indian classical
vocalists — will receive the coveted ‘Sangita Kalanidhi’ award of The Music
Academy this year.
• Following the recognition, Sanjay Subrahmanyan will join the galaxy of great
musicians such as Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar, Musiri Subramania Iyer,
Maharajapuram Viswanatha Iyer, Semmangudi R. Srinivasa Iyer, G.N.
Balasubramaniam, M.L. Vasanthakumari and M. Balamuralikrishna who were
awarded the title before they turned 50.
• His novel interpretations of several lesser-known ragas and his particular
interest in engaging with Tamil compositions won him critical acclaim over the
years.
RELATED INFORMATION: SANGITA KALANIDHI

• Sangita Kalanidhi is the title awarded yearly to an expert Carnatic Musician by the Madras Music Academy.
This honour is considered one of the highest awards in Carnatic music.
CARNATIC MUSIC
• Carnatic music is a system of music commonly associated with the southern part of the Indian subcontinent,
with its area roughly confined to four modern states of India: Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil
Nadu.
• It is one of two main subgenres of Indian classical music that evolved from ancient Hindu traditions; the other
subgenre being Hindustani music, which emerged as a distinct form because of Persian and Islamic influences in
North India.
• The main emphasis in Carnatic music is on vocal music; most compositions are written to be sung, and even
when played on instruments, they are meant to be performed in gāyaki (singing) style.
• The most outstanding performances, and the greatest concentration of Carnatic musicians, are found in the city
of Chennai. Various festivals are held throughout India and abroad which mainly consist of Carnatic music
performances, like the Madras Music Season, which has been considered as one of the world's largest cultural
events.
2. Bangladesh Liberation War award for Vajpayee

• Bangladesh conferred its prestigious liberation war honour
on former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee for his
“active role” in its independence struggle and
consolidating friendship with India.
• Indira Gandhi was the first “foreign friend” to be conferred
with the ‘Bangladesh Liberation War Honour Award’.
Sonia Gandhi received the honour on her behalf in 2012 at
a special ceremony.
• Most of the subsequent recipients were also from India
with President Pranab Mukherjee being one of them.
RELATED INFORMATION: BANGLADESH

LIBERATION WAR
46
PART SEVENTEEN | AWARDS
• The Bangladesh Liberation War was a revolutionary armed conflict that pitted East Pakistan, later joined by
India, against West Pakistan in 1971 and established the independent Bangladeshi republic.
• The war began on 25 March 1971, when the Pakistani military junta led by General Yahya Khan began a military
crackdown on the people of East Pakistan, particularly targeting Bengali nationalists, students, intelligentsia,
religious minorities and armed personnel, who were demanding self-determination and acceptance of the 1970
election results.
• India joined the war on 3 December 1971, after Pakistan launched preemptive air strikes on North India. On 16
December 1971, Pakistan surrendered to the Allied Forces of Bangladesh and India in the East. The end of the
war spelt the emergence of a liberated Bangladesh.
3. Sangeet Natak Akademi fellowships

• Musicologist S.R. Janakiraman, film-maker M.S. Sathyu,
classical singer Vijay Kichlu and musician Tulsidas Borkar
were chosen for the prestigious Sangeet Natak Akademi
fellowships for the year 2014.
• Akademi ratnas, or fellowships, and awards for 2014 were
decided by the General Council of the Sangeet Natak
Akademi, also known as the National Academy of Music,
Dance and Drama.
• The fellowship of the Akademi is considered a rare honour
and restricted to a small group at a given time. At present,
there are 40 fellows.
• The General Council also selected 36 artists from the fields
of music, dance, theatre and puppetry for the Sangeet
Natak Akademi Awards (Akademi Puraskar) for the year
2014.
• The honour of Akademi fellow carries a purse of Rs.
3,00,000, and Akademi Awards Rs.1,00,000.
47
PART EIGHTEEN | PLACES
PART EIGHTEEN| PLACES
1. Nathu La
• China opened the second land crossing in Tibet via Nathu La to
allow the Indian pilgrims undertaking the arduous Kailash-
Manasarovar Yatra, in the latest confidence-building measure
between the two neighbours.
• Chinese President Xi Jinping had promised opening the new
route for the Yatra to Mr. Modi during the former’s maiden visit
to New Delhi in September last year.
• India wanted the second route for the Yatra, keeping in view the
terrain difficulties through the existing routes through
Uttarakhand and Nepal which involve arduous journey,
including heavy trekking and travel on the backs of mules.
• The route through Nathu La Pass will facilitate comfortable
travel for Indian pilgrims by buses, especially for elderly Indian citizens, though conditions in the Himalayan
region with less oxygen levels still pose a challenge.
48
PART NINETEEN | HISTORY AND CULTURE
PART NINETEEN| HISTORY AND CULTURE
1. Rare inscription bearing Biblical name found in Israel

A rare inscription showing a name shared with a biblical rival to King David was found on a 3,000-year-old
earthenware jar that was broken into shards, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced.
• Pieces of the large Iron Age jar were found in a 2012
excavation at Khirbet Qeiyafa, in the Valley of Elah
west of Jerusalem. This is where the biblical battle
between young David and the giant Goliath took place.
• As hundreds of pottery fragments were glued together
to form the whole pot, letters carved in the ancient
script of the Canaanites, a biblical people who lived in
the present-day Israel, were clearly visible. They read:
Eshba’al Ben Bada’.
• The name recalls the biblical Eshba’al, a son of King
Saul and a rival to King David for rule over the Israelite
kingdom.
• Although it has no connection with the biblical character, the inscription shows that Eshba’al was a common
name during the early Israelite period. It is interesting to note that the name Eshba’al appears in the Bible, and
now also in the archaeological record, only during the reign of King David, in the first half of the tenth century
B.C.
2. Magna Carta
• The 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, a
medieval political truce that inspired
protections for some of the world’s most
cherished liberties, prompted a range of
celebrations in Britain.
• Signed on June 15, 1215, Magna Carta put into
writing a set of concessions won by rebellious
barons from a recalcitrant King John — or Bad
King John as he became known in folklore.
• By proscribing the power of the monarch, the
document assumed an importance that grew
over time, coming to represent the right to
protection against arbitrary and unjust rule.
• In the 18th century, for example, contemporary
understanding of the document influenced the
United States Constitution, and the Bill of Rights includes several provisions thought to descend from Magna
Carta.
3. Inscription of the Chola emperor Rajendra I

• Recently, an inscription of the Chola emperor Rajendra I was discovered in Sri Parthasarathy Swamy temple at
Triplicane (Tamilnadu).
49
PART NINETEEN | HISTORY AND CULTURE
• The fragmentary inscription offers a “prasasthi”, or eulogy, of

Rajendra I, speaking of the fame of the emperor, who ruled between
AD 1012 and 1044, and his conquests of many lands including in
Vanavasi (Banavasi) and the present-day Kalaburgi region, both in
Karnataka, and so on.
• Also, a mural depicting the Kurukshetra war, a row of horse-drawn
chariots and fiercely moustachioed charioteers, all battle-ready,
came to light.
• The temple is replete with inscriptions of the Pallavas, who are
believed to have built it around AD 600, the Cholas, the Pandyas
and the Vijayanagara kings.
RELATED INFORMATION: MURAL

• A mural is any piece of artwork painted or applied directly on a
wall, ceiling or other large permanent surface. A distinguishing
characteristic of mural painting is that the architectural elements of
the given space are harmoniously incorporated into the picture.
4. Azhagankulam gives evidence of ancient trade

Renewed excavation at Azhagankulam village in Ramanathapuram district, Tamil Nadu, has thrown up fresh
evidence that it was an important trading post between the Sangam Pandyas and the Romans from circa 50 BCE
to circa 500 CE.
• Archaeologists from the Tamil Nadu Department of
Archaeology, who are taking part in the excavation,
said Azhagankulam, Arikkamedu in Puducherry and
Pattanam (Muziris) in Kerala formed a troika of trade
centres between Rome and the Tamil country during
the Tamil Sangam age.
• The excavation under way now at Azhagankulam has
yielded broken Roman Amphora jars, Mediterranean
pottery, Roman potsherds, copper coins, Chinese
Celadon ware, rouletted ware, potsherds with Tamil
Brahmi letters, a potsherd with a swastika symbol and
so on.
• Archaeologists emphasised that the Roman antiquities
thrown up from the renewed excavation at
Azhagankulam proved once again the trade contacts
between the Pandya rulers and the Romans. Madurai
was the capital of the Pandya country and Ramanathapuram came under the Madurai region. Roman gold coin
hoards had been found at Utthamapuram, Nathampatti and Karivalamvandha Nallur.
50
PART TWENTY | BOOKS AND AUTHORS
PART TWENTY| BOOKS AND AUTHORS
1. Catholic Orientalism
• Catholic Orientalism is a book by Angela Barreto Xavier and Ines G.
Zupanov.
• The book takes a look at the Portuguese Empire gaining Indian
knowledge in the 16 to 18 centuries disseminated through the network of
early Portugal explorers.
• It explains how various aspects of Asian society and religion were studied
mainly to enable the expansion of the Portuguese empire and Catholic
religion.
51
PART TWENTY ONE| MISCELLANEOUS
PART TWENTY ONE| MISCELLANEOUS
1. International Yoga Day

• The International Yoga Day was celebrated across the world on June 21.
• June 21 was declared as the International Day of Yoga by the United Nations
General Assembly in 2014. The Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his UN
Address suggested the date to be June 21 as the International Day of Yoga as it is
the longest day of the year (Summer Solstice) in the Northern Hemisphere and
has special significance in many parts of the world.
• From the perspective of yoga, the Summer Solstice marks the transition to
Dakshinayana. The first full moon after Summer Solstice is known as Guru
Poornima. Lord Shiva, the first yoga practitioner (Adi Yogi) is said to have begun
imparting the knowledge of yoga to the rest of mankind on this day and became
the first guru (Adi Guru). Dakshinayana is also considered a time when there is
natural support for those pursuing spiritual practices.
2. World Environment Day (WED)

• World Environment Day (WED) is
celebrated every year on 5 June to raise
global awareness to take positive
environmental action to protect nature
and the planet Earth. It is organized by
the United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP).
• It was established by the United Nations
General Assembly in 1972 on the day that
United Nations Conference on the Human Environment began.
• The theme for 2015 WED was 'Seven Billion Dreams; One Planet; Consume with Care'.
RELATED INFORMATION: UNEP

• The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is an agency of the United Nations that coordinates its
environmental activities, assisting developing countries in implementing environmentally sound policies and
practices.
• It was founded by Maurice Strong, its first director, as a result of the United Nations Conference on the Human
Environment in June 1972 and has its headquarters in the Gigiri neighborhood of Nairobi, Kenya.
52
PART TWENTY TWO| EDITORIALS
1. How not to make a state

The Indian Express | Category: Nation
It’s been a year since Andhra Pradesh (AP) was bifurcated to create Telangana and the two states marked the
anniversary in contrasting ways — with celebrations in Telangana and studied indifference in Andhra. The parting
was painful for AP, which was forced to concede the capital, Hyderabad, to Telangana. Its finances have taken a
beating — budget deficits now run into Rs 6,000 crore plus — while Telangana has a small surplus. The bitterness
generated by the division has lingered on, impacting state-building in both regions. Both states continue to squabble
on how best to divide assets. The transfer of employees has been delayed, crippling the administration. In retrospect,
the AP bifurcation is a lesson in how not to reorganise states.
The reorganisation of states in 1956 and 2000 was marked by extensive consultations by the States Reorganisation
Committee (SRC). Partisan considerations played a part but a larger consensus prevailed. There were, of course,
differences and resentments, for instance, on Bombay’s status, between Maharashtra and Gujarat. The formation of
Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand in 2000 was relatively uneventful and seemed to reflect a maturing polity.
When the demand for a separate state of Telangana was revived in the last decade, the initial response from the
Congress and other parties was to propose a third SRC that could explore the bifurcation of AP and also look at other
demands for statehood. A trifurcation of Uttar Pradesh and the possibility of a Vidarbha state would also have been on
the discussion table, had the UPA government followed that route. Instead, the Congress gave in to the tug and pull of
short-term political compulsions in the state. The Telangana demand was underpinned by a yearning for development
and an assertion of sub-regional identity. But competing political interests and the Centre’s ad hoc approach turned the
movement into an impassioned mobilisation. The political whirl reduced the Justice Srikrishna panel, set up by the
Centre in 2010 to work on the statehood claim, to a mere academic exercise as the two regions rapidly moved apart.
Demands for new states will continue to be made. The main lesson to be drawn from the AP experience is that while
forging a political consensus is difficult, it is essential for redrawing maps.
2. A new Bengal bilateral

Pioneer | Category: India and the World
One doesn't have to be a foreign policy expert to realise that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's two-day visit to
Bangladesh is slated for the history books. It is not every day that one of the world's most complicated borders is re-
drawn and more than 50,000 stateless people put on the path to citizenship. Undoubtedly, the exchange of the
instruments of ratification of the land boundary pact was the high point of the visit. The agreement was first signed in
1974, demarcating the border and allowing for the exchange for enclaves and adverse possessions. It was ratified soon
after by Bangladesh but took more than four decades to be formalised in India, during which time it became a festering
sore in bilateral relations. Recently, both countries were able to put the land boundary issue behind them, but that's not
all.
They also prepared a roadmap for future cooperation that has the potential of not just taking the India-Bangladesh
bilateral to all new heights but also galvanising the south Asian neighbourhood starting with India's own North-East
and extending to Bhutan, Nepal and Myanmar. This is as much a part of the historicity and significance of Mr Modi's
trip as is the formalisation of the land border agreement. South Asia is one of the least connected regions of the world
and this has prevented the sub-continent from reaching its full potential. India, as the region's biggest and strongest
player, has always been expected to lead the way with economic integration, and it’s heartening to see this country
finally taking up the challenge.
53
A good starting point in this context is the Blue Economy project which envisages greater commercial ties in the
maritime domain. India and Bangladesh are both looking to intensify their presence in the Bay of Bengal and the
Indian Ocean, and there could hardly have been a better time for them to jointly work in this field. Of the 22
agreements that were signed during Mr Modi's tour, about half-a-dozen specifically deal with some form of maritime
collaboration — including one Memorandum of Understanding on Blue Economy and Maritime Cooperation in the
Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean, another between Coast Guards, and a third on the use of the Chittagong and
Mongla ports, as well as an agreement on coastal shipping.
Once these pacts are operationalised, bilateral trade will increase by leaps and bounds, and so will the movement of
goods and services across the region. To gauge the full scope and extent of cooperation that is being kickstarted now,
these agreements must be viewed together with the other steps being taken to bring about greater synergy between the
Indian and Bangladeshi economies. For example, India will be extending a two billion dollar credit line to Bangladesh
while Bangladesh will be setting up a special economic zone for Indian businesses.
A new chapter in the Indian-Bangladesh bilateral is being scripted, and if it works out as planned, we may also be
looking at a new development in Indian foreign policy. Too often South Block has let itself be bogged down by the
deadweight that is Pakistan. In the process, it has ignored some of its closest friends such as Bangladesh and Nepal,
and abandoned its role as a major regional player. Thankfully, those days now seem to be coming to an end.
3. Asia’s worries rising over Chinese activity

The Asian Age | Category: India and the World
China has caused considerable unease through its recent activities in the South China Sea (SCS), a major international
passageway. It claims practically the whole of this maritime zone, thought to be rich in natural resources, including
fishing grounds and hydrocarbons, and raises queries about freedom of navigation, according to international laws, for
other countries, including India.
Since Beijing claims “sovereignty” over SCS in its entirety, it thought nothing of reclaiming land from the sea and
building islands and reefs in the Spratly Island chain, to which Vietnam and the Philippines also lay claim. In short,
China’s recent island-building spree is a cause of considerable regional and international concern.
Besides the Spratlys, which the Chinese call Nansha Islands, there are other SCS territorial disputes involving
Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan. Mostly these small nations find themselves unable to convey their case to Beijing even as
an arguing brief. India routinely faces Chinese displeasure while prospecting for oil in Vietnamese waters as Beijing
advances the extraordinary argument that it alone has rights in the SCS.
At the Shangrila security dialogues in Singapore recently, US defence secretary Ashton Carter thought it fit to flag
China’s SCS island-building activity and called on Beijing to do nothing that will endanger the freedom of navigation
of the open seas in accordance with international law and practice. He followed this up recently with urging that
Beijing’s island-building activities must cease rightaway.
The Chinese response to this appeal has been only to say that its work of reclaiming land in the “stationing islands and
reefs” in the Spratly Islands will be ended very soon. The meaning is clear enough. Beijing stubbornly believes that it
can do what it pleases in the area as it enjoys sovereignty over it. In effect, it is asking the world to get lost. It displays
little sense that its island-building activity can be militarily destabilising. The American concern is answered merely
with the assurance that its project has now come to a close.
There can be little doubt that it is only action by a concert of countries that can bring about a reasonable compromise
that doesn’t hurt any nation’s interests or territorial claims. The apprehension, voiced by many, is not far-fetched that
the recently constructed string of islands is in fulfilment of the Chinese strategic vision of having military bases on
islands — in the SCS and western Indian Ocean with which to exert more influence in Southeast Asia, South Asia, and
the Gulf. Beijing’s assertion that building the islands will help it fulfil international civilian obligations is not likely to
convince the countries of the region, which watch the rise of China with not a little anxiety.
54
4. Bad loans grow

The Tribune | Category: Economy
Economic slowdown and poor corporate earnings are blamed if banks do not perform. However, government or
public sector banks (PSBs) cannot hide behind this excuse. In sharp contrast to their worsening performance, private
banks have steadily expanded business in the recent tough years. It is not that government banks bled because they
did public service. According to RBI data, one-third of their total bad loans are on account of just 30 defaulters who
owe the banks Rs 98,122 crore. PSBs are quick to chase small borrowers like students, car/home buyers and farmers
but become helpless in making recoveries from large corporate customers.
Reasons for banks being saddled with huge NPAs (non-performing assets — that is what they call when loans are not
repaid) are known. Yet the government and bankers do nothing about them. A most common cause of a corporate
default is project delay, which could be due to lack of clearances, litigation or protests over say land acquisition. State
electricity boards don't repay loans since they are not run professionally and suffer from political interference but
reforms are not implemented. In some sectors — the RBI list includes mining, steel, textile, infrastructure, telecom,
aviation — corporate performance has suffered due to various factors, including cheaper imports and falling
commodity prices. But PSB heads are supposed to know all this. Corruption or connections may be playing a small
role in advancing money to shady companies or companies with poor bottomlines. Government bank bosses try to
earn their incentives by showing faster growth and in the process go soft on asset quality, whereas private banks
closely monitor asset quality before lending money.
As their losses/NPAs mount, PSBs keep asking the Finance Minister for bailouts. And the taxpayers' money is used
year after year to keep them in business. In this year's budget Mr Jaitley gave them Rs 8,000 crore; their requirement is
at least five times of that. While in the US recently he promised more in three-to-six months. The PJ Nayak committee
has suggested a solution: privatise banks. Fearing privatisation, PSB employees have now taken to protests outside the
offices of corporate defaulters.
5. The makings of a game-changer

The Hindu | Category: Economy
The final report of the Bibek Debroy Committee on restructuring the Indian Railways has suggested a process of
gradual reforms, involving the introduction of commercial accounting practices and greater decentralisation of
powers, allowing the entry of the private sector, and the setting up of an independent regulator. The committee has
indicated a five-year time frame to implement the measures. One of the most transformative suggestions made is
allowing private sector players to run trains. It has suggested exposing railway production units to competition, and
the creation of an environment conducive to private investment by giving confidence to private players through
transparent accounting processes. This has to be seen in the context of the failure of the public-private partnership
route so far in both the road and railway sectors. There have been different reports in the past that have pointed to
what ails the Indian Railways. For instance, in 2012 a committee headed by Sam Pitroda, then Adviser to the Prime
Minister, submitted plans for the modernisation of the Railways at a cost of Rs.5.6 lakh crore over a 10-year period. The
Debroy Committee report stands out in having identified definitive measures to effect a transformation, and setting a
timeline.
But it will be a challenging task, especially the recommendations relating to opening up to the private sector and
setting up an independent regulator. The committee has acknowledged that restructuring would be a humongous task,
and quite cautiously used the term ‘liberalisation’ for the entry of private players — rather than privatisation or
deregulation. The railway employee unions are already up in arms over the references to the private sector. This
would be a difficult equation to manage. The suggestion to set up an independent regulator will equally pose a
challenge. This will essentially mean setting up a body outside of the powerful and centralised Railway Board, which
might resist such a move. The setting up of an independent super-regulator has been spoken about in the financial
55
services space, but not much has happened on that front. However, all these suggestions merit immediate
consideration. The Railways has suffered huge under-investment in capacities and today its very viability is a question
mark. Now the onus is on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who initiated the setting up of this Committee, and Railway
Minister Suresh Prabhu, known for his dynamic approach, to take the railway unions into confidence and implement
the measures. Both have declared the Railways is not going to be privatised, but the unions do not appear pleased.
Winning their trust would be key to the implementation of the measures. That would determine if this will remain just
another report or a game-changer.
6. Sub-optimal accord
The Hindu | Category: International
On the face of it, the 16-point agreement signed recently among Nepal’s four largest political parties should bring
closure to the long-delayed process of promulgating a new Constitution for Naya Nepal. Reeling from the earthquakes
in April and May, Nepal sorely required its polity and its elected Constituent Assembly (CA) to push for an accord to
resolve outstanding issues — the key ones being “state restructuring” and the form of governance. On the latter issue,
the accord decided to retain the Westminster parliamentary model with an executive Prime Minister and a
constitutional head of state in the President. The Maoists had been opposed to the parliamentary model, but have
agreed to take the process of promulgation forward. On state restructuring, the accord has vaguely identified an eight-
state model whose boundaries would be decided by a federal commission. Effectively, it pushed the envelope on the
much-debated issue to be decided by a committee of experts. Per se, this was a kind of compromise by both sides of the
federalism debate. The former accepted the presence of identity as a criterion of federal determination, while the latter
stopped insisting that the CA alone would finalise the federal nature of the state.
There is no doubt that the earthquake, which showed up the Nepali state as wanting in its response to the disaster in
terms of relief and rehabilitation (and preparedness) efforts, accelerated the process of getting over the constitutional
deadlock. But the sudden spurt of activism in finalising the accord begs the question whether it merely postpones the
resolution of the state restructuring issue rather than resolving it. State restructuring was a key demand among the
plains-dwellers, minorities and jana jatis in the run-up to the first CA elections in 2008. The demand and need for a CA
came about because the first Jan Andolan that brought about a constitutional monarchy in 1990 did not do enough to
break the hegemonic hold of communities such as the Bahun and the Chhetris over the state. The decision under the
accord to leave the task of resolving what is effectively a political issue to an unelected commission is therefore not an
optimal one. Ironically, the first iteration of the CA, before its dissolution in 2012, had managed to nearly resolve the
state restructuring issue before some elements from the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) and the
Nepali Congress managed to prevent a clinching solution. It is to be hoped that the proposed commission manages to
bring about a federal structure that is close enough to what was nearly arrived at by the first CA.
7. The big BBIN advantage

Pioneer | Category: India and World
The Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal (BBIN) Motor Vehicle Agreement for the Regulation of Passenger, Personal
and Cargo Vehicular Traffic amongst BBIN, approved by the Union Cabinet recently, can be a game-changer for the
region. It is also an important indication of India's readiness to play a more determined leadership role in its
neighbourhood where it is a major power. South Asia is one of the least integrated regions of the world, and
improving road connectivity is crucial to developing its full potential, especially in the economic sector.
Even though intra-regional trade has improved in recent years, from about two per cent of the total trade in 1970s to
about five per cent now, it is still abysmally low. Forget about the European Union, even neighbouring Southeast Asia
does better intra-regional business — more than a quarter of its total trade happens in the neighbourhood.
This is despite the fact that the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean) was also plagued by some of the same
problems that have hampered the effectiveness of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc), such
56
as mistrust and acrimony among member-states and poverty and poor infrastructure in the transport, communication
and business sectors. But Asean has done a better job of firming up at least its commercial linkages.
Hopefully, the BBIN grouping will be able to do the same. For this, the motor vehicle pact alone will not be enough —
a liberalised visa regime and efforts to improve synergy between markets in different countries (such as the pact to
bring in sync India and Bangladesh’s product standardisation systems signed during the recent prime ministerial visit
to Dhaka) are just some of the other steps that will have to be taken. Still, a good place to start is the re-building of
traditional trade routes that were disrupted in 1947. For example, with the carving out of East Pakistan/Bangladesh,
road and rail links between India's ‘mainland' and the North-East became tenuous, and the region has since suffered
decades of isolation.
The motor vehicle deal will also improve bilateral trade ties between India’s eastern neighbours. Currently, whatever
little trade happens in this sector, is anchored to India.
For instance, Bangladesh imports much from India and has a roaring garment export arrangement with the West, but
shares no significant trade ties with Bhutan or Nepal. Another important aspect of the BBIN motor vehicle pact in
particular, and increased sub-regional trade in general, is the boost that small and medium enterprises will receive.
One only needs to look at the success of the border haats along the India-Bangladesh line (in West Bengal and Tripura)
to understand the scope of cooperation that lies ahead.
Finally, as the BBIN motor vehicle pact has been formalized, one hopes that it serves as a lesson for Pakistan. The BBIN
pact was conceived as a Saarc project that included Pakistan and Afghanistan, but Islamabad, having already signed a
similar bilateral deal with Afghanistan, refused to give the green light to the larger regional project at the Kathmandu
summit last year. Consequently, India pushed ahead without Pakistan.
8. Battling Islamic State

A year after it captured Mosul, the major Iraqi city, Islamic State (IS) remains a formidable force in the West Asian
region. The U.S.-led coalition’s bombing campaign shows no sign of checking its momentum. Barring some setbacks
suffered at the hands of Kurdish and Shia militias, IS has expanded its zone of influence beyond its base in ‘Syraq’ over
the year. It recently captured Ramadi, the capital of Iraq’s Anbar province, and the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra. It
now has branches in countries including Lebanon, Libya, Afghanistan and Nigeria. President Barack Obama all but
admitted on June 10, the anniversary of the fall of Mosul, as he ordered an additional 450 military advisers to join the
3,500 already in Iraq, that his anti-IS strategy wasn’t working. To be sure, IS has no dearth of enemies in the battlefield.
The Syrian and Iraqi armies have declared war on it; Gulf monarchies are a party to a U.S.-led coalition bombing IS
locations; Egypt had struck IS militants in Libya; and Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia militia, has said it would fight IS
along the Lebanon-Syria border. Still, why does IS appear so formidable?
IS’s advantage perhaps is that its rivals have no coordinated strategy: they are driven not by a common goal of
defeating the enemy but by their own self-interest and sectarian calculations. In Syria, the regime of Bashar al Assad is
the most potent force against IS. But the U.S. and its allies such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar want a regime change in
Damascus. The efforts of Saudi Arabia and Turkey to weaken the Syrian regime are helping IS grow. In Iraq, the army,
disbanded and rebuilt by the Americans, is largely sectarian and too inefficient to mount a major attack on its own. The
Hezbollah may be able to protect the Lebanese-Syrian border from IS, but it is considered a terrorist outfit by the U.S.,
and an Iranian lackey by the Saudis. The Kurdish guerrillas in the Syrian and Turkish border regions had resisted IS
effectively, but Turkey doesn’t want them to be brought into the anti-IS coalition. Iran has sent Shia militia groups to
the battle-front, but they are viewed with suspicion in Iraq’s Sunni-dominated areas owing to sectarian reasons. IS
feeds off this complex sectarian-geopolitical game, and with savagery and extremism tightens its grip over victims. But
all this doesn’t mean IS is invincible: it could be defeated, as Kobane and Tikrit show. But to turn such isolated
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victories into a comprehensive triumph, the forces battling IS need to come up with a cohesive strategy cutting across
sectarian fault-lines. Until that happens, West Asia will continue to see more bloodshed.
9. Moment to reckon with

Pioneer | Category: Economy
Staring at the prospect of a deficit monsoon and the rise in international price of crude oil, the Narendra Modi
Government has to begin work on a war-footing to meet the situation. The Indian Meteorological Department has
warned that the country is likely to get just 88 per cent of the normal rainfall, which means that large parts will have to
be officially declared drought-hit and provided packages for revival. There is unlikely to be a food crisis, though,
because there is a healthy amount of food stock available. However, farmers could lose their crops and fall in a deep
financial mess. Already, they are reeling from the problems that visited them in recent months due to unseasonal rains
and hailstorm.
If the monsoon forecast proves correct — the IMD has said that there is a 66 per cent chance of deficit rains — the
agricultural sector is in for a troubled phase. Already, the share of agriculture in the country's gross domestic product
has fallen over the years; the current year's projection for the farming sector is possibly in the negative. In 2014-15, it
was just 1.1 per cent. Given that the agricultural sector employs nearly 49 per cent of the country's workforce, one can
imagine the spiralling impact a poor monsoon can have on the national economy and the livelihoods of millions of
people. A vast majority of farmers rely almost entirely on a beneficial monsoon since they do not have access to
modern irrigation facilities.
The looming crisis should propel our policymakers to understand the importance of extending irrigation facilities to
every nook and corner of rural India. This is where the land acquisition Bill can play a big role. If only the Opposition
can give up its obstinacy on the proposed legislation, it will become easier for the Centre and the State Governments to
acquire land for establishing modern irrigation projects that can contribute to the growth of agriculture in the country.
Of course, mere canals and the availability of water will not solve the issue; quality and sustained power supply is
needed to run the pumping stations. Power projects will need transmission and distribution facilities, which in turn
can be set up if land is easily available in rural areas.
While these are medium to long term measures, the immediate task is to tackle the rise in crude oil price. The year
gone by had been especially helpful to India which imports a large part of its oil requirements. This forms, by an
estimate, nearly 34 per cent of the country's total imports. With oil prices falling by almost half last year, the country
not just saved precious foreign exchange but also reaped benefits in managing deficits. Some experts have opined that
a $10 per barrel fall in price could reduce the current account deficit by some 0.5 per cent of the GDP and the fiscal
deficit by 0.1 per cent of the GDP.
This indicates the kind of impact that escalating oil prices can have on the economy. But the most immediate impact of
the grim monsoon forecast, added with the Reserve Bank of India's estimate of a lower (7.6 per cent to the earlier 7.8
per cent) GDP growth has been on market sentiments. The stock markets took a tumble in recent days. This was aided
by the RBI lowering interests only marginally by 25 basis points. Difficult and challenging days are ahead for the
Government.
10. A perverse view of crime and punishment

The Asian Age | Category: Polity and Governance
A judgment of questionable wisdom, bordering virtually on perversity in granting a convicted rapist bail to pursue
mediation with his victim, raises very serious questions about the lengths the judiciary can go in interpreting crime
and punishment. As a piece of judicial intervention, it takes the cake for ignoring the feelings of the victim of a terrible
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crime. The single-judge bench of the Madras high court seems to have been cavalier in not taking into consideration
the misery of a minor who was not only raped but also impregnated and is bearing the child of her rapist.
The very meaning of mediation would suggest that both parties are willing to negotiate, say, a civil dispute rather than
depend on a very slow official system of justice delivery. To equate a crime like rape — which affects society because it
mocks the very tenets of civilisation that make living in harmony possible — with a common dispute is to trivialise the
entire process of passing judgment on criminals who break society’s code. Nor can a judge take law back to the ready
justice of medieval times in which village elders could decide if a rapist should marry the victim and be absolved.
What guarantee there, too, that a violator would reform to the extent that he would hold to a forced settlement?
The pendency of cases in all courts in India is public knowledge. To base an interim bail order for a rapist on the
premise that the mediation process would take a case off the judicial system is akin to throwing the baby out in order
to clear the bathwater. Heinous crimes like rape and murder can hardly be subjected to mediation as it would send a
completely wrong signal to those with clout and financial muscle to plot a crime and then get away with it.
Some countries have a “blood money” system to compensate victims of automobile accidents or road deaths. But even
that has to be accepted by the victim’s family; compensation cannot be forced on them.
The Alternate Dispute Resolution process is to be highly recommended in a country with a huge backlog of cases. But
to believe rapists and murderers can be offered mediation as a medium of reconciliation is to take justice back several
centuries, particularly since the judge has ignored completely the rights of the victim. This inadvertent cause celebre
created by a single judge has also seen the issue run into problems of property settlement between the families of
victim and rapist. Let us just say the judge is no Daniel come to judgment, and that his peculiar treatment of the case
not become a precedent for other such cases.
11. Success, sobriety

The Indian Express | Category: India and World
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to authorise recent cross-border strikes against the National Socialist Council
of Nagaland-Khaplang (NSCN-K) in Myanmar could prove to be a defining moment in the evolution of India’s
counter-terror responses. Though this is not the country’s first transborder counter-terrorism operation, it is the only
one for which a government has publicly taken responsibility. The decision to strike at bases across the border,
authorised by the prime minister, was facilitated by years of patient diplomacy, which led Myanmar to assent to
India’s raid. For the apparently flawless execution of the operation, credit must go to the soldiers who risked their
lives, and to the commanders who have relentlessly worked to improve the special forces’ capabilities. The prime
minister’s military advisors will, however, have told him that even in the best-planned special forces operations, things
can — and do — go wrong. The United States special forces in Somalia were surrounded and slaughtered by militia;
near-disaster hit the Osama bin Laden raid when a helicopter crashed. The risk was taken, though, and for that act of
courage, the prime minister must get credit.
Less creditworthy, though, is the apparent effort to harvest political capital from the army’s success. Minister of State
for Information and Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore’s references to the prime minister’s chest
measurements, and his delight in the act of “revenge”, may please juveniles on Twitter, but are not the stuff that
serious government is made of. Interestingly, the army — which liaises with the Myanmar military on an everyday
basis and is aware of their sensitivities — made no mention of a cross-border operation, only vaguely stating that it
had carried out strikes “along the border”. Rathore, however, went public with information that the strikes had been
carried out inside Myanmar with its government’s consent — potentially embarrassing a partner who, after all, is a
signatory to a ceasefire with the NSCN-K.
India needs a calm, serious discussion on what can be learned from this exercise of hard power, and what the
limitations to its use might be. In the short term, there is no doubt the NSCN-K will seek to strike back against Indian
targets, in an effort to deter further military action. New Delhi must anticipate the possibility and ensure that its
response does not derail moves towards peace within Nagaland. The government must also beware of calls for similar
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action against Pakistan, an adversary that has the wherewithal to escalate even localised confrontation into an
expensive conflagration. India’s discovery that it can use force may be overdue, but it must now learn it is best applied
only as a precision instrument.
12. The zeal for yoga

The Hindu | Category: Nation
It is ironical that at a time when yoga is increasingly being recognised around the world as an efficacious discipline
that aids physical and mental well-being, the ancient Indian system is caught in a needless controversy, mainly due to
its aggressive promotion by the Narendra Modi government. It is difficult to avoid the impression that the government
is showing excessive zeal as well as a tendency to use its employees and institutions to propagate its own view of
culture and tradition. Mobilising staff members and students seems to be this regime’s way of promoting an idea. If it
was Good Governance Day last Christmas, it will be International Yoga Day on June 21. It is indeed true that Prime
Minister Modi’s address to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in September 2014 provided the platform
for the international community to recognise the importance of yoga. In December, the UNGA passed a resolution
with the backing of over 170 countries to designate June 21 as International Yoga Day. No doubt, the benefits of yoga
ought to be widely disseminated. However, does promoting it require the mobilisation of tens of thousands of people
at Rajpath in Delhi for a massive demonstration?
It appears that having international impact is a key objective behind the promotional activities. If yoga is all about
health, peace and harmony, there really is no need for a demonstrative approach to it. The visible presence of the state
in the promotion of yoga will only detract from the idea of making it a people’s movement. Rather, the government’s
role should be confined to providing facilities for the practice of yoga in various institutions under it and
disseminating information about its benefits. A related issue that has given a sectarian dimension to the yoga
campaign concerns a perception that the practice of yoga, especially the surya namaskar part of it, is against the tenets
of Islam. Recognising this, the government has dropped surya namaskar from the list of asanas to be performed on
June 21. While it is true that yoga is part of a wider heritage and attracts practitioners from among adherents of various
religions, the government is obviously unable to convince everyone that its programmes are free of all religious or
cultural association. It should work to remove its initiatives from areas of contestation so that even programmes
having universal value do not take the hue of its ideology.
13. A measure of privacy

The Indian Express | Category: International
Recently, three provisions of the George W. Bush-era USA Patriot Act were allowed to expire by the Senate. The patriot
act was passed in the emotional aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, scarcely a month later. From
the outset, the act was criticised for its apparent privileging of alleged national security imperatives over civil liberties.
The disapproval has become more vociferous as time has passed and the provisions of the act have seemed to lose
relevance. Disclosures by Edward Snowden in 2013 about the National Security Agency’s (NSA) pervasive cyber
snooping capabilities sharpened that censure into a groundswell of opposition, to the degree that President Barack
Obama was finally moved to acknowledge last year that America needed a conversation on how a balance between the
competing objectives of national security and civil liberties could be struck. Now, the sections that provide the
underlying legal justification for the NSA’s bulk phone data collection programme and other clandestine activities
have lapsed, providing a respite from the government’s Orwellian oversight.
But it is likely to be only a temporary reprieve. There is, after all, bipartisan consensus on the necessity of widescale
intelligence operations that would allow spy agencies like the NSA to intercept terrorist threats. Already there have
been hectic negotiations in the Senate to pass a bill that would reauthorise, at least to some degree, such mass
surveillance. The House of Representatives approved legislation in May to empower the NSA once again, with some
modest but important restrictions imposed on its capabilities. But that version was deemed unacceptable by the Senate
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Republican leader, who accused it of limiting the NSA’s ability to uncover terrorist plots by requiring it to obtain the
call data through telephone companies rather than collecting the information itself, and to get a court order to search
the companies’ archives.
The wrangle over extending the NSA programme, despite the damage that has been done to America’s reputation,
proves how difficult it is to scale down the surveillance state, once it is in place. Congress and the White House have
shown little appetite for the political battle that real reform would entail.
14. The OROP struggle

The Hindu | Category: Polity and Governance
Thousands of ex-servicemen converged on the national capital recently to protest against the delay on the part of the
government in announcing a firm timeline for the implementation of the One Rank One Pension (OROP) scheme. In
the run-up to the 2014 elections and after, the Bharatiya Janata Party held out several assurances on OROP, raising
expectations among the community of veterans. OROP is meant to bring parity among retired military personnel
based only on rank and tenure and irrespective of the date of retirement. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi accepted
in his “Mann Ki Baat” broadcast, the government had underestimated the complexity of the process. One of the major
concerns of the government as it works out the details relates to similar demands that could potentially come from the
Central police and paramilitary forces. The logic of OROP stems from the fact that unlike in other government services
where the retirement age is 55, 58 or 60, in the military services a soldier retires around 35. So extending the scheme to
non-military cadres will nullify its very rationale. In order to pre-empt any legal issues in the future, the government is
working to call it military pension, making it a provision that applies only to the armed forces. Another issue relates to
allocating finances for the immediate rollout phase and making the necessary provision for enhancements in future.
Wary of any bid by the government to redefine OROP, veterans are demanding that it stick to the accepted definition.
The scheme, once implemented, is expected to benefit two and a half million ex-servicemen and women immediately.
While the veterans’ anguish over the delay is understandable, they should appreciate the complexity of the process.
Also, with OROP being one of the BJP’s top election promises, commitment for its implementation had been reiterated
at the highest level by Mr. Modi. The issue, pending for four decades, has seen more progress in the last one year than
over the last few decades. So while keeping up pressure on the government, it would be wise to give it room to work
out the details. The government, on its part, should realise that these veterans fought for this country while in service,
and it is indeed their legitimate right. In addition, they represent a strong voter base, as the last Lok Sabha elections
proved. This is pertinent as protesting organisations have announced they would agitate in Bihar, where Assembly
elections are due this year. The government should come out with a clear road map in the interests of the nation as
well as its own. The existing mismatch between expectations and delivery could prove problematic in more ways than
one.
15. The Ukraine imbroglio

The G-7 nations put on a brave face against Russia at a summit held recently in the Bavarian Alps and decided to
continue their sanctions against President Vladimir Putin for what they called his war in Ukraine. U.S. President
Barack Obama in fact accused Mr. Putin of “wrecking his country in pursuit of a wrong-headed desire to recreate the
glories of the Soviet empire”. Russia countered by warning that it would prolong its own counter-sanctions, indicating
there would not be any change in its Ukraine policy. While all this is happening, a fresh outbreak of violence between
government troops and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine is threatening to derail a tenuous ceasefire. Ukraine
is paying a heavy price for this stand-off. It has lost Crimea to Russia, is fighting a deadly civil war in the east, and its
economy is in a state of collapse, it having contracted by nearly 18 per cent in the first quarter of 2015.
The real crisis of Ukraine is that it is caught in a game of one-upmanship between the West and Russia. The West
wants to punish Russia for its annexation of Crimea and for helping separatists in eastern Ukraine. Moscow, on the
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other hand, sees Western involvement in the ouster of Ukraine’s pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych, and
seems determined to resist the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s outreach to its backyard. If the West’s real
intention is to get Russia to change its policy towards Ukraine, it should rethink its sanctions regime, which has been
demonstrably ineffective over the past 15 months. Supporters of the sanctions might argue that those worked in the
case of Iran and might work in Russia’s case as well. But Russia is not Iran. It is a geopolitical giant, a former
superpower and a huge country that still has substantial leveraging power in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Given
the way policy-making works in the Kremlin, it is illogical to believe that any kind of coercion would work against Mr.
Putin. Besides, there is little to suggest that the Western policy of isolating Russia is working at all. More than a year
after Russia was suspended from the G-8 following its annexation of Crimea, the leading powers still need Russia to
deal with pressing global issues ranging from the Iranian nuclear talks to the Syrian civil war. So a more pragmatic
approach would be to start a diplomatic engagement in a mutually conducive environment. The inept handling by
both sides of what was a domestic issue in Ukraine has turned it into a regional problem. Left unchecked, the problem
could well turn into a war. It is high time the West and Moscow set aside rhetoric and started addressing the problem
directly.
16. Setback for Erdogan

The outcome of the general election in Turkey could not only end the dominance of the Justice and Development Party
(AKP) but also derail President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s plans to consolidate his power. Mr. Erdogan had heavily
campaigned for the ruling party that he helped found, even after technically quitting it last year to stand for the
supposedly non-partisan presidency. He built his campaign around the promise of transferring power from Parliament
to the President’s office, claiming that would make Turkey more powerful and administratively efficient. The AKP
aimed for at least 330 seats, which would have enabled it to hold a referendum to change the system. But the voters
denied it even a simple majority, for the first time in 13 years. In order to stay in power, the AKP will have to either
form a minority government, or enter into an alliance with its rivals. The plan to transfer more power to the presidency
is clearly off the table.
Mr. Erdogan rose to power by stitching together a social coalition of the rural poor and religious and social
conservatives. While his development rhetoric attracted the former, the AKP’s Islamist leanings directly appealed to
the conservative constituency, which was historically sidelined from power by a secular Turkey. Mr. Erdogan brought
this “new class” into the mainstream through his brand of political Islam. But of late a number of factors, including his
own inherent dictatorial tendencies, worked against the AKP. A slowing economy, rising inflation and unemployment,
allegations of corruption, and fears that Mr. Erdogan was becoming another ‘sultan’, added to the liberal-secular
opposition to the AKP. This triggered street battles in Istanbul between protesters and the security forces in May 2013.
Smaller parties such as the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) were emboldened to counter the AKP on a
broader ideological plank. The HDP, which projected itself as a secular, left-of-centre political outfit, surpassed for the
first time the 10 per cent threshold needed to enter Parliament, securing 80 seats. This will give the country’s 18-million
strong Kurdish minority, which has been at odds with the ruling elites for decades, a platform to push for its political
cause and counter the AKP’s attacks on secular traditions. Mr. Erdogan’s supporters would say the AKP had ensured
stability for 13 years and the country was now back on the brink of instability. But the question before Turkish voters
was whether they should accept a stable, quasi-dictatorial presidential system with Islamist characteristics or stand
firm for parliamentary democracy despite its shortcomings. They seem to have gone for the latter.
17. Humanitarian challenge

Pioneer | Category: International
In this past year, civil war, political instability and religious persecution have pushed more than 11 million people out
of their home countries. That's equivalent to all of Belgium being displaced. Add this to the refugee population from
previous years, and the number goes well beyond 50 million (the figure at the end of 2013) — more than the
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population of the entire European Union (EU). While there is nothing new about large-scale human movement in a
situation of duress, geo-political developments of the past few years have exacerbated the pressures of migration, and
to the extent that it has become a point of international concern. In 2014, the UN reported that the world was facing its
worst refugee crisis since World War II. This year, the situation has only worsened. First, the number of Syrian
refugees, who now make up for the largest chunk of global refugees, has increased manifold. The civil war in Syria
shows no signs of abatement, forget reaching a resolution.
As deadly fighting rages across the country, every day thousands of Syrians cross the border into Jordan, Lebanon,
Iraq and Turkey. Second, the civil war in Libya, another product of the 2011 Arab uprising, has gone from bad to
worse. Consequently, thousands of Libyans are now making a perilous journey by boat across the Mediterranean, to
reach Greece and Italy. They are usually joined by refugees from other troubled African nations like Nigeria and South
Sudan. Third, the continued persecution of Rohingyas in Myanmar has meant that, across the world from the
Mediterranean, thousands more are undertaking an equally dangerous boat journey from the Bay of Bengal to
Malaysia and Indonesia, and in some cases, even going as far south as Australia. Fourth, hundreds of Ukrainians have
also fled to Russia while others have sought safe havens in Europe, following Moscow's control of the Crimean
Province. And finally, there are the thousands of refugees still struggling from ‘previous conflicts' such as the Afghans
and the Palestinians.
The immediate concern is the wellbeing of the refugees themselves. Of the millions trying to make their way to safety,
many perish along the way — some drown at sea, others get hit by enemy bullets and many others die from hunger
and disease. Those that make it, don't have it easy either. The refugee camps are worse than slums and that’s just the
beginning of a new fight altogether. In the medium term, large refugee populations posit a major challenge to the host
nations as well. Unemployment rates in Jordan, for example, are rising and many are questioning how much of
‘refugee weight' the Turkish economy will be able to take. The EU leadership is still conflicted over how to deal with
the hundreds of refugees that wash ashore every day. In the long term, there are questions of social integration and
changing demographics, that India, for example, is facing in its porous border States of West Bengal and in the North-
East.
18. A symbol, some myths

Pioneer | Category: History and Culture
On June 15, Britain, America and several other English-speaking countries marked the 800th anniversary of what is
now considered to be the foundational document of constitutional democracy, the Magna Carta. In popular
imagination, the Magna Carta's contribution to freedom, liberty, equality and social justice — values that we hold so
dear today — is unparalleled, and not entirely without reason.
Its influence can be seen in the post-colonial founding documents of many countries such as the American Bill of
Rights and the Constitutions of India, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa. Leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and
Nelson Mandela, who led their people against oppressive regimes, held up the Magna Carta as a source of inspiration.
Between the 17th and 20th centuries, the document emerged as a powerful rallying point for those demanding better
representation in Government as well as universal suffrage. The Magna Carta is also to be found in the ideological
bedrock of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and, most recently, has been invoked by the man who created
the World Wide Web to argue for Net neutrality. The Magna Carta is a powerful symbol, no doubt; but, as its glorious
legacy is celebrated around the world, it is important to acknowledge that the document, as it was conceived in the
English riverside town of Runnymeade in 1215 was, rather insipid, and that it was, in fact, the forces of history and
time that added layers of meaning and significance to what can best be described as the Idea of the Magna Carta.
The original Magna Carta was just a peace pact between the terribly unpopular King John and his rebellious barons
who had tired of his excessive taxation. It was an executive instrument that limited the King's powers (and it was not
the first document to so) to protect the feudal lords — not the commoners.
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Most of the 63 clauses in the Magna Carta dealt with mundane administrative issues such as the removal of fishtraps
that were blocking river-commerce in the Thames and the standardisation of weights and measures to facilitate trade.
Some of the clauses even discriminated on the basis of gender (preventing women from testifying in most murder
cases) and race (Jews, usually money-lenders, were restricted on the interest that they could charge).
And the one clause that is considered to be the Magna Carta's lasting legacy — “No free man is to be arrested, or
imprisoned... save by the law of the land” — was applicable only to noblemen as they were the only “free men” in
those days. They clauses had little universal or eternal value — which makes the Magna Carta's hallowed position
today even more surprising. In contrast, the Charter of the Forest, which was separated from the Magna Carta and
signed in 1217, giving commoners access to the Crown Forests, has almost been forgotten.
19. Test of integrity

By ordering the cancellation of the All-India Pre-Medical and Pre-Dental Test held on May 3 and the conduct of a fresh
test within four weeks, the Supreme Court has acted in time to save the purity of the evaluation process for admission
to medical courses, and underlined the need to ensure the integrity of all such exercises. A small gang operating with
advanced equipment and using technology had managed to send out answer keys to candidates taking the entrance
test in different parts of the country. The tainted candidates were wearing vests fitted with electronic devices to receive
the answers. On a comparative scale, the number of those likely to have benefited from the malpractice may be small
— 358 mobile numbers received the answer key from the main suspects and only 44 beneficiaries have been identified.
However, the fact that the information may have been transmitted to many others, and the likely frustration it would
cause to hard-working students, persuaded the court to annul the entire test. After all, it is unexceptionable to insist
that nobody who used unfair means be allowed to benefit from it. Further, the beneficiaries were ready to pay Rs.15
lakh to Rs.20 lakh to get the right answers delivered to them. As many as 102 in a set of 123 solved answers found on
the mobile phone of one suspect, and 42 out of 50 found on another, were correct. Two of those arrested in connection
with the scam admitted to having passed AIPMT 2014 by adopting the same modus operandi.
The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) tried to save the test it had held by requesting that the results of
those identified as beneficiaries be segregated and the rest of the process allowed to stand. However, the court has
rightly held that such segregation would not be acceptable as there is a larger need to preserve public confidence and
prevent further injury to merit. It will indeed be an onerous task to hold a fresh test within a month and stick to the
time-schedule under which the academic session has to begin on August 1. While there has been no lapse on the part
of the CBSE in the conduct of the entrance test, it cannot be unmindful of the fact that its systems are still vulnerable to
organised deceit. It had indeed tried to provide safeguards by distributing different sets of question papers and
varying the sequence of questions in each set. The Board may now have to revisit its systems and processes so that it
becomes much less susceptible to the designs of a few unscrupulous elements, and so that over six lakh students who
vie for about 3,000 seats get a fair deal.
20. The blight of militarization

Maithripala Sirisena’s victory over Mahinda Rajapaksa in the Sri Lankan presidential elections in January 2015 was
enabled by massive support from minorities in the country — the Tamils and Muslims. Clearly, the mandate was not
just for a more accountable and democratic government that would reverse the creeping authoritarianism and family
rule heralded by Mr. Rajapaksa, but also for addressing systemic issues that had gripped, and continues to nettle, Sri
Lankan society. Chief among them is the issue of militarisation. Following the triumph against the Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the military has taken a preponderant role in Sri Lankan society, particularly in the north. In the
Tamil-majority provinces, the large-scale presence of the military has been sought to be justified as a security response
to the possible rise of post-LTTE insurgent forces. But as the participation of the Tamil community in election after
election since the war suggests, that reasoning is flawed and unacceptable. The Rajapaksa regime sought to utilise its
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“triumphalist phase” by allowing the military to diversify into commercial activity, “development”, education,
tourism and even policing, among others. The expectation from the new regime — especially among the minorities —
was of a quick reversal of this dangerous trend.
Recent findings from the U.S.-based think tank, Oakland Institute, based on research and surveys done during the
period December 2014-January 2015, have pointed to hardly any reconciliation between the government and the
Tamils. And the occupation by the military of the land of those displaced in the civil war is a prime cause of
resentment, not to mention the long-pending but ignored task of devolution of powers to the provincial councils. The
promise of a process of reconciliation and investigation of alleged war crimes has remained unmet, adding to the
resentment. Recent reportage by this newspaper from the Northern Province has pointed to steady progress in the
release of army-held land to some of the displaced Tamils. This, and the setting up of a new Presidential Task Force on
Reconciliation headed by former President Chandrika Kumaratunga, are steps in the right direction. But these are not
enough. The extant militarisation holds dangerous portends; the example of Pakistan is there for all to see.
International pressure and electoral results have thus far pushed the envelope for the Sirisena presidency to take
minimal steps to reverse the authoritarianism of the Rajapaksa regime. But the need is for a comprehensive
demilitarisation plan that includes ways to demobilise recruits to the bloated military, so that Sri Lanka would soon be
back to its normal self.
21. An ideal judgment on same-sex marriage

The Asian Age | Category: International
The US Supreme Court ruling that made same-sex marriage a right in all states has been welcomed around the world
by gay people and liberal thinkers. In today’s world, where it is illegal to be gay in 75 countries (punishable by death in
10 countries) and Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) is alive in law, the US example is an inspiring step
forward. The 13 American states that still had bans in force against same-sex marriage cannot now enforce them. The
judgment came on a wafer-thin majority, the Chief Justice leading the way for the majority of five judges against four
conservative ones, suggesting how sharp and close the debate still is.
“No union is more profound than marriage for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice and
family,” the Chief Justice said. Those feminists who considered it fashionable to rail against marriage may find it
somewhat curious that marriage has now become the vehicle for gay liberation. A deep reflection of the issue would,
however, bring home even to the sceptics that those human beings who love each other cannot be excluded simply
because two of them may be of the same sex. It would be illiberal to be judgmental of an issue that, according to the
judgment, is as old as the Kalahari bushmen, the Han Chinese and the Aztecs.
Happy as we are with a progressive ruling, which frees up so many while promising to treat them as well as their
families and children with dignity and equality, it is clear that a number of frontiers remain to be conquered. For
instance, there is a huge bias against gays in matters of employment. Nor can gays easily find housing as tenants or,
sometimes, even as owners. The equal protection promised by law might help take away some of that bias in the US
and other liberal countries. It is even estimated that by allowing the right to marry, the state might have to bear an
additional quarter of a million dollars per couple in social security benefits.
In other parts of the world it will still be an uphill task for the LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer)
community. It is a serious matter that India still allows Section 377 of the IPC to be part of the statute. A celebrated
judgment of the Delhi high court decriminalising gay sex should have been a watershed. On the contrary, the Supreme
Court’s reasoning that the LGBTQ constituted a minuscule fraction of the population, and that Section 377 has been
seldom used against them (less than 200 reported in 150 years), only served to nullify the gains in equality before law.
Isn’t it time legal luminaries revisited the subject in the light of the judgment in the US?
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22. A key right from Telangana

Even as the Central government fights to create a business-friendly environment, the brand-new Telangana
government led by K. Chandrasekhar Rao has walked the talk by announcing a unique and highly welcome Right to
Clearance policy. This is a significant move in the new State’s industrialisation programme, and could prove to be a
crucial differentiator in the near future. Akin to the Right to Information, the Right to Clearance recognises that
businesses have the right to know why project proposals are being delayed and to demand redress for unnecessary
procrastination. Bureaucratic red-tape and corruption have not really come to an end in India despite the death of
licence raj; industries are still at the mercy of whimsical policies and procedural nightmares. The Right to Clearance
will involve a provision to impose a fine of Rs.1,000 on officials for each day of delay in granting clearance to a project,
besides allowing businesses to know the exact reason why a proposal is stuck. It also lays down a 15-day time limit for
the clearance of mega-projects involving over Rs.200 crore, and of one month for smaller projects. If government
departments miss the deadline, the project will get automatic deemed approval. These, and other features such as
single-window clearances, automatic renewals and self-certification, will go a long way towards creating an ecosystem
that eases doing business in the State. The opportunity costs of clearance delays are enormous. Such cost and time
overruns impact the viability not just of industries but also of lending institutions. Across the country, projects worth
crores of rupees are mired, awaiting clearance.
It is this fact that makes the Chandrasekhar Rao government’s move particularly laudable. Naturally, it has been
welcomed by leading industrialists, with some of them already announcing projects. They now have a sense of
reassurance and renewed belief that the Telangana government is serious about creating an outstanding industrial
hub. Extending the out-of-the-box thinking, the Chief Minister has assured industry of “a graft-free and hassle-free
system” that will remove lobbies and middlemen. Moves such as this will help rid the bureaucracy of inertia, and
inject a sense of urgency and responsibility into the system. The Telangana government’s move not only empowers
industries but also raises the bar considerably, and other States will have to match the offer if they don’t want to lose
out amid the growing inter-State competition for investment. There is, however, one thing the government must note.
Project-appraisal is not only about speedy clearances. Proper due diligence is also a sine qua non for clearance. Speed
should not result in ill-conceived or poorly-structured projects being rushed through, and it is to be hoped that the
policy will also ensure that.
23. Coping with the heat

The Hindu | Category: Environment and Ecology
Extreme weather conditions have become such a part of life all across the world over the last decade and more, that
ways and means to understand and cope with them have become an essential element of survival strategies.
Heatwaves in summer, cold waves in winter and extreme rainfall when it is least expected have almost become the
norm. Each of these rounds takes its own toll on lives and livelihoods even as those in other areas are forced to stand as
mute spectators. This summer in India, the number of lives lost to heatwave conditions has exceeded 2,000. While
shrinking winter-spans are considered by specialists as a sure sign that climate change is a reality we cannot ignore, at
the other end of the spectrum, hot summers are no less debilitating. Prediction of these phenomena is itself so difficult,
not for lack of effort but because of the theoretical limitations of the models being used in the calculations. Broadly
speaking, there is no doubt that summer heat is worsening by the year in parts of India. This fact is reflected in some
climate studies. For instance, one on climate in the subcontinent over the period from 1961 to 2010 by scientists of the
India Meteorological Department based in Pune and Chennai, found that compared to the first four decades, the
number of heat-wave (HW) days per season was higher during 2001-2010 in many parts of north, north-west and
central India. An increase was observed in the number of severe-heat-wave (SHW) days per season in some stations,
mainly in north-west India. The study also found that the frequency, persistence and area coverage of HW/SHW days
were more than average in years succeeding El Nino years.
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The question remains whether humankind is preparing for eventualities such as this. For those in denial of climate
change, there are clear pointers that cannot be ignored. Also, from the point of view of disaster mitigation, the rising
number of heatwave related deaths should serve as an urgent signal to develop innovative methods to control
summer-time losses. It is somewhat ironical that while the long, hot summer takes such a toll, in this subcontinent it is
also a necessary condition for the monsoon to set in and provide adequate rainfall. In a sense, the unendurable heat
and the rains that follow are tied together in a delicate balance. While it is important to preserve this balance by
focussing on factors to mitigate climate change, it is also necessary to develop methods to cope with the impact of each
of these when they go beyond normal.
24. PM’s Mission Israel: A visit long overdue

The Asian Age | Category: India and World
It is a good idea for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to pay an official visit to Israel. Mr Modi has earlier visited the
Jewish state as chief minister of Gujarat, but when he goes to Israel later this year, as announced recently by external
affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, he will become the first Indian head of government to do so. That single step will not
just be an affirmation of the fully scaled-up nature of the bilateral relationship between the two nations —
incorporating an effective military, intelligence and trading linkage — in the past decade and a half, but will also help
bring greater openness and therefore accountability to the relationship, whose merits can be debated openly in
Parliament and elsewhere.
The Indian right wing, including Mr Modi’s BJP, has been a strong votary of forging closer ties with Israel even when
India publicly shunned that country on account of its policies toward the Palestinians. That perhaps makes it natural
for the present Indian PM to embrace Israel openly.
But the time has also come for a clear acknowledgment of the multi-partisan nature of the India-Israel relationship in
both nations (barring only the Left in India which, in international affairs, tends to deal in past slogans, not current
realities). This means that the time was apposite for an Indian leader from the ranks of a party other than the BJP too to
pay a long-overdue return visit to Israel. (India hosted Israeli PM Ariel Sharon in 2003.)
The present government maintains that while India will strengthen its strategic ties with Israel, its policy towards the
Palestinians will remain unchanged. This means that the traditional Indian support from the days of Jawaharlal Nehru,
and nonalignment, to the cause of a Palestinian homeland will brook no deviation. How pragmatic a course this turns
out to be can only be seen in a crunch situation. However, the formula of a two-state solution, that was not on the table
in the nonalignment days, does offer India a facesaver even when the Hindu right wing dominates the discourse on
Israel.
The Israel-Palestine question apart, it was seen recently that New Delhi rightly showed itself to be on the side of the
nuclear deal being worked out between the United States (among major powers) and Iran, an accord that was opposed
tooth and nail not just by Israel but also all Arab capitals, particularly Riyadh. This essentially underlines the complex
nature of the contours of all international relationships. The India-Israel link can be no exception. Indeed, it should be
clearly understood that New Delhi will have the latitude to criticise military aggression against Palestinians by Israel
even as it seeks to deepen its relationship with the Jewish state.
25. Cuba’s victory

The Indian Express | Category: Health
Communism, cigars and vintage cars aren’t the only things Cuba is well known for. Despite its poverty, the country
has long boasted a public healthcare system that assures quality medical services to all its citizens, irrespective of their
economic status. Now, the WHO has certified Cuba as the first country in the world to effectively eliminate mother-to-
baby transmission of HIV, which causes AIDS, and syphilis. The WHO hailed this as “one of the greatest public health
achievements possible”, in no small part because it was achieved by pursuing relatively straightforward strategies:
high rates of HIV testing, better screening and treatment of expectant parents, concentrating on high-risk groups, and
giving HIV- and syphilis-positive mothers options to protect their babies, like bottle-feeding and Caesarean deliveries.
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These measures have become enmeshed with the normal treatment for all pregnant women because they form part of a
universal healthcare system that is both affordable and accessible. In contrast, in India, with its generally poor (though
improving) record on maternal health, less than 30 per cent of HIV-positive pregnant women have access to prevention
of mother-to-child transmission of HIV services, such as medication that can prevent the passing of the virus to the
foetus and support the mother’s health. Almost 1.5 lakh children in India live with HIV, most of who contracted the
virus from their mothers during pregnancy, at birth or through breastfeeding.
As Cuba’s example shows, eliminating the spread of HIV from mother to child requires a sustained public health
strategy that integrates HIV-testing, counselling and treatment into current maternal and child health programmes,
especially by bringing on board private health service providers, which handle 44 per cent of all institutional
deliveries. India successfully pursued such a strategy to eradicate polio. It can draw from its own experience, and from
Cuba’s, for another big win for its healthcare system.
26. Skilling up
Industrial training institutes (ITIs) have reported a 20 per cent rise in enrolments in 2014-15, according to a report. This
is an encouraging figure. It is well known that India’s demographic dividend — 800 million people in the youth
segment — could turn into a nightmare if its young are not employable. Campaigns like Make in India that aim to turn
the country into a manufacturing hub recognise both the enormity of India’s skilling challenge and its urgency.
The ITI turnaround story is significant since these institutions, more than 11,000 across the country, have the capacity
to train over 4.5 lakh students annually. In the past, they had failed to attract students mainly because their courses
were at variance with industry needs and hence incapable of assuring placements. A major overhaul in the structure of
courses and the Centre’s push for robust industry partnerships seem to have transformed the ITI stream. For instance,
Maruti Suzuki has, in recent times, collaborated with government-run ITIs to set up automobile skill enhancement
centres, while the Mahindra group engaged students of motor mechanic and electrical trades.
This, clearly, is the way forward. A report by the National Skill Development Corporation estimates that nearly 580
million jobs are expected to come up across 24 sectors, including construction, IT, textiles and clothing, and so on by
2022. Inputs from industry could help the technical education stream become more aware of the requirements of the
job market and tailor its courses accordingly.
The ITI stream should also be expanded further to include courses in trades like carpentry, masonry and leather work,
where, so far, training is offered only on the job or through caste-based trade guilds. If the present situation continues,
we may see a shortfall of skilled labour or the disappearance of special skills in some sectors. Moreover, the absence of
an institutionalised system that vouches for the skills of a craftsman severely curtails his mobility and prospects. Prior
learning programmes launched by the ministry of skill development as a pilot project in five states could address these
issues, and they must be expanded. Skilling up workers would boost their employability and enable them to negotiate
better wages, while also making the economy more productive.
27. Positive expansion

With the India Meteorological Department’s forecast putting the average seasonal rain for this year at 88 per cent of the
annual long period average for the last 50 years, India is looking at consecutive drought-like years for the first time
since 1987. It is in this context that the NDA government’s proposal to extend the number of work entitlement days
under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) from 100 to 150 in drought-
hit districts must be seen. The decision to extend the number by 50 clearly stems from the concern that there would be
greater demand for wage-related work in drought-affected districts. Considering that the government has been less
keen than its predecessor in the implementation of the scheme, this move constitutes a change of heart. After all, the
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Prime Minister only recently said in Parliament that his government would continue the scheme as a symbol of the
failure of the Congress-led rule in tackling poverty, and reports recently suggested that the Ministry of Rural
Development was keen to reduce the scope of the scheme to select blocks. Some reports had pointed to the curtailment
in demand and lack of regularity in work allocation under the scheme over the past year, leading to a trend of fewer
person-days being available to households. Ground reports suggested this was mostly due to delayed payments and
lower outlays by the government, in a sign of lack of enthusiasm for the scheme.
MGNREGS could bring relief to farm workers and labourers affected by the laying waste of cropland for the rabi cycle
due to both unseasonal rain and deficient monsoon. This fact was acknowledged in a recent observation by the World
Bank on MGNREGS as an effective substitute for lack of crop and weather insurance in India. The government’s
decision to extend the days of entitlement at this expedient hour must therefore be welcomed. That said, it is
imperative that the government realised the importance of the scheme as a crucial intervention to spur the rural
economy and alleviate poverty, and not just as a short-term or stopgap arrangement to alleviate distress — which in
any case it does. The record of success of MGNREGS since its launch in 2006 as a welfare initiative that empowers
distressed rural households has been well-documented. Its weaknesses, in terms of the quality of assets created and
leakages in implementation, are also well-known. The government has taken note of these and has promised better
monitoring and setting of quality standards for work outcomes. While this is welcome, there needs to be a better focus
on timely wage payments and demand for work under the scheme.
28. Hong Kong needs balance

The recent decision of Hong Kong’s lawmakers to vote down a proposal put forth by Beijing to reform the city’s
electoral system was hardly a surprise. The plan, which would give Hong Kong’s voters the right to directly elect their
Chief Executive (CE) but from a list of pre-approved candidates, triggered large-scale protests last year when it was
announced. Opponents say it is just another means for Beijing to retain control. Beijing’s explanation is that it is only
doing what it promised to do at the time of Hong Kong’s transition from being a British colony to a special
administrative region of China. Under the Hong Kong Basic Law, adopted by China in 1990, the CE would be elected
by universal suffrage in 2017; but a committee would supervise the nominations. Hong Kong had been a British colony
for over 150 years till it was handed over in 1997. All those years it was ruled by governors appointed by London.
When the British withdrew, Beijing offered a semblance of democracy to Hong Kong under the ‘One Country, Two
Systems’ principle. In contrast to the British-style appointment of governors, the city’s CE is now elected by a 1,200-
member committee of Hong Kong’s elite.
Those who support Beijing’s latest reform plan say it is a step in the right direction in Hong Kong’s evolving
democracy, giving the people a chance to vote while not undermining Beijing’s authority. But most politicians in the
Legislative Council don’t seem convinced by this argument. They want an election process that is completely free of
Beijing’s involvement. This position raises three questions. First, while the argument for full democracy that includes
open nomination of candidates for the post of CE could appear to be politically correct, does it have the support of the
Basic Law that the Chinese government says it is bound by? Second, is it logical to believe that Beijing would agree to a
government that is hostile to it being elected in Hong Kong? And, is it possible in practical terms for Hong Kong to live
in perpetual hostility with Beijing, which has grown into an economic and geopolitical powerhouse in the past three
decades? Hong Kong’s dissenting politicians should show pragmatism in dealing with this situation. On the other
hand, China’s decision that it would go ahead with the reform plan despite the vote is imprudent. It cannot possibly
overhaul the city’s electoral system without taking its people along; Beijing needs to avoid fractious outcomes given
the city’s dominant mood. There are objective conditions for both sides to give up their intransigent positions and
make a deal that would be in the best interests of the financial and commercial hub that is Hong Kong.
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29. Snuff out narcotics nexus

Pioneer | Category: Polity and Governance
The joint committee formed by the Union Government to fight drug trafficking is a small but important step in tackling
the growing menace that has had an especially debilitating impact on India's border States, home to disproportionately
large numbers of drug addicts. Drug trafficking through the border States has always been tightly linked to the
country's national security and sovereignty concerns. For example, an estimated 15 per cent of the finances of Kashmiri
militant groups comes from the illegal sale of narcotics. Similarly, militant groups in Punjab and the North-East have
used drug money to finance their operations in India.
The same routes through which drugs are trafficked serve as conduits for guns, bombs and slaves. Remember,
Dawood Ibrahim's gang smuggled the explosives that were used in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts via the same
channels through which it used to bring in drugs and other contraband items from across the border. Thankfully,
nowhere in India — be it Kashmir, Punjab or the North-East — is the militancy situation now as bad as it was in the
1990s. But while the political threats have been subdued, they haven't been obliterated. Also, the criminal rackets are
very much in place, especially as the security situation is the sub-continent hasn't improved very much. In fact, India
has now emerged as a hub for the trans-shipment of heroin, produced in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region and sold all
over the world.
Late last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had drawn attention to the issue in his radio programme Mann Ki Baat
and it is heartening to see the Government carry forward the momentum he had generated, through concrete steps on
the ground. Apart from setting up the joint committee, the Government has also recently carried out a pilot survey in
Punjab and Manipur, arguably, two of the worst affected States, to gauge the extent of the drug problem.
The last survey on drug abuse in India was done more than a decade ago in 2001. At that time, the study showed that
more than 7.5 crore Indians, a conservative estimate, as even Government officials have acknowledged, were addicted
to some kind of illicit substance. Almost 15 years later, that number is expected to have ballooned to menacing
proportions. Unfortunately, previous Governments haven't had a comprehensive plan to fight drug trafficking. Most
efforts have been undertaken in a piecemeal manner, focusing either solely on border management or law enforcement
or public health or shutting down channels of illicit financing.
This is where the Modi regime is expected to do things differently — by offering a holistic plan of action that tackles
the problem at all levels and across all sectors. Apart from the security aspects, the plan will have to include
significantly improving institutional capability to deal with addicts by setting up more de-addiction centres and
bringing in more psychiatrists, therapists and mental health professionals.
30. Building India 2.0

The Narendra Modi government’s Digital India claim and programme — following on the heels of Make in India and
Skill India — is three-pronged. One, it aims to build infrastructure and provide the internet as a utility to every citizen.
Two, it promises to improve service delivery by making services available online. And three, it seeks to enable people
to access the internet by building digital literacy. This is an unexceptionable set of goals, welcome in its breadth of
ambition. It looks to both expand the physical broadband network and universalise access to mobile internet, which
has been the prime driver of growth in internet penetration in the last decade. Among the new initiatives aimed at
reducing paperwork is the Digital Locker, which allows users to upload and store documents that can be shared with
government agencies to expedite official applications for, say, marriage licences or LPG connections. Aadhaar card
holders will be able to authenticate documents using eSign, a digital signature application. Another portal is eHospital,
which will let citizens avail health services online, also issuing a unique health identification number piggybacked to
Aadhaar.
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As a utility, the internet has tangible value. It could reduce leakages in welfare schemes and provide huge economic
benefits by enabling better decision-making with improved access to information and markets. Yet, there are several
challenges, not least of them is bringing the digitally unempowered majority online. Despite years of plans and
schemes, attempts to connect remote rural areas to the internet have faltered.
Today, only 9 per cent of those who live in rural areas have access to the internet, compared to 64 per cent of those who
live in cities. The UPA’s 2006 National Optical Fibre Network project to connect more than two lakh gram panchayats
was sluggish from the start, and lagged five years behind schedule by 2013. The project has been subsumed under
Digital India but the government is laying only 500 km of fibre optic cable a month — way behind the stated goal of
30,000 km every month.
Then there is the lack of a legal framework to address concerns over privacy and data protection. Much of what passes
for internet governance is a function of crisis management, where legal and political systems struggle to respond to the
gaps that innovative uses of technology have laid bare. India is in the unenviable position of being extremely
vulnerable to cyber attacks — which does not inspire confidence in individuals or corporations that the government
will be able to protect sensitive data. Without this assurance, take-up of government apps and services is sure to
underwhelm. India also lacks a privacy law, without which initiatives like Digital Locker and eHospital are open to
flagrant misuse by the state. Finally, getting stakeholders to buy in could be a trial. As other programmes launched
with much fanfare, like Swachh Bharat, have shown, it is difficult to sustain the initial impetus if surrounding
structures are not sufficiently built up.
31. Give the IIMs their freedom

There is an irony here that is hard to miss. The three oldest Indian Institutes of Management — IIM Calcutta, IIM
Ahmedabad and IIM Bangalore — were established many years before India embraced the market economy model.
With recommendations that came from the Planning Commission and working in a socialist framework, they have
functioned autonomously to evolve best management practices and, with some help from America, today figure
among India’s best-known global brands. Over the years they have benefited from the autonomy granted to them,
which has enabled them to work independently in deciding what is best for them. In the true sense of the term, the
IIMs have essentially been market-oriented institutions. The government that is now at the helm has an avowedly pro-
market disposition too, and has in the recent past cut budgetary support for many welfare measures. The real objective
of seeking to impose controls on the management institutes — of which there are 13 today — has therefore perplexed
observers. To be fair, the NDA government is not to be blamed entirely. The Congress-led UPA, under Minister Kapil
Sibal, set the process going. A committee that he appointed was accused of pursuing the objective of out-and-out
privatisation of the IIMs. The Ministry of Human Resource Development under Smriti Irani is now seeking to regulate
them by means of the Indian Institutes of Management Bill, 2015, in the text of which the word ‘regulate’ recurs with
regularity. The Bill is now in the public realm for comments and will of course pass through Parliament. There is
reason to believe that the special status enjoyed by the institutes is being sought to be diluted by bringing in other
business schools also within the ambit of the Bill. That is not to say the Bill is without any positive aspects. It promises
to meet a long-pending demand to convert diplomas awarded by the IIMs into degrees.
But the real question is whether government control would help make these institutes centres of excellence. Public-
funded institutes in India figure nowhere in the top 100 global ranking index. The Indian Institutes of Technology have
functioned autonomously in deciding their own curriculum, yet evidently the government is seeking to interfere in
their functioning. In the case of the IIMs Bill, it is not clear to what extent the government intends to meddle with the
academic structure. What is evident is that major decisions can be taken only with prior government approval. Also,
determining the fee structure, a contentious issue in the past, will be subject to governmental nod. The government
ought to tread carefully here. It would be appropriate to take the IIMs along while giving final shape to the Bill, which
has the potential to alter their structure.
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32. The Taliban challenge

Recent attack on the Afghan Parliament building demonstrated the Taliban’s unshaken capability to strike at even the
most fortified of complexes in Kabul. This fits into its strategy of staging high-profile assaults aimed at gaining
asymmetric superiority in the Afghan war. In the past they had attacked the Presidential Palace, the U.S. and Indian
embassies and the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul. The Parliament attack coincided with a vote in the House to
endorse a new Defence Minister. The Taliban have been on the offensive since most of the foreign troops, some 14,000
of them from 40 countries at the peak of war, withdrew late last year. The Taliban’s actions have often been exposing
the vulnerabilities of Afghanistan’s fledgling army. If the Taliban are allowed to return to power, it would be
catastrophic for the Afghan people, particularly for millions of its women who were deprived of even basic human
rights under its erstwhile regime. Given the tribal politics and lawlessness in Afghanistan’s rural areas, and the
Taliban’s geopolitical relevance in the extremely complex South and Central Asian theatre, it will prove difficult for
any anti-Taliban strategy to gain immediate traction. If the past 14 years of war in Afghanistan offers any definite
lessons to the actors involved, it is that insurgency cannot be defeated only by military means. One of the grave
mistakes the American-led troops committed was their excessive emphasis on a military solution, while reconstruction
and creation of infrastructure, and building of institutions, were pushed to the back seat.
President Ashraf Ghani, who took power in September 2014, had promised to fix the vital issues. But his performance
has not been impressive either. That Afghanistan, which has been at war for years, does not have a Defence Minister
for the last nine months, itself speaks volumes about the state of its political affairs. What Afghanistan needs is a multi-
pronged strategy, supported by the international community, focussing on nation-building and security challenges as
well as regional diplomacy. First, the government has to establish itself as a credible, service-delivering and security-
providing institution to gain the trust of its people. It should focus on taking the social ground away from the Taliban,
at the same time bolstering its own security resources. The international community has an obligation to help this
strategy, both economically and diplomatically. It is worth noting that after the Soviets retreated from Afghanistan in
1989, it took just three years for the Mohammad Najibullah regime to fall, plunging the country into a deadly civil war
from which the Taliban rose to power. It is the responsibility of both Kabul and its backers abroad to make sure history
doesn’t repeat here.
33. Needed, a new urban vision

The Hindu | Category: Nation
Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched his flagship Smart Cities Mission proclaiming that governmental intervention
in planning the cities would be minimal. He referred to a “bottom-up approach”, but did not emphasise who exactly
would benefit from the cities. The approach suggests that India is breaking away from its Anglo-European
architectural tradition, promoted by Jawaharlal Nehru in the 1960s with the projection of Chandigarh as a template for
urban planners. Nehru’s aim was to create mixed-income cities with easy access to community infrastructure and to
institutions such as the judiciary, the legislature and the executive. But Mr. Modi’s urban-planning approach
contradicts that view and largely resonates with American-style urbanism. The government is putting the spotlight on
smart cities and allowing the business community to lead the development. Let us take an example in the U.S. to figure
out who could benefit from the new urban plans in India. In New York City, most of the commercial and residential
buildings from uptown to downtown Manhattan are inhabited by the rich who can afford the huge rents. They have
installed biometric security systems to keep the ‘unwanted people’ — that is, the poor — at bay. The city government
has largely outsourced the public services to private companies, which are replacing the labour force with mechanised
technology. As a result, the job market has become saturated. The unskilled workforce is caught up in a low-wage job
cycle.
Before pushing India on to a similar American path, Prime Minister Modi must step back and re-think whether his
government should invest in smart cities, or rather empower the existing urban centres by means of policies that cater
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to poor and middle class Indians. For instance, at present almost every Indian city faces sanitation issues due to the
absence or inadequacy of drainage networks. The migration of people from rural areas to the urban peripheries
continues at a rapid pace, resulting in the mushrooming of slums and unauthorised colonies. According to Census
2011, some 65 million people live in slums. The government’s response to the issue in terms of planning to build
affordable housing for them is short-sighted. Smart cities would simply institutionalise the disparity within the cities
instead of filling the lacunae. The last decade of urbanisation did change the academic and policy consensus toward
urban centres, but ignored the fringes of these centres where those from the poor and the lower-middle class who came
in a large influx ended up. In Delhi, the government passed on powers to residents’ welfare associations, which now
decide on the choice of basic civic matters — and they always give preference to their own gated communities. Mr.
Modi must take a forward-looking stance when it comes to developing urban India. Otherwise, the glossy vision of
building smart cities could end up triggering a process of social apartheid.
34. Back to the past

The Indian Express | Category: International
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement that Moscow would put into service more than 40 intercontinental
ballistic missiles (ICBMs) undoubtedly adds to the sense of deja vu — that the Cold War has been reignited along the
geopolitical faultlines in eastern Europe. The new missiles are SS-27s, capable of delivering up to six strategic nuclear
warheads and reducing a city like London or Paris to rubble. An ICBM’s minimum range is above 5,500 kilometres and
Russia’s ICBM stockpile is approximately 300. While Nato accused Moscow of “nuclear sabre-rattling”, Russian
defence spending has increased manifold since Putin’s return to the presidency. What can’t be denied, however, is that
this scale of modernisation is unprecedented.
Putin’s statement that the new hi-tech missiles can destroy the most technically advanced anti-missile defence systems
was clearly aimed at Washington, which is negotiating with Poland and the Baltic states to station tanks and heavy
weapons along Russia’s border. So, while Russia’s new ICBMs risk pushing things to a point of no return, Western
powers cannot evade questions about their handling of the Ukraine conflict. The global implications of the Ukraine
fallout are already manifest. Complaining about Nato’s encirclement of it, Russia has reverted to being a Eurasian
power. It now looks east at China for investment and technology and is firming up a new alliance that could have
adverse implications for the military tensions in the disputed waters of East Asia.
Russia and the US are still bound by the 2010 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty that caps deployed nuclear warheads at
1,550 each. But given Russia’s conventional military weakness and the heavy costs of modernisation in an economy
crippled by sanctions, its renewed emphasis on the nuclear option was foreseen. This hasn’t resurrected the spectre of
“assured mutual destruction” yet. But at a time when Moscow and Washington needed to work together — from the
Middle East to the Asia Pacific — a world where the default national security option is military deterrence, instead of
treaties and confidence-building measures, can only bring back bad memories.
35. The promise of freight corridors

The much-delayed project to build the ambitious eastern and western dedicated freight corridors has received a boost
with the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs approving a revised cost estimate for it. At Rs.81,459 crore, the figure
is more than double the originally estimated Rs.28,181 crore. The 1,839-km-long eastern corridor will connect Ludhiana
in Punjab with Dankuni in West Bengal. It will have two components, a double-track section and a single-track
segment, both electrified. It will cut across six States. The eastern corridor will cater to traffic streams including coal,
finished steel, cement and fertilizer. The western corridor will cover nearly 1,500 km, connecting the Jawaharlal Nehru
Port near Mumbai with Dadri, and passing through States such as Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra. A
substantial portion of the revised cost will be met by way of debt from multilateral institutions such as the Japan
International Cooperation Agency and the World Bank. The equity requirement of the Railways will be around
Rs.23,796 crore. Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Ltd., the special purpose vehicle set up by the
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Railways to implement the project, is keen to complete it by 2017-18. Once the twin-corridor system is in place, it will
transform the very profile of the Railways. A host of positive outcomes, such as reduction in transportation costs and
stepped-up commercial activity, benefiting a range of core industries, could flow from it. This could in turn have a
multiplier effect on the economy.
Poor infrastructure has been a principal worry for Indian industry. More often than not, this has affected its ability to
be efficient providers of goods and services. End-consumers have been forced to pay for the collective inefficiency. The
twin-corridor project was conceived in 2005 and was approved by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance
government in 2008. The huge cost overruns owing to the time lapse tell their own tale, and reflect the massive
challenge facing policy-planners in pushing through a project of this size and magnitude that has inter-State
implications. From a slow decision-making process to roadblocks to land acquisition, there are problems aplenty in the
way ahead for the project. No doubt, land acquisition is turning out to be a touchy political issue. Prevarication on the
decision-making front will hurt the viability of even soundly conceived projects. The Narendra Modi-led government
would do well to ensure that the twin-corridor project goes through without any further delay. The key to doing so
will lie also in taking along the States concerned.
36. By the Yamuna

The Indian Express | Category: Environment and Ecology
Recently, officials of the Delhi Development Authority destroyed the summer crop on the Yamuna’s floodplains. The
action was in line with a National Green Tribunal (NGT) directive banning agriculture on the riverbank and its
floodplains. The NGT’s argument was based on two premises. One, pesticides and fertilisers used by farmers are
polluting the river. Two, the flow of untreated sewage and industrial effluents has poisoned the river so much that any
produce from the floodplains is unfit for consumption. Hence, it wanted agricultural activity along the river to be
restricted to floriculture and silviculture.
The NGT has a point, but the contribution of agriculture to the Yamuna’s dismal state is marginal. The real problem is
ill-planned urbanisation. For instance, Delhi generates 36 million tonnes of sewage, and 50 per cent of it flows
untreated into the river. The 22-km stretch of the river through the city — two per cent of its total length — contributes
80 per cent of its pollution load. Successive governments have flouted environmental norms to build or facilitate
projects — the Akshardham temple and the Commonwealth Games Village being prime examples — on the
floodplains, endangering the river’s course and its acquifiers. Over Rs 1,500 crore has already been spent as part of the
Yamuna Action Plan to revive the river with little to show for it. Recently, the NGT laid down a roadmap to clean up
the Yamuna and proposed sewage treatment plants for drains and common effluent treatment plants at industrial
clusters, besides regular clearing of stormwater drains and periodic dredging of the river. These are important
measures, but the government must also ensure that the river flows in the lean months. Excessive damming and
barrages in the upper stretches have drastically reduced water in the river, except in the monsoon season. The natural
flow could cleanse the river by diluting the pollutants flowing into it. At present, the Yamuna runs dry for up to nine
months in Delhi, and much of what seems to be water in the river is the city’s untreated sewage.
Agriculture on the Yamuna floodplains in Delhi supports hundreds of families. These farms could help the city cut
down its food miles, apart from providing it with fresh fruit and vegetables. Rather than discourage farm activity
along the river, officials could direct farmers to shift to organic farming. This would fetch farmers better prices, while
taking care of the problem of pollution. The Yamuna floodplains need to be protected, but policies also need to factor
in the organic links farmers have maintained with the river for centuries.
37. A house for India

Recently, the cabinet approved one of the NDA’s flagship programmes — the Housing for All scheme, which aims to
build two crore houses in urban India and four crore in rural parts of the country. The programme, which will
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subsume some of the existing schemes launched by the previous UPA government, has been tweaked, with a much
more realistic realignment of the income cap to cover more households in urban areas and an increase in the unit size,
coupled with a grant of Rs 1 lakh from the Central government.
Conceptually, this is a good and much-needed project, given the rapid rate at which the country is urbanising. In
urban India, it is the economically weaker sections and the low income groups, which earn between Rs 3 to 6 lakh
annually, that account for 96 per cent of the housing shortage. That gap could well widen with the growing trend of
migration from the hinterland to bigger cities and towns. That’s why, of the 4,041 statutory towns that the programme
aims to cover, the immediate focus appears to be on building affordable homes in the country’s top 100 cities. The scale
of this housing mission also means that the government will have to work closely with the private sector.
But there are several challenges. Similar schemes have floundered in many states in the past, including UP, because of
execution incapacities, lack of availability of land and resources. The government has provided Rs 14,000 crore in this
year’s budget but questions remain about the funding of the project, which according to one estimate, works out to Rs
6 lakh crore. Of greater concern is the ability of the states to push this scheme or better empower local civic bodies to
deliver on housing.
Yet, housing can be a great trigger for growth. It was during NDA I that the seeds for the first housing boom of the last
decade were sown with a package of tax incentives, coupled with deep interest rate cuts and competitive lending by
institutions and banks. Thankfully, Indian households today aren’t as leveraged as corporates, which should make it
easier for the government to act more as a facilitator, leaving the choice to individuals or co-operatives on specific
projects. For Indian banks, their retail portfolios, which include a good chunk of housing loans, are far healthier,
underlining the need for them to boost lending to this segment. Earlier this year, in the run-up to the polls, the
Conservative government in the UK announced a financial top-up for first-time home buyers. Spending on housing is
not just good economics, but good politics, too. But for this government to reap the benefits, it has to switch to mission
mode right now. Execution will be key.
38. In poor company

The Indian Express | Category: Economy
Late last year, the government’s midterm economic review said that India has been afflicted by what might be
characterised as a “balance sheet syndrome with Indian characteristics”. What the government’s chief economic
advisor tried to flag then were the dangers of overextended balance sheets of Indian corporations, resembling, in some
ways, Japan of the past. Over six months later, the RBI recently sounded a warning on rising bad loans and interest
coverage ratio, or their ability to make interest payments on outstanding debt.
Policymakers are worried because a median debt-equity ratio of 70 per cent of Indian firms is one of the highest in the
world — inflicting collateral damage on domestic banks, whose bad loans and restructured assets are now well over 10
per cent of total assets. That hinders the prospect of further interest rate cuts by banks, despite low inflation and loan
demand, as lenders would prefer to set aside capital to provide against bad loans while corporations, with their
bloated balance sheets, may not be in a position to take advantage of lower rates.
This comes at a time when, judged by conventional macroeconomic parameters, there is a measure of stability, unlike
in the past, when large government deficits spilled over into current account deficits (CAD), stoking inflation. The
CAD has narrowed after peaking in mid-2013 and is projected to be at 1.5 per cent in Financial Year 2016, while the
fiscal deficit has been pegged lower at 3.9 per cent. Retail inflation too has been low. But these metrics alone are not an
indicator that problems have been sorted out, as it also has to do with underspending by the government. For their
part, corporations are in no position to kickstart fresh investment, given that they are also undergoing an austerity
programme of sorts, with little growth in toplines over the last couple of years while struggling to maintain margins.
In such a scenario, hopes of a major economic rebound are receding. That’s why it is important for the government to
focus more on attracting foreign investment, especially in the manufacturing sector. There are encouraging signs on
this front with the Foxconn Technology Group, which has a marquee list of clients such as Apple, announcing plans to
set up a manufacturing base in India with a substantial investment commitment. That’s what the government needs to
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build on, by working closely with states and creating an enabling environment for industry and entrepreneurs. And by
walking the talk on stable policies.
39. New Great Wall of China

Pioneer | Category: India and World
China's decision to back Pakistan in the United Nations over Islamabad's protection of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks'
mastermind Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, is most unfortunate. India had moved the UN Sanctions Committee contending
that Lakhvi's release on bail by a Pakistani court had violated the ‘1267 sanctions regime' dealing with designated
individuals and entities. All permanent members of the UN Security Council with the exception of China supported
New Delhi's proposal to seek a clarification from Pakistan on the issue. In addition, there were other nations that
expressed their backing to India on the issue.
But Beijing has chosen to throw its weight behind its all-weather friend in the face of overwhelming international
opinion on this matter, on the pretext that India hasn’t provided adequate evidence to back its claim that Lakhvi had
played a pivotal role in the 2008 terror attack. The Chinese line is similar to the one which Pakistan had long taken and
maintained, and it is clear that no amount of proof is going to convince China — just as loads of evidence on another
mastermind, Hafiz Saeed, has proved to be insufficient for Pakistan to build a case against the terrorist. It is not the
first time that Beijing has thwarted Indian attempts to raise the 26/11 attack-Pakistan link at the international forum (it
had earlier blocked an Indian proposal regarding Islamabad's funding of Hafiz Saeed's outfit which gave itself a new
name after his Lashkar-e-Tayyeba was banned globally).
But, given the fresh thrust that has come about in India-China relations with the visit to India of Chinese President Xi
Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent trip to China, and the cordiality that had been struck between the
two leaders, one had expected Beijing to modify its stand with regard to the Pakistani role in fomenting terror activities
against India. Perhaps that expectation was a case of over-optimism. It is unlikely that New Delhi's subsequent moves
to take the matter up with the Chinese leadership will lead to any fresh thinking on Beijing's part.
China will hear us out patiently and courteously and then go back to supporting its friend who has lost credibility
internationally on the issue of reining in terror elements that target India. It is a reminder to India that, despite
growing trade cooperation between it and China, the Chinese leadership is not going to be accommodative on Indian
concerns that involve either Pakistan or even border disputes, for that matter. Let us also not forget that despite New
Delhi's strong reservations, Beijing has gone ahead with its plans to participate in infrastructure development in
Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
China is prepared to ignore Pakistan's complicity in anti-India terror campaigns because it wants to send the message
across to New Delhi that it does not take the latter's assertiveness in South China Sea kindly. India has time and again
said that international waters cannot be claimed as somebody's exclusive territory. Beijing is wary of India's growing
influence in the region, especially after Prime Minister Modi launched his hugely successful global push soon after
coming to power. In its quest to be the unquestioned superpower in the Asian region, China will not easily allow India
the space the latter deserves.
40. Government push for going cashless is welcome

The Asian Age | Category: Economy
The government’s move to promote cashless transactions through the electronic payment system is very welcome
though it would be a huge task to implement. India has the largest amount of cash transactions in the world. The
objectives are laudable as they are expected to curb black money and bring more people in the tax net by giving the tax
authorities a money trail to enable them to catch tax evaders. According to the draft proposals, in a bid to cajole people
to move to cashless transactions the government has announced various incentives, from tax breaks for consumers and
merchants/shopkeepers to asking credit card companies, petrol pumps, telecom companies and others to reduce or
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eliminate the surcharge, which is quite hefty and makes goods and services more expensive. It is also going to make it
mandatory to pay bills of Rs 1 lakh and above electronically.
The point is, will the various stakeholders take the bait? The incentives, while attractive on the face of it, are still
measly compared to the advantages that both the buyer and the seller get from cash payments. Imagine all those
society ladies coming with suitcases of cash to buy designer bags, accessories and clothes at the luxury super-brand
stores. Items run into lakhs of rupees each and one imagines they would hardly want to explain to the taxman where
this money came from. Similarly, builders and customers save much more through cash payments than they would
through the incentives given for electronic transactions. Also, if state governments are supposed to give merchants,
etc., the facility of a discount on VAT (value-added tax) payments for electronic payments, they may not want to
forego the revenue unless they are reimbursed by the Centre. Another factor the government would have to consider is
cybersecurity. Many people, especially among the older generation, are wary of people hacking into their accounts,
and India is one of the countries prone to hackers.
While one wishes the government well in this Herculean attempt, perhaps it needs to consider the suggestion of its
chief economic adviser, Arvind Subramanian, who said while chasing black money could send a wrong image about
the country, to him black money was more important in terms of what it signalled India was doing about things like
arbitrariness, tax rules, discretion and corruption. We need to be very serious about addressing them. It is not that the
government has not considered this, but there is lack of political will in dealing with it on a war footing as it is alleged
that politicians and bureaucrats have the most black money. These matters need to be handled with the same urgency
and intensity as the Prime Minister employed in his Jan Dhan Yojana.
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PART TWENTY THREE| ARTICLES
1. Rohingyas- Nowhere people

Frontline-June 26, 2015 | Category: India and the World
The humanitarian crisis involving Rohingya refugees grabs global attention as hundreds of them are found abandoned
in rickety boats in the waters off the coasts of Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia......
IT has been one of the biggest crises to hit the region since the exodus of Vietnamese boat people in the 1970s. The sight
of helpless Rohingya refugees packed in rickety boats floating on the high seas with nowhere to go has finally grabbed
the attention of the international community.
In the first fortnight of May, hundreds of Rohingya refugees were found abandoned in the waters off the coasts of
Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. Thousands more remain unaccounted for. They were abandoned in the boats after
the Thai authorities belatedly decided to crack down in April on the network of human traffickers who have been
engaged for some years in smuggling people from Bangladesh and Myanmar to Malaysia through the porous border
with Thailand. Illegal camps to house the refugees were set up along the Thailand-Malaysian border. In Thailand,
many of the Rohingyas were forced into servitude, especially in the fishing industry.
The preferred destination of the Rohingyas and other migrants was Malaysia, a Muslim-majority country with the
fastest-growing economy in the region. In the last week of May, more than a hundred graves were found in a remote
area in Malaysia near the border with Thailand. Dozens of mass graves containing the bodies of Rohingya,
Myanmarese and Bangladeshi migrants have also been discovered in Myanmar and Thailand. According to reports in
the Malaysian media, 30 large graves containing hundreds of corpses were discovered near the towns of Padang Besar
and Wang Kelian in the third week of May.
Corrupt police and security officials in Thailand and Malaysia have been involved in the clandestine trafficking of
desperate migrants for many years now. International monitoring agencies say 25,000 Rohingya refugees have fled
Myanmar since the beginning of the year. Malaysian authorities have made many arrests after the discovery of mass
graves on their territory. Malaysian Home Affairs Minister Zahid Hamid has admitted that the camps housing the
migrants in the jungle had existed for more than five years. Around 1,00,000 Rohingyas are said to be already in
Malaysia.
The Indonesian and Malaysian governments, after initially adopting a tough stand, finally agreed to take in thousands
of hungry and stranded refugees after a high-level meeting in the Thai capital, Bangkok, in the third week of May. The
three governments had come in for increasing international criticism for the inhumane policies they were adopting
towards the migrants. The other countries in the region, such as Singapore and Australia, have refused point-blank to
accommodate any boat people despite many of them dying of starvation after being stranded on the high seas.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo said that the decision of his government to accept the migrants was a “good
solution”, but he said he expected financial aid from the international community as Indonesia could not afford the
cost of hosting the refugees.
Indonesia and Malaysia said that they would repatriate the limited number of refugees that they had accepted within a
year. The Indonesian government also said that it would be repatriating 720 Bangladeshi refugees as they were
“economic migrants”. Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has publicly criticised migrants from her country for
“tainting our image in the international arena”.
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Humanitarian assistance
Pope Francis compared the plight of the Rohingyas to that of the Yezidi and Christian minorities under Islamic State
rule in Iraq and Syria. It was the disruption of the traditional smuggling routes of migrants by the Thai Navy that
made the human traffickers abandon their cargo on the high seas. After the agreement, the navies of the three countries
are no longer engaged in driving away the boats carrying the Rohingyas from their waters. Indonesia and Malaysia
also announced that “they would provide humanitarian assistance to those 7,000 irregular migrants that are at sea”.
The agreement came after fishermen in the Sumatra region of Indonesia rescued more than 300 refugees from a sinking
boat in the last week of May.
The government of Myanmar, which is responsible for triggering the refugee crisis in the first place, has been
unresponsive to international appeals and refused to attend the regional conference in Bangkok that was convened to
discuss the refugee crisis.
Myanmar’s Foreign Office confined itself to issuing a statement that it was “deeply concerned” about the problem and
was making “serious efforts” to combat trafficking and illegal migration. The government is not doing anything to
curtail the Buddhist extremist groups which are openly targeting the Muslim minority. One such individual is a monk
by the name of Ashin Wirathu. He has been dubbed by the regional media as the “Buddhist bin Laden” for his
activities. He is allowed to spew venom freely, and the radical group he heads was responsible for much of the
communal violence in recent years. Wirathu claims that Muslims in the country are on the verge of waging a jehad
against Buddhists. Nine out of ten people in the country are Buddhists. Muslims are a very small minority in the
country. Successive governments in the country have been making strenuous attempts to make life unlivable for this
minority.
Who are the Rohingyas?
The Rohingyas, according to the United Nations, are “the most persecuted minority” in the world. They have been
denied citizenship in a country in which their ancestors lived for many centuries. Historical records show that they
have been in the Burmese kingdom of Arakan since the eighth century. Colonial records also testify that the
community, which had embraced Islam, has been part and parcel of Burmese society since then. In the medieval
kingdom of Arakan, the Buddhist majority and the Rohingya minority had a harmonious relationship.
The suffering of the Rohingyas started in earnest after Burma gained independence in 1948. The Rohingyas, who
number around a million and a half, were given full citizenship rights and recognised as a separate race only in 1959
when the country experienced a brief democratic lull under Prime Minister U Nu. But a military coup by the
ultranationalist Gen. Ne Win in 1962 brought things back to square one for the hapless Rohingyas. Citizenship rights
were once again summarily revoked, and the Rohingyas have since been marginalised and suppressed by the
authoritarian regimes that have been ruling the country.
It was in 1978 that the community was first violently targeted by the military. Hundreds of Rohingyas were massacred,
and the first wave of forced migrations started. As many as 2,50,000 Rohingyas fled to neighbouring Bangladesh where
they have been languishing in squalid refugee camps. In overcrowded Bangladesh, the Rohingyas, despite cultural and
linguistic similarities, are not better off. They remain a stateless community whose hopes of returning to its homeland
are diminishing by the day. They have not been assimilated into Bangladeshi society. In 2011, a repatriation agreement
was signed between Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Myanmarese President Thein Sein. The Rohingyas were
excluded from the repatriation pact as the Myanmarese authorities refused to grant citizenship status to the
community.
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Stateless community
The marginalisation of the Rohingyas in Burma was formalised when the military government promulgated a new and
arbitrary citizenship law in 1978 that deemed them a stateless community. In 1991, the army launched another anti-
Rohingya drive, code-named “Operation Clean and Prosperous Nation”.
Some 2,00,000 Rohingyas were forced to flee the country. Most of them ended up in Bangladesh. Since then, the
Rohingyas have been subjected to even more abuses, including the arbitrary seizure of property, forced labour, torture
and rape at the hands of the authorities and a fanatical fringe of Buddhist zealots. In their home state of Rakhine, the
authorities have imposed a “two child” limit for Rohingya families. In 2014, the government banned the use of the
word “Rohingya” and decreed that they be called “Bengalis”. Things have gone from bad to worse after the powerful
military decided on political cohabitation with the mainstream opposition party, the National League for Democracy,
led by the Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. Rohingya-bashing has seemingly become a national pastime in the
country. The government continues to label them as “illegal Bengali migrants” in the ongoing efforts to ethnically
cleanse the country.
All that the Rohingyas are demanding is the restoration of their citizenship that was revoked under the authoritarian
military regime of Gen. Ne Win. Many expected Suu Kyi to speak out in support of the Rohingyas, but her silence has
been deafening. She has been completely focussed on cultivating the Buddhist majority, whose support is essential if
her party has to win the elections scheduled for 2016. In a rare interview in 2013 in which she agreed to talk on the
issue, she blamed both sides for the violence.
In 2012, riots in Rakhine led to deaths on both sides of the ethnic divide, but it was the Rohingyas who bore the brunt
of the violence. Some 1,50,000 Rohingyas were forced to flee from their homes after the riots. In Myanmar, it is the
Rohingyas who are confined to “camps” and subjected to “ethnic cleansing”. The U.N. and human rights organisations
have said that the situation in the country is grim. The U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Myanmar has
said that actions against the Rohingyas orchestrated by the Myanmarese government “could amount to crimes against
humanity”.
Human rights issue
The United States and its allies in the region have all been publicly sympathetic to the plight of the Rohingya refugees
but have not done anything meaningful to pressure the government in Myanmar to take action. The Barack Obama
administration has forged very strong links with the military-dominated government and is not interested in raising
the issue of “human rights” in the country in international forums.
Malaysia and Indonesia want the ASEAN grouping (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), of which Myanmar is a
member, to discuss the issue. Myanmar on its part has refused to attend any meeting to discuss the issue if the word
“Rohingya” is mentioned. “If we recognise the name, then they will think that they are citizens of Myanmar,” the
spokesman for the country’s President said. ASEAN has a policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of member
countries.
By the end of May, the government had decreed that all Rohingyas will have to surrender their temporary “white
cards” which are their only identification papers now. This will further curtail their freedom of movement.
Meanwhile, people like the Buddhist monk Wirathu are being given a free hand to propagate their message of hatred.
A U.S.-based human rights group said in a report released in March that “almost every major outbreak of violence
since October 2012” had been preceded by activities of Wirathu and his group.
And Aung San Suu Kyi has not spoken out yet despite pleas from her fellow Nobel Peace laureates such as Desmond
Tutu.
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2. Delhi- Capital stand-off

Frontline-June 26, 2015 | Category: Polity and Governance
The battle over the devolution of powers between the Delhi government on the one side and the Lt Governor and the
Central government on the other points to an attempt at political sabotage of an elected government.....
THE initial stand-off between Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Lieutenant Governor (LG) Najeeb Jung over
the appointment of a temporary Chief Secretary has developed into a full-blown constitutional battle over the crucial
issue of devolution of powers. In early May, Kejriwal objected strongly to the LG’s unilateral decision to appoint
Shakuntala Gamlin Acting Chief Secretary in the absence of Chief Secretary K.K. Sharma, who was on leave for 10
days. Jung claimed that he was well within his constitutional right to appoint officials without consulting the Chief
Minister. The confrontation triggered a legal conflict.
The appointment was blown out of proportion as Kejriwal accused Shakuntala Gamlin of lobbying with the
government to promote the interests of Reliance-owned power distribution companies (discoms) in the city.
Shakuntala Gamlin was in the midst of a controversy when Delhi’s Power Minister Satyendra Jain alleged that she
insisted that the power discoms be given “letters of comfort”, if not a loan guarantee, which may have given the
discoms loan guarantees of Rs.11,000 crore. Kejriwal, who has consistently spoken about the high-handedness of the
discoms and refused any form of loan guarantee to them, saw Shankuntala Gamlin’s appointment as a strategic move
by Jung and the Central government to protect the discoms. He alleged that his requests for substitutes had always
been turned down by the LG and hinted at foul play in the appointment of Shakuntala Gamlin bypassing many senior
bureaucrats.
Soon after this face-off, the Union Home Ministry issued a gazette notification to the Delhi government on May 21
restraining its Anti-Corruption Branch from acting against Central government officials in the city. Kejriwal saw this
move by the Central government as a direct attack on the Delhi government, which was elected on the agenda of
curbing corruption and crony capitalism.
The bitter battle took a dramatic twist when Kejriwal got Principal Secretary (Services) Anindo Majumdar’s office
locked to prevent him from carrying out the orders of the LG and ordered all bureaucrats not to act on any order from
the LG without consulting him. Following this, Jung, in a strongly worded letter to Kejriwal, asserted his constitutional
right to appoint and transfer officials—right from stenographer to Chief Secretary—in the city government’s
administration and nullified all orders of the Delhi government in the previous week. The ego tussle worsened when
an Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) legislator, in an emergency session of the Assembly, sought the amendment of the
Constitution to allow impeachment of the LG.
In an effort to resolve the crisis, Kejriwal met President Pranab Mukherjee and said he was ready to accept Shakuntala
Gamlin’s appointment, but sought the President’s intervention to ensure that the LG did not intervene in the Delhi
administration’s functioning on a day-to-day basis. He alleged that Jung had been commanding senior-level
bureaucrats directly without consulting him or his Council of Ministers.
Amidst this fiasco, Kejriwal received a boost when the Delhi High Court, while hearing the Delhi government’s
petition, termed the Home Ministry’s notification “suspect” and ruled that the Delhi government had the authority to
probe Central government officials, including Delhi Police personnel. However, a few days later, the Supreme Court,
hearing the Central government’s petition, issued a notice to the Delhi government and asked it to file its response
within three weeks. The Supreme Court bench refused to stay the High Court order but added that the High Court
ruling on the May 21 notification was tentative and would not be binding. This observation by the apex court has
complicated the legal conflict further.
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The unique status of Delhi as a half-state and the multiplicity of authorities have always been a cause of trouble in
administrative affairs. It is because of this that both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had demanded
“full statehood” for Delhi. Kejriwal renewed the demand in his campaign with added vigour. In his first stint as Chief
Minister, for 49 days in 2013-14, Kejriwal dramatically sat on a dharna outside Rail Bhavan to demand control over
Delhi police.
The unique status of Delhi gives the Central government full control over public order, land, and the police, while the
Delhi government is in charge of general administration and welfare. It is for this reason that Jung’s recent actions
have been viewed by some political observers as the Central government’s attempt to engineer an administrative
paralysis in Delhi.
Prem Shankar Jha, a senior journalist, wrote in one of his articles: “Today Arvind Kejriwal heads a government in a
territory that is larger than 11 Indian States that enjoy full autonomy under the Indian Constitution. He heads a party
that has secured an unprecedented 54 per cent of the vote—the highest won by any party in any election during India’s
67 years of freedom—and 96 per cent of the seats in the State Assembly. But he is being prevented from taking
decisions that he and his Ministers feel are necessary to enable them ‘to deal with matters of concern to the common
man’ by an unelected appointee of a Central government that was wiped out in the very same election that brought the
AAP to power.”
The political tussle between the AAP government and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the
Centre is rooted in one clause of the National Capital Territory (NCT) Act, included as the 69th amendment to the
Constitution in 1991. The NCT Act created the provision for an elected Delhi government and promoted Delhi’s status
from a Union Territory to a half-state. Both Kejriwal and the LG have interpreted Article 293AA (4) of the NCT Act
differently to defend their standpoints. The Article states: “There shall be a Council of Ministers consisting of not more
than 10 per cent of the total number of members in the Legislative Assembly, with the Chief Minister at the head to aid
and advise the Lieutenant Governor in the exercise of his functions in relation to matters with respect to which the
Legislative Assembly has power to make laws, except insofar as he is, by or under any law, required to act in his
discretion…. Provided that in the case of difference of opinion between the Lieutenant Governor and his Ministers on
any matter, the Lieutenant Governor shall refer it to the President for decision and act according to the decision given
thereon by the President and pending such decision it shall be competent for the Lieutenant Governor in any case
where the matter, in his opinion, is so urgent that it is necessary for him to take immediate action, to take such action
or to give such direction in the matter as he deems necessary.”
The Article is unclear about who the head of Delhi is. While some senior bureaucrats and constitutional experts have
read the Article as one which gives full powers to the LG to take executive decisions, some other legal experts are at
variance with the view. The constitutional expert Subash C. Kashyap said: “The Union Territory is administered by the
LG. The Council of Ministers is to aid and advise him. In case of service matters, it is the LG’s call. In such a matter, the
Chief Minister should go to the LG and sort things out.”
However, many prominent legal experts said that such an understanding would be a silly literal translation of the
Article. They view this Article as one that gives the elected government clear powers to make laws and expects the LG
to exercise his functions through the elected government.
Rajeev Dhawan, prominent lawyer, said the LG was playing tricks with the Constitution. “The arrangement between
the elected CoM [Council of Ministers] and the nominated LG was that the CoM with the CM as its head would ‘aid
and advise the Lieutenant Governor’. The phrase ‘aid and advise’ may seem fuzzy, but exactly the same phrase is used
to describe the relationship between elected governments and the President of India and Governors of States (Article
74 (1), 163 (1)). The CoM was responsible in all cases to their respective Parliaments and Assemblies, including the
CoM of Delhi (Article 75(3), 164(2), 239AA (6)). If ‘aid and advise’ was interpreted literally, the CoMs would become
advisory and parliamentary democracy would be worthless,” he wrote in one news website.
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Similarly, former Additional Solicitor General Indira Jaising is of the view that Jung overstepped his jurisdiction.
She said, “There is no provision in the Constitution or in the NCT of Delhi Act, 1991, or any of the laws, granting to the
Lieutenant Governor the power to act at his own discretion in the matter of appointment of the Chief Secretary.” She
further said that there was no provision in the Transaction of Business Rules which empowers the LG to issue direct
orders to bureaucrats bypassing the elected government. She said that the issue needed no further interpretation as the
power of the Governors had clearly been stated by the Supreme Court in Shamsher Singh vs State of Punjab (1974),
where it ruled that the Governor had to act only in accordance with the aid and advise of the Council of Ministers
headed by the Chief Minister. She added that the appointment of officials was an executive matter and must be taken
up by the Council of Ministers as had been delineated in the Rules of Business and the Cadre Rules.
Both former Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium and the prominent lawyer K.K. Venugopal stood in support of
Kejriwal and were of the view that the LG’s decisions violated the stated norms of governance and were against the
constitutional scheme. “Insofar as the control over such officers is concerned, the only authority which ought to
exercise control would be the Chief Minister and the Cabinet.... It is not possible that any of the officers who are
appointed to serve directly under the Chief Minister, as well as the department ministers, bypass them and report to an
extraneous authority—the LG—to whom no such power is conferred either by the Constitution or the NCT Act, 1991,”
Subramanium said. Prem Shankar Jha noted that the conflict had arisen out of Jung’s refusal to allow the Chief
Minister and his Cabinet the freedom to choose the officials they would work with. Political observers and parties in
the opposition, too, felt that the LG decisions and the subsequent Home Ministry notification were dangerous
precedents set by the NDA government at the Centre as such political sabotage of an elected government not only
undermined the core federal principles of governance but also subverted the whole idea of parliamentary democracy.
As the AAP government completes 100 days in power in Delhi, it has already seen many minor skirmishes with the
Union government, this being the most recent and the biggest. Fearing further such interventions by the Central
government, the Delhi government, after the High Court order vindicating Kejriwal, has renewed its efforts to
strengthen its Anti-Corruption Branch. In a deft political move, it sought police personnel from various non-BJP States
for its Anti-Corruption Branch.
Politically, Kejriwal has succeeded in turning the tussle in his favour on the ground. The AAP’s campaign during this
turf war has not only cemented Kejriwal’s position as a crusader against corruption but also succeeded in pushing the
BJP into a corner.
With the AAP launching 11 mohalla sabhas for participatory governance and initiating a significant number of welfare
measures such as reduced water and electricity tariffs, the report card of the Delhi government also seems to be a
positive one. The growing popularity of the AAP in the national capital has come at the cost of the NDA’s dwindling
reputation as a pro-people government. In such a situation, the present melee could do more harm than good to the
Union government..
3. Girls in school, a report card

The Hindu-June 12, 2015 | Category: Social Issues
Report card on India’s progress in achieving gender parity in the area of girl child education.....
India has made remarkable progress in the field of gender parity in school education, but many States still have a long
way to go in ensuring that no girl child is left behind. Data from the Department of Higher Education under the
Ministry of Human Resource Development on the number of girls for every hundred boys in classes I to XII in 2011-12
offer a variety of interesting insights into the state of girl education across the country, the most significant being the
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remarkable progress achieved by the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes vis-a-vis the national average and the
performance of the north-eastern states.
Members of the S.C. and S.T. communities have clearly embraced B.R. Ambedkar's exhortation to “Educate, Agitate,
Organise” and extended it to the girl child to empower themselves. Across the five metrics of classes I-V, VI-VIII, IX-X,
XI-XII and I-XII, S.C.s have outperformed the national average, while S.T.s have fallen short of the rest of the nation in
just one metric, classes XI-XII.
The eight north-eastern States, including Assam, shine a beacon to the rest of the country in the area of sending girls to
school, with Assam, Meghalaya and Sikkim having achieved parity or even gone beyond in many metrics. The so-
called backward or less developed States of north-eastern India bring into question the very idea of development,
especially when seen in the context of a markedly better performance when compared with industrially developed and
more prosperous States such as Maharashtra, Punjab and Gujarat.
The four southern States (data available only for undivided Andhra Pradesh) have traditionally ranked high in terms
of social and educational development and it comes as no surprise that they are all far ahead of the national average in
every category, with Karnataka alone falling short in just one category, classes I-V.
According to the 2011 census, among the 10 most populous states, which together account for three-fourths of the
country’s total population, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar count among the laggards, not surprisingly, but the real shocker is
the presence of the prosperous States of Maharashtra and Gujarat, which have fallen behind the rest of nation on most
counts.
Despite racing ahead of the nation in other areas such as industry and agriculture, Maharashtra, Punjab and Gujarat
are behind even the worst developed States in the field of girl child education. The information forces a reassessment
of the concept of development and the need to think beyond gross product numbers to achieve true progress.
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PART TWENTY FOUR| ESSAY
1. Is democracy in India a success?
India has been a democracy for over six decades. In this time it has achieved some remarkable successes but also failed
in significant ways. While economic growth has been rapid over recent decades, this has not translated into greater
welfare for the majority of the Indian population. Despite being severely critical of its politicians, the electorate
however remains enthusiastic in its political participation, especially at elections.
In 1947, when India gained her independence from colonial rule, the choice of parliamentary democracy and a
universal franchise for such a poor, vast and largely illiterate nation was considered as a right way forward.
Nevertheless the first general election was held with great rigour, enthusiasm and success in 1952. In the meantime, a
Constitution reflecting the political and ideological goals of the new nation had been adopted. Enshrined within it
were the principles of the separation of powers, a universal Indian citizen with constitutional rights, equality before the
law, the separation of civil and military powers, and the necessity for political competition. The press remains as free
as any in the world and contributes to a lively and highly contested public sphere. So according to the democratic
checklist of institutional arrangements, India’s democratic system is in a reasonable shape.
But what of India’s record on democratic ideas more broadly: the participation of citizens, rule of law, and the
responsibility of the state in ensuring basic freedoms, material security and education? It is evident that India’s
heterodox policy of a mixed economy of planned economic development and liberalization has put it at the high table
of emergent powers in the world, but the positive effects of this are yet to reach the majority of Indians, in particular
the poorest citizens. Many of those in power have severely abused their position, transgressing trust and probity, as
scandals of corruption, bribes and kickbacks are revealed daily. This has been acutely felt, for instance, in the state’s
policy on India’s natural resources, which has consistently ignored the rights of indigenous populations whose lands
contain these resources in deference to corporate interests who seek to exploit them commercially. This neglect, on the
back of an abysmal human development record among the same populations, has led to violent insurgency
movements in some districts, whose ideologues disavow the democratic state and its institutions.
The state in turn has not held back in its violent suppression of these movements. Elsewhere too, India’s civil society
remains vigorous as ecological, feminist, religious and justice-based social movements continually challenge the status
quo. The national body politic has developed a vast repertoire of protest and persuasion, drawn on the techniques
developed during the anti-colonial struggles and those from the twenty-first century, to bring pressure on
governments to be responsive to popular demands. These movements at once utilize and challenge the freedoms and
liberties afforded by democracy.
At the heart of India’s democratic system have been the regular elections that now see the participation of over a
hundred political parties and the largest electorate in the world. Even more surprisingly, the most enthusiastic voters
in Indian elections are not the well-educated urban middle classes but those who are the poorest, most discriminated
against, and least educated, mainly living in villages and small towns. Turnout rates at elections in these areas can be
well over 80 percent.
Further, more local the election, the higher the turnout and this again bucks global trends. Contrary to what many
predicted in 1947, poverty and illiteracy have not hampered the functioning of Indian democracy.
Why do large parts of the country’s electorate cast their votes enthusiastically (and support a democratic mode of
government over any other), despite the sustained failure of the Indian state to improve the living standards of its
poorest citizens? Is it because the poor are ignorant and don’t know what they are doing? Are they gullible and
vulnerable to vote buying and empty campaign promises? Or to bullying and violence?
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One important factor in the faith that people have in elections is the performance of the Election Commission of India
(ECI). Set up in 1950 to manage and conduct elections, unlike many of its counterparts in other democracies, the ECI is
a genuinely autonomous and constitutional body, which through its sixty-year old life has evolved into a responsive
and efficient public body. Only the Supreme Court of India shares this level of popular respect. The voting process, the
successful adoption of electronic voting machines, the maintenance of electoral registers, the security provided to
voters and political actors, and the standards of probity among the two million election officials who conduct the
elections have all emerged as enviably efficient features in a country where much else goes wrong. So, the Indian
electorate trusts the Election Commission of India and the elections it runs. But when questioned about the politicians
that those elections empower, the popular responses were a lot more critical.
Indian politicians’ behaviour and public standing have seen a long steady decline compared to the cohort of educated,
idealistic and conscientious politicians who brokered national independence and authored the constitution. Political
parties are increasingly dominated by kin and nepotistic networks and have blocked the rise of new talent, and in too
many cases the sins of greed and avarice appear to have displaced any desire to serve the public good.
In the last couple of decades the political landscape has been shaken up by the emergence of lower caste parties that
have made their challenge to the long standing social and political hegemony of the upper caste parties the cornerstone
of their political activity. While not yet fully national parties, they now dominate important regions (each of which is
the size of a European country). Often commanding the loyalty of millions who place their faith in leaders who are
‘one of them’, the leaders of these parties have successfully challenged the patrician and insulated worlds of traditional
politicians.
These redefined political styles play out in the Indian Parliament, which has emerged as an arena for loud, gestural
statements alongside debate and deliberation. In recent years, it has become routine for Parliamentary proceedings to
be frequently disrupted by members aiming to capture the attention of a hungry media that relishes the transgression
of parliamentary norms. In turn, the airtime gained by politicians has proved to be an invaluable tool to reach out to
their mass followings.
The role of the Member of Parliament has become less that of legislator and more that of extractor of State resources for
their constituencies, as a result of which personal corruption has seen unprecedented levels. But Parliament also
remains a place where the great questions of unity and diversity, freedom and equality discussed at independence
continue to be vigorously contested and updated by interest groups, determined variously by political ideology,
religion and caste. As a result, 115 amendments of the Constitution have been passed by the national parliament to
accommodate the changing realities of the political landscape. New states have been created (now 29 in total) and
other changes made to improve the workings of democracy at the grass roots.
Perhaps the most significant of these amendments was the 73rd, which made statutory provision for Panchayat Raj as
a third level of elected administration in villages, below the national and state levels. As a result, representative
democracy could now operate at the local level and help empower new actors to take on the responsibility of
governance.
Ordinary citizens on the other hand, who turnout in large numbers at elections, see the role that politicians play in
Parliament and elsewhere as only one aspect of India’s democracy. While they are clear eyed about the venality of
politicians, they point to the importance of their own role in the success of the workings of the democratic system.
They emphasize that it is their individual vote that adds to the final result and it is their choice of candidates that
determines the nature of government.
‘The vote is our weapon’ is a statement that is often used to explain this sense of empowerment. A majority of the
electorate believes in the efficacy of multiparty democracy and regularly held elections, because it is through these
institutions that governments can be forced to respond to popular pressures and punished for a bad performance. The
examples of incumbent governments losing power after one term (a frequent occurrence in India) or of governments
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being rewarded with re-election were proof of this. ‘Without us, the system is nothing’ was how voters put it to
emphasize the role of the ordinary voter.
Indian democracy can thus be described as made up of two spheres of politics - the ‘demonic’ (politicians and high
politics) and the ‘demotic’ (the electorate), with the electorate seeing its own politics as the purer in intention and
action. Demotic politics is based on hope of a better future, the need for participatory citizenship and a sense of duty,
and a celebration of universal franchise. And it is for these reasons that Indians across the country emphasize the
importance of exercising this right assiduously, if only to remind those in power of their ultimate dependence on their
votes.
Further, the right to vote is also seen as a foundational right of each citizen that makes possible the demand for other
basic rights – to food, education and security. Thus Indian voters see their electoral participation as fundamental to
their other engagements with the state, and their presence on the voting list a rare official acknowledgement of their
existence. People thus frequently use the word ‘duty’ while describing the importance of voting and engaging with the
system. A typical formulation states: ‘it is my right to vote and it is my duty to exercise this right. If I don’t discharge
this duty, it is meaningless to have this right’. Further, there is a shared sense that it is important for each individual to
exercise this right, rather than defer the responsibility to others.
But popular understandings of democracy also recognize that while elections are a necessary element of democracy,
they are not a sufficient condition. To this end, the act of voting is seen to be the necessary first step in putting forward
future demands and holding democratically elected governments to account. But political participation in non-
electoral spaces is considered equally important, if more difficult to achieve. This understanding lies at the heart of a
popular notion of participatory citizenship in the Indian electorate.
ELECTIONS
Elections in India are a big festival and it is at this time that the two political domains of the demonic/demotic that
remain largely separate for the most part are forced to collide and confront each other. It is during election campaigns
that the politicians have to account for their neglect of their constituencies and beg a second chance. During long and
exhausting election campaigns in large and diverse constituencies (the size of a parliamentary constituency in India is
almost twenty times that of one in the UK) the laundered clothes of rich politicians are sullied by dusty road journeys,
their arrogant heads have to be bent entering modest huts of the poor, and their hands have to be folded in a plea for
votes. It is no wonder that elections in India have a carnival air as people delight in this levelling effect of campaigns,
as the ordinary voter suddenly becomes the object of attention of the powerful.
But the voter also feels some pressure to play her own role in making the correct choice, which is always open to the
influence of a caste group, kin or community. At the most fundamental level, there is tremendous pressure to not
waste a vote. One of the ways in which this pressure is created is by a simple procedure carried out by the ECI. In any
Indian election, each voter has their left index finger marked by a short vertical line in indelible black ink just before
they approach the electronic voting machine. While this procedure is carried out to ward off repeat voting, it has also
had the unintended consequence of making it impossible to lie about whether one had voted. It therefore generates
tremendous peer pressure among people to go and take the trouble to vote, for not to do so causes the discomfort of
constant questions and suspicions about one’s motivations for abstaining.
The importance of not losing face in front of others, whether they are kin or party workers, is thus an important
motivation for voting and results in high turnout rates. A further motivation for voting is the actual visceral experience
of doing so. The culture of a polling station fosters an order, disciplined queues, respect for the ordinary person of
whatever social background, efficiency of process and trust in the system – all of which can be a rare in Indian public
life. In addition, at a polling station, the only relevant identity of a person is his Electoral Photo Identity Card that
records nothing apart from the most basic information. As people arrive to vote, they have to queue in the order in
which they arrive and no preferences are made on the basis of wealth, status or any other social marker. For those who
are routinely discriminated against on the basis of caste, colour, class and religion in everyday life, this extraordinary
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glimpse of egalitarianism is valued. Further, people often pointed out that the knowledge that each vote is of equal to
any other heightens its importance even more. By turning up to vote, by queuing patiently at polling stations, by
punishing arrogance and complacency in their choice of leader, they thereby consider themselves as participating in
the most basic act of democracy that enshrines political equality and popular sovereignty.
India’s record on democracy can thus be fairly summarized as reasonably consistent. Her institutions have been mostly
robust though they have also increasingly come under threat by personal greed and the collusion of powerful actors
who seek to undermine the principles and robustness of these institutions. Yet, at the same time, in the wider society,
ideas about democratic participation, the role of the electorate and the importance of a shared duty of citizenship are
also vigorously articulated. In the end, it will be the challenges posed by this latter demotic politics of hope,
mobilization, participation and justice that will need to overcome the demonic world of greed and power.
India’s experiments of democracy have taught the world a number of lessons: the successful workings of coalition
governments, the unpredictability of voter behaviour, the importance of an autonomous and responsive electoral
commission, and above all the possibility of political sophistication among the poorest people. It remains to be seen
whether India can redistribute the fruits of its economic growth to the wider society and thereby serve as a unique
model among the rising powers of combining economic democracy with a robust political one.
2. Terrorism and world peace
Since the terrorist attacks in New York on 11 September 2001 and those that came in their aftermath in London,
Madrid, Bali, Mumbai, Nigeria, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan and elsewhere, terrorism has been in the focus of a worldwide
public debate. The debate has involved a wide array of participants, from political scientists and historians to
politicians and common citizens.
Yet there is little agreement on any of the main questions raised by terrorism, whether conceptual, moral, or political.
The debate has often been hampered by lack of clarity about what its subject is: Who is a terrorist? What is terrorism?
Terrorism is the random use of violence to achieve political ends that inflicts damage on innocent people and property,
creating terror or fear in them. An individual who commits violent acts to seek public attention for his cause—which
he thinks justifies his violence—is a terrorist.
The terrorists aim at focusing attention on their problem by destroying innocent people besides property. They see
themselves as engaged in an 'unofficial war' with political objectives and identify their cause with the fight for human
rights. To the terrorists themselves, of course, the means they adopt are justified. However, we would have to consider
the causes and the gamut of responses to terrorism before we can agree or disagree with the terrorists' view.
Today, almost every country faces the threat of terrorism in varying degrees. Why has terrorism become so popular a
means for achieving ends? Political, economic and social causes can be identified for the mushrooming of terrorist
groups.
Political desires and ambitions conflicting with those of the government are expressed through violence so that they
would be better heard. Growing political unrest and dissatisfaction erupts in the form of terrorist activities as the state
itself is seen as the seat of sin and corruption. The constitutions of most democracies provide for equal rights but often
these may be denied to one group. Some statutes of the law may not be rightly enforced or enforced at all.
Criminalization of institutions leads to a general sense of discontent. To a large extent, it is such a scenario which is
responsible for the deterioration of the social and economic conditions. The formation of terrorist groups then is
reactionary. Aiming to revamp the social set-up or improve the economic situation of 'common people', terrorist
groups seek political goals through the means of violence. It is again the wish to improve one's lot socially and
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economically, that drives ordinary persons to terrorism. This is much the case in India.
Mistreatment in homes has also been identified as an important factor. Joining terrorist groups is a way to express
individual grievances and private rage. A terrorist, once enrolled in a group, is committed irrevocably to the 'cause',
and is held by threats of the group itself. A genuine cause can, indeed, be identified with a terrorist group or its
members but it is rather rare. In such cases, it is a blind, irrational devotion to the cause that spurs terrorists on so that
they not only commit violent acts but are even zealous to justify the extreme violence. They may also find in violence
an adequate means to express private anger.
Terrorists often assume the garb of 'urban guerillas', 'resistance fighters', 'revolutionaries' and others. Terrorists,
however, unlike the guerilla fighter, do not attempt to totally destroy the enemy regime. They do not seek to demolish
political authority for the sake of creating an improved authority in its place; their activities are not outcome-oriented.
Terrorist activities overlook conventional distinc-tions of person and place while guerilla warfare is genuine warfare
against a stated enemy.
The randomly executed violence of terrorists puts them in a category different from that of assassins. Political assassins
single out as their victims those individuals who are felt to be accountable for alleged misdeeds or for their
participation in unjust institutions. While the assassin attempts to remove one office-holder so that he would be
replaced by another pursuing more acceptable policies, the terrorist seeks simply to destroy. Terrorist acts may
sometimes include assassinations of a person or persons but all assassinations cannot be regarded as terrorist activities.
Terrorist, more often than not, proclaim their killings while the subversive postpones self-identification and bids for
recognition. Sometimes, acts of kidnapping and hijacking by a person or persons can be mistaken for terrorist acts. The
distinguishing feature is that such person or persons usually demand money as ransom and do not identify themselves
with any terrorist group or cause. On the other hand, all these activities may be employed by terrorists for their own
ends.
Though the goal of coercion cannot be built into the definition of terrorism, the violence it employs is coercive in
nature. The terrorist resorts to sudden violence in order to achieve political ends but this in itself cannot be enough to
condemn terrorism, for all violence is not necessarily unjustifiable. A list of situations that might be held to justify
violence would include cases of self-defence, prevention of threats to one's own life or others' lives, and protection of
individual or collective right to liberty. Violence cannot be condemned outright even if it is a type of force. Force is a
common feature of the political system itself and is used by the legitimate authorities to ensure payment of taxes,
control of crime, and for upholding law and order. But terrorist violence is deplorable mainly because it is randomly
executed and is directed most often at the innocent or ordinary people who are totally unprepared for it.
The terrorists' focus on ordinary people is based on the fact that they are easy to reach and are susceptible to the deadly
force. Terrorists hope that the 'spared' innocents would recognise that they might have been the victims of the
terrorists' ambitions and so take them seriously. The terrorists ensure greater attention to their problems by targeting
the innocent. Terrorist acts are justified by pointing out that the victims are not really innocent, but are threats due to
their financial or electoral support to an institution or the state. Terrorists even hold the innocents punishable for their
crime of ignoring the terrorists and their cause. But such arguments cannot be taken seriously; any individual has the
liberty to extend support or refrain from extending support to any group or institution as long as he or she does not
intrude upon others' rights and does not act for the deterioration of the society or his country.
The killing of ordinary people raises arguments that identify destruction in wars as similar to that which results from
terrorist activities. The comparison is weak, for whereas wars are fought for the sake of protecting the populace at
large, terrorist activities serve the interests of a specific group only.
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Once we denounce the kind of violence adopted by the terrorists, there is not much of a case for defending their acts on
grounds of morality. Terrorist violence shakes the framework of morality because it amounts to doing things to people
without warning, mercy or recourse. It takes away the rights of the people. The members of a terrorist group may be
genuinely suffering because of the denial of certain rights by the government or the state. Ironically, they in their turn
think nothing of exercising their rights by intruding upon those of the ordinary people.
The problem posed by terrorism is that of achieving effective respect for the basic human rights of the members of one
group by the violation of the basic human rights of another group. Strictly speaking, rights should not be judged in
comparative terms. No single right can be suppressed for the sake of another. But where rights conflict, their priority
has to be taken into consideration; some rights have to be seen as more basic than others. So, it would be more
imperative to stop violations of the black population's right to freedom and right to live in South Africa than to prevent
the violation of the whites' property rights. Even if one sympathizes with a terrorist's 'cause', the sympathy is diluted
on the realisation that the terrorist does not respect another human being's rights as a human being. The terrorist's
violation of the people's right to live is the most serious violation because it attacks the fundamental right of all—the
right to live. This right has to be safeguarded even if it means denying the terrorist one of the comparatively less
important rights, like the right to expression.
There are rare instances when terrorism can be condoned and hence justified. When the state itself resorts to terrorist
activity in the first place, then the terrorists' activities can be justified as a form of `counter-terrorism'. But again, it is
difficult to justify the killing of ordinary people who are as much victims of the terrorist state as the terrorist groups.
Terrorism provides legitimisation for political repression and hence cannot be defended. Even on the plane of practical
reality, it is difficult to justify terrorism as it rarely succeeds in achieving its objective. It is argued that terrorist
activities do succeed in acquiring the release of convicted and imprisoned colleagues and in influencing the behaviour
of the public. But we can effectively argue against the "success claim" of terrorist activities by pointing out that their
basic purpose remains unfulfilled, i.e., their political goals is hardly achieved. There is no indication that damage to
persons or property does indeed advance political ends. Terrorists themselves are not unaware that they cannot topple
regimes by harming the innocents.
Some people extend the view that the terrorist's aim is to express support for political outcomes and not really to bring
about those outcomes. And so, it is said sometimes no group takes the responsibility for an attack, leave alone present
a list of political demands. The terrorists claim to be content that their activity is expressive in nature. But even if it is
so, it does not succeed, for it is viewed more as an act of horror that creates fear and terror in the people than as the
expression of a legitimate cause with which the masses can sympathise. The expressive activity is possible only at a
very heavy price—the loss of human lives. When the dissatisfied people have other channels like negotiated
settlement, non-violent civil disobedience, etc., open to them for expression, their recourse to terrorism cannot be
condoned. Nor is it acceptable that they attempt to justify the desirability of their cause by relating it to elimination of
injustice.
Should resort to non-violent activities to achieve their goals
Terrorist groups can pursue objectives like influencing public opinion or symbolically bringing down their enemies by
using violence, as already discussed. But it is also possible to reach their goals by using non-violent methods. Brutal
tactics and reliance on violent strategies is not sustainable—eventually support would wane if violence continued,
especially if the fighting took place among the civilian population. Frequently violence is considered morally
reprehensible by the international community and an illegitimate way to reach ones goals, especially when the
organization does not have the backing of a recognized nation-state which could be considered a legitimizing force.
Scholars have stated, “Although terrorism may cause immediate behavioral change, it is not advisable for insurgents
because it does not result in wholehearted long-run ideological support.” In this way non-violence is more efficient
and effective than violence because it is sustainable.
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It is important to note that non-violent tactics mainly work through information dissemination and change in public
opinion. This can be done through forming political parties or the use of a number of international organizations—
governmental and non- governmental — for aid in publicity, equipment, logistics or legal representation. Many
organizations, such as Hamas or Hizballah, choose to gain public favor through welfare programs. These have proven
to be very effective in influencing public opinion, especially when the target population is impoverished or facing a
high amount of unemployment or lack of educational opportunities.
Broader social movements can change public opinion through non-violent methods by bringing information to the
local and international population. At the community level the people may be made aware of governmental
corruption. Once they are aware, they can then be convinced to rise up against that regime through peaceful protests
or by voting differently. At an international level, media attention is captured through violent acts, but this may have a
negative effect on the reporting—the international community may not support the terrorist organization if it does not
understand the cause they are fighting for. So by using non-violent political methods, such as forming a political party
or working through a non-governmental organization, the group may influence the public by giving them information
about their cause—convincing them of the importance of change and the significance of their end goals.
Similarly, political parties or peaceful social movements can be used by organizations seeking not just a change in
public opinion, but a change in the regime. If they form a political group, campaigning for their cause and gaining
favor among the people, then they can legitimately change the regime with the added support of the local population
and the international community. They are also more likely to be recognized by international intergovernmental
organizations like the United Nations if they come to power peacefully.
Social movements can bring a terrorist organization closer to its goals by mobilizing support for political
transformation. If the regime transformation leads to a new government with a new policy on terrorism that leaves it
open to negotiations, a dialogue may be created between the government and the terrorist organization. If this took
place, then the terrorist organization would have more freedom to gather public support for their cause through tactics
like creating welfare or education programs. The organization would be able to gather publicity for their cause through
national media and provide information to the population that will decide the next election, if the new regime is
democratic. This will work to influence the decisions of the government through the changing opinions of the people.
It is important to note, however, the importance of freedom of speech and press within the new regime. Many goals an
organization is attempting to achieve cannot be reached non-violently unless they have the means to do so—to
disseminate information on a country or world-wide scale. This is perhaps why regime change may be vital to whether
a terrorist organization uses non-violent methods. The political and social atmosphere must be open enough to allow
them to make a political party and campaign or to hold peaceful demonstrations or protests.
When faced with another group contesting power among the same population, financial support and recruiting can be
difficult. But gaining support and financial backing can be easier if non-violent methods are used. The group would
not be ostracized by the international community, so it would also be easier to spread their message or inform the
world of their cause without having the taint of the label “terrorist.” Organization leaders could negotiate with their
counterparts in the country they wish to change, or even in the international community when the organization is
political, rather than terrorist.
But, terrorists in their quest for 'rights' think little of destroying the rights of others. However deeply we study the
causes of the growth of terrorism, even understand the motivation behind it, we cannot justify it. Even if we leave
aside the moral issues involved, and look at it from the 'practical' point of view, we fail to find a justification, for it
hardly ever accomplishes its objectives; it merely wreaks futile destruction. The world should know that the goal of
revenge can also be realized through non-violent methods.
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PART TWENTY FIVE| ASSIGNMENT QUESTIONS
PART TWENTY FIVE | ASSIGNMENT QUESTIONS
PART I: Contains multiple choice questions (MCQs) on current affairs for General Studies Preliminary (Paper I).
c) the last Nawab of Junagadh.

(Q1). International Day for Monuments and Sites is d) the last Nawab of Awadh.
held every year on
a) 18th February (Q6). 2015 marked the 100th anniversary of Gallipoli
b) 18th March campaign. Gallipoli is situated in
c) 18th April a) Greece
d) 18th May b) Armenia
c) Turkey
(Q2). Consider the following statements: d) Cyprus
(1) The International Council on Monuments and
Sites (ICOMOS) is a professional association (Q7). Dardanelles Strait connects
that works for the conservation and protection a) Sea of Marmara and Aegean Sea
of cultural heritage places around the world. b) Sea of Marmara and Tyrrhenian Sea
(2) ICOMOS was founded in 1965, and offers c) Sea of Marmara and Black Sea
advice to UNESCO on World Heritage Sites. d) Adriatic Sea and Tyrrhenian Sea
Which of the statements given above is/are
correct? (Q8). Lampedusa is the southernmost point of
a) Only 1 a) Greece
b) Only 2 b) Turkey
c) Both 1 and 2 c) Italy
d) Neither 1 nor 2 d) Cyprus
(Q3). Consider the following statements: (Q9). Consider the following statements:
(1) ‘Water, Peace, and War: Confronting the (1) Sangeeta Bhatia at the Massachusetts Institute
Global Water Crisis’ is a book by Naom of Technology is the recipient of the 2015
Chomsky. Heinz Award.
(2) ‘Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary’ is (2) Professor Susanta Lahiri, Chemical Sciences
a biography of Sophia Duleep Singh by Anita Division, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics,
Anand. Kolkata, received the Hevesy Medal Award
Which of the statements given above is/are 2015.
correct? Which of the statements given above is/are
a) Only 1 correct?
b) Only 2 a) Only 1
c) Both 1 and 2 b) Only 2
d) Neither 1 nor 2 c) Both 1 and 2
d) Neither 1 nor 2
(Q4). Alan Turing was
a) a code breaking genius of World War II. (Q10). Jnanpith Award 2014 has been awarded to
b) a chess grandmaster from Russia. a) Kedarnath Singh
c) a golfer from U.S.A. b) Bhalchandra Nemade
d) the famous biologist from U.K. c) Ravuri Bharadwaja
d) Pratibha Ray
(Q5). Wajid Ali Shah was
a) the last Nawab of Bengal. (Q11). Incumbent Chief Election Commissioner (CEC)
b) the last Nawab of Hyderabad. of India is
92
a) Syed Nasim Ahmad Zaidi d) International Tennis Federation (ITF)

b) H.S. Brahma
c) V. S. Sampath (Q19). The Asian African Conference in 2015 was held
d) S. Y. Quraishi in
a) Kuala Lumpur
(Q12). Danzig Trilogy- “The Tin Drum “Cat and b) Jakarta
Mouse” and “Dog Years” is associated with c) Bangkok
a) Nadine Gordimer d) Hanoi
b) J. M. Coetzee
c) V. S. Naipaul (Q20). Which one of the following countries is not the
d) Gunter Grass member of Arctic Council?
a) Finland
(Q13). International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) b) Denmark
was set up in 1957 as world’s c) Sweden
a) “Atoms for Peace” organization d) Latvia
b) “Nuclear for Peace” organization
c) “Science for Peace” organization (Q21). Arctic Council was established in 1996 by
d) None of the above a) Montreal Declaration
b) Moscow Declaration
(Q14). International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) c) Ottawa Declaration
secretariat is located in d) Stockholm Declaration
a) Paris
b) Rome (Q22). Consider the following statements:
c) Copenhagen (1) The AQI is a global standard. It takes multiple
d) Vienna data on pollution already available with the
country’s Central Pollution Control Board and
(Q15). Incumbent Director General of International presents them as a colour-coded scale with six
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is levels.
a) Christine Lagarde (2) Dark green, the first level, indicates good air
b) Yukiya Amano quality while maroon at the other end indicates
c) Sigvard Eklund severe pollution.
d) Hans Blix Which of the statements given above is/are
correct?
(Q16). Current World Heavyweight Boxing champion a) Only 1
is b) Only 2
a) Wladimir Klitschko c) Both 1 and 2
b) Floyd Mayweather d) Neither 1 nor 2
c) James Buster Douglas
d) Riddick Bowe (Q23). Consider the following statements:
(1) Herpetology is the branch of zoology
(Q17). Jordan Spieth is associated with concerned with the study of amphibians and
a) Formula One reptiles.
b) Basketball (2) Batrachology is a further subdiscipline of
c) Golf herpetology concerned with the study of
d) Rugby amphibians alone.
Which of the statements given above is/are
(Q18). Thomas Bach is head of correct?
a) International Olympic Association (IOA) a) Only 1
b) FIFA b) Only 2
c) International Boxing Association (IBF) c) Both 1 and 2
93
d) Neither 1 nor 2 a) Only 1

b) Only 2
(Q24). Gecko is a type of c) Both 1 and 2
a) Spider d) Neither 1 nor 2
b) Lizard
c) Snake (Q29). Consider the following statements:
d) Frog (1) The Reserve Bank of India revised the priority
sector lending norms. The new norms require
(Q25). Match the following: banks to ensure that 8% of their loans go to
List I (Tiger Reserves) small and marginal farmers.
A. Guru Ghasidas (2) Renewable energy and social infrastructure are
B. Ratapani now classified as priority sector.
C. Sunabeda Which of the statements given above is/are
correct?
List II (States) a) Only 1
1. Madhya Pradesh b) Only 2
2. Chhattisgarh c) Both 1 and 2
3. Orissa d) Neither 1 nor 2
(a) A-3, B-2, C-1 (Q30). Which one of the following helicopters is
(b) A-2, B-3, C-1 delivered by India to Afghanistan recently?
(c) A-2, B-1, C-3 a) Chinook
(d) A-1, B-2, C-3 b) Cheetal
c) Chetak
(Q26). India is purchasing Rafale fighter jets from d) Cheetah
a) Israel
b) Russia (Q31). Consider the following statements:
c) France (1) The Mausam project is aimed at re-establishing
d) U.K. India's ancient maritime routes with its ancient
trade partners in and along the Indian Ocean.
(Q27). Indian Navy’s new stealth destroyer, designed (2) The "Spice Route of India" refers to the ancient
indigenously is known as network of sea routes that linked Asia, Europe
a) INS Vishakhapatnam and Africa.
b) INS Kolkata Which of the statements given above is/are
c) INS Kozhikode correct?
d) INS Saurashtra a) Only 1
b) Only 2
(Q28). Consider the following statements: c) Both 1 and 2
(1) A private member's bill in a parliamentary d) Neither 1 nor 2
system of government is a bill (proposed law)
introduced into a legislature by a legislator (Q32). China—Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)
who is not acting on behalf of the executive connects
branch. a) Kashgar and Peshawar
(2) The designation "private member's bill" is used b) Kashgar and Quetta
in most Westminster System jurisdictions, in c) Kashgar and Karachi
which a "private member" is any member of d) Kashgar and Gwadar
parliament (MP) who is not a member of the
cabinet (executive). (Q33). Which one of the following countries is not a
Which of the statements given above is/are neighbour of Mongolia?
correct? a) Russia
94
b) Kyrgyzstan a) Malaysia
c) Kazakhstan b) Thailand
d) China c) Indonesia
d) Vietnam
(Q34). Arrange the following countries from east to
west:
a) Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey
b) Turkmenistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey
c) Turkey, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkmenistan
d) Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan
(Q35). Mohammed Mursi who was jailed recently

was the President of
a) Palestine
b) Egypt
c) Tunisia
d) Libya
(Q36). 19th Constitutional Amendment by Sri Lanka

deals with
a) reduction in the term of President from six to
five years.
b) increase in the term of President from five to
six years.
c) reduction in the term of President from five to
four years.
d) increase in the term of President from five to
six years.
(Q37). Thomisidae is a family of

a) Crabs
b) Spiders
c) Turtles
d) Frogs
(Q38). The study of periodic life cycle events of plants

influenced by variations of climate is called
a) Phenology
b) Phrenology
c) Phonology
d) Cherology
(Q39). Which one of the following newspapers has

won 2015 Pulitzer Prize?
a) The Guardian
b) The Wall Street Journal
c) The Times
d) The New York Times
(Q40). Joko Widodo is the President of
95
PART II: A bunch of 15 relevant questions on various themes of General Studies (Main) Examination have been put in
this issue for practice.
GENERAL STUDIES (MAIN) PAPERS
Answer the following in 200 words:
Modern India
Q1. In what way did Mahatma Gandhi transform the nature of the national movement?
Q2. Why did the salt laws become an important issue of struggle?
Q3. Why was the charkha chosen as a symbol of nationalism?
Q4. How the First World War helped in the growth of the National Movement in India?
Q5. Why Gandhiji decided to withdraw the Non-Cooperation Movement?
Polity
Q1. Fundamental Rights place some limits on the authority of the state. Explain with examples.
Q2. Indian secularism focuses on more than the religion-state separation. Explain.
Q3. What was the task of the States Reorganisation Commission? What was its most salient recommendation?
Q4. “In coalition politics, political parties are not aligning or realigning on the basis of ideology.” What arguments
would you put forward to support or oppose this statement?
Q5. Regional demands from different parts of India exemplify the principle of unity with diversity. Do you agree?
Give reasons.
Geography
Q1. Are physical and chemical weathering processes independent of each other? If not, why? Explain with examples.
Q2. How do the latitude and the tilt in the axis of rotation of the earth affect the amount of radiation received at the
earth’s surface?
Q3. Why does tropical cyclone originate over the seas? In which part of the tropical cyclone do torrential rains and
high velocity winds blow and why?
Q4. Examine the factors that influence the temperature distribution of the oceans.
Q5. What is an ecological system? Identify the major types of ecosystems in the world.
96
PART TWENTY SIX| SOLUTIONS
PART TWENTY SIX| SOLUTIONS
Solutions are given hereunder for the multiple choice questions on current affairs given in May, 2015 issue of ‘FOCUS’
magazine.
(Q1)- Answer (b) Bor Wildlife Sanctuary is a wildlife sanctuary

(Q2)- Answer (c) located near Hingi in Wardha district in the
(Q3)- Answer (c) Indian State of Maharashtra. It is notable that Bor
(Q4)- Answer (d) Sanctuary and some adjacent protected areas will
(Q5)- Answer (b) be merged with Pench Tiger Reserve as a satellite
(Q6)- Answer (d) core area.
(Q7)- Answer (a) (Q36)- Answer (b)
(Q8)- Answer (c) (Q37)- Answer (c)
(Q9)- Answer (c) Rajasthan state legislative assembly passed the
(Q10)- Answer (d) Panchayati Raj Amendment Bill 2015 fixing
(Q11)- Answer (b) minimum educational qualifications for
(Q12)- Answer (b) contesting panchayat polls in the state. With this
(Q13)- Answer (a) Rajasthan becomes the only state to have
(Q14)- Answer (b) mandatory minimum educational qualifications
(Q15)- Answer (a) to contest for panchayat polls.
(Q16)- Answer (b) (Q38)- Answer (d)
(Q17)- Answer (c) (Q39)- Answer(b)
(Q18)- Answer (c) Operation Decisive Storm is the international
(Q19)- Answer (d) war against Houthi militias in Yemen. The
(Q20)- Answer (c) international alliance led by Saudi Arabia is
(Q21)- Answer (c) currently fighting against the Houthi militants in
(Q22)- Answer (c) Yemen.
(Q23)- Answer (a) (Q40)- Answer (c)
(Q24)- Answer (d) The finance secretary is the chairman of the
(Q25)- Answer (d) Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB).
(Q26)- Answer (b) FIPB is a single window clearance system
(Q27)- Answer (a) proposal on foreign direct investments.
(Q28)- Answer (d)
Bhutan was the first to recognise Bangladesh as
an independent nation, Bangladesh’s Foreign
office said, putting an end to decades old
speculation on the issue.
Sheikh Hasina is a leader of Awami League and
Begum Khaleda Zia is a leader of Bangladesh
National Party.
(Q29)- Answer (d)
(Q30)- Answer (c)
(Q31)- Answer (c)
(Q32)- Answer (b)
The Ebola fighters have been named as TIME
magazine’s person of the year 2014.
(Q33)- Answer (c)
(Q34)- Answer (a)
(Q35)- Answer (b)
97
PART TWENTY SEVEN| FOCUS SPECIAL
WOMEN AND LAND- WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
This article caters to the ‘Role of Women’ and ‘Social Justice’ portions of General Studies-Paper I & II and also for
Essay Paper in UPSC Main Examination
“If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.” ― Plato
Women’s access to, use of and control over land and other productive resources are essential to ensuring their right to
equality and to an adequate standard of living. These resources help to ensure that women are able to provide for their
day-to-day needs and those of their families, and to weather some of life’s most difficult challenges. Women’s access to
land and other productive resources is integrally linked to discussions around food security, sustainable economic
development, as well as the pressing fight against gender-based violence.
Land demands particular attention. Land is a key to a life with dignity and a basis for entitlements which can ensure
an adequate standard of living and economic independence and, therefore, personal empowerment. Regardless of
whether a woman lives in a rural or urban setting, land rights also have major implications for the achievement and
enjoyment of her human rights such as the right to equality, food, health, housing, water, work and education.
But, why is it that even after enshrining the ideals of women equality all throughout post-independence history have
we not able achieve that in India?
One of the foremost reasons is the patriarchial mindset of Indian society which identifies women’s role with narrow
outlook. The biggest manifestation of such outlook is the continuous land deprivation that women are subjected to.
According to the estimates, about 90% of agricultural land is owned by men. Similarly, in urban regions, majority of
property is owned by male counterparts where even the most liberal legislations related to property rights have not
been able to make a difference. Families prefer to name their property and land in the name of male members and
somehow get around with the laws.
So, why is it that Indian society still prefers to have male as the owners of land property?
The Indian society is, basically, more tied towards the theory of females being temporary members of the family, and
once married would go to other family. This further leads to the mindset where sons are seen as the caretakers of
parents during their old age. Such beliefs are not restricted only to the lower sections but continue to persist in the
educated and advanced most sections of the society. On the contrary, it is lower sections where women enjoy more
liberty in terms of working and ownership. However, such instances are not a norm. The other reasons for such
deprivation is stereotyping that women’s role is being confined to that of domestic and household works. In rural
areas there is an emotional attachment to land and ancestral property. Families want these to remain in the family thus
prefer to name it to male members.
The persisting land deprivation comes with its own set of perils. In rural areas agricultural land belonging to male
members disempower women. The Indian government provides bank accounts and credit facilities in the name of land
holders. This …… effectively means women are deprived of financial inclusion. Even if government directly transfers
benefits it would be transferred to male members. Women would continue to be subjected to discrimination. This
results in lesser say of women in decision making. It is proved that women are better managers of household income.
They would judiciously spend in important works and save the rest. Such instances develop a financial cushion for the
household. On the contrary male counterparts may spend in other tasks such as gambling and drinking. Drinking
98
leads to deterioration of health and increase in domestic violence. Children are deprived of a better life and there are
no savings fro financial emergencies. Drinking is also related to other forms of crimes such as rapes and murders.
Additionally, when male members migrate to other places, it is the women who work on fields. However due to low
level of financial awareness and absence of land titles they are not able to enjoy government welfare measures such as
access to markets, subsidized inputs and loans as these are linked to landownership. Also, such deprivation makes
them vulnerable to opportunists who may try to grab their land.
Land deprivation of women brings with it plethora of problems in urban areas also. The lower sections of people
reside in slums and generally do not own any land. Even if they do own due to government housing allocations it is in
the name of male counterparts. In the upper and middle urban sections conditions are slightly different. They have
higher levels of education and income; women may be working in well established enterprises and are more aware of
their rights. The urban middle class is most developed in this sense where women share property and have higher
societal status. Unfortunately, even in this section land and property deprivation of women is prevalent.
Conspicuously, it is the rich business class where women are deprived the most. Preference to son is given in the
continuity of business. Thus absence of women ownership leads to lesser role of women in decision making.
So the question arises how can property ownership of women be beneficial?
The ownership of land by women has multi-dimensional advantages. It can empower women and increase their
decision making power in family matters. They can have more control over family income. This can reduce domestic
violence, greater savings for the family, food security, nutritious diet; better health indicators and hence better
productivity. Also it would allow women to have bank accounts in their name thus welfare subsidies and other
transfers would be directed to them. This will lead to financial literary and awareness to their entitlements. More
women would come to the forefront on decisions regarding economic growth and development.
Apart from it, empowerment at home would lead to societal changes and women’s status would be upgraded. They
would be seen in new roles out of their homes. More labour market participation would lead to larger workforce,
hence more production thus higher economic growth. Women are also more sensible to issues such as child marriage,
dowry, human trafficking and women security. Their greater role in the society would bring new ideas to solve these
problems. A larger vision of such empowerment would lead to population control, reducing infant and maternal
mortality, controlling decrease in child sex ratio and better literacy levels. Hence women ownership of property should
not be looked narrowly; it has across the field advantages.
So, what are the prominent steps?
The government on its part has recognized the problem and has been taking steps to increase women’s ownership. The
Hindu Succession Act, 1956 was a breakthrough in this regard. An amendment to this Act in 2005 took the progressive
step of making daughters coparceners (a person who shares equally with others in the inheritance of an undivided
estate or in the rights to it) at par with sons, such that they receive an equal birthright to a share in the natal family’s
ancestral property, i.e., parents’ property.
But, there are many hindrances in its implementation. They are:
1) Hindu social practice allows the parents to absolve themselves from honouring the daughter’s inheritance
right at par with their sons with the alibi of paying dowry at the time of the daughter’s marriage. Dowry as a
substitute of land and other properties in inheritance is one key way the patriarchal beliefs are deeply
anchored in social practice, denying the women social and economic equality within the family. The practice of
dowry is so entrenched that women themselves do not feel that it is their moral or legal right to claim
inheritance rights in their parents’ property.
99
2) Women’s understandings of the current inheritance law and of the claim processes are clearly rudimentary
and fragmented. Land has historically been a male domain and it continues to be so.
3) Even when the women do receive land in inheritance, it is invariably much less than an equal share. Women
are likely to get more land as widows than as daughters.
4) The people and institutions that are mandated to enforce the law are prisoners of the same practice.
5) Even when women do get land in their own names by inheritance, through dowry, or through purchase by
their marital family in their name (this is often done to take advantage of reduced stamp duty on property
purchased in a woman’s name), the ownership by women is only notional. The women are seldom in
possession of the land, title and the Record of Rights (ROR) that make it a secured tenure. The decision making
power on use of the land remains firmly in the grip of men – father, brother, husband or father-in-law.
6) There is a lack of political will on the part of the State governments to implement the law.
7) Additionally, there are informal barriers as well, in the form of social and cultural barriers. Women are
generally forced to give up their share of their parents’ property in favor of their brothers for various reasons,
such as the fear of breaking familial bonds.
Several other legal reforms and positive steps have taken place since independence in India on equality of women
when it comes to property yet equal status remains elusive. The theoretical reforms so far have not been adequate to
give women right to property on the same footing and terms as to men. It varies with states, region and religion.
Though law has given equal rights it’s the practices, customs and norms that stand as an obstacle in giving due
recognition to the women.
Given these strong social customs that prevent women from getting a share of their parents’ land, robust support
systems are needed to help women stand up for their rights and begin to claim the land that is rightfully theirs. The
government of India has started this by establishing women’s self-help groups (the Mahila Samakhya Program) in
twelve states. These village-level groups support women dealing with a variety of challenges, including alcoholic
husbands, domestic violence, unfair labor practices, and disrespected property rights. It is in everyone’s interest that
women be recognized as the farmers that they are. Their continued lack of assets contributes to not only their
individual vulnerability, but also country’s stubborn poverty.
To some extent, women themselves are responsible for their present condition. They relinquish their rights as
daughters, wives, daughters-in-law, mothers or sisters. This further gets accentuated when they lose the security of the
family, as single women, divorced or separated or widow. Social awareness of the rights under law, attitudes of the
individual and determination to bring change can ensure social justice and equality in our society and can improve the
status of the women.
To quote Justice Sujata V. Manohar of Supreme Court of India "It is not easy to eradicate deep seated cultural values or
to alter traditions that perpetuate discrimination. It is fashionable to denigrate the role of law reform in bringing about
social change. Obviously law, by itself, may not be enough. Law is only an instrument. It must be effectively used. And
this effective use depends as much on a supportive judiciary as on the social will to change. An active social reform
movement, if accompanied by legal reform, properly enforced, can transform society."
“The thing women have yet to learn is nobody gives you power. You just take it.” ~Roseanne Barr
100

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FOCUS

1. Women’s empowerment: challenges and prospects.

• Word limit: Desired word limit is 1500-2000 words.

PART ONE | INTERNATIONAL 8

PART TWO | INDIA AND THE WORLD 16

PART THREE | NATIONAL NEWS 19

PART FOUR | ECONOMY 22

PART FIVE | POLITY AND GOVERNANCE 27

PART SIX | SOCIAL ISSUES 28

PART SEVEN| SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 29

PART EIGHT| ENERGY 31

PART NINE| DEFENCE 32

2. Pinaka Mark-II rocket successfully test-fired 32

PART TEN| ENVIRONMENT, ECOLOGY & BIODIVERSITY 33

PART ELEVEN| HEALTH 38

PART TWELVE| COMMITTEES AND REPORTS 39

PART THIRTEEN| CONFERENCES AND SUMMITS 40

PART FOURTEEN| SPORTS 41

PART FIFTEEN| ORGANISATION IN NEWS 42

PART SIXTEEN| PERSONALITIES 43

PART SEVENTEEN| AWARDS 46

PART EIGHTEEN| PLACES 48

PART NINETEEN| HISTORY AND CULTURE 49

PART TWENTY| BOOKS AND AUTHORS 51

PART TWENTY ONE| MISCELLANEOUS 52

PART TWENTY TWO| EDITORIALS 53

PART TWENTY THREE| ARTICLES 78

PART TWENTY FOUR| ESSAY 85

PART TWENTY FIVE | ASSIGNMENT QUESTIONS 92

PART ONE | INTERNATIONAL

1. Greece’s Debt Crisis

WHAT'S THE LATEST?

WHY DO GREECE AND EUROPE DISAGREE?

HOW DID GREECE GET TO THIS POINT?

IF GREECE HAS RECEIVED BILLIONS IN BAILOUTS, WHY IS THERE STILL A CRISIS?

IF THINGS ARE SO BAD, SHOULDN'T GREECE JUST LEAVE THE EUROZONE?

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

RELATED INFORMATION: EUROZONE

2. Hong Kong vetoes China-backed electoral reform proposal

3. Nepal parties reach long-awaited deal

WHAT'S BEEN AGREED?

WHAT'S THE TIMETABLE?

WHAT ARE THE STUMBLING BLOCKS?

WILL IT REALLY HAPPEN?

4. Ruling party loses majority in Turkey elections

5. Vatican signs first treaty with 'State of Palestine', Israel angered

INCREASINGLY PROACTIVE ROLE

6. Myanmar military retains veto after constitution change vote fails

A LIMIT ON DEMOCRATIC REFORMS

7. Obamacare subsidies preserved in US Supreme Court ruling

8. Sri Lankan Cabinet increases Parliament size to 237

A COMBINATION OF FPTP AND PR

PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION (PR)

9. Sri Lanka’s President dissolves Parliament

10. Africa creates TFTA - Cape to Cairo free-trade zone

11. Palestinian unity government resigns

PART TWO | INDIA AND THE WORLD

1. India and Bangladesh sign deals

2. Kolkata-Agartala bus service via Dhaka

3. BCIM economic corridor project

4. India signs motor vehicle pact with three nations

5. Army hits militants across the Myanmar border

RELATED INFORMATION: NSCN (K)