Current Affairs for IAS Exams

Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 15 October 2016

The government asked the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) and certain other Muslim organisations to reconsider their decision to boycott the Law Commission’s consultation on triple talaq and the Uniform Civil Code (UCC).
At the same time it sharply criticised the AIMPLB for “targeting” Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the issue.
Mr. Naidu asked that the case against triple talaq now under way in the Supreme Court not be mixed up with the efforts of the Law Commission for a UCC.
The AIMPLB, while announcing the decision to boycott the Law Commission’s consultation, had criticised the Modi government for allegedly trying to distract attention from its “failures” by raising the issue of UCC.
Minister for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said the question of a UCC or even invalidation of triple talaq were not matters pertaining to faith but rituals and customs.

The Pakistan Army confirmed for the first time that sepoy Chandu Babulal Chavan, who went missing near the Line of Control (LoC) on September 29, is in its custody.
Though India said the sepoy “inadvertently” crossed the LoC, Pakistan had so far refused to acknowledge his presence.
The Pakistani side accepted it during a conversation between the Directors-General of Military Operations over the established hotline.
The 22-year-old sepoy crossed the LoC by accident after the surgical strikes by the Indian Army.
He was posted in Mendhar district of Jammu and Kashmir near the LoC and had strayed across the border at Jhandroot, west of Mankote village in Poonch district, and was captured by the Pakistan Army.

Israel suspended cooperation with Unesco, a day after the U.N. cultural agency adopted a draft resolution that Israel says denies the deep, historic Jewish connection to holy sites in Jerusalem.
Unesco’s draft resolution, uses only the Islamic name for a hilltop compound sacred to both Jews and Muslims, which includes the Western Wall, a remnant of the biblical temple and the holiest site where Jews can pray.
The validated resolution is expected early next week, but the wording is unlikely to change.
Israelis and many Jews around the world viewed it as the latest example of an ingrained anti-Israel bias at the UN, where Israel and its allies are far outnumbered by Arab countries and their supporters.
Israel captured East Jerusalem, with sites holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims, in the 1967 war. Palestinians claim the territory as part of their future state, and its fate is a central dispute
Jews refer to the hilltop compound in Jerusalem’s Old City as the Temple Mount, site of the two Jewish biblical temples.
Muslims refer to it as the Noble Sanctuary, and it is home to the Al-Aqsa mosque and the golden Dome of the Rock. It is the holiest site in Judaism and the third holiest in Islam, after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.