Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 31 May 2016
:: National ::
Athirappally hydel power project facing protest
The new Kerala government’s want to go head with the 163-megawatt Athirappally hydel power project across the Chalakudy river
Project may run into trouble with the vulnerable tribal group of Kadar, who believe it will wipe out their livelihood, they are preparing to oppose it.
he tribe, estimated to have around 2,000-odd people, seldom farm and mostly subsist on collecting minor forest produce, including honey, which they trade with outsiders for essentials. Many work as labourers too.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Power Minister Kadakampally Surendran had announced that the project would be pushed, while factoring in objections and opinions.
President takes account of attack on African nationals
President Pranab Mukherjee said attacks on African nationals are painful to him personally given that as a student, political activist and Member of Parliament he had seen first-hand how India and Africa have always been close partners.
“It would be most unfortunate if the people of India were to dilute our long tradition of friendship with the people of Africa and the welcome we have always extended to them in our country,” Mr. Mukherjee cautioned
He said this while addressing the Seventh Annual Heads of Missions Conference at Rashtrapati Bhavan.
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: International ::
Iraqi forces pressing advantage against IS
Iraqi forces thrust into the city of Fallujah from three directions marking a new and perilous urban phase in the week-old operation to retake the jihadist bastion.
The drive to recapture the first city to be lost from government control in 2014 came as fighting also raged in neighbouring Syria, leaving huge numbers of civilians exposed.
Iraqi forces entered Fallujah under air cover from the international coalition, the Iraqi air force and army aviation, and supported by artillery and tanks.
The involvement of the elite CTS marks the start of a phase of urban combat in a city where in 2004 U.S. forces fought some of their toughest battles since the Vietnam War.
The week-old operation had previously focused on retaking rural areas around Fallujah, which lies just 50 km west of Baghdad.
It had been led by the Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary force, which is dominated by Tehran-backed Shia militias.
Only a few hundred families have managed to slip out of the Fallujah area ahead of the assault on the city, with an estimated 50,000 civilians still trapped inside, sparking fears the jihadists could try to use them as human shields.
Fallujah is one of just two major urban centres in Iraq still held by IS jihadists.
They also hold Mosul, the country’s second city and de-facto jihadist capital in Iraq, east of which Kurdish-led forces launched a fresh offensive. The jihadists holed up in Fallujah are believed to number around 1,000.
Fallujah is expected to give Iraqi forces one of their toughest battles yet but IS has appeared weakened in recent months and has been losing territory consistently over the past year.
According to the government, the organisation that has sewn havoc across Iraq and Syria over the past two years now controls around 14 per cent of the national territory, down from 40 per cent in 2014.
However, as the “caliphate” it declared two years ago unravels, IS has been reverting to its old tactics of bombings against civilians and commando raids.
A fresh wave of bomb attacks struck the Baghdad area on Monday, killing 11 people in three separate blasts.
The IS onslaught has threatened tens of thousands of people, many of them already displaced from other areas, who have sought refuge in camps near the Turkish border.