Current Affairs for IAS Exams

Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 06 January 2017

President Pranab Mukherjee said that the demonetisation aimed at fighting corruption may lead to a brief economic slowdown.
“Demonetisation, while immobilising black money and fighting corruption, may lead to temporary slowdown of the economy.
We all will have to be extra careful to alleviate the sufferings of the poor, which might become unavoidable for the expected progress in the long term,” he said in his New Year address to Governors and Lt. Governors.
The recent package announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi would provide some relief to the poor, he said.
Referring to the coming Assembly elections, Mr. Mukherjee spoke about the ill-effects of competitive populism and vote bank politics.
He said India was a country held together by strong but invisible threads. Tolerance, he said, was a core civilisational value for India.
“In a pluralistic democracy like ours, tolerance, respect for contrary views and patience are a must. These values have to be preserved. India’s strength lies in her diversity.
“The multiplicity in culture, faith and language is what makes India special,” he said.
“There will always be divergent strands in public discourse. We may argue. We may disagree. But we cannot deny the prevalence of multiplicity of opinion.
“You can, through your calm influence, inculcate amongst the citizens of your state this fundamental ethos of our civilisation,” the President said.

The Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968 empowers the EC to recognise political parties and allot symbols.
Under Paragraph 15 of the Order, it can decide disputes among rival groups or sections of a recognised political party staking claim to its name and symbol.
Under Paragraph 15, the EC is the only authority to decide issues on a dispute or a merger. The Supreme Court upheld its validity in Sadiq Ali and another vs. ECI in 1971.
The ECI primarily ascertains the support enjoyed by a claimant within a political party in its organisational wing and in its legislative wing.
The Commission examines the party’s constitution and its list of office-bearers submitted when the party was united.
It identifies the apex committee(s) in the organisation and finds out how many office-bearers, members or delegates support the rival claimants.
For the legislative wing, the party goes by the number of MPs and MLAs in the rival camps. It may consider affidavits filed by these members.
Where the party is either vertically divided or it is not possible to say which group has a majority, the EC may freeze the party symbol and allow the groups to register themselves with new names or add prefixes or suffixes to the party’s existing names.

A bill backing key changes in the H1-B programme that allows skilled workers from countries like India to fill high-tech jobs in the U.S. has been re-introduced in the U.S. Congress.
The ‘Protect and Grow American Jobs Act’ makes important changes to the eligibility requirements for H1-B Visa exemptions was re-introduced on Wednesday by Republican Darrell Issa and Scott Peters — both from California.
The Bill, among other things, increases the minimum salary of H-1B visa to $1,00,000 per annum and eliminate the Masters Degree exemption.
The legislation, they argued, will help crack down on abuse and ensure that these jobs remain available for the best and brightest talent from around the world.
The Bill comes after a number of companies — Disney, SoCal Edison and others — have come under fire for abusing the H1-B visa programme to replace American workers with foreign workers.

With Israel traditionally running its economy on fossil fuels, renewable energy has long been hobbled by bureaucracy and a lack of incentives.
But the country is starting to make an effort, setting a goal of generating 10 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020, up from the current 2.5 per cent.
The Ashalim project, deep in the Negev desert, is made up of three plots, with a fourth planned for the future, each with a different solar technology. Together, the fields will be Israel’s largest renewable energy project when completed by 2018.
They are set to generate some 310 megawatts of power, about 1.6 per cent of the country’s energy needs enough for about 130,000 households, or roughly 5 per cent of Israel’s population, according to Israel’s Electricity Authority.
Solar towers use a method differing from the more common photovoltaic solar panels, which convert sunlight directly into electricity.
Instead, towers use a solar-thermal method — Thousands of mirrors focus the sun’s rays onto the tower, heating a boiler that creates steam to spin a turbine and generate electricity.
Encircling the Ashalim tower are 50,000 mirrors, known as heliostats, in a shimmering blanket of glass over the desert.