Current Affairs for IAS Exams

Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 06 February 2017

Jayalalithaa’s friend and AIADMK general secretary V.K. Sasikala was “unanimously” elected leader of the Legislature Party at a meeting in the party headquarters, paving the way for her to become the third woman Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu.
Ms. Sasikala, who has no formal political experience except for the last month-and-a-half, is expected to assume office on February 7 or 9. As per the constitutional mandate, she has to get elected to the Assembly as a legislator within six months of taking charge as Chief Minister.
Incumbent Chief Minister and party treasurer O. Panneerselvam, who proposed her name for the legislature party leader’s post at the MLAs’ meeting, announced that he would send his resignation to Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao.
Addressing the MLAs, 62-year-old Ms. Sasikala acknowledged the loyalty of Mr. Panneerselvam to the party and claimed it was he, who first urged her to take over as the general secretary as well as the Chief Minister soon after Jayalalithaa’s death.

The Centre is likely to take “a major step” to ban triple talaq after the ongoing Assembly polls, Union Law Minister said and dared the, the other parties to make their stand clear on the contentious issue.
Insisting that the issue is not related to religion but involves respect and dignity of women, he said the government “respects faith but worship and social evil cannot coexist.”
He said the tradition of triple talaq denies respect to women and the central government was committed to ending the “evil social practice.”
Asserting that “every pernicious practice” cannot be part of a religion, the minister, who is a lawyer himself, said the Centre would raise the issue in the Supreme Court on three points -- justice, equality and dignity of women.
Referring to the SP-Congress alliance in Uttar Pradesh, he said: “This is an alliance of desperation between two dynastic parties... and alliance of desperation between crime, criminals and corruption.”
Not a single big industry had been established in Uttar Pradesh during the tenure of the Akhilesh Yadav-led SP government, the BJP leader alleged, adding that funds sanctioned by the Centre for development of the state had not been used due to the feud within the Yadav family.

Turkish police detained hundreds of suspected members of the Islamic State (IS) extremist group in nationwide raids, just over a month after an attack on an Istanbul nightclub claimed by the jihadists.
Over 400 suspects were rounded up in Turkey’s biggest police operation IS since the New Year attack on the Reina nightclub that happened just 75 minutes into 2017 that killed 39.
Those detained included foreigners and those suspected of planning attacks in Turkey, the Dogan and Anadolu news agencies reported.
Anadolu said at least 423 suspects had been detained. The operation around the country saw 150 suspects rounded up in Sanliurfa in the southeast and 47 in the nearby city of Gaziantep close to the Syrian border which has a known jihadist presence, Dogan said.