Current Affairs for IAS Exams

Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 21 May 2017

EC invited recognised political parties to an “Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) Challenge” beginning June 3 to demonstrate that the machine can be, or were, during the five recent Assembly elections, tampered with.
Only Indian experts are allowed to participate in the event. The challenge will be open for four to five days, for the political parties that participated in the Assembly elections in Goa, Punjab, Manipur, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh.
An independent team of experts will supervise the proceedings, which will be video-recorded.
Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi said the political parties, each of which can nominate three experts, had to confirm their participation by 5 p.m. on May 26.
Each party will be assigned four EVMs of their choice, picked up from EC warehouses in any Assembly constituency.
They can also accompany the EVMs from warehouses to the venue at the EC headquarters, at their own cost.
Although the parties’ experts will be allowed to open and inspect the machine, they will not be allowed to tweak its components, as the EC said changing the internal circuit was like changing the whole device itself.

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani was re-elected by a wide margin. The victory gave the moderate cleric a second four-year term to see out his agenda pushing for greater freedoms and outreach to the wider world.
The 68-year-old incumbent secured a commanding lead of 57% in a race that drew more than seven out of every 10 voters to the polls.
His nearest rival in the four-man race, hardliner Ebrahim Raisi, secured 38% of the vote.

The Union Ministry of Earth Sciences’ premier agency — INCOIS will soon be operating through a brand new high-powered super computer enabling quicker computations and thereby more accurate forecasts for ocean waves and tsunami alerts.
The new high-powered supercomputer of 34 teraflops capacity, estimated to have cost Rs. 4 crore, including five years maintenance period, is being currently shipped from Singapore.
This one will be replacing an older version which has a capacity of just 7.8 teraflops.
The existing high-powered computer has completed its life cycle of eight years and is ‘coming apart’ inside the INCOIS’ sprawling facility at Pragatinagar near Kukatpally necessitating the procurement of a new one.
The new supercomputer is to be made operational within a month of arrival after feeding the available forecasting model that INCOIS has developed over the years as in tracking the ocean wave currents, real time Tsunami alerts and so on, in a more precise manner with a higher resolution and for a larger terrain.
The agency is currently able to predict the estimated tsunami landfall for up to three metres of wave heights only.

It was a referendum on Hassan Rouhani’s more moderate political policies, which paved the way for the landmark 2015 nuclear deal that won Iran relief from some sanctions in exchange for curbs on its nuclear programme.
His resounding victory suggests that Iranians largely approve of the President’s policies.
Mr. Rouhani has come to embody more liberal and reform-minded Iranians’ hopes for greater freedoms and openness at home, and better relations with the outside world.
“Great nation of Iran, you are the winner of the election. I humbly bow down before you. I will remain loyal to my promises to you,” he wrote.
Iran’s President is the second-most powerful figure within the country’s political system. He is subordinate to the supreme leader, who is chosen by a clerical panel and has the ultimate say over all matters of state.
Although considered a moderate by Iranian standards, Mr. Rouhani was nonetheless the favourite pick for those seeking more liberal reforms in the conservative Islamic Republic.
One of the first world leaders to congratulate Mr. Rouhani was Syrian President Bashar Assad, whose government is backed by Tehran.
Iran’s President oversees a vast state bureaucracy employing more than 2 million people, is charged with naming Cabinet members and other officials to key posts, and plays a significant role in shaping both domestic and foreign policy.