Current Affairs for IAS Exams

Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 24 August 2016

Following Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressing “deep concern and pain” over the situation in Kashmir, Home Minister Rajnath Singh will undertake a two-day visit to the Valley.
The Home Minister will review the situation and may hold talks with a cross section of people.
Mr. Singh would not extend an exclusive invitation to the separatists but he would welcome anyone who comes to meet him during his stay there.
This is his second visit in a month to the Valley which has been witnessing unrest since July 8 when Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist Burhan Wani was killed in an encounter with security forces.
As many as 65 people, including two policemen, have been killed and several thousand injured so far in the violence there.
Mr. Singh has also held meetings with some non-Kashmiri Muslim leaders in the past few days to find a solution to the Kashmir crisis. The government also intends to rope in the clergy to spread the message.
Former Jammu and Kashmir interlocutor M.M. Ansari, former Orissa High Court judge Ishrat Masroor Quddussi and security analyst Qamar Agha were the few personalities Mr. Singh met recently.

India’s consistent stand that Dawood Ibrahim is based in Pakistan has got a virtual endorsement from the U.N. which has confirmed six addresses of the underworld don in that country.
The listing of the UN Security Council’s ISIL and Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee also includes information about Dawood’s various passports, including those issued in Pakistan.
India, in a dossier, had cited nine addresses in Pakistan as those frequented by Dawood of which the UN Security Council’s ISIL and Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee removed three, finding those incorrect.
The Committee, which amended its entry concerning Dawood, a UN-designated terrorist, made no changes with regard to six addresses provided by India.
One of the three addresses which have been dropped by the Committee from its list was found “similar to that of a residence of Islamabad’s envoy to the U.N. Maleeha Lodhi”.
The addresses were included in a dossier prepared by India in August last year that had listed nine residences in Pakistan of the mastermind of 1993 Mumbai serial blasts as evidence to show that he is holed up in that country.

The IIT Council on Tuesday approved in principle an increase in number of seats by 2020, subject to each IIT’s assessment of its preparedness.
Govt's vision for 2020 is one-lakh seats, though it is up to the institutes to decide how to go about it. The student-teacher ratio, which should be 10:1 is right now 15:1.
New recruitments will, therefore, have to accompany the capacity expansion planned. As of now, the IITs admit 10,500 UG students, 8,000 PG students and 3,000 Ph.D students. Other initiatives are planned to improve the IITs.
The government is planning to put in place an engineering aptitude test that students of classes 11 and 12 can take up to assess their ability to excel as engineers beforehand.
This apart, plans for global collaborations have also got the nod of the IIT Council.
A Prime Minister Research Fellowship would be started so that bright students do not suffer for lack of funds. He also gave details of the progress of some other initiatives.
He said 92 projects have till now been accepted under the Uchhatar Avishkar Yojana (UAY) – aimed at giving students of premier institutions like the IITs a more market-oriented mindset – at an expense of Rs. 282-crore.
Under the Global Initiative for Academic Networks (GIAN), 260 foreign academics have already come and delivered lectures in classrooms. The lectures have also been recorded.
Over 800 academics will come to India from abroad under this initiative, he added.