Current Affairs for IAS Exams

Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 17 May 2016

The Enforcement Directorate will approach the Ministry of External Affairs to initiate extradition proceedings with the UAE against Christian Michel, British middleman and prime accused in the AgustaWestland deal case.
It had earlier sought his extradition from the United Kingdom, which wanted certain clarifications on the status of the case against him.
Dubai agencies are also probing Mr. Michel’s role in a case ofalleged cheating
The investigating agencies have already got Inter- pol to issue Red Notice against Mr. Michel, who has been accused of routing 30 million euros to bribe Indian oicials for swinging the deal in AgustaWestland’s favour.

The National Green Tribunal has convened a meeting of all stakeholders involved in cleaning of River Ganga from Haridwar to Kanpur to deliberate on the mechanism to make the river pollution-free.
The green panel has divided the work of cleaning the river into different segments - Gomukh to Haridwar, Haridwar to Kanpur, Kanpur to border of UP, border of UP to border of Jharkhand and borderof Jharkhand to Bay of Bengal.
On December 11, last year, the tribunal had imposed a complete ban on use of plastic of any kind from Gomukh to Haridwar along the river from February 1 and decided to slap a penalty of Rs. 5,000 per day on erring hotels, dharamsalas and ashrams spewing waste into the river.

Asking the U.S. to respect the efforts by China and India to resolve their boundary dispute peacefully, a top Chinese official said the two nations are wise enough to deal with it.
“The Chinese side is committed to safeguarding peace and tranquillity of the border areas between China and India and resolving the boundary question through negotiation,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said.
The U.S. military report also warned of increasing Chinese military presence in various parts of the world, particularly in Pakistan.
“It is difficult to conclude on the real intention behind this,” Mr. Denmark said after submitting Pentagon’s annual 2016 re- port to the U.S. Congress.
“It is difficult to say how much of this is driven by internal considerations to maintain internal stability, and how much of it is an external consideration,” he said in response to a question on China upgrading its military command in Tibet.