Comprehensive News Analysis - 01 February 2016

Table of Contents:

A. GS1 Related:

B. GS2 Related:

1.U.S. plans re-merger of India, Pak. desks

2. Deepening the French connection

3. Gujarat must give up terror bill

4. Looking to a better tomorrow

5. ‘Visa on arrival’ to attract Japan, Korea investors

C. GS3 Related:

1.IISc’s invention powers up nanoelectronics industry

2.Business Line: PM calls for raising awareness of crop insurance scheme

D. GS4 Related:

E. Important Editorials: A Quick Glance

1. Push for IMF reform

F. Concepts-in-News: Related Concepts to Revise/Learn

G. Practice Questions

H. Archives

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— Nothing here today, folks! —

Topic: International Relations
Category: U.S., India, Pakistan
Location: The Hindu, Page 1
Key Points:
De-hyphenating refers to a policy started by the U.S. government under President Bush , of dealing with India and Pakistan in different silos, without referring to their bilateral relations.

It enabled the U.S. to build closer military and strategic ties with India without factoring in the reaction from Pakistan, and to continue its own strategy in Afghanistan with the help of the Pakistan military without referring back to India.

Topic: International Relations
Category: France, Europe, India-France
Location: The Hindu, Page 10

Key Points:
President François Hollande’s visit is the fifth such by a French leader to have been honoured as the chief guest at the Republic Day, more so than any other country.

Cooperation on Counter-terrorism:
• The terrorist attacks last year, on the Charlie Hebdo office in January and at multiple locations in Paris in November, have changed the way France looks at global terrorism.
• Radicalisation and the growing appeal of the ideology of global jihad is a real threat.
• This resulted in a standalone Joint Statement on counter-terrorism

Nuclear and Space Cooperation:
• A push has been given to the Jaitapur nuclear plant negotiations by seeking to conclude these by the end of 2016
• To mark 50 years of India-France space cooperation, new projects for cooperation between the Indian Space Research Organisation and the French government space agency, Centre national d’études spatiales (CNES) have been announced, dealing with environment and weather monitoring, mapping of water resources and a joint Thermal Infrared Earth observation mission.

Defence Cooperation:
• The joint ventures (JV) proposed to be set up between private sector entities in both countries that can provide a much needed boost to “Make in India” in defence.

Emerging Areas of Cooperation:
• Among the emerging areas of cooperation are homeland security, cyber security, special forces like the National Security Guard and its French counterpart GIGN, and intelligence sharing to tackle the common threats of terrorism and global criminal networks.

• Closely linked are concerns about Internet governance, surveillance by external powers and the dominance of U.S. companies in this field. Maritime security in the Indian Ocean region is another sector ripe for greater cooperation, given French presence by virtue of its territories (the Reunion Islands) for maintaining safety of sea lanes, tackling piracy and enhancing maritime domain awareness.

Business and Educational Ties:

• Cooperation in “strategic” areas is growing and the government-to-government relationship is the principal driver for this.
• Two areas that have been lagging are economic and trade relations as well as the people-to-people exchanges.
• Bilateral trade between the two countries is at $8 billion, well below potential.
• French foreign direct investment has picked up and there are more than 800 French enterprises operating in India.
• These include industry leaders like Alstom, Airbus, Schneider, Alcatel, Total, BNP Paribas, L’Oréal, Renault, Sanofi Aventis, Veolia, Engie (GDF Suez), Thales, Vinci, etc. Capgemini, an IT major has a large workforce in India.
• Nagpur, Chandigarh and Puducherry have been identified as three cities where French technical assistance and funding has also been promised.
• However, the challenge will be to develop viable public-private partnerships that can generate long-term funding and also make the projects self-sustaining in the long run.

People-to-People Relationships:
• Attempts have been made to energise the people-to-people relationship by focussing on educational exchanges and skill development which creates a resource pool as Indo-French JVs generate greater employment opportunities.
• The number of Indian students going to France annually is 2,500 while the number of Chinese students is 10 times larger.
• Allowing larger number of French youth to intern in enterprises in India and easing visa norms for Indian students to work for two years after completing their education in France are steps in the right direction.

Topic: Governance
Category: Legislations
Location: The Hindu, Page 10
Key Points:
The controversial Gujarat Control of Terrorism and Organised Crime Bill (GCTOC), 2015, has been facing objections on the ground that it contains some draconian provisions.

The controversial nature of the GCTOC Bill became apparent after A.P.J. Abdul Kalam as President objected to a clause that made evidence based on interception of communication admissible in court.

India’s repeated experiments with anti-terrorism laws have been, by and large, unsuccessful.

The Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, 1985, a law considered as draconian as the Rowlatt Act of the colonial era, and its latter-day version, the Prevention of Terrorism Act, 2003, had been allowed to lapse after it was found that they were prone to persistent misuse.

However, with the substantive amendments made to the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in 2012, the country does have an effective law to curb modern-day terrorism.

Conclusion:
There is really no need for more State-level laws of such a nature. Police investigators need better resources and training to combat organised crime and terror, and not laws that abridge and modify conventional criminal procedure to the detriment of human rights.

Question 1:Consider the following statements regarding the ‘Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana'