Comprehensive News Analysis - 27 January 2017

A. GS1 Related

B. GS2 Related

1. Convert Victoria Memorial into museum: Tharoor

Category: Modern Indian History

Topic: National Movement

Key Points:

• Politician and writer Shashi Tharoor has said that the Victoria Memorial Hall in the metropolis should be converted into a museum on atrocities by the British during its rule in the country.
• Tharoor said the whole story about the British atrocities in India need to be told because nowhere in the world is there a museum to the colonial experience.
• The Victoria Memorial Hall should become a museum that demonstrates the British policy on famines that killed 35 million Indians, of how the British built the railways and profited “indecently” and the racism with which it was run. It should also demonstrate how the taxation system worked, how the massacres were conducted in 1857 and 1858 and again at Jallianwala Bagh and the many smaller massacres elsewhere.

Category: International Relations 

Topic: Effect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries on India’s interests

Key Points:

• Recently, Ukraine commended India for not supporting Russia’s claims over the Crimean peninsula. 
• The First Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine, Stepan Kubiv, said that his government appreciated India’s neutrality and wanted to partner modernisation plans of the Indian armed forces.
• It is also important to note that Ukraine wants to complete the contract, signed in 2009, on modernisation and overhauling of An-32 fleet for the Indian Air Force.
• Armoured infantry vehicles, equipment engineering, patrol boats, space research are some of our other priorities in relation with India.

3. China open to work with Russia, U.S. to tackle global challenges

Category: International Relations 

Topic: Effect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries on India’s interests

Key Points:

• China on 26th January, 2017 signalled its openness for a trilateral partnership with Russia and the U.S., following Moscow’s advocacy that the three countries should develop relations jointly.

C. GS3 Related

D. GS4 Related

E. Important Editorials: A Quick Glance

1. Banking on good faith

Category: Indian Economy  

Topic: Government Policy

Key Points:

• The recent arrests by the Central Bureau of Investigation of former IDBI officials are worth noting for timing, intent and implications.
• The agency is investigating these officials, who had been at the helm of the public sector bank’s affairs eight years ago, on charges of facilitating a Rs. 900-crore loan to the now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines without due diligence.
• Mallya owes banks close to Rs. 9,000 crore and has been in exile in the U.K. for nearly a year.
• It is important to note that amidst the rising pile of non-performing assets in government-owned banks, wilful defaulters were said to be responsible for around Rs. 77,000 crore of bad debts by last July.
• Prime Minister Narendra Modi had, early in his term, urged officers to take bold decisions without fear of retribution and promised to stand by them for decisions taken in good earnest.
• That promise requires making some necessary amendments to the Prevention of Corruption Act, particularly the much-too-broad and subjective Section 13(1)(d) that has resulted in many an honest officer being chargesheeted for the corruption of others. 

2. Case for targeted basic income

Category: Indian Economy 

Topic: Government Policy

Key Points:

• The first known suggestion on an unconditional universal basic income for all adults regardless of other income sources was from Thomas More.
• It is important to note that with anti-globalist populism on the rise, several advanced countries are considering whether they should start mailing cheques to the unemployed. Finland’s is the best known trial.
• Economists are advocating universal basic incomes for fighting inequality, slow wage growth, advancing automation and fears that immigrants will take away jobs.
• Further, Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian has said that he is devoting a chapter in the annual Economic Survey (to be presented on January 31) to discussing unconditional universal basic income as a tool for poverty reduction.
• It is important to note that the Food Security Act already provides for statutory income transfers, but the appeal of a policy idea involving money payments to voters cannot be overstated —especially to a government past the midpoint in its first term.

Business Line

1. Happy spin-offs

Category: International Relations

Topic: Effect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries on India’s interests

Key Points:

• Donald Trump’s recent decision to walk out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership may not have a direct impact on India, but there could be indirect spin-offs.
• Many RCEP members had been putting pressure on India to give its consent to intellectual property rules that go beyond the multilateral TRIPS agreement citing the TPP template as an example.
• That pressure would now be considerably off and New Delhi can insist on its stand of non-flexibility in the area.
• India could also try and convince members of its need to offer lower market opening commitments to countries such as China, Australia and New Zealand with whom it doesn’t have free trade pacts.
• India’s FTA talks with Canada had hit a road block because of the latter’s unhappiness with the provisions on investor-state dispute in India’s draft bilateral investment treaty.

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

• RCEP
• Trans-Pacific Partnership

G. BILLS/ACTS/SCHEMES/ORGS IN NEWS

The National Policy for Children

H. Fun with Practice Questions 🙂

Question 1: Delhi became the capital of India in:

Question 2: Consider the following statements,

1. Ukraine borders with seven countries: Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Moldova, Russia, and Belarus.
2. Ukraine has a strategic position in East Central Europe: lying on the northern shores of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.

Which of the above statements is/are correct?

a) 1 Only

b) 2 Only

c) Both 1 and 2

d) Neither 1 nor 2

Question 3: Who was the Viceroy of India at the time of Jallianwala Bagh Massacre?

Question 4: The buffer stocks of food grains which India maintains helps in

1. Providing food security
2. Incentivizing farmers
3. Stabilizing prices
4. Running PDS

Select the correct answer using the codes given below.

a) 1, 2 and 3 only

b) 1 ,3 and 4 only

c) 2 ,3 and 4 only

d) 1 ,2, and 4 only

Question 5: In the 1907 Session of the Congress at Surat, whose name was proposed by extremists
group as the next President of the Congress?

I. Archives:

You can check out some more recent News Analysis sections to build even more context

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