(General Awareness For Bank's Exams) India & The World

(General Awareness For Bank's Exams) India And The World

March -2014

India-Pakistan-Iran pipeline

India is looking for an undersea route to source gas from Iran, bypassing Pakistan in the process, that is called “Peace Pipeline”. This pipeline, was now technically feasible after the success of the North Sea undersea pipeline.
If Iran was looking at the cheapest way to get gas to customers, it would prefer European customers. But what Iran had in mind was providing spillover benefits of the surface pipeline to the region it passes through, especially the Makran Plateau common to both Pakistan and Iran and where poverty has fuelled subversive tendencies.
And, the sources suggested that the future of the IPI pipeline was entwined with the Chah-bahar port as Iran was keen to ensure that this town and the surrounding region of Sistan-Baluchistan Province also gained from the availability of gas.
Just 72 km from the Pakistani port of Gwadar being built with Chinese help, the first phase of developing the Chah-bahar port is nearly over.
India and Iran have held several rounds of talks on sharing operations and developing the port.
The biggest problem is despite deep energy and civilisational links, India and Iran are unfamiliar with each other’s processes and systems of doing business in other areas.

The Indian Ocean-centred maritime security trilateral

The Indian Ocean-centred maritime security trilateral between India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives will be expanded to include two more island countries.
Seychelles and Mauritius attended the third meeting of the trilateral as they were very interested to participate in future interactions.
Beginning in 2011 as a concept, the trilateral has reached a state of preparedness from where it is capable of responding to illegal activity such as piracy.
By training people to work together, the trilateral has also built up capacity in responding to search and rescue and oil spills. Sri Lanka and India have also expanded their joint naval exercises to include Maldives.

PIOs coming for surrogacy don’t need visas anymore

Overseas Citizens of India (OCIs) and Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs) can now fly to the country without a medical visa for commissioning surrogacy. Foreigners will, however, have to continue obtaining a visa.
A couple with an OCI or PIO card, married for at least two years, would have to take permission only from the Foreigners’ Regional Registration Office (FRRO) or the Foreigners’ Registration Office (FRO). But they must, carry a letter from their country, issued by the Foreign Ministry or the Embassy , saying it recognised surrogacy and that the child born thus would be permitted entry as the couple’s biological offspring.
The OCI card is issued to foreign nationals who were eligible to become citizens of India on January 26, 1950, or were Indian citizens on or after that date with eligibility based on lineage. The PIO card is issued to a person of Indian origin who is a citizen of any country other than Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Afghanistan, China or Nepal or who has held an Indian passport at any time or is the spouse of an Indian citizen or a Person of Indian Origin.

DevyaniKhobragade’s visa fraud charges dismissed

India has welcomed the dismissal of visa fraud charges by a U.S. court against senior diplomat DevyaniKhobragade, whose arrest and strip-search had triggered a diplomatic row between the two countries.
Ms. Khobragade, who was India’s deputy consul-general in New York, was arrested on December 12.
She has won dismissal of the indictment against her for visa fraud, with a U.S. judge ruling she had full diplomatic immunity.
However, prosecutors are not barred from bringing new charges in future.
While the indictment was returned on January 9, Ms. Khobragade had the immunity till she departed from the U.S. for India on the evening of January 9 and so the prosecutors cannot proceed with the current indictment.

Indo-China Strategic Economic Dialogue

India and China discussed in Beijing counter strategies to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) being negotiated by the U.S.
Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia lead the Indian delegation to Beijing for the India-China Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED). On the Chinese side, National Development and Reform Commission Chairman Xu Shaoshi lead the dialogue.
It was realized that there is a need to preserve the primacy of the development agenda in the global mainstream and in leading economic frameworks like the G20 and the WTO.
Indo-China trade was $74 billion in 2011. And it went down to $65 billion in 2013. Both governments have set a $100-billion target by 2015. However, India’s trade deficit with China worsened to $31.5 billion in 2013, according to Chinese data.

India and China’s MOU on IT

India and China, signed a memorandum of understanding on IT cooperation, which,was a ‘formal recognition’ from the Chinese government to promote Indian software companies, which have largely struggled to obtain contracts from Chinese state-run companies. Both countries held their third Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED) recently.
India also sought Chinese support in substantially raising the speed on three rail corridors and in developing modern stations.
China has rapidly modernised its rail network, which only three decades ago lagged behind India’s. The country has also built the world’s biggest high-speed rail network, where trains run at 350 kilometres per hour on 13,000 kilometres of newly-laid track, running entirely separately from the older rail network. India has sought assistance in raising speeds on three lines, between New Delhi and Agra, Kanpur and Chandigarh.
India has, however, asked Japan for assistance in carrying out a project report considering the possibility of building a high speed rail line between Mumbai and Vadodara. At the SED, both sides signed an MoU to push IT cooperation.
India has asked China to expand market access for software and pharmaceutical companies, and to take steps to narrow the record $35 billion trade deficit.

Counterfeit Chinese parts theory in C-130J crash

The Indian Air Force has ruled out that the C-130J Super Hercules transport aircraft could have crashed due to suspected counterfeit Chinese parts. The Air Force also said that it had already sent some of the equipment to the US for physical verification by its manufacturer Lockheed Martin.
The Air Force stressed that such parts were alleged to be present only in the display systems of the aircraft and it could not have caused the crash in which five personnel were killed .
A committee of the US Senate in its probe in 2012 had suggested that counterfeit parts such as memory chips supplied by a Chinese company were used in C-130J planes produced between a specific period.
The Air Force has already sent the black box of the C-130J transport aircraft that crashed near Gwalior to the US to seek the assistance of its manufacturer Lockheed Martin in decoding the data.

No-first use of nuclear weapons

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has proposed a global convention on ‘no-first use’ of nuclear weapons as it could lead to elimination of atomic arsenal.
If all states possessing nuclear weapons recognise that if this is so (nuclear weapons are only for deterrence) and are prepared to declare it, there can be an establishment of global no-first use norm.
In many ways this can open the ways to gradual reduction and finally elimination through a nuclear weapon convention.
Dr. Singh said that it was important to reduce the importance of nuclear weapons. However, this cannot be done by a single nation, but requires a multilateral agreement.
Although India supports a nuclear-free world it declared itself a nuclear state owing to the “harsh” security environment.
Moreover it needs to be noted that by 2032, India intends to produce 62,000 MW of electricity through nuclear power.