MoU between India and Hungary

1. India-Hungary joint commission on economic co-operation on Tuesday signed an agreement between the two countries in the field of traditional medicine.

US Shutdown

Reasons :

• On Oct 1 2013 ,the US government has begun a partial shutdown after the two houses of Congress failed to agree a new budget.Under U.S. law ,a new bill to approve funding for the next financial year is required, which must have been approved by the House of Representatives, and the Senate, and the president
• The core problem is that the Republican party controls the lower house, or House of Representatives, while the Democrats control the Senate.The Republican-led House of Representatives insisted on delaying Democratic President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform – dubbed Obamacare – as a condition for passing a bill.The Democratic-led Senate twice rejected bills from House Republicans that would have funded the government only if funding for President Obama’s healthcare law was delayed for a year.ITS a DEADLOCK.
• More than 700,000 federal employees face unpaid leave with no guarantee of back pay once the deadlock is over.
• It is the first shutdown in 17 years.The US government has not undergone a shutdown since 1995-96, when services were suspended for a record 21 days.

Who will be Impacted : 

•  State department will be able to operate for limited time
• Department of defence will continue military operations
• Department of education will still distribute $22bn (£13.6bn) to public schools, but staffing is expected to be severely hit
• Department of energy – 12,700 staff expected to be sent home, with 1,113 remaining to oversee nuclear arsenal
• Department of health and human services expected to send home more than half of staff
• The Federal Reserve, dept of homeland security, and justice dept will see little or no disruption
• US Postal Services continue as normal
• Smithsonian institutions, museums, zoos and many national parks will close
• Under the shutdown, national parks and Washington’s Smithsonian museums will close, pension and veterans’ benefit cheques will be delayed, and visa and passport applications will go unprocessed.

Why it doesn’t happen in other countries :

The shutdown situation is a product of the U.S. democratic system. The President is both head of state and head of the federal government, without a guaranteed majority in either of the legislative bodies where new laws are debated and voted upon (because Presidents, congressmen and women and senators are elected separately). The President can’t simply ram laws through Capitol Hill.

How does the US shutdown row tie in with the debt ceiling battle?

The shutdown battle is about approving future spending. The debt ceiling is another problem facing Washington — America has a legal limit on its borrowing of $16.7tn dollars, and it’s likely to hit that point in mid-October.(17 Oct 2013)

If a deal isn’t reached, then America would run out of borrowing room, meaning the world’s biggest economy would default on its debts. Both problems need solving — and a shutdown would eat into valuable time to fix the debt ceiling.

Why can’t they just raise the debt ceiling?

It’s up to the House of Representatives and the Senate.And both are unpredictable.

Impact on Stock market : 

Moody’s, the rating agency, calculates that a two—week shutdown would cut 0.3% off US GDP, while a month—long outage would knock a whole 1.4% off growth

Affordable Care Act

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), commonly called the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or Obamacare 

• United States federal statute signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010.
• The ACA aims to increase the quality and affordability of health insurance, lower the uninsured rate by expanding public and private insurance coverage, and reduce the costs of healthcare for individuals and the government.
•  The law also requires insurance companies to cover all applicants within new minimum standards and offer the same rates regardless of pre-existing conditions or sex.
•  The Congressional Budget Office projected that the ACA will lower both future deficits and Medicare spending

Opposed :

• Prominent conservative advocacy groups, Congressional and many state Republicans, certain small business organizations, and the Tea Party movement groups.
• The law will lead to disruption of existing health plans, increased costs from new insurance standards, and an increase in the deficit.

Russia-India Ties

• Russia has lifted the ban on import of non-basmati rice and oilseeds from India

Russia-Iran Ties

• Russia has taken a “principled” decision to sell Iran an improved version of the S-300 air defence missiles and to build a second nuclear reactor at Bushehr,
• President Vladimir Putin instructed the government to prepare the two proposals for his meeting with his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, in Sep 2013 on the sidelines of a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

Russia-China Ties

• Since March 2013, Xi Jinping has traveled overseas three times. His first visit after taking office was to Russia. On the same trip, he took in three African countries and attended the BRICS Summit in South Africa.
• In June 2013 , Xi visited three Latin American countries and held a summit with U.S. President Barack Obama in California. For this forthcoming G20 and SCO trip, Xi will again meet with Putin in St. Petersburg and Bishkek.
• The third trip (for G20 and SCO summit in Russia) will also be Xi’s second visit to Russia in six months, itself rare enough in the neighborhood diplomacy of top Chinese leaders in recent years and not especially common for leaders of other countries either.
• Russia is a diplomatic priority for Beijing. Some Chinese scholars see close links between China and Russia as a counterweight to the U.S.-Japan alliance, offsetting the pressure of the United States and Japan on the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands issue. For Russia, ties with China can also balance U.S. policy.
• It is worth noting that coinciding with Xi’s first visit to Russia, Beijing and Moscow signed the largest weapons procurement contract in the past decade, in which China is to buy 24 Su-35 fighters and four Lada-class submarines (although some reports have denied this deal actually going through). Since then, China and Russia have held a “routine” military exercise, again showing the growing sophistication of military cooperation between the two countries.

Land Swap Deal

English: Map of the British Indian Empire from Imperial Gazetteer of India (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Bill—the India-Bangladesh Land Boundary Agreement is again pending to be introduced in  parliament legislation.Such roadblocks hamper gaining trust of neighbors .India often suffers a “perception problem” in the eyes of its neighbors, which often view India with suspicion because of its size, economy and military might. That in turn encourages them to turn to China.

 

Bill contents :

 

1. The bill in question called for India to exchange 111 of its enclaves in Bangladesh in return for 51 Bangladesh enclaves in India.
2. Under the agreement India would give up claims for just over 17,000 acres of land which will be transferred to Bangladesh. In turn Bangladesh would cede around 7,000 acres, which would then join Indian territory.
3. A land swap agreement would also give citizenship rights to close to 52,000 people: 37,000 on the Bangladesh side and close to 15,000 on the Indian side. These stateless people, often victimized, would finally get rights and privileges as citizens, to the benefit of India’s human rights record.

 

Benefits

 

• A healthy relationship with Bangladesh would have other economic benefits. India could seek from Bangladesh as a goodwill gesture transit rights to its northeast, bringing development to a struggling region.
• A deal could also revive the moribund South Asia Growth Quadrangle (SAGQ is a practical solution to the region’s socio-economic problems), comprising India’s north east, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan. And a deal would give a pre-election boost to a Bangladesh government that has generally been favorable to India.
• This deal could particularly benefit the North East and Assam. Resolving the land issues would enable borders in these areas to be secured.

 

Hurdles

 

• Any policy initiated by New Delhi towards Bangladesh needs to take the sensibilities of Assam into account. In addition to the historical immigration issue, there is Assam’s proximity to Bangladesh and the region’s own troubled history with India’s neighbor, extending back to the 1970s.
• There is a need to engage the people of Assam on a more direct level to talk about the benefits of the swap and any possible ramifications. Assam has a vibrant civil society, which should be engaged on this issue. In short, it is time for some public diplomacy.

 

China

1. China’s Tianhe 2 – worlds fastest computer.Speed : 33.86 petaflops (1000 trillion calculations) per second on a benchmarking test.Second being in US : TITAN having speed of 17.59 petaflops per second.
2. New Chinese law says children must visit parents.It does not have any punishment criteria for non fulfillment .

Achievements : 

• China shows that delivering the fundamental goods of food, water, and education to the most disadvantaged citizens makes a massive difference across the whole of society. China now provides basic medical care to 95 percent of its citizens. Literacy is almost universal among men and women. Basic education is delivered even in the most isolated areas.
• China has immense inequalities, but it has largely eradicated the kind of dehumanizing poverty seen too often in India
• The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has launched a deep ultraviolet (DUV) solid-state laser device, making the country first-ever in the world to possess such technology

Nitaqat

• The Nitaqat  is a new policy being placed by the Saudi government in order to reduce the unemployment rate among Saudi citizens.
• This policy makes it mandatory for Saudi Companies to reserve 10 percent of jobs for Saudi nationals.

Need

• Saudi Arabia’s economy depends heavily on the existence of a large proportion of expatriates working for various establishments in the private and public sector.
• As per estimates, the unemployment rate among Saudi nationals has reached 12%. More than 6.5 million non-Saudis are working in the private sector of the Kingdom compared to 7,00,000 Saudis.

History

Initially in 1994, the Saudi government had started a system called ‘Saudization’ with the same purpose of reducing unemployment of its citizens. The programme required the appointment of Saudi citizens of the total workforce of all the establishments existing in the Kingdom. However, due to several reasons, the system could not be implemented.

Working

• Nitaqat’ which means ‘Ranges’, divides the Saudi labor market into 41 activities and each activity into 5 sizes (Giant, Large, Medium, Small and Very Small) to have in total 205 categories.
• It classifies establishments into following ranges:
  • Excellent : establishments which have highest localization ratio in their workforce
  • Green: establishments which have high localization ratio
  • Yellow : low localization ratio
  • Red : lowest localization ratio

  Effects of classification on different ranges:

  • Those establishments which will be in Excellent and Green ranges will have advantages and rewards while those in Yellow and Red will be on the receiving end.

•  Advantages to Excellent or Green ranges:
  • Eligibility to issue work visas for the development of new business
  • Ability to contract with non-Saudi workers from the establishments of the Red and the Yellow ranges in the Saudi market.
• Disadvantages to Red and Yellow ranges:
  • ​Forced to expedite the localization of the jobs. Otherwise, the establishments located in these ranges – Red and Yellow ranges – will be denied from obtaining new or alternative visas, lose control over the non-Saudi workers in the establishment as they will have the freedom of contract with a new employer and will not be allowed to obtain new work visas to appoint new-non-Saudis workers or to set up a new subsidiary or branch.

Recent addition in Nitaqat law:

Expatriate worker should work only under his sponsor and the worker is not meant to perform any job other than the one mentioned on his job card have raised much panic among the expatriate workers.

What are India’s concerns over this policy?

• At present over 2 million Indian nationals are working in Saudi Arabia. Implementation of this law will lead to job losses and reduced job opportunities for Indians too.

 

Ireland

 

Protection  of Life During pregnancy Bill 2013 :

1. Savita Halappanavar suffered a fatal miscarriage in October 2012 after being denied the abortion she requested.
2. Members of the Irish Parliament’s lower house, the Dáil Éireann, passed the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill, 2013, which allows medical practitioners to terminate a pregnancy if it poses a “substantial” or “immediate” risk to the mother’s life.
3. Nevertheless, the law is still some distance away from embracing a ‘pro-choice’ approach: an amendment introduced by women TDs that would have permitted the termination of pregnancies arising from rape or incest failed to win support in the Dáil.
4. Roman Catholic Church is staunchly opposed to abortion.
5. Latin America’s record on this count has been abysmal. Six countries in the region still endorse a blanket ban on abortion
6. Ireland adopted a long-awaited law to allow abortion under limited circumstances after President Michael D. Higgins gave his assent to the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill passed by Parliament recently.