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.

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.

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

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.

Bhutan

Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay

 

India and Bhutan

1. Bhutan, especially its 12 per cent poor, will heave a sigh of relief after India decided to restore the subsidy on cooking gas and kerosene a month after it was discontinued.

Sri Lanka

1. President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his three brothers — Defence Secretary Gotabhaya, Basil, who controls politics and economic policies, and the soft-spoken Speaker of the Parliament, Chamal — are the arbiters of their country’s destiny.
2. It is clear from the policies the Rajapaksa brothers have pursued since the defeat of the LTTE in May 2009 that their principal objective has been to prevent forever the emergence of a similar organisation. Now, the surest way to ensure that objective would be to take steps to erode, if not eliminate, separatist sentiment among the Tamil community.
3. And the first measure in this direction would be to implement the 13th Amendment and the recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) report, especially with regard to incidents of excessive or malicious use of force against civilians in the last few months of the anti-LTTE operations
4. However, President Rajapaksa and Gotabhaya in particular, have always been critical of the 13th Amendment devolution process which created the provincial councils and gave the provinces meaningful powers including over land and the police.

13th Amendment : 

1. The Thirteenth Amendment (13A) to the Constitution of Sri Lanka is amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka which created Provincial Councils in Sri Lanka. This also made Sinhala and Tamil as the official language of the country and English as link language
2. On 29 July 1987, Indo-Sri Lanka Accord was signed between Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Sri Lankan President J.R. Jayewardene which stated that devolution powers to the provinces. Hence on 14 November 1987 the Sri Lankan Parliament passed the 13th Amendment to the 1978 Constitution of Sri Lanka and the Provincial Councils Act No 42 of 1987 to establish provincial councils.
3. Although Sri Lanka has given an assurance to India during Rajapaksa-Manmohan talks in July 2010 and subsequently to UN Secretary General Ban-ki-Moon that the government would go beyond the 13th amendment to devolve substantial powers to Tamil majority areas, neither India nor the UNSG asked Colombo to specify the meaning of 13 plus
4. The 13th amendment was introduced to create provincial councils as a follow up action on Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement of 1987 to devolve powers to the Tamil majority north and east. However, the then President J R Jayewardene’s government, decided to set up 9 provincial councils for the entire Island-Nation in order to scuttle the mounting opposition to devolution of powers to Tamil areas

Israel

1. Israel’s Cabinet has approved a plan that would gradually end a contentious system that has granted automatic draft exemptions to Jewish ultra-Orthodox seminary students.The new system, which needs Parliamentary approval, would reduce the number of exemptions and require ultra-Orthodox men to register for military service. It would go into effect in three years.

Afghanistan

President : Hamid Karzai 

1. Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced at a ceremony on Tuesday that his country’s armed forces are taking over the lead for security nationwide from the U.S.-led NATO coalition.The handover of responsibility is a significant milestone in the nearly 12-year war and marks a turning point for American and NATO military forces, which will now move entirely into a supporting role. It also opens the way for their full withdrawal in 18 months
2. India in discussion with Afghanistan on equipment supplies.But rejected plea for supply of lethal weapons to Afghanistan [July 2013]