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]

Iran

Iranian president-elect Hassan Rouhani

Egypt

PM : Mohammad Morsy

1.  The Foreign Ministers of Egypt and Ethiopia met in Addis Ababa on Monday in the hope of defusing tensions over a huge dam Ethiopia is building on the Blue Nile River.Egypt and Ethiopia began a sharp exchange of words after Ethiopia last month started to divert Nile waters as part of the construction of its massive $4.2 billion hydro-electric project dubbed the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.
2. An Egyptian court says besieged President Mohammed Morsy must reinstate an attorney general fired last year in another blow to his authority.
3. The Army on July 1 2013 gave Egyptian President Mohammed Morsy and the opposition a 48-hour ultimatum to reach consensus and meet the people’s demands or it would announce measures to end the stalemate.
4. The Egyptian army has invited opposition leader Mohammed ElBaradei, the top Sunni sheikh and the Coptic pope for “consultations” on a future roadmap to end the crisis
5. Interim President Adly Mansour  dismissed reports that Mohamed ElBaradei(the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)) has been named the country’s Prime Minister, but said the leading liberal opposition leader is “the logical choice” for the post.

Pakistan

1. The Punjab government has allocated millions of rupees to Jamaat-ud-Dawah, a front of the banned LeT, for various development initiatives.
2. Secured a massive $11 billion economic bailout package from international donor agencies including the IMF, to revive the ailing national economy.In addition to the IMF assistance, Pakistan will also get a $5.6 billion loan from the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank as well as countries like Japan, U.S. and U.K..
3. Nawaz Sharif visit to China on July 2013 : Both sides were planning a series of special economic zones, a rail link and a pipeline running from the Arabian Sea port of Gwadar to the old Silk Road town of Kashgar in Xinjiang’s western border.
4. Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari was given a ceremonial guard of honour on his last day as he became the first democratically elected head of state to complete a full five-year term.
5. India-born Mamnoon Hussain, a close aide of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif,  sworn in as the President of Pakistan in sep 2013.Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry administered the oath at a ceremony

Brazil

1. Protest in Brazil over government’s economic policies which led to increase in public transport prices in June 2013.