Daily PIB Analysis For UPSC/IAS – 27th Mar’18

Table of Contents

Karnataka Assembly polls

• Chief Election Commissioner O P Rawat announced at a
conference in New Delhi that polls will be held on 12th
May and the votes will be counted on 15th May.
•He said, there will be a single phase election for the
224-member assembly.
• All electronic voting machines will be linked to the Voter
Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines.
• Model code of conduct has come into force in the state.
Law and Justice Minister
• Ravi Shankar Prasad today said that Cambridge Analytica
whistle-blower Christopher Wylie has accepted before
the British Parliamentary committee that the data
mining firm worked for the Congress Party.
• Mr Prasad said, this vindicates what BJP has been saying
from day one.
•He said, Congress President Rahul Gandhi needs to
apologise to the nation for trying to subvert India’s
electoral process, using Cambridge Analytica.
Supreme Court
•In a relief to inter-faith or inter-caste couples, the
Supreme Court today banned any interference by illegal
assemblies like ‘Khap Panchayats’ into their marriages,
terming the intrusions as absolutely illegal.
Supreme Court
• A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra
also laid down guidelines to prevent such interferences.
• The apex court said, the norms laid down by it will
remain in force till a suitable legislation is enacted by
the Parliament.
• The ruling came on a plea by an NGO, which had moved
the apex court in 2010 seeking protection of couples
from honour killings.
International News
• Moscow has accused Washington of pressuring nations to
carry out a mass expulsion of its diplomats in response
to a nerve agent attack in the UK.
• Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the United States
of colossal blackmail and said, there were few
independent countries left in modern Europe.
• The expulsion of about 100 Russians by more than 20
nations is thought to be the largest in history.
International News
• The NATO today said the alliance was expelling seven
Russian diplomats and denying accreditation to three
more.
• Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter were
poisoned on 4 March.
•Investigators believe a military-grade nerve agent was
used.
Ministry of Commerce & Industry
• The eleventh session of the China-India joint-group on
Economic Relations, Trade, Science & Technology was
held on March 26, 2018.
• The session was co-chaired by the Union Minister of
Commerce & Industry and Civil Aviation, Shri Suresh
Prabhu and the Minister of Commerce of the People’s
Republic of China, Mr. Zhong Shan.
• The two Ministers while reaffirming and reiterating their
commitments to promote a balanced and sustainable
bilateral trade.
Ministry of Commerce & Industry
• The two Ministers agreed to continue to take forward
the initiatives identified in the Five Year Development
Programme for Economic and Trade Cooperation
between the People’s Republic of China and India signed
in September 2014.
• The Chinese side noted India’s concern regarding the
long existing trade imbalance and requests for market
access of Indian products and services and expressed its
commitment to address these concerns through the
broad framework provided by successive JEGs and the
Five Year Development Programme for Economic and
Trade Cooperation between the People’s Republic of
China and the Republic of India.
• The Chinese side reaffirmed their commitment to
accelerating the provision of market access for Indian
agricultural products pertaining to non-basmati rice,
rape-seed meals, soya-meals, pomegranate and
pomegranate arils, okra, banana and other fruits and
vegetables and bovine meat expeditiously.
• The two sides reaffirmed their aim to promote bilateral
trade in the field of pharmaceuticals including resolution
of issues of Indian pharma products exports to Chinese
markets.
• The Ministers agreed to draw-up a medium and long
term roadmap with action points and timelines for
increasing bilateral trade between the two countries in a
balanced and sustainable manner, as the two countries
are the largest emerging economies of the world with
35% of the world’s population and around 20% of the
world’s GDP but the relative volume of bilateral trade is
less than 1% of global trade.
• The two sides agreed to strengthen cooperation within
WTO, and other multilateral and regional frameworks, to
maintain their common interest. Both the sides
reiterated their commitment to rules based multilateral
global trade.
Ministry of Communications
• Ministry of Communications has launched the Cool
Express Mail Service (EMS) Service which will come into
force from 29.03.2018.
• Cool EMS service is one-way service from Japan to India
which allows customers in India to import Japanese food
items for personal use which is allowed under Indian
regulations.
•Initially, Cool EMS Service will be available in Delhi only.
Global Trade Wars and India
• US President Donald Trump’s announcement last week to
impose tariffs on Chinese imports worth up to $60 billion
after an earlier move to raise import duty on steel and
aluminium products coming into the US.
• This move has a predictable impact.
• China has retaliated imposing tariffs on US imports worth $3
billion
• Aluminum
• Steel pipes
• Pork
• Fruit
• Wine
Global Trade Wars and India
• Fuelling fears of a trade war in the offing and spooking
the stock markets.
• Trump: China has indulged in intellectual property
violations
• USA has a $375-billion trade deficit with China
• Xi: threatened to pursue legal action against Washington
at WTO
•Others too have attacked the US for raising import duty
on aluminium and steel and have threatened to hit back.
• Threat of tariff wars comes at a time when the global
economy is in a mending phase.
•Director General of WTO, Roberto Azevedo: “…disrupting
trade flows will jeopardise the global economy at a time
when economic recovery, though fragile has been
increasingly evident around the world”.
•India: there are signs of a potential rebound in the year
ahead and with exports in February topping $25 billion.
• There is a recognition that a trade war could derail the
recovery.
•Industry body FICCI wants India to take the lead in
defusing the potential threat of a global trade war.
•India will have to be mindful
• US is still its largest export market
• India runs a trade surplus of over $20 billion with the US, which
though not too significant still has a potential to invite a retaliation
by the Trump administration.
• China is a big source of imports for our industry
• From the standpoint of the contribution of exports to growth and
stability of the currency.
• Focus more on reviving the economy and ensuring the
completion of projects.
• A resurgent economy is the best insurance to counter the
threat to the global economic recovery.