current affairs 2017

Important Facts OF The Day

DAILY NEWS EDITORIAL ARTICLES MAINSTORMING

 Today Current Affairs Topics
Battlefield Of Syrian War
India Subnationalism And A Plural Democracy
Necessitating India-Japan Alliance
Prelim Bits 14-09-2017

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 Status Of Syrian War
Why in news?

The Syrian Army single-handedly prevented the IS takeover of eastern city of Deir ez-Zor,
and expecting a victory over the region.

What is status of Syrian war?

Since the summer of 2014, the Islamic State (IS) has surrounded Deir ez-Zorand starved
its people.
Syrias battlefield is so complex and fast changing ,recently about 300 IS fighters and an
equal number of their family members boarded buses at the Lebanese border in western
Syria to come to Deir ez-Zor.
Half of them turned back for the Syrian government areas, while the rest attempted to
move forward to certain death or capture in the west.
Only about 1,000 IS fighters left in the city, which now has one hospital and little other
resources for a population that has lived in terror for the past few years.

AIR-7 in 2015. AIR-6 in 2014, AIR-13 in 2013, AIR-6 in 2012, AIR-11 in 2011, AIR-4 in 2010
What is the complex nature of the battlefield?

The fight has been going slowly, as the IS has positioned car bombs and mines to slow
the entry of the SDF.
Iran is believed to be spending billions of dollars a year to Syrian forces, providing
military advisers and subsidised weapons, as well as lines of credit and oil transfers.
The Syrian Army is even backed by Russian cruise missile strikes and by its own air
force.
There is a great deal of psychological warfare at work, with the battlefield covered in
competing interests of regional and global powers.

What is the changing course of the battle?

Each of the main forces the Syrian Army, the SDF, the Iranian militias, Hezbollah, the
Free Syrian Army, the Turkish army and the U.S. military claims to be at the forefront
of the battle to defeat the IS.
The government of Bashar al-Assad is no longer the target of the major armed powers of
Turkey, the U.S. and the Gulf Arabs that had pledged to remove him from his
presidency.
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. Even the Free Syrian Army has turned its guns against the IS, as it recently did in South

Daraa.
With the Syrian Army and its allies busy with the fight against the IS in Deir ez-Zor,
Hay'et Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Syrian opposition fighters have deepened their hold on
Idlib in preparation for the inevitable attack by the Syrian Army.
The battle for Idlib will be dangerous and bloody, with a hardened and desperate HTS
fighting an exhausted Syrian Arab Army and its equally stretched allies.

What will be the outcome of the war?

President Assad could have been persuaded to the table after these battlefield successes.
Head of the UNs International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism, is prepared to
hold trials and prosecute members of Mr. Assads government for war crimes.
If the siege continued, there would be a certain outbreak of cholera.
The UN released a report that suggested that the Syrian government had used chemical
weapons on its own people.
The Idlib attack will have major consequences for civilian lives that wishes to avoid.

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 Subnationalism And A Plural Democracy
What is the issue?

India is witnessing a rise in nationalism and subnationalism parallelly, as political ideas.

At this juncture, it is essential to look at the various implications of this in a democratic
India.

What is subnationalism?

It is the idea of asserting the interest of one's own state/region/province, as separate from
the interest of the nation and the common interest of all other states/regions/provinces.
Ex: The recent demands from Karnataka for a separate State flag and widespread protest
against the imposition of Hindi.
This is not a new idea as many instances in the past and some provisions of the constitution
did inherently promote this idea - These include:

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 Demands for language-based provinces during the freedom movement.
States Reorganisation Act, 1956 providing for linguistic States.
The Official Languages Act, 1963 preventing the transition of Indias official language
from English to Hindi.
Presence of certain group-based fundamental rights such as in Articles 29 and 30.
Special provisions for certain States and sub-State regions.
Special institutional measures for the administration of areas of high Scheduled Tribe
populations as provided in the 5th and 6th Schedules.

How does this promote a plural democracy?

Subnationalism can be seen as a counter-narrative to the idea of aggressive nationalism

that restricts any alternative ideas of self-identification.
However, as long as it is not secessionist, subnationalism can be seen as a constitutive
element of democracy.
It works towards fostering a shared political community accommodating the multiple
aspirations of a diverse population.
It is in fact the idea of subnationalism that has sustained India as a nation state for 70
years, respecting multiple but complementary socio-cultural identities.
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 India-Japan Alliance
What is the issue?

The rise of China and uncertainty over Americas role in Asia is necessitating an alliance
between India and Japan.
It is important that India and Japan overcome the bureaucratic limitations and find ways
of materialising an alliance.

What have created a need for this?

The emerging dynamism in the geo-politics of the Asian region is increasingly creating
the need for India and Japan getting closer.
Rise of China - China's accelerated economic growth in the last few decades has brought
it closer to the aggregate GDP of the United States.
This has dethroned Japan as the number one economic power in Asia.
The purposeful military modernisation over the last few decades has given Beijing the
prospects to contest US military dominance over Asia.

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Also, the imbalance between Beijing and its Asian neighbours has grown massively.
Uncertainty of US's role - The Trump era is exhibiting an unprecedented political
turbulence in the United States.
Trump's stance is uncertain on the US acting as the market for Asian goods.
He is also uncertain of bearing the main burden of defending US's allies in the Asian
region, including Japan.
These oscillations in US policy make Asian powers doubt the future role of US in the
region and the sustainability of their reliance on US.

What lies ahead for India and Japan?

Given the above conditions, it is high time that India and Japan take the bilateral
relationship to the next level.
Although India has been firm on the non-alignment principle, decisions now are ought
to be less by tradition and more by the demands of current developments.
Despite the military exchanges over the last few years the two sides are far from a credible
defence partnership.
India and Japan should overcome the bureaucratic limitations and take forward the talk on
defence partnership.
This is more a prerequisite for any meaningful alliance-like partnership between the two
countries .

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 Prelim Bits 14-09-2017
Electric Vehicle Capital of India
Karnataka wants to become the electric vehicle capital of India.
Karnataka is the first state to roll out an Electric Vehicle and Energy Storage Policy.
The policy looks not only at boosting sales of EVs, but also setting up charging
infrastructure.
Policy aims to set up EV manufacturing zones along with facilities for testing that can be
used even by start-ups.
The state estimates that it will be able to create employment for 55,000 individuals over
the next few years through the EV industry.

SHAKTI
Scheme for Harnessing and Allocating Koyala (Coal) Transparently in India (SHAKTI) is
the new scheme of the centre to provide cheaper coal to private power units through
bidding.
Under this new programme, Coal India offered assured coal supply to units through
bidding.
The private power units had to quote the discount in their power tariffs that they would
offer after getting cheaper coal from the company.
Thus the bidding will be for private power units with power purchase agreements (PPAs)
but no long-term coal supply.
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New NIRF Exercise

National Institution Ranking Framework (NIRF) for the year 2018 has been announced
by the centre with a change.
The NIRF ranking was started in 2016, ranks higher educational institutions in India on
the basis of a variety of parameters.
The 2016 and 2017 NIRF lists reflected the ranks of only those institutions that had
taken part in the exercise.
But for 2018, instead of institutions choosing to take part in the exercise, they are being
auto-registered through a large online database.
The All-India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) portal of institutions available with
the Ministry of Human Resource Development will be used for auto registration of
institutions.
With this initiative, the number of institutions for NIRF is expected to raise three fold
from previous year rankings.
Last year ranking, among universities, Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore was
ranked first and Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi was second.

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Citizenship for Chakma and Hajong refugees

GoI has announced that it will grant citizenship to all chakma and hajong refugees
living in the north east.
The government also ensured that the rights of the indigenous people are not diluted.
Chakmas and Hajongs were originally residents of Chittagong Hill Tracts of
Bangladesh (erstwhile East Pakistan).
They left their homeland when it was submerged by the Kaptai dam project near
Chittagong, Bangladesh, in the 1960s.
The Chakmas, who are Buddhists, and Hajongs, who are Hindus, also allegedly faced
religious persecution and entered India through the then Lushai Hills district of Assam
(now Mizoram).
The Centre moved the majority of them to the North East Frontier Agency, which is
now Arunachal Pradesh.

Monitor Lizard

India is home to four varieties of monitor lizard - Agra, Yellow, Water, and Large Bengal.
Monitor Lizards are protected under Schedule 1 of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.

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 They share their Schedule 1 status with tigers, rhinos, elephants and leopards, and
hunting or harming them can attract jail terms of at least 3-7 years;
Their trade is restricted under Appendix 1 of the Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species (CITES).
The male reproductive organs of monitor lizards are traded in the name of Hatha Jodi,
which is claimed to possess magical powers that ensure prosperity for its owner.

Forest Plus Programme

Forest Plus, also known as Land Use Science is a joint programme by the United States
Agency for International Development (USAID) and Ministry of Environment, Forest
and Climate Change (MoEF&CC).
It aims to strengthen capacity for REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and
Forest Degradation) implementation in India.
It brings together experts to develop technologies, tools and methods of forest
management to meet the technical challenges of managing forests for the health of
ecosystem, carbon stocks, biodiversity and livelihood.

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