All India Radio News Summary: 09 DECEMBER 2017
- India joins Wassenaar Arrangement after completing formalities;
India has joined the Wassenaar Arrangement after completing the internal procedures.
India has become the arrangement’s 42nd participating State.
This is the second diplomatic success for India for the membership of Export Control regimes after it became a member of MTCR in June last year.
Significance:
- Its membership will facilitate high-technology tie-ups for the country’s defence and space programmes.
- India’s entry into the Arrangement will be mutually beneficial and further contribute to international security and non-proliferation objectives.
- India’s entry into the export control regime will enhance its credentials in the field of non-proliferation despite not being a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
- The territorial integrity of the north-eastern states will not be compromised
Union Home Minister said, the territorial integrity of the north-eastern states will not be compromised while concluding the final agreement on the Naga insurgency issue.
The three states (Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and Manipur) strongly oppose the demand of the insurgent group NSCN-IM to integrate their Naga-inhabited areas.
- The United States has advised its citizens to defer all non-essential travel to Pakistan
The United States has advised its citizens to defer all non-essential travel to Pakistan, saying that foreign and indigenous terrorist groups continue to pose a threat to them throughout the country.
- The warning comes in the wake of increasing terrorist violence, including sectarian attacks, in Pakistan.
- The Department said, the targeted attacks against government officials, humanitarian and non-governmental organisation employees, tribal elders, and law enforcement personnel are quite common in Pakistan.
- Chief Justice of India calls for giving primacy to institutional arbitration to make India a hub of arbitration.
Chief Justice of India has said that if India has to become the hub of arbitration, institutional arbitration has to be given primacy.
Addressing an international conference on Arbitration in the era of globalization in New Delhi, he said,
- India has to grow its own arbitration system and he is in favour of institutional arbitration like Indian Council of Arbitration.
- Less interference, maximum realisation must come into play and arbitration must become cost effective.
- Arbitrator’s impartiality and neutrality is most important.
- He also highlighted the need for adoption of correct procedures.
- Widespread protests continue in West Asia in the wake of US decision on Jerusalem.
Widespread protests continue in West Asia in the wake of US President’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
- Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters held demonstrations in Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Turkey, Tunisia and Iran.
- Protesters also rallied in Malaysia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Indonesia.
Meanwhile, tensions between Israelis and Palestinians have increased since the announcement. Israel said, it has targeted a number of sites belonging to Palestinian militant group Hamas in retaliation for rocket strikes.
UN has rejected the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israeli capital
The decision was taken at a special United Nations Security Council meeting.
The UN move is expected to set off alarms about the risk of escalating conflict in West Asia. The UN in a statement, at the end of the meeting said the status of Jerusalem must be determined through negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians to reach at a final status agreement.
- Sri Lankan government handed over the operations of Hambantota port to two companies having majority Chinese stake
The government received 294 million US dollars as the initial 30 per cent of the 1.12 billion dollars, at a function held at Parliament.
With this, Hambantota International Port Group (HIPG) and Hambantota International Port Services (HIPS) will begin port operations in the south of country, considered a strategic place in the Indian Ocean.
Several nations including India have expressed concern over the debt burden created by such huge infrastructure projects for small countries like Sri Lanka.
- Sixty Eight per cent voter turnout recorded in the first phase of Gujarat Assembly Elections
A voter turnout of 68 per cent was recorded in the first phase of Gujarat Assembly Elections. Polling for 89 assembly constituencies of the State was held.
The first phase covered Saurashtra, Kutch and South Gujarat.
- ISRO to launch its 2nd Lunar mission Chandrayaan 2 by March next year
Indian Space Research Organisation will launch its second lunar mission Chandrayaan-II in the first quarter of next year. The space agency’s second indigenous mission to the earth’s satellite will be equipped with upgraded domestic space technology.
Chandrayaan-I had an impact probe, which crash landed on moon’s surface, but Chandrayaan-II will have a controlled descent of a rover which will perform in-situ lunar surface observations for 14 Earth days and the data will be relayed back for further analysis.
- CHANDRAYAAN-2 will have an orbiter that will go around the moon in circles of radius 100 kilometers.
- A lander will come out of it and make a soft landing on the chosen territory of the moon.
- Afterwards, a Rover will eject from it and move on wheels on the lunar surface.
- The Rover will have many advanced payloads that will gather valuable data by analysing the lunar surface.
- The data will be collected from the Rover by the orbiter, which will relay them to the ISRO’s facilities.
The orbiter, the Lander and the Rover, all three have been developed by India. It is set to give further fillip to India’s more extra planetary missions in future.
- Iraq announces that its troops are in complete control of the Iraqi-Syrian border, and the war against Islamic State is over.
Iraq has announced that its war against Islamic State is over.
The Iraqi announcement comes two days after the Russian military declared it had accomplished its mission of defeating IS in neighbouring Syria.
The IS had seized large swathes of Syria and Iraq in 2014, when it proclaimed a “caliphate” and imposed its rule over some 10 million people. But it suffered a series of defeats over the past two years, losing Iraq’s second city of Mosul this July and its de facto capital of Raqqa in northern Syria last month.
