Prashant Mavani, is an expert in current affairs analysis and holds a MSc in Management from University of Surrey (U.K.). Above all he is a passionate teacher.

www.studyiq.com

www.studyiq.com

www.studyiq.com

• Indo-Pacific region, a term that the Trump administration has started using in a clear acknowledgment of India’sprominence.

• U.S. has been taken advantage of by all countries and global institutions.

• he would not blame other countries or their leaders for this situation

• The U.S. has trade deficits with all the five countries that Mr. Trump visited and he told four of them that the U.S. would not tolerate this — putting China, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam in the same basket on this count.

• First, America offers these countries technology, capital and access to its market.

• Second, America offers a security guarantee and a predictable world order based on multilateral trade and security pacts.

• The friction between China and its neighbours heightened as Beijing’s ambitions grew after the 2008 financial crisis.

• He hinted that America is washing its hands of any leadership role, making it clear that it could cut a deal with China on its own, regardless of its potential impact on other countries.

www.studyiq.com

• China is the biggest trading partner of South Korea, Japan and Vietnam.

• China is also willing to offer technology, capital and market access, on its terms under the Belt and Road Initiative.

• Mr. Trump asked them all to join hands with the U.S. in stopping North Korea’s nuclear adventurism. But that apart, he told Japan, Vietnam and South Korea to buy “our weapons”.

• We may be looking for a strategy that does not exist

www.studyiq.com

www.studyiq.com

• Tsunami 2004: For India, said a senior official, it was time to show that the Indian Ocean was in fact India’s domain, and India committed in an unprecedented manner to the effort.

• About 32 Indian ships and 5,500 troops were involved in the international relief effort.

• “India’s full capabilities came as a surprise to the world,” recalls Shyam Saran, Foreign Secretary at the time.

• On December 29, U.S. President George W. Bush announced that India, the U.S., Japan and Australia would set up an international coalition to coordinate the massive effort required: to rescue those trapped in the waters, rush relief, and rehabilitate those made homeless, and to restore power, connectivity lines as well as infrastructure like ports and roads.

• birth of a new framework: the Quadrilateral, or Quad.

• Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was the first off the block, voicing his long-standing idea of an “arc of prosperity and freedom” that encompassed India, and brought it into a tighter maritime framework, with Japan, the U.S. and Australia, which were already close military allies

• The U.S. felt that angering China with the Quadrilateral would hamper larger strategic efforts under way, including the move for sanctions against Iran in the UN Security Council, and the six-nation talks on North Korea.

www.studyiq.com

www.studyiq.com

• There is a widely held belief that voters in India, especially the poor, sell their votes in exchange for cash, liquor, saris, and many other such goodies.

• It is indeed true that a candidate with greater resources has a higher probability of winning elections in India.

• There is also enough evidence to suggest that the supply of cash and consumption of liquor (and other items such as saris) increases during elections, which is unexplained by a normal rise in demand of these goods.

• Cash is an important grease to run a smooth campaign machinery for a number of reasons.

• The Election Commission (EC) allows only 14 days of official campaigning, which ends 48 hours before the scheduled close of polling.

• Even if a campaign decides to pay the current minimum wage for agricultural labourers to each of its workers during the entire campaign period the candidate would end up exceeding the expenditure limit.

www.studyiq.com

• Money signals resources and power, or access to powerful networks.

• display of money during elections is socially approved in certain ways

• symbol of power is especially important in a hierarchical society

• In her study of the 2012 Mumbai municipal corporation election, Lisa Björkman wrote that spending of money was not reflected in the vote count.

• Philip Oldenburg, who has been studying this question since the 1970s, described a conversation with a Delhi politician who explained to him the role of money and goodies in elections: “Voters basically began to tell politicians that they had to keep the goodies (liquor, cash, and so on) flowing if they wanted their votes. Maybe the politicians would get their votes and maybe they wouldn’t, but they definitely wouldn’t if they didn’t pass out the goodies.”

• Amplified by weak party organisations, limited campaigning periods and the humongous size of constituencies.

• Smaller constituencies with longer campaigning period are more likely to curb the negative influence of money in politics in comparison to putting a cap on the expenditure limit.

www.studyiq.com

www.studyiq.com

• Nose-in-the-air arrogance and head-in-the-sand ignorance.

• For the past few months, Mr. Chandy has been caught in the encroachments controversy. The Lake Palace Resort, part-owned by him, came under a cloud over issues related to reclamation of paddy land to create a vehicle park, diversion of the course of rivulets for construction activities, and laying of an approach road to the resort by filling paddy fields.

• As for Mr. Vijayan, he should have sacked Mr. Chandy instead of leaving it to the Nationalist Congress Party to secure his resignation.

• The LDF is not short of talent, but coalition dynamics require that Mr. Vijayan replace Mr. Chandy with the only other MLA from the NCP.

• Despite a comfortable majority, Mr. Vijayan might not want to risk upsetting the political equations within the LDF.

• The real test for him will be to ensure that governance does not suffer amid his deft political manoeuvres.

www.studyiq.com

www.studyiq.com

• October-November 1962 to the more recent face-off at Doklam

• A brief conversation with the students and the teachers highlighted one of the abiding omissions in the Indian school curriculum — the near total absence of recent Indian military history. Recall, if any, is through Bollywood!

• One major gap is the lack of an adequate body of work by way of well-researched books by professional Indianhistorians that could have been distilled for school children.

• This year marks the 55th anniversary of that chapter of national history, and the lack of public debate on it is depressing.

• The younger generation in India, that is those born after 1980, may not even recall the border war with China except in a hazy manner.

• Heroism at Rezang La• company of 13 Kumaon• Gallantry in battle cannot be meaningfully quantified, much less compared but the odds were against the 123

men led by Major Shaitan Singh and all but 14 died, rifle in hand, in battle position as the Chinese overwhelmed them.

• Their bodies were discovered only in January 1963 by a local shepherd, and it was then that the texture of their indomitable heroism became discernible.www.studyiq.com

www.studyiq.com

• Economic and social investments and people’s involvement are essential components of the peace process in the State

Zimbabwe military seizes power, says Mugabe is safe

• Zimbabwe’s military seized power early on Wednesday saying it was targeting “criminals” around President Robert Mugabe, the only ruler the country has known in its 37 years of independence.

• The atmosphere in the capital remained calm.

• The military said Mr. Mugabe and his family were safe. Mr. Mugabe himself spoke on the telephone to the President of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, and told him he was confined to his home but fine, the South African Presidency said in a statement.

• It was not clear whether the apparent military coup would bring a formal end to Mr. Mugabe’s rule; the main goal of the generals appears to be preventing Mr. Mugabe’s 52-year-old wife Grace from succeeding him.

www.studyiq.com

www.studyiq.com

Centre to advance BS-VI fuel launch in Delhi to 2018

• In a bid to deal with the critical pollution situation in the national capital, the Ministry of Petroleum has brought forward the date for the rollout of BS-VI fuel for Delhi to April 1, 2018 instead of the original deadline of April 1, 2020.

• The Ministry said in a statement that the decision to advance the launch, prompted by “the serious pollution levels in Delhi and adjoining areas,” was taken in consultation with the Public Oil Marketing Companies.

• OMCs have also been asked to examine the possibility of BS-VI auto fuel introduction in the whole of the National Capital Region (NCR) area with effect from April 1, 2019.

• The auto manufacturing umbrella body, the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), has said that while the switch to the BS-VI fuel in Delhi can reduce the particulate emissions from the existing fleet of vehicles, there are more steps the government can take, such as stringently enforcing the order banning BS-II and earlier vintage vehicles from plying in the NCR.

www.studyiq.com

www.studyiq.com

622-year-old shrine in Srinagar damaged in fire

• The spire of the 622-year-old shrine of Saint Mir Sayyid AliHamadani was gutted and the roof was partially damaged in a fire that broke out on Tuesday midnight.

• The fire was apparently caused by an electric short-circuit.

• The fire damaged the spire of the two-storey mosque that houses exquisite woodcarvings and papier-mâché artwork, modelled on the Persian artworks of the 13th and 14th century.

• The shrine was built in 1395 by Shah Sikandar to pay tribute to Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani, who is believed to have led mass conversions here

• After the 200-year-old shrine of Saint Sheikh Syed Abdul QadirJeelani was gutted in 2012, the government conducted a fresh fire audit of shrines in the Kashmir Valley

• “The shrine symbolises the pluralistic ethos of the Kashmir society from which every citizen draws spiritual solace,” she said.

www.studyiq.com

France wants to work with India in Indo-Pacific

• France will like to deepen cooperation with India in the Indo-Pacific bilaterally and not as part of a multilateral arrangement like the recently convened “quadrilateral” of India, U.S., Japan and Australia, officials said here on Wednesday.

• France is the only western country with large territory in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), including the ReunionIslands, that spans about two million square kilometres of an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), and it has a population of one million French Citizens in the region, including about 30% of Indian origin.

• The French Navy maintains bases in the UAE, Djibouti as well as in Reunion, with a total of 20,000 forces permanently based in the IOR.

• France is India’s oldest strategic partner, and has conducted India’s first international ‘Varuna’ joint naval exercises since 1983.

www.studyiq.com

Centre gives effect to GST rate changes

• The Centre on Wednesday notified the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council’s latest decisions, giving effect to the revised tax rates on goods from November 15. The government said all product prices must reflect the change.

• “A consumer shall be charged the revised reduced rates of 18% on these items with effect from the 15th November, 2017. On 178 items the GST rate has been brought down from 28% to 18%,” the government said in a release. “Accordingly, there would be a corresponding reduction in price/MRP on these goods. Consumers may take note of these reductions while making purchases.”

• The Council also allowed companies having an annual turnover of less than ₹1.5 crore to file their July-September GSTR-1 forms by December 31, the October-December GSTR-1 forms by February 15, 2018, and the January-March GSTR-1 forms by April 30, 2018.

• “Virtually all the notifications that were required based on the decisions taken in the last meeting have been issued,” said M.S. Mani, senior director, Indirect Tax, at Deloitte India. “There is no real change in them versus the decisions announced at the end of the meeting.”

www.studyiq.com

Futuristic combat vehicle plan a game changer: Army

• The two ambitious projects to equip the Army with futuristic combat vehicles are a game changer for the Indian industry, a senior Army officer said on Wednesday.

• The Futuristic Infantry Combat vehicle (FICV) and Future Ready Combat Vehicle (FRCV) programmes are going to be the biggest game changers for the Indian defence industry ecosystem…

• The FICV is an ambitious effort to design and manufacture indigenously a futuristic infantry vehicle by the private industry by roping in foreign original equipment manufacturers.

• FRCV is a tender for the procurement of futuristic tanks through the Strategic Partnership model.

www.studyiq.com

Answers

1) Dams, factories, research labs, power stations etc

2) Nirbhaya Missile

• India’s first indigenously designed and developed Long Range Sub-Sonic Cruise Missile

• It can be deployed from multiple platforms

• Carry warheads of up to 300 kg

• The missile has the capability to loiter and cruise at 0.7 Mach, at altitudes as low as 100 m.

3) TB: Data collection or proper registration is the first step to fight against it

www.studyiq.com

Questions

1. In which country do you find a place called Forbidden City?

2. What is/are the objective/s of Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) group?

3. What is Fracking?

www.studyiq.com

• Need lecture notes? Get it from www.studyiq.com or Telegram: https://t.me/Studyiqeducation

•Subscribe

•Share

•Like

•Comment

•Jai Hind

www.studyiq.com