Current Affairs 15th September 2017

Current Affairs 15th September 2017 - Important Points

• MoU for expansion of biotech laboratory signed between India and - Japan
• World Economic Forum released Human Capital Report 2017 on - 13th September 2017
• Former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon elected as Chair of the IOC Ethics Commission on - 14th September 2017
• International Day of Democracy observed globally on - 15th September 2017
• India, Japan signed 15 agreements for enhancing bilateral cooperation on - 14th September 2017
• Union Government launched Operation Insaniyat to help Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh on - 14th September 2017
• India and Pakistan began high-level talks on Indus Waters Treaty on - 14th September 2017

Current Affairs 15th September 2017 - Details

MoU for expansion of biotech laboratory signed between India and - Japan

India and Japan signed a MoU for the expansion of an international laboratory set up for a collaborative research in the area of biotechnology on 13th September 2017.
The agreement was signed after the delegation-level talks between visiting Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi.  Abe arrived to India for a two-day visit

Important Highlights

• The MoU envisages the expansion of the laboratory set up by India's Department of Biotechnology and Japan's National Institute of Advanced Science and Technology under the name of DAILAB.
• This DAILAB is located in Japan and the new centre to come up after the pact will be named as DAICENTER.
• It will be seeking to increase the level of joint research, training and networking programmes that had been underway through DAILAB and its six ancillary institutes called Satellite International Institutes for Special Training, Education and Research for the last three years.
• It would also focus on connecting the academia to the industry and network innovation to entrepreneurship promoting science and technology relationships of both the countries.
• Speaking on the development, K Vijayaraghavan – Secretary, Department of Biotechnology (DBT) showed hope that the expansion of the joint laboratory would be helping in pooling the resources of both the countries towards meeting the growing needs.

World Economic Forum released Human Capital Report 2017 on - 13th September 2017

The World Economic Forum (WEF) released the Global Human Capital Report 2017 on 13th September 2017. The Global Human Capital Report 2017 proposes a new benchmark for leaders to build the future workforces. It provides a means of measuring the quantifiable elements of the world’s talent potential so that more attention can be focused on delivering it.
The Global Human Capital Index is aiming to provide a holistic assessment of a country’s human capital—both current and expected—across its population. The Global Human Capital Index 2017 ranks 130 countries on how well they are developing and deploying their human capital potential effectively.
Key findings

• On an average, the world has developed only 62 percent of its human capital as measured by this Index.
• The top ten ranks of the 2017 Human Capital Index are headed by smaller European countries: Norway (1), Finland (2), Switzerland (3).
• The leaders of the Index are generally economies with a longstanding commitment to their people’s educational attainment and that have deployed a broad share of their workforce in skill-intensive occupations across a bigger range of sectors.
• Only one country, Israel (18), from the Middle East and North Africa made it into the top 20.
  From South Asia, Sri Lanka (70) is the top performer, while Nepal (98), India (103), Bangladesh (111) and Pakistan (125) are lagging behind.
• With the exception of Sri Lanka, the rest have yet to reach the 60 percent threshold in regard to developing their human capital.

Position of in the Global Human Capital Index

• India occupied the 103rd position among the 130 countries surveyed in the Index which is raised by 2 as compared to the Index report generated in 2015.
• India is placed behind Sri Lanka and Nepal in the South Asia region.
• It ranks at the top of the bottom quartile of the Index.
• Although the country’s current educational attainment rate has improved markedly over past generations, its literacy rate among youth is still only 89 percent.
• Country ranks poorly on labour force participation also, due to one of the world’s largest employment gender gaps.

Former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon elected as Chair of the IOC Ethics Commission on - 14th September 2017

Former United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was elected as Chair of Ethics Commission of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for a four-year term on 14th September 2017.

The IOC Executive Board proposed his appointment and it was approved during the IOC Session in Lima with a 74-4 majority. Ban's appointment comes at a time when the IOC is under fire again after its Brazilian honorary member Carlos Nuzman was arrested on corruption charges for awarding of the 2016 Rio Games.

Ban was the eighth Secretary-General of the United Nations between January 2007 and December 2016. He also had a close relationship with the IOC as in 2009, IOC was granted Permanent Observer Status at the UN. He has been the Olympic torch bearer also.

Ban’s first action as the Secretary General was to introduce a code of ethics to the organisation applying to all the employees. He constituted an Ethics Committee to devise a unified set of standards and policies for the complete UN system.

International Day of Democracy observed globally on - 15th September 2017

The International Day of Democracy was observed across the world on 15th September 2017 with the theme ‘Democracy and Conflict prevention’. Theme of this year focuses on the critical need to strengthen democratic institutions in order to promote peace and stability.
Resilient societies are able to mitigate disputes through mediation, dialogue and a reasonable degree of legitimacy of their own institutions.
However, in order to create and foster such resilient societies, an effective and inclusive democratic governance is much required that not only has respect for human rights but also for the law.

 India, Japan signed 15 agreements for enhancing bilateral cooperation on - 14th September 2017

India and Japan signed 15 agreements for enhancing bilateral cooperation on 14th September 2017 in key areas including civil aviation, science & technology, trade and skill development. Among various agreements, both the sides exchanged Record of Discussions on civil aviation cooperation with respect to open sky.

After this MoU, Indian and Japanese carriers can now undertake unlimited number of flights to the selected cities of each other's nations. During the visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to India, these agreements were signed.

Union Government launched Operation Insaniyat to help Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh on - 14th September 2017

The Union Ministry of External Affairs launched Operation Insaniyat in Bangladesh to help Rohingya refugees on 14th September 2017. This Operation was launched due to the response to the humanitarian crisis being faced on account of the large influx of refugees into Bangladesh.

Important highlights

• Under this Operation, India will be distributing relief material consisting of items required urgently by the affected people.
• These materials include sugar, salt,rice, pulses, cooking oil, ready to eat noodles, biscuits and mosquito nets etc.
• The relief material will going to be delivered in multiple consignments.
• The first tranche was brought to Chittagong by an Indian Air Force plane on 14th September 2017.

More about Rohingya People

• These are a stateless Indo-Aryan people from Rakhine State in Myanmar.
• There were approximately 1 million Rohingya people were living in Myanmar. As per the data received till September 2017, almost half of them have fled to other countries.
• Under the 1982 Burmese citizenship law , these Rohingya people are denied citizenship, described by United Nations in 2013.
• The Rohingyas have faced military crackdowns in 1978, 1991–1992, 2012, 2015 and 2016–2017 also.
• The United Nations officials have described Myanmar's persecution of the Rohingya as ethnic cleansing, while there have been multiple warnings of an unfolding genocide.

India and Pakistan began high-level talks on Indus Waters Treaty on - 14th September 2017

The two-day high-level talks on technical issues of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) started between India and Pakistan in Washington, United States on 14th September 2017. According to the World Bank's spokesperson, the meetings between both the countries are taking place between 14th and 15th September. The talks are a continuation of a discussion on how to safeguard the treaty for the mutual benefit of the people in both the countries.
Important Highlights
The World Bank had stated in August 2017 that, India is permitted to construct hydroelectric power facilities on tributaries of the Jhelum and Chenab rivers with certain restrictions, under the water treaty.

Secretary-level talks between both the countries on the treaty took place in August 2017.
Infact a sheet issued at the conclusion of the talks, Pakistan opposed the construction of the Kishanganga (330 megawatts) and Ratle (850 megawatts) hydroelectric power plants being built by India. 

More about Indus Water Treaty

• The Indus Water Treaty was signed in Karachi on 19th September 1960 by then Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru and Pakistan President Ayub Khan.
• Indus water treaty was signed after 9 years of negotiations with the help of the World Bank, which was also a signatory.
• According to the agreement, control over the three "eastern" rivers - Beas, Ravi and Sutlej -was given to India, while control over the three "western" rivers - Indus, Chenab and Jhelum was given to Pakistan.
• However, since Pakistan's rivers flow through India first, the treaty allowed India to use them for irrigation, transport and to generate power, while laying down exact regulations for the Indian building projects along the way.
• That eventually raised a fear in Pakistan that since the source of the rivers is in India, it could potentially lead to droughts and famines in Pakistan, especially at times of war.
• As a solution of this, the provisions of the treaty allow India to use only 20 percent of the total water carried by the Indus river.