 U.S.

on Monday expelled 60 Russian officials and ordered the closure of the

consulate in Seattle, as ties between the nuclear powers continue to
deteriorate. Of the 60 being asked to leave, 48 are posted at the Russian
embassy and 12 are at the Russian mission to the United Nations in New
York
 officials and their families have been given seven days to leave the U.S.
 due to its proximity to one of our submarine bases and Boeing,
 U.S. takes this action in conjunction with our NATO allies and partners
around the world in response to Russia’s use of a military-grade
chemical weapon on the soil of the United Kingdom.


 Houses at Worli Koliwada are being painted in different shades as part of

‘Misaal Mumbai’ campaign, an initiative of artist Rouble Nagi. Some other
slum pockets in the city have already been covered by the initiative.
 Supreme court decided to look into the constitutional validity of the
prevalent practices of polygamy, ‘nikah halala’, ‘nikah mutah’ and ‘nikah
misyar’ in the Muslim community.
 issued notices to the Centre and the Law Ministry on a bunch of
petitions that have challenged the practices claiming they degrade
women to a position inferior to that of men.
 agreed to set up a five-judge Constitution Bench that will decide
whether certain sections of the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat)
Application Act go against the Constitution.
 landmark verdict of August last, which had struck down instant triple
talaq, the court had kept open the issue of polygamy, ‘nikah halala’,
‘nikah mutah’ and ‘nikah misyar.’
 petition said the Muslim Personal Law allows a man to marry up to four
wives, which it said “treats women as men’s chattel, and reduces their
status to an object of desire to be possessed by men.”
 sought to quash polygamy.

 woman has contended that the Muslim Personal Law rendered Section
494 of IPC (which prescribes punishment for marrying again during
 lifetime of husband or wife) as inapplicable.
 ‘Nikah halala’ is a Muslim law that requires a woman to marry another
man and consummate the marriage and then get divorce from him in
order to remarry her first husband.
 “‘Nikah mutah’ and ‘nikah misyar’, literally means ‘pleasure marriage’
and is a verbal and temporary marriage contract that is practised
among Muslims. In this the duration of marriage and the ‘mahr’ (gift
which the bridegroom must make to the bride) is specified and agreed
upon in advance,”
 “It is a private contract made in a verbal format. Preconditions for
‘nikah mutah’ are: The bride must not be married, she must be
Muslim, she should be chaste and not addicted to fornication. She
may not be a virgin, if her father is absent and cannot give consent.
At the end of contract, marriage ends and women undergo iddah, a
period of abstinence from marriage (intercourse),”
 “Sunni Muslims and within Shia Islam, Zaidi Shias, Ismaili Shias and
Dawoodi Bohras do not practise ‘nikah mutah.’ However, Sunni Muslims
practise ‘nikah misyar’, which is similar to ‘nikah mutah’,”
 many Islamic scholars have already said that ‘nikah halala’, ‘nikah
mutah’ and ‘nikah misyar’ are “forbidden and void in Islam.”
 In the aftermath of last week’s Jawaharlal Nehru University protest wherein
at least two journalists alleged assault and molestation, delhi police propose
special identification measures for journalists covering events that are likely
to grow violent.
 to give journalists a distinct identity in the form of fluorescent identity
cards or some kind of jackets so that they can be identified while
covering a sensitive situation,
 once the measure is approved, a decision will be made on how exactly
to implement it.
 Will meet district Deputy Commissioners of Police to sensitise them on
how to handle the media in such situations.
 In Kolkata last year, scribes were given jackets by the police with ‘Press’
written on them.
 External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has set a May 15 deadline for
ministerial-level visits to 28 countries that have not seen any kind of
engagement since the NDA government came to power.
  shot off a letter to several Ministers asking them to visit the remaining
28 countries in the “third and last phase that has to be completed by
May 15”.
 government will engage with all the 193 countries. Under this initiative,
Ministers are being sent to various countries.
 In 2016 also, Ms. Swaraj sent a similar letter in which she said, “By
2016-end, we will not leave any country where Indian Ministers have not
gone.”
 Kashmir: Centre has sent a message to the Army, the Central Armed Police
Forces and the State police not to kill civilians. Tourism has taken a massive
hit in the past two years due to a series of encounters and protests.
 panchayat elections should be held after the tourist season is over.
 CAG raps Odisha govt. for weak enforcement in drug trafficking
 According to a CAG report tabled in the State Assembly on Monday,
cultivation of hemp plant has been banned under Section 8 of the NDPS
Act, 1985.
 Act provides for immediate arrest and prosecution of drug traffickers
involved in this illicit cultivation.
 land under hemp plant cultivation are destroyed by the Multi-
Disciplinary Squads (MDS) every year.
 lack of a coordinated strategy and concerted approach by the MDS to
arrest the offenders before or during the destruction drive
 to nip cannabis cultivation in the bud, the Narcotics Control Bureau
under the Ministry of Home Affairs had devised a comprehensive action
plan in 2013 to be adopted by the States to control illicit cultivation.
 hemp plant cultivations continued in eight districts during 2014-15 to
2016-17. The department possessed no information on the actual
acreage of land under hemp cultivation in a year,
 CAG recommended the State government to hold discussions with
District Collectors and local people to get effective results.
 Odisha wrote to the Centre to expedite release of the central share in the
post-matric scholarship scheme for tribal and dalit students.
 from the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment
 amount of ₹118.06 crore has been pending for release by the Ministry of
Tribal Affairs.
 All schemes funded by the North Eastern Council (NEC) will have to be
 completed by 2020 and the respective State governments may have to take
the responsibility of completing those which are delayed by over three
years
 NEC schemes as per Expenditure Finance Committee (EFC) are co-
terminus with the 14th Finance Commission. So all NEC schemes have
to be completed by March 2020
 The DoNER ministry has taken the decision not to continue projects
which are delayed by over three years
 NEC, the nodal agency for the economic and social development of the
north eastern region, has been asked not to take up any project which it
cannot complete within the next two years,
 Assam government is contemplating a law to prohibit bandhs in the State.
 Mizoram government has sent a total of 50 students to Japan under the
‘Learn and Earn’ program for training and employment in the last two years.
 Minister for Labour said that 16 students were sent to Japan in the first
batch in December 2015. Another 34 students were sent in January
2016
 Devotees offering prayers at the shrine of Khwaja Ismail Chishti during his
Urs at Kantit Shareef in Mirzapur
 As per the 2015 census, there were 523 lions in Gujarat, the only home to
the big cat in Asia
 Taking serious note of the death of 184 lions in the State in the last two
years, the Gujarat High Court on Monday sought explanations from the
Union and the State governments in the matter.
 court took suo motu cognisance of news reports on the Gujarat
government’s March 5 disclosure to the Assembly that 184 lions
(including lionesses and cubs) died in 2016 and 2017, with 32 of them
dying of “unnatural” causes.
 court sought to know the reasons for the high number of deaths and the
steps being taken to prevent them.
 government had earlier told the Assembly the unnatural deaths were
due to road accidents, railway tracks passing through forest areas, wells
with damaged or no parapets, and electric fences around agricultural
lands.
 had secured several open wells in forests with parapets, taken steps to
fence railway tracks passing through Amreli district —which has a
 sizeable lion population — and built speed breakers on public roads
passing through the Gir sanctuary area.
 In a bid to tackle the drug menace, Goa police has for the time shared data
of alleged dealers with the Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and Karnataka
police.
 data of the last five years was being shared “after we were able to
ascertain the source of and some of the persons who source drugs to
Goa.”
 ganja and charas were mostly sourced from Rajasthan and Himachal
Pradesh.
 included names of some foreigners.
 Narcotics Control Bureau has been saying for some years that popular
tourist places like Goa, Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan have emerged
as the “hot spots” for cocaine, ecstasy and LSD besides other synthetic
drugs.
 Maharashtra will soon pay farmers the pending ₹800 crore for the red gram
(tur dal) it purchased from them last year.
 has asked for a loan of ₹800 crore from the National Agricultural
Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED), a Union government
agency.
 NAFED has promised to process the loan in 15 days.
 There 89 tur kharedi kendra (tur purchase centres) in the State.
 Bengaluru: managements of several pre-schools in the city are taking to
social media to list the facilities, play areas, equipment and teaching aids on
offer. The clients they are targeting, however, are not parents, but people
who may be interested in renting out a preschool.
 model is similar to that of a person looking to rent a house.
 trend could be attributed to the mushrooming of preschools in the city
 many preschools do not follow the prescribed curriculum and, more
often than not, people running the centres are not trained in child
behaviour or development.
 Department of Public Instruction said that although registration of
preschools was mandated in February 2017, several have not done so
yet.
 Dhanushkodi beach near Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu. The once flourishing
town, which was reduced to ruins in the 1964 cyclonic storm, is now a
 tourist attraction.
 wild elephant seemingly ‘smoking’ in Nagarahole National Park, about 90
km from mysuru, has baffled scientists.
 also known as Rajiv Gandhi National Park, is a wildlife reserve in the
South Indian state of Karnataka. Part of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve,
the park is backed by the Brahamagiri Mountains and filled with
sandalwood and teak trees. The Kabini River winds through jungle
landscapes, home to tigers, Asian elephants and a variety of birds.
Nearby, the Irupu Falls cascade down tree-lined rocks.
 video was shot by the scientists and researchers of the Wildlife
Conservation Society (WCS), India Program, in April 2016
 provided “new insights into wild elephant behaviour.” The wild Asian
elephant in the video appears to ingest charcoal and blow out ash. This
is the first known video-documentation of a wild elephant exhibiting
such behaviour.
 most probably the elephant was trying to ingest wood charcoal, as it
appeared to be picking up something from the burnt forest floor,
blowing away the ash that came along with it in its trunk, and
consuming the rest.
 charcoal has well recognised toxin-binding properties, and although it
may not have much nutritional content, wild animals may be attracted
to it for this medicinal value.
 Siddaganga Mutt in TUMAKURU
 is one of the industrial cities located in the state of Karnataka. Since 28
August 2010, Tumkur has been accorded the status of a City
Corporation.
 Congress government has granted ‘minority religious’ status for
Lingayats and is in the process of recommending it to the Centre.
 anti-bypass agitation by residents of Keezhattur here under the leadership
of the ‘Vayalkilikal’ in Kannur
 Madhya Pradesh has filed a writ petition in the Madras High Court
challenging an order passed by Assistant Registrar of Geographical
Indications (GI) in chennai on March 15 excluding the State from being
granted the GI tag for basmati rice.
 claimed that around 80,000 farmers who produce approximately 10 lakh
tonnes of “basmati” rice in a single paddy season would be affected if
 they were not allowed to sell their produce as basmati rice.
 Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority
(APEDA) functioning under the Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry
since it was the authority which had filed an application for GI tag for
basmati and obtained it for select States in the Indo-Gangetic plains.
 Assam government on Monday told the Assembly that it will not give any
land to the proposed Greater Nagalim as per the Naga Framework
Agreement
 Assam government has not received any official communication from
the Centre on the Naga Framework Agreement yet.
 Deewan of the Ajmer Dargah, Zainul Abedin Ali Khan, has written a letter to
the CEO of dargah demanding a probe on accused khadims (caretakers) for
not allowing him to enter the dargah’s sanctum sanctorum to perform a
ritual
 spiritual head of the 12th century shrine of Khwaja Moinddin Chisti, was
allegedly not allowed to enter the shrine after some Khadims raised
objections to his decision of declaring Nasiruddin Chisti -- Mr. sKhan’s
elder son -- as his rightful successor.
 incident took place during the 806th Urs of Sufi saint Khawaja
Moinuddin Chishti in Ajmer,
 Deewan cannot declare his successor like this. He wanted to perform
the ritual along with his son which was unacceptable. He should have
gone alone
 like the Narmada dam, and dozens of other dams and reservoirs, are going
dry. Ironically, Gujarat is faced with the crisis despite receiving copious
rainfall last monsoon.
 State’s main waterbody, the Sardar Sarovar dam on the Narmada
 State has been forced to use the dead stock of water from the dam.
 drought-prone Saurashtra, Kutch and north Gujarat regions.
 deployed State Reserved Police (SRP) personnel along the canals to stop
farmers from taking water illegally from the Narmada canals.
 As South Gujarat has 27% less water compared to last year, there is an
urgent need to ration the use of water in Surat, which gets the highest
water supply per capita,
 due to a weak monsoon in the Narmada catchment areas in Madhya
Pradesh, Gujarat could only get 4.71 million acre feet (maft) of water,
 which is just 45% of the sanctioned supply of 9 maft awarded by the
Narmada Tribunal to the State.
 both IndiGo and GoAir had started getting pre-450 serial number engines
from P&W.
 Sankha Ghosh received the country’s highest literary award Jnanpith in
2016.
 presented annually by the Bharatiya Jnanpith to an author for their
"outstanding contribution towards literature". Instituted in 1961, the
award is bestowed only on Indian writers writing in Indian languages
included in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India and English,
with no posthumous conferral
 In a bid to enrich its coffers by about ₹1 lakh crore, the government has
started the process of monetisation of more than 9,400 enemy properties
by issuing guidelines and directing the office of the custodian to submit a
list of all such movable and immovable assets within three months
 Ministry of Home Affairs has also constituted a valuation committee at
the district level and an inter-ministerial disposal committee, so that the
process could be completed in a time-bound manner.
 9,280 properties left behind by Pakistani nationals and 126 properties
left behind by Chinese nationals
 Bihar’s Aurangabad town
 Dharamjaygarh forest in chatttisgarh
 Dokari ghati of Koraput in Odisha
 Meddling in elections is a most serious issue, but there are other equally
important data-centric threats — from complete data-based control over all
activities and actors in a sector by platform companies (think Uber, but the
process will soon reach as afar as agriculture and manufacturing) to that of
actual informational warfare, by name, which can wreck countries
 CA’s parent company also offers data-intelligence services to militaries,
and indeed countries such as the U.S. have extensive informational
warfare projects based on social media and other micro-informational
sources for various countries
 even from a security point of view, geodata is perhaps no longer the
most strategic. Social data of various kinds and sectors may be of
greater strategic value. Advanced militaries like in the U.S., Russia and
China know this and are investing in large-scale informational warfare
 and insurgency projects
 U.S. is considering legislation for compulsory reporting of all social
media-related spendings by political agencies, which is also a good area
for India to explore.
 quota policy for the disadvantaged communities of South Africa shows a
mirror to India whose marquee sport, cricket, reflects severe social
inequities. The virtual absence of Dalits and Adivasis from the Indian playing
XIs is there for all to see, even though they constitute around 25% of India’s
population.
 quota policy Cricket South Africa (CSA) has adopted is a model worth
considering.
 CSA’s policy which lays out that of the 11 players fielded by the national
team, a minimum of six players should be colour, and at least two
players black African, has democratised the game unimaginably. (This
proportion need not be kept in each match, but it must hold as the
average for a season.)
 Delhi High Court verdict setting aside the disqualification of 20 Aam Aadmi
Party MLAs in Delhi is a searing indictment of the manner in which the
Election Commission handled the complaint that they held offices of profit
while serving as parliamentary secretaries
 body vested with the crucial power to determine whether lawmakers
have incurred disqualification in certain circumstances and advise the
President or the Governor suitably
 court has not reviewed its decision on merits. Rather, it has ruled that
the EC violated the principles of natural justice while adjudicating a
lawyer’s complaint against the legislators
 It failed to offer an oral hearing on the merits of the complaint and
chose to hide under the specious argument that notices had been
issued to the MLAs to respond to documents that the EC had summoned
from the Delhi government.
 After saying in its order of June 2017 that it would fix a date for the next
hearing, the commission issued two notices seeking replies but fixed no
date; instead, it proceeded to give its decision on January 19, 2018.
Further, Election Commissioner O.P. Rawat, who had recused himself at
an earlier point, rejoined the process without intimation to the
legislators.
  Election Commissioner Sunil Arora, who had not heard the matter and
assumed office only in September 2017, had signed the order. It is a
basic feature of judicial or quasi-judicial processes that someone who
does not hear a matter does not decide on it.
 high court order scrupulously adheres to the core principles of judicial
review of decisions made by a duly empowered adjudicatory body.
Courts do not normally plunge into the merits of such a decision, but
examine whether there has been any violation of natural justice,
whether sufficient opportunity has been given to the parties and
whether the proceedings were vitiated by bias, arbitrariness or any
extraneous consideration.
 EC has an opportunity to redeem its name by more carefully considering
the same question that has now been remanded to it for fresh
adjudication. It could appeal to the Supreme Court, but a better course
would be to hold a fresh and fair hearing.
 high court has acknowledged the EC’s “latitude and liberty” in matters
of procedure, but cautioned that any procedure should be sound, fair
and just. In proceedings that may result in unseating elected
representatives, fairness of procedure is no less important than finding
an answer to the question whether they have incurred disqualification.
 Earlier this month, the government cut royalties that local seed companies
pay to Monsanto, for the second time in two years. This follows previous
attempts to defang Monsanto. In February, for instance, the anti-trust
regulator, the Competition Commission of India, decided to probe into anti-
competitive practices by Monsanto.
 pink bollworm infestation plaguing cotton farmers
 Even though Bollgard 2, or BG-2, Monsanto’s second generation
insecticidal technology for cotton, was supposed to protect crops
against the pink bollworm, the pest has grown resistant to the toxins
produced by this trait. As a result, farmers now spend more on
pesticides to control infestations. This, along with the high cost of Bt
seeds, is driving farmers to indigence.
 solution suggested by the National Seed Association of India is for the
government to encourage a move back to Bollgard, the first iteration of
Bt cotton, as Monsanto hasn’t patented BG in India. Both BG, which has
a single bacterial gene called CryA1C, and BG-2, which has CryA1C and
 Cry2AB2, are designed to protect against pink bollworm. BG began
failing against the pest in 2009, while BG-2 began failing in 2014.
 none of the other 14 Bt cotton-growing countries have seen this
resistance. China still successfully controls pink bollworm with first-
generation Bt cotton. The U.S. and Australia are moving on to third-
generation BG-3 without having faced this problem.
 pink bollworm grew resistant because India restricted itself to
cultivating long-duration hybrids since the introduction of Bt cotton in
2002. Hybrids are crosses between two crops that often see higher
yields than their parents, in a genetic phenomenon called heterosis. All
other Bt cotton-growing countries mainly grow open-pollinated cotton
varieties rather than hybrids.
 when Monsanto licensed its BG and BG-2 traits to Indian seed
companies, the agreement restricted the introduction of these traits to
hybrids only. Second, hybrids are financially more attractive to Indian
seed companies because they offer a “value capture mechanism”.
 India is the only country whose intellectual property laws have never
prevented its farmers from either saving or selling seeds
 Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Authority of India.
 Other countries restrict saving and selling of seeds in various degrees.
Over 70 countries that are members of the International Union for the
Protection of New Varieties of Plants, for example, allow farmers to
reuse seeds from a protected plant variety, but not to sell them.
 In the U.S., where plant varieties are patented, the patented seeds
cannot even be reused. Without such protections, several seed
companies in India prefer hybrids because unlike open-pollinated
varieties, hybrids lose their genetic stability when their seeds are
replanted. This compels farmers to repurchase seeds each year,
protecting corporate revenues.
 When Monsanto introduced Bt cotton in India, the technology was so
popular that cotton farmers shifted to it en masse. But because there
was no open-pollinated Bt option, they were also forced to shift en
masse to hybrids. From 2002 to 2011, the area under cotton hybrids
rose from 2% in north India and 40% elsewhere to 96% across the
country.
 Not only are hybrids expensive, they are also bigger and bushier,
 forcing farmers to cultivate them at low densities — 11,000 to 16,000
crops per acre. This is suboptimal — countries like the U.S. and Brazil
plant cotton at 80,000 to 100,000 per acre. What’s more, to make up for
the low densities, Indian farmers grow them longer so that they produce
enough cotton.
 introduction of the Bt gene into only one parent of Indian hybrids, as is
the practice, is itself a problem. The resulting hybrids are hemizygous,
which means that they express only one copy of the Bt gene. So, they
produce cotton bolls that have some seeds toxic to the pink bollworm
and some that are not.
 This can be contrasted with the homozygous seeds of open-pollinated
varieties in the U.S., China or Australia, which have 100% toxic seeds.
The problem with hemizygous hybrids is that they allow pink bollworms
to survive on toxin-free seeds when they are vulnerable newborns.
 This is only a hypothesis, but other pink bollworm experts say it’s
reasonable.
 When all these factors combine with the pink bollworm’s biology, this
creates a perfect storm of conditions for resistance. The pest does its
most damage in the latter half of the cotton-growing season and does
not consume any other crop that grows then. So, the long duration of
Indian cotton crops, between 160 and 300 days, allows this pest to
thrive and evolve resistance more quickly than it can for short-duration
crops. Contrast this with other cotton-growing countries which strictly
terminate the crop within 160 days.
 only solution to the problem is to move swiftly to short-duration
varieties. This is where Monsanto’s first-generation Bollgard comes in.
Seed companies cannot develop open-pollinated varieties with BG-2,
but they can with BG, since Monsanto didn’t patent BG in India.
 not everybody agrees with this strategy.
 moving back to BG is a bad idea because the problem was not with the
BG trait but with long-duration cotton. And even if BG-2 doesn’t fend off
the pink bollworm, it still protects against other pests like the tobacco
cutworm and the American bollworm.
 presence of two Bt genes in BG-2 means it will be more effective
than BG in delaying resistance against these pests.
 When the whole world is moving to BG-3, why do we want to go
 back in time?
 even if the government incentivises a return to BG, will all seed
companies stop making BG-2 seeds?
 prefer BG-2 because of the superior stacked gene technology. If
India cultivates both BG and BG-2, simultaneously, that can
accelerate resistance among pests, studies predict. This could
trigger the emergence of new cotton pests. India erred by not
clamping down on long-duration crops when Bt cotton was first
introduced. At least now it must base its policy on sound science
and implement it stringently.
 Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, on the other side, established a proto-state that at
one point of time was as big as the United Kingdom, ruling over about 2
million people. ISIS used both asymmetric and conventional warfare tactics
in the battlefield.
 ISIS managed to attract more foreign fighters than any other jihadist
group. It looks at the world through a core and periphery prism. It
doesn’t believe in nation states, but only in a perpetually expanding
Caliphate.
 territories which the Caliph has direct control over make up the core of
the world system, according to ISIS.
 The rest is periphery from where it will attract fighters and resources to
enrich the core and expand it beyond the boundaries “created by men”.
 This theory of expansion has been the fundamental foreign policy
doctrine of Baghdadi’s Caliphate. Despite large-scale military setbacks
at the core, ISIS still remains a global terrorist force. In Nigeria, Boko
Haram, the jihadist group that controls parts of the country, has
declared allegiance to ISIS. In Libya, a branch of the Islamic State
controlled Sirte, the assassinated former dictator Moammer Gaddafi’s
home town, for months and has presence in other cities and the
country’s deserts...
 In Afghanistan, ISIS members and sympathisers have already set up a
wilayat called the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant — Khorasan
Province in the eastern Nangarhar province.
 mainly targeting Shias in the already troubled country.
 It’s from Khorasan that ISIS is handling its South Asia operations,
including in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. ISIS hasn’t carried out any
 major terror attack in India, nor does the group have any organisational
presence in the country. But it has lured dozens of Indians into its fold.
 India has also been high on the group’s agenda. In the 13th issue of
ISIS’s online English magazine Dabiq, Hafiz Saeed Khan, the Wali of
Khorasan [who was later killed], said it won’t be long before Kashmir is
run by the organisation.
 one of the most-affected States by this ISIS influence was India’s most
socially advanced one. In fact, ISIS’s India connect became national
headlines when 21 people, including women and children, from the
southern State of Kerala went missing in 2016
 . Most of the youth who went missing are educated professionals hailing
from middle class or upper middle class families, nullifying the
argument that lack of education and poverty drive extremist ideas
among the youth. All these developments, from establishing wilayats in
Afghanistan and Libya to attracting youth from India and Pakistan,
suggest that ISIS may have been weakened at its core but it’s far from
defeated.
 Nalgonda district of Telangana
 Ichthyosis, a condition caused by the mutation of a single gene, which
has led to the growth of fish-like scales on his skin
 many others are virtually locked into disease-prone gene pools and
yearn for early detection and treatment.
 In India, private enterprises engaged in genome mapping now offer
testing for relative genetic risks, which effectively predict the risk of
diseases such as cancer and diabetes. The costs involved vary from
₹25,000 to ₹50,000. The not-so-apparent factor in genetic test results is
that they do not guarantee comprehensive or accurate prognosis for
individuals.
 Across India, screening for genetic diseases is a painstaking, expensive,
and less-than-efficient process. This is because the country has not yet
developed indigenous genetic panels specific to its native populations
but continues to depend on European genetic panels, except for
prenatal genetic testing, which is specific to Indian populations.
 A genetic panel is developed when scientists identify mutant genes that
cause diseases in specific populations. Each panel comprises already
identified genes that mutated in patients, causing specific health
 conditions, say, a type of diabetes.
 Once the panel is created, screening any number of individuals for
specific diseases becomes cost-effective and efficient. However, the
European panels against which Indian DNA is screened mostly prove
ineffective because genes that mutate and cause abnormalities are not
the same among the two geographical-genetic regions
 Also, about 60-70% of the mutations found in European population
clusters, with reference to a single disease, might not occur among
Indian people. What India needs is a pan-Indian, whole-genome
sequencing exercise that will determine the genetic types which exist
within its geographical boundary.
 Genetic research so far has identified four linguistically defined whole
population groups in India: Indo-European (North), Dravidian (South),
Tibeto-Burmese, and Austroasiatic (Northeast). Each of these is further
divided into 4,635 identified social groups with a specific genetic make-
up, thanks to endogamy.
 India should develop a baseline genetic data for each of its social
groups.
 found differences in the basic disease characteristics among European
and Indian patients of chronic pancreatitis and neural tube defects. An
initial investment for whole genome sequencing would be ₹1,000 crore
 Further sequencing for genetic panels would increase the cost by 10 to
100 times, which may be a small price to pay for considerable
dividends. Once Indian panels are made, a dip in cost for screening
individual patients, ranging from ₹100 to ₹1,000 as against the initial
sum of ₹5 to ₹10 lakh required for sequencing a family of four.
 Glyphosate is arguably the most popular herbicide in the world. Since the
1970s, Monsanto has been marketing it to farmers under the trade name
Roundup. While glyphosate was initially welcomed by farmers because it
saved them the cost of employing labourers to pluck out weeds, its
popularity grew exponentially after Monsanto developed genetically
engineered seeds that were resistant to the herbicide.
 farmers could blanket-spray their fields with Roundup and be rest
assured that it wouldn’t harm their cotton or corn. On the other hand,
several environmentalists argue that exposure to glyphosate is harmful
to humans. There have been tests carried out on mice and rabbits to
 determine the doses at which glyphosate can be dangerous.
 There have been studies to show that key biochemical pathways in
human cells are disrupted when exposed to glyphosate. There have also
been studies to determine if glyphosate can find its way into the skin of
farmers and gardeners who use them, and affect their health. So far,
there’s been no conclusive evidence that it does.
 Earlier this month, however, a study, ‘Glyphosate exposure in
pregnancy and shortened gestational length: a prospective Indiana birth
cohort study’, in the peer-reviewed Environmental Health, proffered
evidence for glyphosate in the urine samples of 71 pregnant women in
Central Indiana. Of the women, 93% had glyphosate “above the limit of
detection” in their urine.
 earlier study in Germany had reported finding glyphosate in the urine of
some people who consumed non-organic meat. However in all these
studies, the glyphosate levels were extremely low and below toxicity
levels. The women in the study didn’t contract it through drinking water
(pesticides used in agriculture can sometimes make their way into
drinking water). So, the only way the glyphosate had made its way was
through their diet. Indiana is known for heavy cultivation and
consumption of genetically modified corn.
 observed no correlations with foetal growth indicators such as birth
weight percentile and head circumference. However, higher glyphosate
urine levels were significantly correlated with shortened gestational
lengths
 this is a rare instance of a common crop chemical being detected in
people. The Indiana study shouldn’t set alarm bells ringing in India yet,
but it certainly merits an equivalent follow-up here.
 Pyramiding: refers to a strategy whereby a trader first enters into a small
buy or sell position in a stock, or any other financial security, before adding
more money to it. The trader might wait for his initial position in the stock to
show a profit before increasing the size of his position
 The initial profit serves as a confirmation to the trader that he was right
about his original idea and offers increased confidence to add to his
existing position. By the same token, the trader will prefer to gradually
scale out of a trading position if it moves in a direction that causes him
to lose money. Pyramiding helps traders increase the size of their profits
 while minimising the size of losses.
 Indira Gandhi Memorial Tulip Garden in Srinagar.
 ‘tagooti’ (imperialist) Pakistan.
 ‘Al Wala Wal Bara’ (Love and hate for Allah’s sake).
 Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989,
 Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu and his Chinese counterpart, Zhong
Shan, met in new delhi on Monday for the first high-level contact between
both sides that decided to “reset” their ties this year in the run-up to a Xi-
Modi summit meeting in China.
 Zhong, who co-chaired the 11th meeting of the India-China Joint Group
on Economic Relations, Trade, Science and Technology with Mr. Prabhu,
said a free trade agreement (FTA) between India and China would be
negotiated in due course, which would be a breakthrough in ties.
 In 2017, the bilateral trade reached $84.4 billion, registering a growth of
20.3% from the year before and a record high. In particular, China’s
import from India soared by 40%, helping ease the bilateral trade
imbalance. China remained India’s largest trading partner. India had
become one of the most important overseas investment destinations for
Chinese companies.
 two sides would jointly promote the synergy between China’s Belt and
Road initiative and India’s development strategies, including the “15-
year Development Agenda”, “Make in India” and “Digital India”
 would promote India’s exports to China so as to address the trade
imbalance between the two countries.
 China welcomed the participation of Indian businesses in the
agricultural, pharmaceutical and IT sectors, and the participation of
producers of manufactured goods. China would provide Indian
participants with preferential arrangements.
 agreed to set up a special working group to draw a road map for
developing two-way trade ... The two sides supported the multilateral
trading system and safeguard the interests of developing members
 would demonstrate flexibility to reach at an early date a modern,
comprehensive and mutually beneficial RCEP agreement of high
standards.
 are also considering positively launching in due course negotiations on
a regional trade arrangement or free trade agreement between China
 and India.
 Chairman of the Finance Commission, N.K. Singh
 use of the 2011 census data rather than that of 1971 has raised the
issue that the States which have followed progressive policies on
population and have reached replacement levels of population growth
rates, will be punished in the resource allocation. This will affect not just
the southern States but also Gujarat and Odisha. If the 15th Finance
Commission wants to retain the 2011 census as a baseline, then it must
rejig the parameters with regard to population policy and give more
weight to the States that follow progressive population control policies
 census baseline has been changed for this commission, but none of the
other parameters including rewarding good governance have been
changed, in that, the concerns of the south should be taken care of. In
any case, the commission has asked for public comments on these
issues and stakeholders should respond there
 Indian Navy’s Talwar class frigate INS Tarkash carried out a “greeting and
training” exercise on Sunday with the U.S. Navy’s Theodore Roosevelt
Carrier Strike Group (TRCSG) which was until now involved in operations
against the Islamic State in the Arabian Gulf.
 INS Tarkash sailed in formation with aircraft carrier USS Theodore
Roosevelt, guided-missile destroyer USS Preble (DDG 88) and other
ships on March 25 as part of the exercise
 personnel from both sides “practised working together and
strengthened their crews’ ship handling,
 included drills in communications and navigating in several close
formations,
 USS Preble, which is part of the TRCGS
 Ten Indian sailors toured spaces aboard Preble such as a combat
information centre, a central control station and the bridge, while 10
Preble sailors visited Tarkash
 USS Preble is currently deployed to the U.S. 7th Fleet area of operations
with the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, the flagship of Carrier
Strike Group 9, along with the guided-missile cruiser USS Bunker Hill,
and guided-missile destroyers USS Halsey, USS Higgins and USS
Sampson.
 The TRCSG will now be in the U.S. 7th Fleet area responsible for
 counter-piracy, freedom of navigation operations and training.
 China on Monday reiterated that Doklam was part of its territory, but said
that with the military stand-off in the area behind, it was looking forward to
a new round of engagement with New Delhi.
 Donglang [Doklam] belongs to China
 top court is looking into the question whether a person facing imminent
arrest for money laundering under Section 19 of the Prevention of Money
Laundering Act could move a High Court under Article 226, complaining of
violation of his fundamental rights.
 K. Vijay Raghavan, Outgoing Secretary, Department of Biotechnology, has
been appointed Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India for
three years on a contract basis
 appointment order was issued by the Personnel Department after the
Appointments Committee of the Cabinet cleared his name
 Defectors usually leave North Korea by crossing into China. Once in China,
defectors must rely on smugglers who charge extortionate rates to evade
Chinese security and North Korean agents. They often make their way to
China’s southern border to seek passage to a third country, usually
Thailand. From there, the South Korean government flies defectors to Seoul.
 The attitude of the Chinese government makes the journey even more
dangerous. China detains any defectors it finds and returning them to
almost certain harsh imprisonment, and possible torture.
 In July 2017, the U.S. Congress imposed new sanctions against Russia for
alleged interference in the election. Russia retaliated with the expulsion of
nearly 800 American officials.
 The Houthi movement that controls northern Yemen vowed on Monday to
fire more missiles into Saudi Arabia unless it stops bombing the country,
after missiles crashed into Riyadh overnight causing casualties in the Saudi
capital for the first time.
 incident threatens to sharply escalate a war that has already unleashed
what the United Nations considers the world’s most urgent
humanitarian crisis.
 Air defences also repelled missiles fired at the southern Saudi cities of
Najran, Jizan and Khamis Mushait,
 took place on the eve of the third anniversary of the entry into the
Yemen war by Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies.
 Pakistan: The Supreme Court ruled in 2009 hijras could get national identity
cards as a “third sex” and last year the government issued its first passport
with a transgender category.
 Fourteen European Union countries announced on Monday that they are to
expel a total of 30 Russian diplomats in a coordinated international
response to the nerve agent attack on a former spy in Britain.
 Germany, France and Poland led the way in Europe with four expulsions
each.
 Among those nations not following the coordinated action, Austria said
it stood behind the recall of the EU envoys but would not take “any
national measures” as it wanted to “keep the channels of
communication to Russia open”.
 North Korea leader Kim Jong-un has visited China, Bloomberg reported on
Monday citing three unnamed sources, in what would be his first known
overseas trip since taking power in 2011 and ahead of a potential summit
with U.S. President Donald Trump.
 Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak’s government tabled a Bill in
Parliament on Monday outlawing “fake news”, with hefty fines and up to 10
years in jail. Under the Anti-Fake News 2018 Bill, anyone who publishes so-
called fake news could face fines of up to 5,00,000 ringgit ($1,28,140), up to
10 years in jail, or both.
 The U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the country’s consumer protection
agency, said on Monday that it has opened an investigation into Facebook
for potentially failing to live up to its promises on privacy and possible
violations of a consent decree
 U.S. government has added seven Pakistani firms to a list of foreign entities
that pose a “significant risk” to its national security and interests by
allegedly engaging in nuclear trade, denting Islamabad’s bid to join the elite
Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).
 After betting strongly on Indian bonds last year, foreign investors are cutting
their holdings as a tumbling rupee erodes their returns and economic risks
cloud the outlook of a once-hot emerging market play.
 foreign investors have sold a net $1.12 billion in Indian debt, the
strongest monthly outflow since December 2016, and are now on the
verge of turning net sellers for the year so far.
 Chief among those concerns is inflation, which has stayed above the
 Reserve Bank of India’s 4% target for five consecutive months, feeding
fears the central bank could raise its policy rate as early as this year.
Rising energy prices are widening India’s trade and current account
deficits, while the government has also loosened its fiscal deficit targets
to finance increased spending ahead of general elections due by 2019.
 reduced confidence comes after foreign funds had bought $26.3 billion
in Indian bonds in 2017, as a nearly 6% rise in the rupee helped deliver
returns of about 7%, one of the highest in Asia.
 Those flows had led foreign investors to use up almost all of the
allocation of Indian government debt to foreign investors, which is
capped at 5% of total outstanding securities, or around $40 billion.
 But returns on Indian bonds have turned a negative 2% since the start
of 2018, traders said, the second-worst performance for Asian bonds
after the Philippines, as the weak rupee erodes returns.
 The rupee has also turned more temperamental, with an overnight
implied volatility of 6.6%, up from 4.9% at the same period last year,
 There have been markets that performed better like Thailand, which has
seen strong currency performance, supported by its robust current
account fundamentals
 Centre would borrow ₹2.88 lakh crore in the April-September period of next
fiscal, which is 47.56% of the budgeted gross borrowing. In April-September
of the current fiscal, gross borrowing was ₹3.72 lakh crore.
 government would issue inflation-indexed bonds linked to the CPI or
retail inflation. Also, government securities of 1-4 years duration would
be introduced. He said that the budgeted gross borrowing through
bonds for fiscal 2018-19 was ₹6.05 lakh crore which would be used to
fund the fiscal deficit of 3.3% of GDP.
 confident that we will be able to meet all expenditures without going
into overdraft,
 47.56% figure in the first half is lower than the average of 60-65% in the
last five years.
 in the next fiscal the G-sec buyback would be pared by ₹25,000 crore.
The Centre would also withdraw up to ₹1 lakh crore from the National
Small Savings Fund — ₹25,000 crore more than in the current fiscal —
to fund the fiscal deficit. This could cut overall market borrowing for the
entire fiscal
  market borrowing calendar... marks a departure from the front loading
seen in recent years
 Along with the change in proportion of issuance in various maturity
buckets, it would help to cool bond yields,
 Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index like sensex
 Tokyo’s Nikkei
 Jet Airways said it planned to expand its operations in the northeast and
make Guwahati its regional gateway.
 It had also introduced direct flights between Mumbai and Jorhat and
Imphal.
 Jorhat is a city and one of the important urban centres of the state of
Assam in India. Jorhat is one of the fastest growing cities of Assam after
Guwahati.
 Power Finance Corporation has chalked out a ₹57,000-crore market
borrowing programme for 2018-19. The board of the company, which met
on Monday, approved the programme.
 board had also authorised the chairman and managing director of the
company to approve the inter-changeability of the amount among
different sources as cleared by it but within the overall limit of ₹57,000
crore.
 borrowings would happen from time-to-time during the year with the
approval of the competent authority in line with the powers delegated
 Lanka IOC, a subsidiary of Indian Oil Corporation, has increased retail prices
for petrol and diesel after about five years, to cope with heavy losses.
 Losses incurred since 2015, coupled with the Sri Lankan government’s
apparent reluctance to come up with a revised pricing formula — which
corresponds to international prices — have compelled Lanka IOC to
raise the price
 Lanka IOC — which controls a third of the island’s market, operating 189
fuel stations across the nation — has incurred losses over the last four
consecutive quarters about LKR 1.3 billion. The state-owned Ceylon
Petroleum Corporation (CPC) controls the rest of retail segment.
 Following pressure from different quarters including the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) to boost revenue, the government increased the
excise duty on diesel in recent years, but there has not been a
corresponding increase in retail prices, putting oil firms under
 considerable pressure.
 The Ministry of Finance has approved a proposal to provide government
guarantee worth ₹5,000 crore in the current financial year to enable the Life
Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) subscribe to the bonds issued by the
Indian Railway Finance Corporation (IRFC).
 The guarantee fee for the amount had also been waived by Ministry,
 Ministry of Railways had entered into memorandum of understanding
(MoU) with the LIC on March 11, 2015 under which the insurer would
provide financial assistance worth ₹1.50 lakh crore for identified railway
projects from 2015 to 2019.
 IRFC had been raising funds from the LIC via issue of bonds having a
tenor of 30 years and remitting the funds to the Ministry of Railways.
 Since the IRDA (Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority) had
set exposure limits, the LIC had not been able to subscribe to IRFC
bonds beyond a certain limit. To meet the norms, the Ministry of Finance
had approved the proposal to provide government guarantee so that LIC
could subscribe to the bonds without limit.
 The funds from LIC are available to the Ministry of Railways at 30 basis
points above the 10-year benchmark yield.
 Land degradation will unleash a mass migration of at least 50 million people
by 2050 — as many as 700 million unless humans stop depleting the life-
giving resource, more than hundred scientists warned
 undermining the well-being of some 3.2 billion people — 40% of the
global population, they said in the first comprehensive assessment of
land health. The condition of land is “critical,” said the
Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and
Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
 Logs from the Amazon rainforest being transported on the Tapajos river
in Brazil.
 less than a quarter of land has managed to escape “substantial
impacts” of human activity — primarily because it is found in
inhospitable parts of the world. And even this small repository is
projected to shrink to less than 10% in just 30 years’ time.
 “Tropical rainforests historically have had low human populations
because it’s hard to get in there — we are now building roads into
them,”
 Bandra-Worli Sea link in Mumbai is illuminated with pink lights to create
awareness on breast cancer