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GKCA Update 1st to 31st Mar Starred Articles 03 G7 condemns Russia’s military build-up in Ukraine, US moves to expel Russia from G8 Mar World > Ukraine Russia’s G8partners, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US have condemned Russia’s military build-up in the Crimean Peninsula and have suspended the G8 summit in June. Pro-Russian armed men have taken control of the Crimean Parliament and Russian armed forces have captured major air bases and blocked all major roads, cutting access to the Crimean peninsula. Ukraine's interim government has accused Russia of having declared war, and has ordered the mobilisation of its armed forces. Russian President Vladimir Putin had so far defied calls from the West to pull back his troops and said that Russia has a right to protect the interests of Russian-speakers in Ukraine. The US has called on Russia to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Meanwhile, the US has also been considering measures to expel Russia from the group of G8 nations and also to freeze Russian assets, cancel trade talks and a visa ban on its officials. 03 Govt. issues new medical guidelines, 2 finger test outlawed Mar India > Rape Victim Treatment The Union Health Ministry has issued new guidelines for treating rape victims and has asked all the hospitals to set up a designated room for forensic and medical examination of victims. Under these guidelines it has also outlawed the two-finger test performed on them (rape victims) by dubbing it as unscientific. The guidelines also say that doctors are required to give the patient a structured explanation of what the examination comprises and how the various procedures may be carried out. 04 Sheila Dikshit to be new Kerala governor Mar Politics & Government > Sheila Dikshit Sheila Dikshit, former Delhi chief minister has been recently appointed as the governor of Kerala. Before her, from March 2013, Nikhil Kumar had held the post. Amid speculations that Nikhil Kumar may contest the Lok Sabha poll from Bihar, and after him subsequently stepping down as the governor, Dikshit was appointed as governor of Kerala. From 1998 to 2013, Sheila Dikshit served her term as Delhi's chief minister after which she lost to Arvind Kejriwal, the leader of the Aam Aadmi Party in the December 2013 assembly polls by over 20,000 votes. Before becoming the CM, between 1984 and 1989, Dikshit had represented Kannauj parliamentary constituency in UP. 05 Rs 100 crore defamation suit by Reliance Infrastructure against AAP in High Court Mar Corporate > Reliance – AAP Reliance Infrastructure filed a Rs 100-crore defamation suit against the Aam Aadmi Party in the Bombay High Court. The defamation suit was their response to allegations against the company regarding malpractices in the company's power distribution business in Mumbai. www.testfunda.com Page 1 of 16 GKCA Update st st 1 to 31 Mar AAP, has been attacking R-Infra for buying power priced higher at over Rs 6 per unit when the cost of generation is around Rs 3.50. AAP also demanded that the R-Infra should remove Regulatory Assets, losses accumulated in previous years that can be recovered by a discom, on the ground that discoms were used to making imaginary losses and later recovering them from customers. AAP has stated that Rs 22,000 crore were lost in Maharashtra in three years due to corruption and inefficiency in the state government and power firms. AAP had accused Mumbai's power discoms, R-Infra and Tata PowerBSE -3.25 % of making a wrongful gain of Rs 434 crore in the three years ended March 2013, by overstating taxes while calculating costs. The charges, made by AAP members Anjali Damania, Preeti Sharma Menon and Satish Jain, were strongly denied by the company at the time and they filed a defamation case against them. In its petition, R-Infra has refuted the allegations made by AAP and has stated that the party's allegations were -incorrect, false, malicious, misleading, and defamatory- and sought the court's intervention to restrain AAP from repeating such charges. They said that the party was targeting them for political mileage. 06 Crimea Parliament asks to join Russia Mar World > Ukraine Members of Parliament from Crimea, the peninsula on the southern Ukraine region, have requested Russia to include it as part of the Russian Federation. Pro-Russian and Russian forces have been in de facto control of the Crimean peninsula for several days. The parliament said if its request was granted, Crimean citizens could give their view in a referendum on 16 March. The ballot released for the referendum shows that Crimean citizens will be given two options: either immediate “reunification” with Russia, or adopting the “1992 constitution”, which gives parliament the power to vote to join Russia. There is no room in the ballot paper for voting against control by Russia. However, Russia has till now not responded to the issue. America, the European Union and Ukraine’s own government have promised not to recognize any change in Crimea’s status. 08 Malaysia Airlines flight with 227 passengers goes missing in air, no evidence of crash Mar World > Malaysia Airlines Accident A Malaysia Airlines flight Flight MH370 carrying 227 passengers, including two infants, and 12 crew members bound for Beijing lost contact with air traffic control after leaving Malaysia's capital Kuala Lumpur on Saturday 8th March, 2014. The flight has been missing since then and there has been no trace of a crash anywhere in the South China Sea region. The plane, captained by a veteran MAS pilot, had relayed no indications of distress, and weather at the time was said to be good. There had been rumours of plane debris being found near the coast of Vietnam, where flight controllers lost contact with it. It was later proved to be untrue. Ships and aircraft from seven countries and high-capacity satellites of the US and China have been scouring the seas around Malaysia and south of Vietnam for trace of the aircraft. Conspiracy theories have been doing the rounds including that of a terrorist attack on the plane. However, the US has ruled out any such possibility. The passengers on board were of 14 different nationalities, with majority of them Chinese. There were also 5 Indians on the flight. Airlines experts have said that the flight might have disintegrated mid-air and the vast expanse of water was making it difficult for search parties to find any remains. 10 Four new ozone-depleting gases discovered Mar Science & Technology > Ozone Depletion Scientists have discovered four new man-made gases in the atmosphere that they say are depleting the ozone layer more than 20 years after governments started phasing out such substances. Three of the gases www.testfunda.com Page 2 of 16 GKCA Update st st 1 to 31 Mar discovered are a type of chlorofluorocarbon (CFC), a compound once used in aerosol sprays and refrigerator coolants until it was found to be causing the hole in the ozone layer. The fourth gas is a hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HCFC), a compound that replaced CFCs because it is less harmful to the ozone layer. Measurements show that all four new gases have been released into the atmosphere recently - and that two are significantly accumulating. The gases were discovered by comparing today’s air samples with air trapped in snow that acts as a century- old natural archive of the atmosphere. 13 NSA used Facebook to plant malware on user PCs, report says Mar Science & Technology > NSA-Facebook New information linked to NSA leaker Edward Snowden's data indicates that the NSA implemented some of its surveillance activities by masquerading as Facebook servers. The report claims that the NSA spread malware to users' computers under a program called Turbine. Turbine, which was allegedly part of a larger intelligence initiative called "Owning the Net," was reportedly able to infiltrate 85,000 to 100,000 computers around the world. According to the documents cited in the report, the initiative includes a number of targeted operations with codenames and acronyms out of a pulp spy novel. But the one that likely to raise the most eyebrows, called Quantumhand, allegedly used Facebook to gain access to computers around the globe. 17 India remains the biggest arms buyer over the last 5 years Mar India > Arms Buyer India remains the biggest buyer of arms in the world, importing nearly three times as many weapons as its nearest competitors China and Pakistan over the last five years, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Indian imports of major weapons rose 111 per cent in the last five years compared to 2004-08 and its share of total global arms imports increased from seven to 14 percent. India had replaced China as the world’s largest arms buyer in 2010. India has a huge defence spending to keep up with better-equipped Chinese forces and a range of military challenges in its hostile neighbourhood. The main supplier of arms to India in 2009-13 was Russia, accounting for 75 per cent of all imports. India has lately started procuring arms from other sources, particularly the US. 18 Medicines made in India set off safety worries in the US Mar World > USA Following a flurry of recalls and import bans by the Food and Drug Administration, U.S. doctors are becoming concerned about the quality of generic drugs supplied by Indian manufacturers. In recent months, the FDA, citing quality control problems ranging from data manipulation to sanitation, has banned the importation of products from Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd, Wockhardt Ltd and, most recently, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.