DNA 26th July

In a first, Nifty breaches the 10,000-mark

What is the Nifty and the Sensex ?

• Both the Nifty and the Sensex are the Indices.
• They represent a group of top companies averaged out in a single number.If the sensex is up,you can say that on average ,most stocks are gaining and vice-versa.
• There are two main exchanges in India-The NSE & the BSE
• The Nifty is an index from the NSE ,it has 50 stocks in the Index.
• The Sensex(or sensitivity Index ) is from the BSE and comprises of 30 stocks.
• Nifty is weighted average of 50 stocks from 24 sectors .

Centre gives 35 names for High Court judges

• The Law Ministry has forwarded the names of 35 candidates to the SC collegium for appointment as judges in five High Courts, as recommended by the HC collegiums of Madras, Kerala, Karnataka, Jharkhand and Gujarat. 
• The government has forwarded the names following a background check by the Intelligence Bureau. 
• It is learnt that most candidates are from the subordinate judiciary. The five HCs had a vacancy of 97 judges as on July 1

 BACKGROUND:Memorandum of Procedure 

earlier Clauses in the MoP ,like the Executive's prerogative to reject Judicial Candidates recommended by the collegium on the ground of "national security" are no longer a roadblock.

supreme court collegium,initially,wanted the Government to specify the reason for rejecting a name forwarded to it by the top court.

The MoP is the procedure evolved in 1998 under which the transfer/appointment of Judges are done with mutually acceptable norms between the collegium comprising the five senior most SC Judges led by the CJI and the Government.     

Govt. may not split Air India for stake sale

• The central government may not sell Air India's domestic and international operations separately, senior government officials have said.
• "We are not willing to go back to the days of Air India and [erstwhile] Indian Airlines as the disinvestment process of the national carrier may become unattractive," a senior Aviation Ministry official, requesting anonymity, said.
• India's largest low-cost carrier IndiGo expressed formal interest in buying Air India's foreign operations and its low-cost international airline Air India Express.
• Since its inception days, Air India's operations were split into two companies - Air India for international routes and Indian Airlines for the domestic market.
• In 2007, the government merged the two airline operations into a single entity - National Aviation Company of India Limited (NACIL) which was later renamed as Air India Limited in 2010

Sri Lanka clears revised deal for Hambantota port

• Sri Lanka’s Cabinet cleared a revised deal for the Chinese-built port in Hambantota.
•  The modified agreement, the government added, was more profitable to Sri Lanka and also addressed security concerns raised by other countries

Contours of Revised deals:

1.To sell 70% stake in the southern port to the state-run China Merchants Port Holdings for $1.12           billion

2.As per the revised agreement Sri Lanka will manage the port security

3.While the Chinese would manage port operations, no naval ship, including Chinese ones, can call at    Hambantota without our permission

Wary of the Chinese:

• India’s apprehensions about the apparently growing Chinese presence in the island nation are well known, given the two countries’ competing strategic interests here. 
• The Hambantota port is part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. 
• Beijing’s stake in the port and its plan to acquire 15,000 acres of adjoining land to help Colombo set up an industrial zone have strengthened the fears of those wary of China’s growth in the region. 

For China’s global ambitions, ‘Iran is at the centre of everything’

• For millennia, Iran has prospered as a trading hub linking East and West. Now, that role is set to expand in coming years as China unspools its ‘One Belt, One Road’ project, which promises more than $1 trillion in infrastructure investment — bridges, rails, ports and energy — in over 60 countries across Europe, Asia and Africa. 
• Iran, historically a crossroads, is strategically at the centre of those plans. 
• Like pieces of a sprawling geopolitical puzzle, components of China’s infrastructure network are being put in place. In eastern Iran, Chinese workers are busily modernising one of the country’s major rail routes, standardising gauge sizes, improving the track bed and rebuilding bridges, with the ultimate goal of connecting Tehran to Turkmenistan and Afghanistan
• Much the same is happening in western Iran, where railroad crews are working to link the capital to Turkey and, eventually, to Europe. Other rail projects will connect Tehran and Mashhad with deepwater ports in the country’s south
• Once dependent on Beijing during the years of international isolation imposed by the West for its nuclear program, Iran is now critical to China’s ability to realise its grandiose ambitions. Other routes to Western markets are longer and lead through Russia, potentially a competitor of China.

•                                
• A 575-mile electrified rail line linking Tehran and Mashhad, financed with a $1.6 billion loan from China. 
• When completed and attached to the wider network, the new line will enable China to export his goods as far as northern Europe, Poland and Russia, at much less cost than today
• When finished, the proposed rail link will stretch nearly 2,000 miles, from Urumqi, the capital of China’s western region of Xinjiang, to Tehran. 
• If all goes according to plan, it will connect Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan

‘India’s concerns slowing RCEP talks’

India’s reservations regarding the potential adverse impact of eliminating duties on its local manufacturing and job creation is understood to be slowing down the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiations

What is RCEP ?

• Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is a proposed free trade agreement (FTA) between the ten member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) (Brunei, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam) and the six states with which include India, China, Australia, Japan, South Korea and New zealand.
• In total, the grouping of 16 nations includes more than 3 billion people, has a combined GDP of about $17 trillion, and accounts for about 40 percent of world trade.
• If negotiated successfully, RCEP would create the world’s largest trading bloc and have major implications for Asian countries and the world economy.

Widening trade gap

• “India’s trade deficit [annual] with RCEP nations is about $100 billion, and half of this is with China alone even without an FTA with China.” 
• “Post India’s FTA with ASEAN, Japan and Korea [who are all RCEP members], our trade deficit with them have increased, and the government needs to take this into account during RCEP negotiation