Author: ForumIAS

How MPs spend their funds: there’s good and bad news  Question raised What do our MPs do with the funds they have been given to spend on their constituencies?  MPLAD funds Every year, MPs are allotted Rs. 5 crore under the MPLAD (Member of Parliament Local Area Development) Scheme, primarily to take up development projects… Continue reading How MPs spend their funds: there’s good and bad news 

HC allows online nominations for polls  Context ‘Historic’ order comes following violence during filing of nominations for rural elections in Bengal  What has happened? The Calcutta High Court on Tuesday directed the State Election Commission (SEC) to accept the nomination of all candidates who submitted their papers electronically for the West Bengal panchayat polls on… Continue reading HC allows online nominations for polls 

Trump announces U.S. withdrawal from ‘defective’ Iran deal Context US pulls out of the Iran nuclear deal finally What has happened? The United States has pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday, upending a key foreign policy achievement of his predecessor Barack Obama. US view JCPOA failed to deal with the… Continue reading Trump announces U.S. withdrawal from ‘defective’ Iran deal

SC slams Centre for showing “sheer contempt of court” by not framing Cauvery scheme What has happened? The Supreme Court on Tuesday rapped the Central government for showing “sheer contempt of court” by not framing a Cauvery draft scheme but adjourned the case to May 14, after the Karnataka Assembly elections on May 12 and… Continue reading SC slams Centre for showing “sheer contempt of court” by not framing Cauvery scheme

Remove Jinnah’s portrait Context The controversy over Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s portrait at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) in Uttar Pradesh is partly contrived and partly genuine Author’s take He sacrificed Indian Muslims’ interests on the basis of a spurious theory that suited his ambitions Jinnah distorted the Muslim league’s objective Muslim league wanted that there shouldn’t… Continue reading Remove Jinnah’s portrait

Corruption in Tennis Corruption; Gambling; Match fixing News:       Report by Independent Review Panel (IRP) highlights the problem of corruption in tennis Important Facts:       Investigations by BBC and Buzzfeed revealed that there was widespread match fixing and illegal betting in tennis.       Post the revelation, the Independent Review Panel (IRP) was formed in 2016, which published its… Continue reading Corruption in Tennis

World’s Second Oldest Rock is from Odhisa News:       A rock sample collected from Champua in Kendujhar district of Odhisa is world’s oldest rock. Important Facts:       The discovery as a research paper has been published in the journal Scientific Reports       Zircon grains of 4,240 million and 4,030 million years were discovered.       The rock is believed to… Continue reading World’s Second Oldest Rock is from Odhisa

Walmart to buy Control of Flipkart Effects of Liberalisation; Indian startups News: Walmart has acquired stakes of Flipkart. Important facts: Flipkart is India’s first billion-dollar e-commerce company Walmart is a US based company which first entered Indian market in a joint venture with Bharti Group in 2007 Recently, Walmart has acquired 77% stakes of Flipkart… Continue reading Walmart to buy Control of Flipkart

Drowning in Dust Disaster and Disaster Management News:       Recent extreme weather event in North India has highlighted the need for better disaster management system. Important facts:       According to the UN Environment Programme, globally major dust producing region releases 1000-3000 teragrams of particles into the atmosphere. Sahara Desert contributes the highest with one-third of the total… Continue reading Drowning in Dust

Rethinking Wind Energy Wind energy; Developing New Technology News:       Global scientific research reveals that generation of wind energy has high indirect impact on the ecosystem Important Facts:       India has a renewable energy target of 175GW by 2022 and wind energy is one of the most popular renewable energy technologies in India       Wind farms are mostly… Continue reading Rethinking Wind Energy