General Awareness

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS - January 2018

Jan 2018

Mar 23, 2023

India Participates in the US-led IPEF Negotiating Round in Bali

India participated in the US-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) negotiations in Bali.
Apart from India, negotiators from 13 other countries, including the US, Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam also participated in the Bali negotiating round. The first round of negotiations took place in Australia in December 2022. Thereafter, India hosted a special round in February 2023.
During negotiations issues related to trade, supply chain, clean economy, fair economy, and supply chains were taken up. India participated in the discussions pertaining to only three pillars, as it decided to be an observer in the trade pillar.

Japanese PM Kishida Invites PM Modi to G7 Hiroshima Summit

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida formally invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the G7 Summit 2023 after both had a delegation-level talk in Delhi. Japan is the host country for the G7 summit 2023. The host country for 2022 was Germany.
The 49th G7 summit will be held from May 19 to 21, 2023 in Hiroshima, Chūgoku, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan.
The 2023 summit will be the first summit for British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
The international Group of Seven (G7) is an intergovernmental political forum consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States; additionally, the European Union (EU) is a "non-enumerated member".
It was founded in 1973.

Mar 22, 2023

India Ranks Second in Asia-Pacific and Japan Region for Ransomware Attacks in 2022

According to a new report, India was the second most targeted country by ransomware in the Asia-Pacific and Japan region in 2022, up from spot 3 in 2021.
In 2022, Maharashtra was the most-targeted state with 36 per cent of ransomware attacks, while New Delhi was at second, according to the Palo Alto Networks 2023 Unit 42 Ransomware and Extortion report.
As per the report, manufacturing, construction, and professional & legal services were the most targeted industries.
The most active ransomware groups include Lockbit 2.0, BianLian, and Stormous.

Mar 21, 2023

Finland Tops World Happiness Report

Finland was named the happiest country in the world in the annual World Happiness Report. This is the sixth consecutive year that Finland won the coveted prize due to high scores in factors the report uses to measure happiness: GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity and low corruption. The report was released on International Day of Happiness. India was ranked 125 based on the various parametres of happiness.
The World Happiness Report is a publication of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and is based on global survey data from people in more than 150 countries.
This year's (2023) list is similar to past rankings with many of the Nordic countries in top spots. While Denmark is at number 2, Iceland is ranked number 3.
India, one of the fast growing economies, ranked below Nepal, China, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Thailand PM Dissolves Parliament

Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha dissolved the country's parliament, setting up a general election in May as the former coup leader seeks to extend army-backed rule.
The former army chief Prayut came to power in a 2014.
The main opposition Pheu Thai group, fronted by Paetongtarn Shinawatra, is polling strongly but Thailand's junta-scripted 2017 constitution will make it hard for the party to secure the top job.
The election is the second since the 2014 coup and the first since the country was rocked by massive youth-led pro-democracy protests in Bangkok in 2020.

Emmanuel Macron Survives No-confidence Vote

The government of French President Emmanuel Macron narrowly survived a no-confidence vote, as furious opposition lawmakers contested his decision to force changes to the pension system through parliament without a poll.
Two no-confidence motions had been filed — one by a coalition of centrist and left-wing parties, and a second by the far-right National Rally. The latter now has no chance of going through.
The first no-confidence motion, put forward by Charles de Courson, France's longest-serving MP and a member of the small opposition centrist grouping Liot, was narrowly defeated – it fell short of the required absolute majority by only nine votes. A total of 278 MPs voted in favour.
A second no-confidence motion tabled by Le Pen's party, National Rally, was rejected. After the government won both votes, Macron's proposed changes to the pension system are likely to swiftly become law.
Under Macron's changes, the minimum general retirement age will rise from 62 to 64, some public sector workers will lose privileges and there will be an accelerated increase in the number of years of work required to qualify for a full pension.

Mar 20, 2023

Global Terrorism Index 2023: Afghanistan Tops the List of Most Impacted Country by Terrorism

India was among the 25 worst terror-hit countries and also among 56 of the 120 nations surveyed with no respondents selecting war and terror as the biggest threat to their daily safety, according to the 10th edition of the Global Terrorism Index (GTI).
The index released by Sydney-headquartered think-tank Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP) noted India has a number of low-level conflicts in some of the border areas but the vast majority of the country's population lives outside of these regions.
The GTI score of India, which was listed among countries with a high impact of terrorism and ranked 13th, was 7.175 compared to 8.822 of Afghanistan which topped the index.
The calculation of the score considered deaths, incidents, hostages, and injuries from terrorism, weighted over a five-year period.
The GTI produces a composite score so as to provide an ordinal ranking of countries on the impact of terrorism. The GTI scores each country on a scale from 0 to 10; where 0 represents no impact from terrorism and 10 represents the highest measurable impact of terrorism.

Ramsahay Yadav is Nepal's New Vice-President

Ramsahaya Prasad Yadav, a senior leader from the Madhes region, was elected as Nepal's Vice President, in a further boost to the coalition government headed by Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda'.
Ramsahaya Prasad Yadav, a candidate from the Janata Samajbadi Party (JSP), comfortably defeated his nearest rival Ashta Laxmi Shakya of CPN-UML and became the Himalayan nation's third Vice President and the first from the Madhes region, bordering India.
Yadav had the support of the Nepali Congress, CPN-Maoist Centre, CPN-Unified Socialist, and other fringe parties. Rastriya Prajatantra Party did not take part during the vice presidential voting.

International Court Issues War Crimes Warrant for Vladimir Putin

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes, accusing him of personal responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine.
It was the first time the global court issued a warrant against a leader of one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.
The ICC said that Putin is allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of (children) and that of unlawful transfer of (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.
The move was immediately dismissed by Moscow—and welcomed by Ukraine as a major breakthrough.

Japan, South Korea Agree to Mend Ties as Leaders Meet after 12 Years

As Japan and South Korea continue to deal with North Korean threats and growing concerns about China, the leaders of two neighbours promised to rekindle ties in a fence-mending summit in Tokyo.
Leaders of South Korea and Japan have not met in 12 years because of strained relations stemming from a wartime labour dispute, and other issues.

Mar 19, 2023

Japan, UK, Italy Push Joint Fighter Jet Development by 2035

Japan, Britain, and Italy reaffirmed their commitment to push joint development of a next-generation fighter jet as a centrepiece of their increasingly close defence ties in the face of growing threat from China, Russia and North Korea.
In December 2022, Japan announced a joint next-generation fighter jet development with the UK and Italy as it looks to expand defence cooperation beyond its traditional ally, the United States.

Bhutan's Graduation from the UN List of Least Developed Countries

At the United Nations Least Developed Countries (LDC) Summit that concluded in March 2023 in Doha, Qatar, the landlocked Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan was no longer on the list of LDCs and became only the seventh country to graduate from the list.
Bhutan was included in the first group of LDCs in 1971. However, over the last few decades, it has made remarkable progress on a variety of socio-economic metrics.
Bhutan first fulfilled the requirements for graduation in 2015, and then again in 2018. Bhutan was therefore scheduled to graduate in 2021.
However, the UN viewed Bhutan's request to match the effective graduation date with the conclusion of the nation's 12th national development plan in 2023 as a legitimate request and thus postponed the delisting.
Six countries that have graduated from Least Developed Country status are Botswana in December 1994, Cabo Verde in December 2007, Maldives in January 2011, Samoa in January 2014, Equatorial Guinea in June 2017 and Vanuatu in December 2020.

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