Vacate Office in New Delhi’: India asks UNMOGIP, the UN Observer on J&K

Indian Government has asked United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) to vacate its Government accommodations in New Delhi.
Reacting to this, Pakistan said that such steps would not change the legal status of the Kashmir dispute and that it never accepted Kashmir’s accession to India. It said that as long as the Kashmir dispute is not resolved, the UN Security Council mandate remains.
In response to Pakistan’s statements, India said that it believes in moving forward than looking behind and discussing decade old issues. India clarified that the move on UNMOGIP was consistent with efforts to rationalize the UN body’s presence in India. It said that the measure was in line with India’s long-standing view that UNMOGIP has outlived its relevance.
India believes that the UN body had little significance after India and Pakistan inked the Shimla pact in 1972 on resolving the Kashmir dispute bilaterally. However, UN held that UN Security Council resolution mandates the body to monitor and observe the border and report violations of a cease-fire agreement between India and Pakistan.
UNMOGIP in India insisted that it will continue its operations in India in line with its original mandate. The body is now searching for new office to rent.
India had provided UNMOGIP a plush accommodation in New Delhi free of charge 40 years ago. The UN body also has offices in Islamabad and Muzaffarabad, the main city in the Pakistan-controlled part of Kashmir.

Rich nations should capitalize Green Climate Fund: India

Expressing concerns over the empty coffers of the Green Climate Fund (GCF), India urged rich countries to give their consent to a road-map for its capitalization by 2015 – the year the world will have a universal global climate treaty.
Speaking at the ‘Major Economies Forum’ (MEF) in Paris, India’s Environment minister Prakash Javadekar also suggested that part of GCF, which was launched in 2009-10, should be used for funding critical technologies and buying Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) so that it can be made available to developing nations free of cost.
He referred to the annual Budget to inform that India had had taken a number of measures to fight climate change including earmarking Rs 100 crore for National Adaptation Fund, launching of mission for Himalayan region, Clean Ganga mission and hike in cess on coal from Rs 50 a tonne to Rs 100 a tonne.
Green Climate Fund (GCF)
GCF is a fund within the framework of the UNFCCC set up as a mechanism to transfer money from the developed nations to the developing countries, in order to help the developing nations in adaptation and mitigation practices to tackle climate change. The GCF is based in the new Songdo district of Incheon, South Korea. It is managed by a Board of 24 members.
The GCF will support projects, programmes, policies and other activities in developing nations. It intends to be the fulcrum of efforts to increase Climate Finance of $100 billion a year by 2020.

Magnus Carlsen becomes first man to hold the Chess Triple Crown; but he is not the first player

World Champion Magnus Carlsen has become the first man in the history of Chess to hold the Chess Triple Crown by holding the World Blitz, Rapid, and Classic titles consecutively. 
However, he is not the first player to have achieved this feat. Before him, Ms. Susan Polgar did it back in 1996.  Polgar was the first chess player in the world to hold all three world titles in a row, reasonably making her the first player to hold a chess Triple Crown.
Ms Susan Polgar was the first chess player in the world to hold all three world titles successively, fairly making her the first player to hold a chess Triple Crown.
However, there are some dissimilarities between Carlsen’s newly achieved Triple Crown and Polgar’s. First, Polgar won FIDE’s Women’s World Blitz, Rapid, and Classic titles while Carlsen won the Men’s. While, Carlsen won all three titles in one 12-month period, Polgar held her titles contemporaneously, but won them in different years.

Pen Pinter prize to novelist Salman Rushdie

Eminent novelist Salman Rushdie (67), author of Midnight’s Children and The Satanic Verses, has been named the winner of Pen Pinter prize for 2014. The award was instituted in 2009 by writers’ charity English Pen in memory of British writer Harold Pinter.The prize will be presented on October 9, 2014 at an event at the British Library in London.
Rushdie went into hiding in 1989 after The Satanic Verses triggered extensive protests by Muslims and a fatwa was released from Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini.
He was conferred Knighthood in 2007 contributions to literature. His other noted books include Haroun and the Sea of Stories and The Moor’s Last Sigh.

Iraq crisis could impact oil prices in India

Indian government is keeping a close watch on the ongoing crisis in Iraq where terrorist groups led by ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) are attacking and capturing regions in the country. Though the crisis hasn’t yet caused any disruption in the country’s crude oil supplies to India, it has the potential to push up global crude prices. In FY14, India imported around 13% of its crude oil from Iraq, the most after Saudi Arabia, which provided for about 20% of the country’s oil imports of 190 million tonnes in the year. India’s dependence on Iraq crude oil surged since FY12 after US sanctions on Iran.