International and Bilateral Issues

Syrian protesters offered amnesty

• Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has offered an amnesty to citizens who have taken up arms against his rule in a 10-month revolt that has dragged the country to the point of outright war.
• It is the first made since forces loyal to Mr. Assad lost control of parts of Syria's towns and cities.
• Meanwhile, the former Arab League leader added his weight to a Qatari proposal to send Arab troops to Syria to help quell the violence, which is said to have claimed 5,000 lives.

UAE looks to boost investments in India

• The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is set to look for fresh investment opportunities in India, building on the booming trade between the two countries, which has zoomed to $ 67 billion last year.
• The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) website said the investment body, which is wholly owned by the Government of Abu Dhabi, has invested globally in several categories, including “quoted equities, fixed income, real estate, private equity, alternatives and infrastructure.”
• The statement added that the UAE was among the top 10 investing countries in India with an estimated investment of more than $8 billion.

Indian students fare poorly in international evaluation test

• Only 53 per cent students from Himachal Pradesh and 63 per cent from Tamil Nadu were able to answer correctly during the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2009 plus exams held last year by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER)

  This was in line with the results where Indian students remained at the bottom with only Kyrgyztan performing worse.

  But in a comparison between the two States, students in Tamil Nadu attained an average score on the PISA reading literacy scale, significantly higher than those for Himachal Pradesh.
• The OECD-PISA is an international comparative survey of 15-year-olds' knowledge and skills in reading, mathematical and scientific literacy. Some outcome of PISA-2009 are:

  • A major goal of PISA is to untangle the factors that are associated with educational outcomes and to guide governments in constructing policies that improve these outcomes.
  • Girls not only tended to attain higher reading scores than boys, they were also more aware of strategies for understanding, remembering and summarising information
  • Students, who are highly aware of effective strategies for learning and also regularly read a wide range of material, tend to demonstrate better reading proficiency than those who either have a lower awareness of effective strategies or read a narrower range of materials regularly.
  • Policies around governance, accountability, the investment of educational resources and the overall learning environment are influenced by the social and demographic intake of the school

Let's seize ‘golden period' for relations, China says on eve of border talks

• On what is likely his last visit to India as China's Special Representative on the boundary negotiations, State Councillor Dai Bingguo has issued a strong call for both countries to put aside their differences and seize “a golden period to grow China-India relations.”

  • Mr. Dai has served as China's Special Representative since the current mechanism was introduced in 2003.
  • He has also directed China's foreign policy under the Hu Jintao government.
  • Mr. Dai (70) is expected to retire as the Chinese leadership begins a once-in-a-decade transition towards the end of the year

• His statements defined Indo-China relation  for 2011-12 [imp for UPSC Mains]

  • In the mid-1950s, China and India, in response to the call of the time, jointly initiated the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, or the Panchsheel. Today, these five principles are still shining with strong vitality.
  • I am happy to note that since the beginning of the new century, the China-India Strategic and Cooperative Partnership for Peace and Prosperity has continued to grow rapidly, and our friendly cooperation has yielded fruitful results. 
  • The trade volume between our two countries has grown from $2.9 billion in 2000 to $61.7 billion in 2010, a 20-fold increase in 10 years. 
  • We speak with one voice and enjoy increasingly closer coordination and collaboration in multilateral mechanisms and in tackling global challenges. 
  • The year 2011 was the ‘Year of China-India Exchanges.' The first bilateral Strategic Economic Dialogue was held, and 500 Indian youths visited China.
  • China's conviction to peaceful development is not without foundation. It is rooted in the fine Chinese culture and tradition. Peaceful development is not an act of impulse. It came into being in the course of reform and opening-up and is firmly supported by China's state policy and strategy.
  • No genuine Asia-Pacific century or Asian century would come without the development of China, India and other developing countries.
  • As neighbours and two big countries with a combined population of 2.5 billion, China and India can join hands, seize the historic opportunity, and work together to further advance our friendship and cooperation.