5 APRIL 2015: India's Operation Raahat evacuates Indians from Yemen

Ø  Malli Mastan Babu, the 40-year-old missing Indian mountaineer, was found dead in the Andes mountain ranges in Chile in South America by the helicopter search teams.

Ø  Presiding officers of parliaments of 10 countries and 20 States in India along with Chairpersons of Legislative Councils and Assembly Secretaries are participating in the three-day Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) conference to be held at a hotel on the beach road here from April 8. The CPA holds in conferences in different Commonwealth countries every year and the theme of Visakhapatnam conference, being organised by the AP chapter of CPA, is ‘Parliament and Media Law’, Speaker Kodela Sivaprasada Rao said at a press conference.

Ø  As part of its diversification plans, the Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited is contemplating entering into a joint venture with NTPC to set up a power plant.

Ø  After successful moves to form the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), China, along with experts from the Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa, is holding talks to form a BRICS rating agency that will break the monopoly of the Big Three — Fitch, Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s. Russia’s Sputnik, its own agency, quoted Russian Sous-Sherpa for BRICS, Vadim Lukov, as saying that China’s Dagong rating agency and the Russians are at the heart of the talks for creating a new independent agency. The demand for a parallel rating agency escalated after Western agencies downgraded the creditworthiness of Moscow following the crisis in Ukraine. Xinhua news agency quoted Guan Jianzhong, the president of Dagong, as saying that the lowering of Russia’s credit ratings by three Western rating agencies was politically motivated. Mr. Guan said that while arriving at a country’s credit rating, the U.S.-based rating agencies applied the criteria of political system, per capita GDP, independence of a country’s central bank, economic system and the level of market privatisation, as well as the right to issue international currency reserves. Mr. Lukov pointed out that the Big Three have also published negative 2015 outlook for Mercosur countries — a sub-regional economic bloc comprising Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela alongside associate countries Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. The Financial Times had earlier reported that BRICS countries have long deliberated on plans to establish their own rating agency, along with the formation of the new development bank.

Ø  Three Air India flights airlifted 488 people from Sana’a, Yemen’s capital, to Djibouti, while the naval patrol vessel INS Sumitra rescued 203 people from Ash Shihr.

Ø  Clearing all hurdles in the construction of a memorial for Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar at the Indu mill land in Central Mumbai, a tripartite agreement was signed in New Delhi on Sunday between the Union government, the National Textile Corporation (NTC) and the Maharashtra government. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the stone-laying ceremony.

Ø  In the largest evacuation as part of Operation Raahat so far, three Air India flights airlifted 488 people from Sana’a to Djibouti while naval patrol vessel INS Sumitra rescued 203 people, including 19 foreign nationals from eight countries, from Ash Shihr via Al Muqalla port. India secured a four-hour window for evacuation from Sana’a on Sunday. Meanwhile, late on Sunday two Air Force C-17s with 452 passengers landed in Mumbai while an Air India AI-777 with 352 passengers landed in Kochi. In addition, the civilian liners Kavaratti andCorals , with a total capacity of 1100 passengers, have reached Djibouti on Sunday afternoon and will join in the evacuation, officials said.