Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 02 May 2016


Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 02 May 2016


:: NATIONAL ::

Government increased its efforts to douse forest fires

  • As Uttarakhand continued to fight the inferno across 2,269 hectares of forests, two IAF helicopters joined the operations, ferrying water through the Garhwal and the Kumaon hills and dumping it in areas inaccessible to forest personnel.

  • Villages in many districts kept awake at night to try and protect their houses and cattle from the creeping blaze.

  • Wild animals, including snakes, leopards, monkeys and barking deer, moved closer to human habitations, as they were pushed out of the forests by fire and smoke.

  • Hoping to cut off the spread of fire, the IAF helicopters stationed near Nainital and Srinagar drew water from the Bhimtal lake and a river in Srinagar using 3,500-litre ‘Bambi Buckets’. However, smoke and fog delayed the air operation.

  • A third Mi-17 helicopter will reach Nainital on Monday. Two will function in areas near Nainital and one near Srinagar.

  • The Forest Department’s data show that till Sunday 1,082 incidents of forest fire had covered 2,269 hectares, and preliminary losses were put at Rs. 22 lakh.

  • However, the blaze showed a declining trend. On April 27, there were 140 incidents, rising to 338 on April 28 and 477 on April 29.

  • But on Apr 30, they were down to 219 and on May 1st, to 112. Home Minister Rajnath Singh reviewed the situation and held discussions with the Chief Secretary.

  • Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said the Centre was taking the forest fires very seriously. The government would study the causes and prepare an action plan.

National consultation on drought shows various challenges

  • Over 54 crore farmers and rural populations across 13 States are in the grip of drought, and it is a multi-dimensional crisis. This fact was highlighted at a national consultation on drought here on Sunday.

  • Owing to the drought, people were battling for drinking water, food had become scarce, domestic cattle were dying a nomadic death and farms had turned fallow.

  • Good rains may end the water crisis, yet food shortage will continue until the new crop comes in; the government needs to ensure food security..

  • Farmers in a dozen States struggling with severe drought conditions and experts participated in the consultation, which was organised by Swaraj Abhiyan and the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).

  • CSE director-general Sunita Narain said: “Drought in the 1990s was essentially the drought of a poor India. The 2016 drought is of richer and more water-guzzling India.

  • This classless drought makes for a crisis that is more severe and calls for solutions that are more complex.

  • The severity and intensity of drought is not about lack of rainfall; it is about the lack of planning and foresight, and criminal neglect. Drought is human-made.

PM launched Ujjwala scheme from Ballia (Register and Login to read Full News..)

Rainwater may play an important role in earthquake triggering process (Register and Login to read Full News..)

:: International ::

Islamic state kills more than 30 in Iraq

  • The Islamic State group carried out rare attacks in Iraq’s deep Shia south, killing at least 33 people with twin suicide car bomb blasts in the city of Samawa.

  • They said at least 50 people were also wounded in the blasts in Samawa, 230 km south of Baghdad.

  • IS issued a statement later on social media claiming two suicide attackers detonated their car bombs against members of the security forces.

  • It named the bombers as Abu Dayyaral-Qurashi and Abu Zubayral-Zaidi, saying that the second blew up his car bomb as security forces rushed to the scene of the first blast.

  • Samawa is the capital of Muthanna and lies deep in Iraq’s Shia heartland and such attacks there are rare. Muthanna also borders Saudi Arabia and a vast Iraqi desert that connects the troubled province of Anbar with the south.

More than a year after earthquake, Nepal still not reconstructed (Register and Login to read Full News..)

:: India and World ::

India is keen to step up engagement in the hydrocarbon sector with Iran

  • India has conveyed to the Iran that it is ready to clear nearly $ 6.5 billion of the dues for oil import from that country at the earliest, provided there is clarity on payment channel.

  • The message was conveyed even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to visit the oil-rich country later this month.

  • Government sources said there had been a series of discussions at various levels both in Tehran and here and both sides were confident of resolving the issue soon.

  • Following lifting of sanctions against it in January under a historic nuclear deal, Iran terminated a three-year-old system with India of getting paid for half of the oil dues in rupees and was insisting on being paid in Euros for the oil it sold to Indian refiners.

  • It also scrapped free delivery of crude oil. Though Western sanctions against Iran were lifted, problems persist in banking channels due to which regular transactions were not possible yet.

  • Refiners such as Essar Oil and Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MPRL) owe nearly $ 6.5 billion in dues to Iran.

  • During their visit to Iran last month, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj conveyed to Iranian leaders that India wanted to significantly ramp up engagement in the oil and gas sector.

Commerce minister points out protectionists measures by rich nations (Register and Login to read Full News..)

:: Business and Economy ::

RBI governor says despite the same constraints private and foreign banks are doing better

  • Asked to explain the “real causes” of ballooning bad loans at public sector banks, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan has put the blame on “overall economic downturn,” among other reasons, in his submission.

  • Congress leader K. V. Thomas-led Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has examined Mr. Rajan’s response but can ask the RBI Governor to appear before it in future once it is reconstituted.

  • Various public sector banks may also be asked to appear before the panel again to explain their position.

  • The Parliamentary panel had suomotu decided to examine the non-performing assets of the public sector banks, which touched Rs.3.61 lakh crore at the end of December 2015.

  • The state-owned companies had first refused to appear before PAC, but agreed later and made their submission.

  • During the examination of bad loan recovery process of the banks, the PAC found that in a number of cases the same bankers were trying to retrieve the bad loans who had earlier sanctioned the loans.

  • In its questionnaire for the RBI Governor, the panel observed that private sector banks and foreign banks do not have as much NPAs as the Public Sector Banks.

  • This was despite the constraints under which the entire banking sector operates being the same, except for the Priority Sector Lending (PSL) requirements.

  • Noting that Private Sector Banks and Foreign Banks have 2.2 per cent NPA whereas the Public Sector Banks have 5.98 per cent NPAs, the PAC felt “it is hard to believe that the difference is only due to the PSL”.

  • The PAC Chairman also sought to know the “real causes for the present spurt in NPAs and stressed assets” and whether these are really different from those listed by the Narsimham Committee that went into the NPA issue in 1998.

  • Mr. Rajan listed six primary reasons for a spurt in stressed assets that have been observed in recent times.

  • These included domestic and global economic slowdown, delays in statutory and other approvals especially for projects under implementation and aggressive lending practices during upturn as evidenced from high corporate leverage.

  • Other reasons cited by Mr. Rajan were laxity in credit risk appraisal and loan monitoring in banks and lack of appraising skills for projects that need specialised skills resulting in acceptance of inflated cost and aggressive projections.

  • Besides, he also listed wilful default, loan frauds and corruption in some cases among the key reasons.

  • The gross NPAs ratio had steadily declined from 15.7 per cent in 1996-97 to 2.36 per cent in 2010-11.

  • As on March 25, the gross NPA ratio was 4.62 per cent. As on June 2015, the gross NPA ratio was 4.97 per cent and the ratio of restructured standard assets to gross advance was 6.50 per cent.

  • Mr. Rajan also informed the panel about seven key methods evolved by way of recent regulatory measures by RBI to tackle the problem of NPA.

SEBI will put mechanism to check misuse of investors money (Register and Login to read Full News..)

:: Sports ::

Vijender Singh gets his fifth knockout win

  • Indian boxing star Vijender Singh’s power-packed punches went unchallenged yet again as he notched up his fifth successive knockout win by battering Frenchman MatiouzeRoyer.

  • Vijender was declared winner little over a minute into the fifth round of the six-round super middleweight contest, which was incidentally his longest bout so far

  • The 30-year-old was up against his most experienced rival till date in Royer, who came into the bout with an accumulated 250 rounds under his belt.

  • Vijender spent the first round getting a measure of his overtly cautious rival, who preferred to keep a shell guard and hardly attempted a hit at his taller opponent.

  • But that could not save him from a couple of telling body blows from Vijender, who was also impressive with his jabs.

Click Here to Register for Full News

Click Here for Archive

Sources: Various News Papers & PIB

This is a Part of Online Coaching Programme for IAS Exam