Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 04 May 2016

:: NATIONAL ::

Apex court asks Centre to look for the possibility of floor test

• The Supreme Courtsaid that a “floor test is the ultimate test” to decide who is in power, and asked the Centre to consider having a trust vote in the Uttarakhand Assembly to determine whether the Congress government has a majority.

• The court said it would temporarily suspend President’s Rule to facilitate the floor test. Attorney general agreed to return on 4th with the government’s response.

• It had expressed its displeasure to both parties — the Centre and Mr. Rawat — for trading allegations on horse trading and the airing of a sting operation featuring the former Chief Minister allegedly discussing pay-offs.

• “Both horse trading and airing of sting operation create a dent in democracy. Thatis why we said that a floor test is the ultimate test,” Justice Misra had observed.

• But court’s proposal was shot down by Mr. Rohatgi in thelast hearing. The A-G instead asked the court to first decide the validity of the proclamation (of President’s Rule) before a floor test was held.

• In fact, the Centre, which won a stay in the apex court against a High Court decision on April 21 to lift President’s Rule, had argued that what happened in the legislature on March 18 when the Money Bill was tabled was itself a floor test.

Union government approved assistance of 35000 crore for M.H. irrigation sector

• The central government has approved a special assistance of Rs 35,000 crore to help Maharashtra tide over the mess in its irrigation sector, an area where successive governments have performed poorly.

• The funds will be diverted over three years towards completion of 199 ongoing projects in the drought-affected areas of Marathwada and Vidarbha.

• This will aim to double the state’s irrigated area to 126 lakh hectares from the existing 48 lakh ha.

• Of the shortlisted 132 projects in drought-prone talukas, 98 are from Vidarbha and 34 are from the districts of Marathwada with each getting an assurance of Rs 4,098 crore and Rs 3,090 cr respectively.

• Another 67 projects are the drought prone area projects (DPAP) in the districts. Aid was sought for completing the long-pending Ghosikhurd irrigation project and the Tapi recharge irrigation project.

• The Centre has announced setting up of a committee to look into the speedy approvals for the Ghosikhurd project.

NGT issued show-cause notices to both Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh (Register and Login to read Full News..)

Parliamentary standing committee on defence wants DRDO change itself (Register and Login to read Full News..)

:: International ::

India gets a major diplomatic coup in F-16

• In a diplomatic coup for India that sets the stage for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the U.S. capital in June, the Obama administration announced that the U.S. would not be financing the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan.

• The administration’s turnaround, by now aligning itself with the bipartisan sentiments expressed in the U.S. Congress against giving aid to finance the deal, also signifies a change in its attitude towards Pakistan.

• Congress has approved the sale, key members have made clear that they object to using Foreign Military Financing (FMF) to support it. After objections, US has told the Pakistanis that they should put forward national funds for that purpose.

• The original plan was to sell eight F-16s to Pakistan and finance most of the $699 million deal through FMF.

• Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman announced that they would not approve FMF for Pakistan until it demonstrated “behavioural changes” in its support for terrorism and its dealings with India.

• India has been strongly protesting the U.S. decision to give these fighters to Pakistan, and the matter figured in Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar’s meetings with U.S. Officials.

• The State Department announcement came on the fifth anniversary of the U.S. raid in Pakistan that killed al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden.

• Meanwhile, Pakistan said it will acquire jets from elsewhere if the United States doesn’t arrange funding for F-16s.

• Mr. Obama said in the interview that the U.S. had “excellent counter terrorism cooperation with Pakistan”, and Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Olson argued that F-16s improved Pakistan’s counter-terror capabilities.

• Pakistan has not been able to get the Taliban to the negotiating table in Afghanistan as it had promised, and the U.S. is increasing its engagement with India on Afghanistan, much to the discomfort of Pakistan establishment.

• The new order is for 13 F-35s, the fifth generation stealth fighters. The Joint Strike Fighter programme is estimated to cost $379 billion for adding 2,457 aircraft, the costliest Pentagon acquisition ever.

A special Bangladesh’s court sentenced more for crimes during independence war (Register and Login to read Full News..)

:: Science and Technology ::

Antibiotics can also make body prone to infection

• Antibiotics are essential for fighting bacterial infection, but, paradoxically, they can also make the body more prone to infection and diarrhoea by allowing gut pathogens to “breathe”, says a study.

• Antibiotics benefit pathogen growth by disrupting oxygen levels and fibre processing in the gut, the study said.

• The findings could lead to development of new strategies to prevent the side effects of antibiotic treatment.

• Exactly how the resident “good” microbes in the gut protect against pathogens, such as Salmonella, and how antibiotic treatments foster growth of disease-causing microbes have been poorly understood.

• The reduced ability to metabolise fibre prevents these cells from consuming oxygen, increasing oxygen levels in the gut lumen that favour the growth of Salmonella.

• Most persons infected with Salmonella develop diarrhoea, fever, and abdominal cramps 12 to 72 hours after infection, according to the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Google chrome became the most used browser (Register and Login to read Full News..)

:: Business and Economy ::

The seventh pay commission has recommended to abolish overtime allowance

• The Seventh Pay Commission has recommended that overtime allowance, except for operational staff and industrial employees governed by statutory provisions, should be abolished.

• This is recommended after data showed that the expenditure under the head for the Railways and Defence ministries more than doubled in seven years ending 2012-13.

• Overall, the overtime paid by the Government increased from Rs.797 crore to Rs.1,629 crore in the period, prompting the Commission to observe that government offices need to increase productivity and efficiency.

• “Government employees should be paid for results, not to spend time in the office, but overtime is mandated by law in organisations like railways and in such cases payments must be realistic and not frozen in time.

• Overtime allowance paid in just the Ministry of Railways and to civilian employees in the Ministry of Defence, accounts for more than 90 per cent of all overtime paid by the Centre, the Commission found.

• While the Ministry of Defence has achieved some success in controlling payment of the allowance, the efforts of the Railways Ministry have not borne fruit as yet.

• The allowance decreased to 6.54 per cent of pay in 2012-13 from nearly 8 per cent in 2006-07 in the Ministry of Defence. It increased to 2.58 per cent in the Ministry of Railways in 2012-13 from 2.09 per cent in 2006-07.

• Overtime paid to employees in the Railways is rising faster than even their pay. The compounded annual growth rate of 17.2 per cent for overtime in the ministry exceeds that of pay which is 13.2 per cent.

• If the government decides to continue with the allowance for those categories of staff for which it is not a statutory requirement, then it should be increased by 50 per cent, the panel recommended.

Apex court settled the tips issue

• Tips to waiter had become a bone of contention between a leading hospitality group and the taxman.

• The matter landed in court, which passed a landmark judgment. The issue was whether tips constituted salary-income or income from other sources and whether the employer was obliged to ‘withhold’ the tax.

• The Tax Authority, in this case the Commissioner of Income Tax (TDS), contended that such tips constituted the salary-income of waiters and the tax-payer (employer) was obliged to withhold taxes and remit them to the authorities.

• The authority treated the taxpayer as assessee-in-default and sought to recover the tax shortfall with interest. It also levied a penalty.

• Its contention was that tips from customers were salary-income of waiters as “profits in lieu of salary” and salary included salary paid or allowed to an employee by or on behalf of an employer.

• However, the tax payer, ITC Gurgaon’s contention was that tips were received directly by the waiters from customers and the tax-payer merely acted as a trustee, collecting tips and passing it on to the employees.

• Since tips did not constitute salary-income of the employees, the taxpayer had no obligation to withhold tax and could not be treated as a defaulter-assessee.

• The apex court, in its recent ruling, held that since tips werereceived voluntarily from customers and employee-waiters had no vested right against the employer to claim any such amount, it did not constitute salary-income.

• There is no dispute that tips are taxable income, but it is income from other sources, the court said.

The government is planning to introduce verification through ordinary mobile phones (Register and Login to read Full News..)

Government started the process to set up a National Committee on Trade Facilitation (Register and Login to read Full News..)

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Sources: Various News Papers & PIB

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