Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 08 April 2016

:: NATIONAL ::

Supreme Court ordered Vjay Mallya to declare his and his families assets

• The banks’ outright rejection of the offers by Vijay Mallya to partially repay the carrier’s debts led the Supreme Court to order him to disclose under oath assets existing in his name and those of his wife and children as on March 31.

• A Bench of Justices Kurian Joseph and Rohinton Nariman gave Mr. Mallya time till April 21 to file the affidavit, which should include a complete list of all their properties both in India and abroad.

• The court asked Mr. Mallya’s lawyers to get instructions and indicate when the businessman would be present in court.

• The Bench agreed with the banks that Mr. Mallya’s presence was “necessary” for any meaningful negotiations to start.

• It also agreed that he should pay in advance a “substantial amount” of his dues, estimated to be over Rs. 9,000 crore, to prove his bona fide.

Fees in IITs increased for general and completely waved off for SCs/STs

• Studying at the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) is going to cost much more from the coming academic session as the Central government has decided to double the fee.

• The annual tuition fees for undergraduate courses will be increased from Rs. 90,000 to Rs. 2 lakh.

• However, there will be a total fee waiver for the differently abled and students of the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes and the weaker sections.

• The IITs are the most- sought-after institutes in India for engineering, as per the Indian government’s National Institute Ranking Framework.

• The fee was last revised in 2013 under the UPA government from Rs. 50,000 to Rs. 90,000. In 2008, the fee was increased from Rs. 25,000 to Rs. 50,000.

Some relief by railways to Latur district (Register and Login to read Full News..)  

Pakistan suspends peace process with India (Register and Login to read Full News..)  

:: INTERNATIONAL ::

India is sixth largest military spender in 2015

• India is the sixth largest military spender in 2015 having spent $51.3 billion even as the world spent $1,676 billion reversing a global trend which was on the decline since 2011., as per the latest report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

• India moved one rank up from last year accounting for 3.1 percent of global military expenditure.

• Over a ten-year period from 2006-15 this represents a 43 per cent jump. India is also ahead of countries like France, Germany and Israel who happen to be among its top arms suppliers.

• World military expenditure rose by 1 per cent in 2015, the report noted said it reflects continuing growth in Asia and Oceania, Central and Eastern Europe, and some Middle Eastern states.

• On the one hand, spending trends reflect the escalating conflict and tension in many parts of the world; on the other hand, they show a clear break from the oil-fuelled surge in military spending of the past decade.

• The U.S. remained by far the world’s largest spender in 2015 despite its defence expenditure falling by 2.4 per cent to $596 billion followed by China, Saudi Arabia, Russia and U.K.

• China’s expenditure rose by 7.4 per cent to $215 billion.

India trying to avoid embarrassing episode of five years ago on immigration

• The U.S federal agencies that caught 10 Indians in a sting operation for allegedly defrauding the country’s immigration system are yet to move against the recipients of fraudulently obtained visas and other documents.

• Meanwhile, Indian diplomats are trying to avoid the repeat of an embarrassing spectacle five years ago when Indian students trapped in the Tri Valley University scam were radio tagged to monitor their movement.

• Indian diplomatic sources said they have not received any response yet from the State Department or the Department of Homeland Security to India’s request that the ‘students’ who have been involved in the sting operation should not be arrested or deported.

• The 10 Indians among the 21 arrested by the U.S. agencies so far were middlemen who facilitated the transactions between visa seekers and the fake ‘University of Northern New Jersey’ set up by undercover agents of the Department of Homeland Security.

• Fresh documents released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey illustrate an elaborate racket to game the U.S. immigration system.

• The visa seekers were already in the U.S. on student visas that were about to expire. The deal that the two sought involved two types of visas.

• First, student visas that would allow the recipients Curriculum Practical Training or CPT, under the guise of which Promatrix would employ them. Second, H-1B visas through fake diplomas and transcripts provided by the fake university.

• India’s contention is that if a fake U.S. university issues documents to a prospective student and the immigration department then issues him a visa, it reflects the loopholes in the U.S. system more than the criminality of the visa seeker.

• In this instance, the ‘university’ itself is fake, but in many cases, there are legally functioning universities that enable such operation.

• The counter to that argument is that in this case ‘students’ get into the university with the explicit understanding that they would not be attending classes.

• Incidentally, the annual growth of Indian students in the U.S. in 2014 was the highest in recorded history, rising by 29.4 per cent compared with the previous year.

• There were 132,888 Indians studying in U.S. schools in 2014, compared to 102,673 in 2013. China has the largest student contingent in the U.S. – 304,040 in 2014, which was an increase of 10.8 per cent from the previous year.

Panama papers continue to jitter international political arena (Register and Login to read Full News..)  

:: Business and Economy ::

Energy Efficiency Services claim LED bulbs could lead to good savings

• Shifting to LED bulbs could save an average family around Rs. 4,000 a year on their power bills due to energy efficiency gains and lower replacement costs, according to Energy Efficiency Services (EESL), a government-run joint venture.

• The company’s National Energy Efficient Fan Programme, is expected to help reduce household electricity bills and the country’s overall carbon dioxide emissions.

• Taking an average of five bulb points per household and an assumption that five incandescent bulbs are replaced with LEDs, a household stands to have energy savings of 1.77 kWh per day and annually 649 kWh.

• Considering average tariff as Rs.4/ kWh, an average household stands to save approximately Rs.2,550 annually.

• These savings will proportionally increase for households with more light bulbs and for those located in States with higher power tariffs.

• The average electricity tariff in Delhi, for example, is Rs. 6.82 per unit, which works out to an annual saving of Rs. 4,400 if five incandescent are changed to LED.

• In addition, LED bulbs have the advantage of longevity — they do not need to be replaced nearly as much as incandescent or CFL bulbs are done.

• The life expectancy of an LED bulb is 25,000 hours (around two years and 10 months), compared to 8,000 hours for CFL bulbs and 1,200 hours for incandescent bulbs.

• Power Minister Piyush Goyal had repeatedly emphasised that the country would save 100 billion units of electricity a year by switching over to LED, which, he said, translated to a saving of Rs.40,000 crore across all households.

• Switching to LEDs also helps the government meet its carbon dioxide emission reduction targets, since lower power consumption will eventually result in lower power production and hydrocarbon use .

• According to the website of the Domestic Efficient Lighting Programme (DELP), the government has sold 9.17 crore LED bulbs as of April 6, the utilisation of which would result in a reduction of 26,451 tonnes of carbon dioxide per day, or almost 10 million tonnes a year.

• Under the Street Light National Programme, the government has converted 7,50,780 streetlights to LED, which, according to the programme website, has resulted in a saving of more than 2.72 lakh units of electricity per day.

• There are 35 crore inefficient fans across the country. If all of these are replaced with 5-star rated energy efficient fans, the country will have an expected annual energy savings of 47 billion KWh with a reduction of over 12,250 MW of electricity load.

Industry not in favour of increasing minimum monthly income of contract workers

• Labour Ministry has proposed a minimum monthly income of Rs.10,000 for contract workers, evoking strong reactions from the industry.

• The move will drastically increase the minimum wages of contract labourers from around Rs.6,000 per month that is paid to them in a few sectors at present.

• According to the plan the employers will need to pay Rs 10,000 as minimum monthly income to contract workers for all kinds of work.

• At present, employers give the fixed minimum wages to workers for 45 economic activities, as mentioned in the Minimum Wages Act, 1948.

• Although there are varying estimate of contract labour employed at present, the VV Giri National Labour Institute, an autonomous body of the Labour Ministry, estimated in a study there were 3.6 crore contract labourers in the country.

• However, out of them, only 60 lakh contract workers were covered under the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970.

• The study also said that 30 per cent of all workers in private sector and around 32 per cent in the public sector are employed through contractors.

• As per the Contract Labour (Regulation & Abolition) Central Rules, 1971, the wages of the contract labour shall be according to the minimum wage prescribed under Minimum Wages Act, 1948 and it should be at par with the regular workers in cases where the contract worker perform the same kind of work as the former.

• Trade unions were divided on their move. While the RSS-affiliated Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) appreciated the move, the Left-affiliated unions opposed it saying contract labour needs to be paid at par with regular workers

• The issue of wages to contract labour has led to increasing labour unrest in the past. In 2008, Graziano Trasmissioni CEO Lalit K Chaudhary was killed in mob violence incited by contract labours of the factory and one of their demands was higher wages.

• Even the Manesar plant of Maruti Suzuki had witnessed labour unrests due to various demands put forward by the contract labour including pay disparity.

Govt planning to amend EPF Scheme 1952 for sick PSUs (Register and Login to read Full News..)  

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Sources: Various News Papers & PIB

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