Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 12 August 2016

:: National ::

Home Minister decried attempts to “create an impression” that the NDA government was anti-Dalit
He also assured the Lok Sabha that his Ministry had told the State governments that strict and tough action should be taken against “any anti-social elements, whether in the name of Gau Raksha or any other cause”.
The government had, after two back-to-back speeches on the issue by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, decided to give in to Opposition demands for a debate in the Lok Sabha.
“I do not want to go into State-wise figures on crimes against Dalits, but overall figures show that in 2013 the cases of violence against Dalits were 39,346, which rose to 40,300 in 2014 and came down again in 2015 to 38,564,” Mr. Singh said.

Ukraine’s President put his Army on combat alert along the country’s de facto borders with Crimea as a war of words between Russia and Ukraine threatened to heat up the largely frozen conflict over the Black Sea peninsula.
Ukrainian President PetroPoroshenko issued the order after Moscow accused his country of sending in “saboteurs” to carry out attacks in Crimea.
Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014 following a hastily called referendum, a move that sparked fighting between Russia-backed separatists and government forces in eastern Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin upped the ante when he directly accused the Ukrainian government of plotting the attacks and called a meeting of the country’s top brass to discuss boosting security in Crimea.
Peace talks in the Belarusian capital of Minsk in 2015 helped ease the fighting but did not solve the crisis.
While the separatists never allowed Ukrainian forces to regain control of the border, Ukraine has also not adopted legislation to provide broad autonomy to these territories.

The fear now is that this is not a freak incident and that other diseases — some dating back to the Ice Age — could be unleashed as global warming thaws Russia’s icy northern expanses.
Russia is warming about 2.5 times more rapidly than the world’s average, and the Arctic region is warming quicker than the rest of the country.
Temperatures there in July were up to eight degrees higher than normal, reaching 34 degrees Celsius.
Anthrax is an infection spread by spores of the Bacillus anthracis bacteria which occurs naturally and can be ingested by livestock and passed to humans, usually through skin contact, causing black lesions. If left untreated it can be fatal.
Besides anthrax, there are plenty of other dangers lurking in shallow Arctic graves which might be unlocked from the ice after centuries, said Viktor Maleyev, deputy chief of Russia’s Central Research Institute of Epidemiology.
The total affected area in the region, together with an established buffer zone, is some 12,650 square kilometres.
Scientists lamented that instead of spending more money on studying the effects of climate change, science budgets are shrinking, and the government only allocates funds after emergencies and tragedies.

About Rs.10,000 crore will be spent in the current financial year from the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) to execute various digital infrastructure projects to boost connectivity in rural areas.
This amount “is the highest in the history of USOF,” Telecom Secretary said at a seminar on 'ICT emerging technologies & USOF for Digital India.'
The USO Fund is maintained by the government. Under the New Telecom Policy, a provision was made to raise money for this fund through a ‘Universal Access Levy’, charged from operators as a percentage of various licenses fees being paid by them.

Union Finance minister said that the Goods and Services Tax regime, once implemented, will improve the ease of doing business in the country.
Mr. Jaitley said the NDA government is committed to making such enterprises more competitive and providing them access to capital.
Starting this year, the census of MSME units in the country will be done online instead of relying on physical surveys with the intention of creating a comprehensive database with real-time information on different enterprises.
This database will eventually be used for public procurement purposes and would also be used by public sector enterprises to scale up their purchases from small enterprises.
Separately, an online finance facilitation web portal was unveiled by the National Small Industries Corporation that provides credit support to MSME units for raw material purchases.
The portal will allow the MSMEs to apply for loans from the various banks.