Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 23 December 2016

:: National ::

Delhi Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung put in his papers, catching not only the state and central governments by surprise but even his own staff members.
Mr. Jung would be required to continue in office till a successor is appointed. He took over as the L-G of Delhi from Tejendra Khanna in July 2013.
The L-G thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi “for all the help and cooperation he received during his tenure as the Lt. Governor of Delhi.”

Airlines have said it is not possible to empty toilet tanks in mid-air as claimed in a petition before the National Green Tribunal.
The airline conducts standard checks that include removing the waste from the aircraft and taking it to the designated waste-disposal system after every flight.
In its order, the NGT had asked the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA)to issue a circular to all air-lines using the Delhi airport to ensure that they do not re-lease any waste while land-ing or taking of at the airport or near it.
It also asked the aviation regulator to impose an environmental compensation of Rs. 50,000 per violation of the circular and submit a quarterly report to the tribunal.
There is one exterior lever outside the aircraft and only the ground crew can operate the valve that opens the tank while the plane is on the ground.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump called for the country to expand its nuclear weapons capabilities until the world “comes to its senses” — a signal he may support costly efforts to modernise the ageing U.S. nuclear arsenal.
His comments came on a day Russian President Vladimir Putin called for his country to reinforce its military nuclear potential.
“We need to strengthen the military potential of strategic nuclear forces, especially with missile complexes that can reliably penetrate any existing and prospective missile defence systems,” the Russian leader said
During the next decade, U.S. ballistic missile submarines,bombers, and land-based missiles — the three legs of the nuclear triad - are expected to reach the end of their useful lives.
Maintain-ing and modernising the arsenal is expected to cost about $1 trillion dollars over 30 years.
Next year four additional S-400 anti-missile de-fence systems will be de-livered to the army, and Russia would pay particular attention to its Western flank and the Arctic.

The government has identified 67.54 lakh potential taxpayers in the FY15 who did not file income tax returns in the relevant assessment year.
The Centre had introduced the Non-filers Monitoring System (NMS) to identify non-filers with potential tax liabilities.
The information relating to the identified non-filers has been made available in the ‘Compliance Module' on the e-filing portal of the IT dept. The information will be visible only to the specific PAN holder when they log into the e-filing portal.
The PAN holder will be able to respond electronic-ally and retain a copy of the submitted response to maintain a record.
Non-filers have been identified based on data analytics carried out by the Systems Directorate of the Central Board of Direct Taxes about whom the information is available in the databases of the CBDT.

The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has directed ousted chairman of Tata Sons, Cyrus Mistry and his investment firms to provide material evidence to prove their allegations.
The tribunal bench reiterated on numerous occasions that allegations of a nexus between Mr. Tata and other entities have to be backed by proof in the form of documents or any other material.
The petition has been filed by the two investment firms of Mr. Mistry — Cyrus Investments Pvt. Ltd. and Sterling Investment Corporation Pvt. Ltd. — that collectively own 18.37 per cent stake in Tata Sons.
While declining any interim relief to Mr. Mistry or his investment firms, the tribunal directed all the concerned parties to file their replies and posted the matter for hearing for January 31.
Incidentally, the tribunalwas of the view that the case was an important one and should not be kept pending for long. On one occasion, it also said that the Tata Group could not be compared with other corporate houses.