Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 28 July 2017

::National::

Dowry cases to be examined

• Committees of social workers, homemakers, retired persons and other upstanding citizens will form the vanguard against frivolous complaints of dowry harassment in their localities. They will sift the genuine cases from trivial ones.

• The Supreme Court ordered the setting up of ‘family welfare committees’ in all districts under the aegis of the National Legal Services Authority.

• The three-member family welfare committees will be set up by the district legal services authorities.

• Members can be appointed from para legal volunteers, social workers, retired persons, “wives of working officers” and other citizens.

Urge for making Tamil official language in HC

• Veteran leader of Communist Party of India R. Nallakannu urged the Central government to get Presidential assent for the unanimous resolution passed by Tamil Nadu Assembly in 2006 to make Tamil the official language in Madras High Court.

• Inaugurating an indefinite fast observed by a group of nine people with the demand that Tamil be made the official language in the High Court immediately

• The Central government was unnecessarily delaying the issue. A parliamentary committee has clearly said that judicial consultation was not required for making languages of every State as the official language in the respective High Courts. Despite this, the Central government is refusing to act on it by citing Supreme Court’s refusal.

• Rajasthan had made Hindi official language of its High Court decades back and States such as Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar had done the same subsequently.

• However, the demand to do the same from States such as Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Karnataka and Gujarat is rejected by the Supreme Court.

• The nine people observing the fast included six advocates and three activists. Though permission was initially denied by the police, advocate Bhagavath Singh, who is leading the team, subsequently approached the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court, which granted permission for the protest.

A developed India is the best tribute to Kalam

• Paying glowing tributes to former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said a fitting tribute to the late leader would be to develop India in all spheres when the country celebrated its 75th independence day in 2022.

• Addressing a public meeting at Mandapam, after dedicating the memorial to the former President to the nation, he said Kalam had dreamt of a developed India, and called upon the youth to resolve to fulfil his dream by 2022. This will be the fitting tribute to Kalam.

• The memorial, which has on display replicas of rockets and missiles on which the late scientist had worked, has been built at a cost of Rs. 15 crore on land allotted by the Tamil Nadu government at Kalam’s village Peikarambu.

• The Prime Minister said various schemes launched by the Centre “Stand up India” or “Start up India”, ‘Amrut’ cities or smart cities or Clean India projects would all go a long way in realising Kalam’s dream of a “developed India.”

• If each one of the 125 crore people marched one foot ahead like the squirrel, India will march 125 crore foot ahead.

Bihar political affairs

• Within 24 hours of his resignation as Chief Minister of the ‘Mahagathbandhan’ (Grand Alliance) government in Bihar, JD(U) president Nitish Kumar was sworn in as Chief Minister of the NDA government?

• State BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi was sworn in as Deputy Chief Minister. No other Minister took oath at the ceremony. Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi has asked Mr. Kumar to prove his majority on the floor of the House.

• Mr. Nitish Kumar had submitted a letter of support from 131 legislators to the Governor, following which he was invited to take the oath.A Raj Bhavan notification released at 2.58 a.m. announced the swearing-in.

• Apart from the 71 JD(U) MLAs, 53 BJP, two Lok Janshakti Party, two Rashtriya Lok Samata Party, one Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) and two Independent MLAs have pledged their support to the NDA government. In the 243-member Assembly, 122 is the required number for a majority.

• After taking oath as Chief Minister for the sixth time, Mr. Kumar told journalists that his decision (to part ways with the Grand Alliance) was taken in the interests of Bihar, and his only commitment was to serve the people and the development of the State.

Island named after Kalam

• The Odisha government has named the Outer Wheeler Island under Chandabali tehsil in Bhadrak district as A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Island as a tribute to the former President.

New nesting ground for Oriental white ibis

• A group of Oriental white ibis birds have nested at Beguniapada in Ganjam district of Odisha.

• Usually Oriental white ibis are seen in large number in the Chilika lake during winter months.

• Locals of Beguniapada said since the past few years they were finding Oriental white ibis in their agricultural fields during rainy season.

• These birds had started building nests on a few coconut trees. This year these birds have built nests on trees with a large canopy and on coconut trees at KumutiSahi, Garda Sahi and PaikaSahi areas.

• Ample availability of food material for these birds in Beguniapada is also one of the major reasons behind their nesting.

Right to Privacy

• Privacy is non-negotiable, confidentiality is non-negotiable under the Aadhaar Act, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).

• Additional Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the UIDAI, made this emphatic claim when apprehensions were raised by a nine-judge Bench that personal data collected during Aadhaar enrolment might make its way into the hands of private players, for whom such details would transform into “vital commercial information”.

• The court was, in turn, responding to a submission by Attorney-General K.K. Venugopal, appearing for the Centre, that citizens could not claim informational privacy when the state asks for data for a legitimate purpose such as Aadhaar.

• Justice S.A. Bobde wondered whether the Aadhaar Act of 2016 itself had any provisions to protect privacy. Mr. Venugopal then pointed to Section 28 of the statute dealing with “security and confidentiality of information”. It was in the State’s legitimate interest to keep personal data secure as this would make Aadhaar acceptable to one and all, he submitted.

• Justice Rohinton F. Nariman observed that the government had dedicated an entire chapter in the 2016 Act to the protection of privacy and security.

• Justice Chandrachud said informational privacy was the most “vexed” portion of the ongoing debate as parts of personal data were already in the public domain.

• Mr. Venugopal said informational privacy can never be a part of fundamental rights. There was no informational privacy against compelling state interests and public utility, for which the state can ask for fingerprints. But again, individuals can refuse if the information sought was totally irrelevant

Two C-130J aircraft

• While the standoff with China continues in Doklam, the Air Force Station at Panagarh in Bardhaman district of West Bengal has got its first set of the U.S.-made C-130J Super Hercules multi-skilled transport aircraft.

• Two of these aircraft manufactured by Lockheed Martin have arrived recently, while the station named after Marshal of Air Force Arjan Singh is awaiting the arrival of four more within a month.

• The six medium-lift capability C-130Js will complete the first squadron of such aircraft in eastern India.

• The giant aircraft are described as one of the finest transport aircraft which can perform many duties simultaneously.

• The fuel-efficient aircraft can carry up to 40 tonnes; can move faster; and provide between crew comfort than the Ilyushin-76 (IL-76), a Russian-made aircraft the Air Force had been using for a long time.

• While the IL-76 could also carry 40 tonnes, it was a “fuel guzzler”.

• The C-130Js will be used by the Special Forces and a division of the Mountain Strike Corps, recently raised by the Army.

• The Corps has two divisions, instead of the usual three, with a strength of 80,000 personnel. One of the divisions will be stationed at the Panagarh station once it is fully raised.

• The first squadron of C-130Js was stationed at the Hindon airbase in Ghaziabad and performed its first landing exercise in 2013 at the Daulat Beg Oldi military base in Ladakh, adjacent to the Chinese border.

• The C-130Js can land on unpaved surfaces, para-drop special forces, and move faster fast with equipment and goods. It can return quickly to the base to dispatch the next team. Its movement and manoeuvrability is perhaps the reason the U.S. forces used the transport aircraft extensively in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Wearable sensor to prevent assault

• Manisha Mohan’s device can alert people nearby with a loud noise or send distress signals to the smartphones of friends and family.

• An Indian scientist at MIT has developed a sticker-like wearable sensor that can detect sexual assault in real time and quickly alert the victim’s friends and family and people nearby.

• The sensor, which can be attached to any piece of clothing like a sticker, could be trained to learn the difference between when a person is undressing themselves and when they are being forcefully disrobed.

• This allows the sensor to detect signs of an assault even when the victim is unconscious or not in the position to fight the assaulter.

• An integrated bluetooth connected to a smartphone app can trigger a loud noise to alert people nearby and send out a distress signals to pre-set numbers of family members or emergency services. The sensor works in two modes.

• In the passive mode, the wearer is assumed to be conscious and can set off loud alarms or distress calls on their own by touching a button when they encounter an approaching threat. In the active mode, the sensor tries to detect signals from the external environment.

• For example, if somebody is trying to remove the clothing of a person, a message is sent to the smartphone asking if the person consents.

• If the smartphone user does not respond within 30 seconds, the phone begins to emit a loud noise to alert people nearby.

• If the victim does not stop this alarm using a predefined password within the next 20 seconds, the smartphone app can automatically send distress signals to family or friends, along with the location of the victim.

::INDIA AND WORLD::

No ban on Chinese firms: Sushma

• External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said that denial of security clearance to a particular Chinese company which wanted to invest in India was not done as a “matter of policy” and it “cannot determine the relation between the two countries.”

• In the Rajya Sabha, T. Subbarami Reddy (Congress) asked Ms. Swaraj that while security clearance was denied to a Chinese company, it was given to those from Japan, Korea, Italy and other countries.

• Recently, the Home Ministry denied clearance to China Railway Major Bridge Engineering Group Ltd., which planned to construct a proposed 22-km sea-link in Navi Mumbai.

• Ms. Swaraj replied that there was no policy under which Chinese companies were denied security permission. She objected to a member raising the issue of a particular Chinese company in the House.

• She said Japanese or Korean companies might have got the clearance as per the existing procedure.

• She also said there was “no quid pro quo with China” on the issue of sufferings of the Tibetan people and stapled visas being given to Arunachal Pradesh residents by Beijing.

• On the issue of whether India remained a mute spectator towards the alleged atrocities in Tibet, she said, “We are not sitting as a mute spectator. Whenever there are differences, we raise them.”

• The Minister said the Dalai Lama wanted to visit Tawang and “we allowed him to do so”. This is not the first time but the fifth or sixth time that he was visiting that place.

Doval-YangJichei talks

• National Security Adviser Ajit Doval held talks with Chinese State Councillor Yang Jichei, covering “bilateral issues and major problems,” signalling that the stand-off in Doklam between Chinese and Indian troops in the Sikkim sector was likely on the agenda.

• Minister of State for External Affairs M.J. Akbar, speaking in the Rajya Sabha, highlighted the agreement reached before in Astana between the countries to intensify “development partnership” and “people-to-people contact,” even as External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said India had not discriminated against Chinese companies.

• Mr. Akbar, responding to a question regarding China’s recent denial of visa to a group of journalists to Tibet and the remedial measures being taken to defuse the Doklam stand-off, said the two countries had agreed to work together.

• Ms. Swaraj maintained that despite commitment to improve bilateral ties, India had not hesitated to protest whenever differences arose with China about issues like stapled visas for Indian citizens from Arunachal or the visit of Dalai Lama to Tawang.

Man Booker

• Arundhati Roy’s latest work of fiction, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness , has made it to the long list of this year’s Man Booker Prize.

• The judges described the book as “a rich and vital book” that “comes from the bowels of India” and has “remarkable scale” and “extraordinary style and intelligence”.

• The author’s debut novel, God of Small Things , won the Booker Prize in 1997. Ms. Roy is joined by four previously shortlisted writers — Ali Smith (2001, Hotel World ; 2005, The Accidental ; and 2014, How to Be Both ); Zadie Smith (2005, On Beauty ), Sebastian Barry (2005, A Long Long Way Down ; 2008, The Secret Scripture ; and longlisted in 2011 for On Canaan’s Side ) and Mohsin Hamid (2007, The Reluctant Fundamentalist ).

• The longlist showcases a diverse spectrum not only of voices and literary styles but of protagonists too, in their culture, age and gender. Nevertheless we found there was a spirit common to all these novels: though their subject matter might be turbulent, their power and range were life-affirming a tonic for our times.

• Other writers on the list include Emily Fridlund from U.S. ( History of Wolves ), Mike McCormack from Ireland ( Solar Bones ), Jon McGregor from U.K. ( Reservoir 13 ), Fiona Mozley from U.K. ( Elmet ), George

• Saunders from U.S. ( Lincoln in the Bardo ) Kamila Shamsie from U.K. and Pakistan ( Home Fire ) and Colson Whitehead from U.S. ( The Underground Railroad ).

• The list, which was drawn up from 144 submissions published in the U.K. between October 1, 2016, and September 30, 2017, was selected by a panel of five judges: Baroness Lola Young, literary critic Lila Azam

• Zanganeh, Man Booker Prize shortlisted novelist Sarah Hall, artist Tom Phillips and travel writer Colin Thubron.

• The winner gets a prize of £50,000.

::INTERNATIONAL::

Ramon Magsaysay award

• A Japanese historian who helped Cambodians preserve the Angkor temples and a Sri Lankan teacher who counselled war widows and orphans to overcome their nightmares are among the six winners of this year’s

• Ramon Magsaysay Awards, regarded as Asia’s version of the Nobel Prize.

• The other recipients are an Indonesian working for the return of large tracts of forest land to indigenous communities, a Singaporean who leads the cooking of 6,000 meals a day for the destitute, a Philippine theatre group which stood up to a dictatorship and a Filipino who oversaw the opening of job-generating export processing zones.

• The awards, named after a Philippine president who died in a 1957 plane crash, are to be presented in Manila.

• The winners were unafraid to take on large causes and “refused to give up, despite meagre resources, daunting adversity and strong opposition.

• YoshiakiIshizawa, a 79-year-old scholar of Southeast Asian history who has served as president of Japan’s Sophia University, devoted 50 years of his life to help preserve Cambodia’s Angkor Wat temple.

• Conservation work at Angkor Wat was suspended for years under the Khmer Rouge. When the group fell from power in 1979, violence had decimated the pool of Cambodian conservationists.

• Mr. Ishizawa led an effort in Japan and Cambodia to save the temple, putting Cambodians at the centre of the effort.

• Gethsie Shanmugam, 82, a teacher and psychological counsellor from Sri Lanka’s Tamil community, won for braving bombings and threats of arrests in conflict zones to counsel war widows, orphans and children traumatised by three decades of brutal civil war in her country.

• AbdonNababan from Indonesia’s Sumatra Island was cited for leading an effort to return state-controlled forest land to indigenous communities.

• Singaporean businessman Tony Tay, who was abandoned by his father as a child and brought by his homeless mother to an orphanage, won the award for organising volunteers starting in 1983 to cook and distribute thousands of free meal packs every day to feed the elderly, migrant workers and low-income families.

• Coming from a family of Philippine government officials, Lilia de Lima oversaw the opening of hundreds of job-generating export processing zones across the country as head of the Philippine Economic Zone Authority, earning her the award.

• The private Philippine Educational Theatre Association was founded in 1967 with an initial aim of creating a national theatre but served as an artistic platform for protest when dictator Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law. Its advocacies through the arts have since expanded to gender issues and disaster preparedness.

Its Amazon founder the world’s richest person

• Amazon founder Jeff Bezos became the world’s richest person, as a jump in the share price of the U.S. tech giant enabled him to overtake Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Forbes magazine estimated.

• The magazine said its real-time tracking of personal fortunes showed Mr. Bezos with a net worth of $90.5 billion, ahead of the $90 billion for Mr. Gates.

“What Happened”

• Hillary Clinton is calling her new book What Happened and promises unprecedented candour as she remembers her stunning defeat last year to U.S. President Donald Trump.

• Simon &Schuster said that Ms. Clinton’s book will be a highly personal work that also is a “cautionary tale” about Russian interference in last year’s election and its threat to democracy.

• In public remarks since last fall, the Democrat has cited Russia as a factor in her defeat to her Republican opponent, along with a letter sent by then-FBI Director James Comey less than two weeks before the election.

• Now free from the constraints of running, Hillary takes you inside the intense personal experience of becoming the first woman nominated for president by a major party in an election marked by rage, sexism, exhilarating highs and infuriating lows, stranger-than-fiction twists, Russian interference, and an opponent who broke all the rule.

• What Happened is scheduled to come out September 12. Ms. Clinton’s previous works include the 2003 memoir Living History , published while she was a U.S. senator from New York, and a book about her years as secretary of state, Hard Choices , which came out in 2014 as she prepared to launch her presidential candidacy.

• She also wrote It Takes a Village And Other Lessons Children Teach Us when she was U.S. First Lady.

• Ms. Clinton’s upcoming memoir isn’t the first political book to be called What Happened. Scott McClellan, a former White House press secretary during the George W. Bush administration, released a book with the same title in 2008. Mr. McClellan’s memoir was an unexpectedly critical take on his former boss that became a bestseller.

Tensions between U.S and China

• The U.S. Pacific Fleet commander he would launch a nuclear strike against China next week if President Donald Trump ordered it, and warned against the military ever shifting its allegiance from its commander in chief.

• Adm. Scott Swift was responding to a hypothetical question at an Australian National University security conference following a major joint U.S.-Australian military exercise off the Australian coast. The drills were monitored by a Chinese intelligence-gathering ship off northeast Australia.

• Every member of the U.S. military has sworn an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic and to obey the officers and the President of the United States as commander and chief appointed over us.

• The biennial Talisman Saber exercise involved 36 warships, including the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan , 220 aircraft and 33,000 military personnel. It was monitored by a Chinese People’s Liberation Army-Navy

• Type 815 Dongdiao-class auxiliary general intelligence vessel from within Australia’s 200-mile exclusive economic zone.

::BUSINESS::

Amazon India opens centre in Lucknow

• Amazon India has announced its second Fulfilment Centre in Uttar Pradesh. Spread over about 50,000 sq.ft. with over 35,000 cubic feet of storage space, Amazon said the new centre would empower thousands of small and medium businesses to leverage the growth of the digital economy and reach a wider customer base.

• With this, Amazon.in now has two fulfilment centres in Uttar Pradesh, offering close to 1,50,000 cubic feet of storage space to ensure faster delivery.

Air India divestment

• Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport set to meet government officials.

• A Parliamentary Standing Committee has sought details from the government on its strategic disinvestment plans for national carrier Air India.

• The department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture, chaired by Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament Mukul Roy, is set to meet the Central government officials.

• The agenda of the meeting is to hear the views of the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (Ministry of Finance) and Air India on Disinvestment of Air India.

• The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in June gave its in-principle approval for the strategic disinvestment of Air India and its subsidiaries.

• The CCEA also set up a group of ministers under Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to examine the modalities of the national carrier’s stake sale. The Ministerial group will decide upon the “treatment of unsustainable debt of

• Air India, hiving off of certain assets to shell company, de-merger and strategic disinvestment of three profit-making subsidiaries, quantum of disinvestment and the universe of bidders.”

• Hours after the Union Cabinet gave its nod for Air India’s strategic disinvestment, India’s largest low-cost carrier IndiGo expressed interest in acquiring the flag carrier’s airline business, mainly related to its international operations.

• Tata Sons were also said to be reportedly in talks with the government to seek more details about the national carrier’s strategic disinvestment.

• Minister of State Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha told the Rajya Sabha that the decision to divest a stake in Air India was based on government think-tank NITIAayog’s recommendations.

• In its recommendations, the Aayog had given the rationale for the disinvestment of Air India and has attributed the main reason as fragile finances of the company. AI has been incurring continuous losses and has huge accumulated losses.

• Air India’s market share on domestic routes had declined to 14.2% in 2016-17, from 17.9% in 2014-15. Air India had accumulated total debt of Rs. 48,876 crore till March 31, 2017. The carrier has been reporting continuous losses due to its high debt with its net loss at Rs. 3,728 crore in 2016-17, compared with Rs. 3,836 crore in 2015-16.

NPAs at rise of Bandhan Bank

• Bandhan Bank Ltd.’s (BBL) recovery of loans has been impacted by talk of farm-loan waivers in three States and the ongoing strike in Darjeeling and adjoining areas.

• Gross NPAs had increased to Rs. 175 crore in the quarter ended June 30, 2017, from Rs. 86 crore at March-end. The bank ended the first quarter with a net NPA of 0.49% against 0.14% a year earlier.

• Majority of the NPAs was on account of defaults in three States — Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.

• Pointing out that although Bandhan was not into farm loans, but had lent to allied sectors like horticulture, where repayment was affected as borrowers were misled into thinking that they need not repay their loans.

• The impact of the Darjeeling stalemate, prolonged strike had begun to impact recoveries and feared that the worst was yet to come.

• Bandhan Bank is planning to sell mutual fund and general insurance products initially through 50 of its 840 branches.

• The tie-up with perhaps about three asset management companies, is to be finalised by September.

• BBL closed the first quarter with a 35% rise in profit at Rs. 327 crore with a matching credit growth and a 51% growth in savings deposits.

• Its CASA (current and savings account) ratio was 26.3% against 14.7% a year earlier. BBL aims to grow the MSME (medium, small and micro enterprise) portfolio, which accounted for 90% of its Rs. 21,389 crore advances in the first quarter.

• It is also looking to boost the affordable housing sector. The erstwhile MFI started its banking journey in August 2015.

India-U.K. auto trade

• Britain and India have the potential to expand post-Brexit trade in the auto sector, as exports of U.K.-made cars to India rose 8.3% in the first half of the year, while those of Indian-made cars to the U.K. almost doubled.

• The 8.3% rise in sales of U.K. cars was driven by increased demand for British-made luxury cars, while the number of India-built cars rose by 48.6%.

• Mike Hawes, the chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), said that there were many opportunities for growth in areas such as in the development of autonomous, connected vehicles, as well as in the Indian after-market segment.

• The U.K. currently has a negligible part of that market in India, but have a lot of expertise and there are a lot of products that could be developed.

• The SMMT has been pushing for interim arrangements that maintain access to the single market and customs union to avoid a cliff-edge situation.

Gold import duty to be reduced

• The government is planing to bring down import duty on gold to 2% from 10% to make Indian jewellery competitive in the international market.

• The Ministry of Commerce and Industry has recommended to the finance ministry to drastically reduce the import duty, said Manoj Dwivedi, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

• We have urged the Finance Ministry to reduce import duty on gold. The CAD position has substantially improved and now there is a case to look at it. We have recommended 2% duty.

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