Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 28 November 2016

Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 28 November 2016

:: National ::

Khalistani leader escaped prison

  • At least five armed men in police uniform stormed the high-security NabhaJail in Punjab and escaped with six prisoners, including Harminder Singh Mintoo, chief of Khalistan Liberation Force.

  • Punjab Director-General of Police said five men were suspected to be involved, but there could have been more. Mr. Arora said they gained entry pre-tending that they had cometo hand over a prisoner.

  • The incident comes at a time when maximum security is in force on the eve of the Heart of Asia Summit tobe held in Amritsar from December 3 to 5.

  • Mintoo, who formed a new outfit after breaking away from Babbar Khalsa International in 2009, was held in November 2014 after he was deported from Thailand. He waslinked to 10 terror cases.

  • However, hours later, the “mastermind” of the jail-break, Parminder Singh, was arrested from Kairana in Ut-tar Pradesh's Shamli district when his getaway vehicle was stopped at a police picket.

PM says India should move towards cashless society

  • In his first monthly Mann Ki Baat radio broad-cast after his decision to de-monetise currency of de-nominations Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000, Prime Minister Modi called for a movement to turn India into a cashless society.

  • PM asked young people to teach mobile banking and other ecommerce technology to at least 10 families a day. Mr. Modi termed the decision to demonetise as tough but said he had been aware of the difficulties involved.

  • ‘Be soldiers of change' A major part of his address was to the youth of the country, whom he asked to be-come “soldiers of change” in turning India into a cashless economy or at least a “less cash” economy.

  • There are many people in your families or neighbourhoods who may not know how to use technologies such as e-wallets and payments through mobiles.

  • I urge you to spend some time, an hour or more,every single day, to teach this technology to at least 10 families who may not know it,” he said.

Supreme Court says dying declaration can't be dismissed due to extensive injuries

  • In a significant ruling in criminal law, the Supreme Court held that the dying declaration of a burn victim against her attackers should not be dismissed simply because her burn in-juries are extensive, even a 100 per cent.

  • The Supreme Court said trial courts cannot brush aside the last words of a victim on the presumption that the burns are so grave that it would have affected the mind and consciousness.

  • Defence casts doubts A dying declaration has great sanctity in criminal law as it is believed that a dying person will not lie.

  • Justice Sikri, who wrote the judgment for the Bench, observed that “there is no hard and fast rule of universal application as to whether percentage of burns suffered is a determinative factor to affect credibility of dying declaration”.

  • SC was upholding the sentence of life imprisonment awarded to the husband and three in-laws on the basis of the last words of a woman who suffered 100 per cent burns after she was set on fire by them at Jhajjar district in Haryana in 1999.

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:: India and world ::

India is scaling up military assistance to Afghanistan

  • After supplying four attack helicopters to Afghanistan, India is quietly moving to qualitatively scale up military assistance in terms of long-term spares and support. This involves a trilateral framework with Russia.

  • Two Indian Air Force technical teams visitedAfghanistan last month to assess the requirements for spares and maintenance to restore the Soviet-era helicopters and transport air-craft lying there.

  • The teams were tasked to assess the requirements and submit a report on what can be provided by India from its existing inventory and what needs to be procured from Russia which is the originalmanufacture of the hard-ware.

  • This effectively formalises the trilateral mechanism which was mooted in 2014 in the backdrop of withdrawal of troops by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation but did not make progress at that time due to reluctance of the then UPA government.

  • Kabul had long been requesting India for offensivemilitary hardware and has several times presented a wish list of urgent military hardware.

  • Priority items on the list include utility and attack helicopters, tanks, artillery, ammunition and spares, in addition to help in reviving some of the Soviet-era equipment and factories in Afghanistan.

  • India has supplied three Cheetal utility helicopters, and in a major policy shift, agreed to transfer four Mi-25 attack helicopters from its inventory last year.

  • While In-dia seems to be open to sup-plying lethal hardware, in-volving Moscow is inevitable as most of the equipment is manufactured in Russia.

  • This was evident in the case of an Mi-25 helicopter that was grounded due to lack of spares which had to be procured from Russia.

:: Business and Economy ::

RBI Governor says demonetisation once in a lifetime event

  • Terming demonetisation a “once in a lifetime event” that requires mam-moth logistics, Governor Urjit Patel said RBI is taking all necessary actions to “ease the genuine pain of citizens who are honest and who have been hurt”.

  • “Both RBI and government have been getting the printing presses to work at capacity to get the new notes available to meet demand. RBI is interacting with the banks daily. They are telling us that the situation is gradually easing.

  • The queues in branches and ATMs are shorter and the markets are starting to function, and there are no reported short-ages of daily items of consumption,” he said. “

  • Also, about 40-50,000 people were deployed to re-fit the ATMs. Currency is available and banks are working in a mission mode to lift currency and take them to their branches and ATMs.

  • Cash substitutes Dr. Patel said the RBI has announced an incremental CRR of 100 per cent “because of the large increase in deposits of banks on account of the return of Rs.1,000 and Rs.500 notes”.

  • Decision would be reviewed once the Centre issues adequate quantum of Market Stabilisation Scheme bonds which they have promised to do.

  • He urged people to start using cash substitutes like debit cards and digital wallets, saying it will make transactions cheaper and easier and in the long term and it will help India “leapfrog into a less cash-use economy at par with more developed nations.”

RBI allowed currency chests to keep old notes

  • To decongest storage facility of banks for old Rs.500 and Rs.1,000 notes, the RBI on Sunday allowed lenders to park such currencies at currency chests at the district-level in view of mounting deposits due to demonetisation.

  • In a notification, the RBI said a currency chest operating at the point to be called Designated Chest (DC) will be required to operate a separate vault — to be named Chest Guarantee Vault (CGV) — as an extended arm of it.

  • Banks, preferably those not having any currency chest, will deposit such notes in sealed boxes and will get the value of the notes to the credit of their current account with the chest branch, it said.

  • The facility will also be available at post offices if they maintain a current ac-count with the chest branchmanaging CGV , it said.

  • Expenses relating to round-the-clock guarding will be borne by the RBI, if necessary. Also, expenses relating to remittance of old currency notes to RBI will be borne by the central bank.

  • The regional office of the RBI will arrange evacuation of notes from the district chest on priority basis.

  • Thereafter, the notes will be subjected to detailed examination and the detection of deficiencies namely shortage, counterfeit notes and mutilated notes during processing will be re-covered from the chest which in turn will recover the same from the tendering bank.

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