Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 01 January 2015

:: National ::

India’s sharp reaction on Pakistan ceasefire violation

In fresh ceasefire violation, Pakistan Rangers targeted 13 border outposts in Samba sector, drawing sharp reaction from India, a day after an Indian jawan and four Pakistan soldiers were killed in exchange of fire.
India said it will lodge a strong protest with Pakistan over the fresh ceasefire violations. This incident was the third ceasefire violation by Pakistan along the International Border in the past three days and seventh in the last eight days.
“They (Pakistan) have violated the norms on International Border. We are going to lodge strong protest to them (over ceasefire violation),” Inspector-General of Border Security Force Rakesh Sharma told reporters in Jammu.
Home Minister Rajanth Singh said Pakistan should desist from such violations and officials of both the countries have been in touch over the issue. “Pakistan should not do this. Diplomats of both the countries remain in constant touch,” Mr. Singh said, adding normalcy will return soon.
The violation comes after four Pakistan Rangers were killed in BSF’s strong retaliation after a jawan of the force died in heavy firing from the other side on a patrol along the IB in Samba district.
“Pakistani rangers resorted to firing on 12 to 13 BoPs along the IB in Samba sector overnight,” Mr. Sharma said. “The BSF also retaliated, resulting in exchanges which continued till 0600 hours today,” the IG said.
“There was no causality or injury to anyone in the firing today,” Mr. Sharma said. In Wednesday’s incident, one BSF jawan was killed and another injured in firing by Pakistan on Regal post in Samba.

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:: Business & Economy ::

Experts say, Bifurcating top post in PSBs will bring in transparency

The government’s decision to bifurcate the top position at public sector banks will bring in transparency and accountability, say experts.
On Wednesday, the government initiated management reforms in public sector banks by splitting the post of Chairman and Managing Director in four banks and appointing managing directors (MDs)/chief executive officers (CEOs) in Vijaya Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, United Bank of India and Oriental Bank of Commerce.
“It is an extremely healthy move, and will improve governance. In the U.S., more than 50 per cent of enterprises follow this and this practice is followed all over the world,” said Shailesh Haribhakti, Chairman, DH Consultants.
“Combining the positions of Chairman and Managing Director with one person is contradictory to the effective functioning of the organisation as the Chairman is the custodian of governance, while the MD/CEO is the custodian of assets and efficiency of running of the organisation.
When the same person holds both positions, it leads to confusion and some time even to sacrifices. These are different roles, and so these positions must be occupied by different individuals,” Mr. Haribhakti added.
The move to separate the posts would bring in more professionalism in their functioning, said D. S. Rawat, national Secretary-General, Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India.
“It looks as though the government wants to bring in outside experts as chairmen in some of the banks, which will be a great value addition to the state-owned banks,” said Mr. Rawat.
“However, it is time the remuneration of CEOs in PSU banks is enhanced somewhere near to their peers in the private sector. It cannot be that while we expect the CEO to give performance under challenging circumstances taking into account the social obligations of these banks, but we do not pay them the commensurate salaries,” he added.

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:: International ::

Zoho email difficult to crack for NSA

City-based Zoho Corp’s email and chat services are one of the handful of services, which the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) has found it difficult to crack under its mass surveillance programme.
According to a report by German newsmagazine Der Spiegel, NSA has classified the encryption and security-breaking problems it encountered on a scale of 1 to 5, from ‘trivial’ to ‘catastrophic.’ Facebook chat, for example, was considered ‘trivial.’ The report was based on the documents obtained from former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The NSA had major problem at the fourth level with Zoho, an encrypted email service, the report said. Encryption — the use of mathematics to protect communications from spying — is used for electronic transactions of all types, by governments, firms and private users alike.
This comes as a strong testimonial for Zoho, which competes with Microsoft and Google in the mail and office suite space. The firm has over 10 million users, and mainly focuses on small and medium enterprises in the U.S. and other global markets. Zoho declined to comment on this story.
In an August 2013 blog post, Zoho’s founder Sridhar Vembu noted that his company remained the only major email service provider that never displayed any ads. “In fact, there are no ads inside any of our products. We don’t have an incentive to look inside your data ourselves.
While Google has gone on record to say you can’t expect privacy from Google itself, we can assure you that we guarantee your privacy, at least from Zoho itself, if not from the government,” he added in the post.
Der Spiegel report also mentions Tor, the network and software that help users browse the Internet anonymously, which NSA found it difficult to crack.

Fiscal deficit at 99 percent of the target for entire year

Reflecting a worrisome financial situation, the government’s fiscal deficit at the end of November touched almost 99 per cent of the target for the entire year.
The fiscal deficit—difference between the government’s expenditure and revenue—stood at Rs.5.25 lakh crore, just short of the Rs.5.31 lakh crore targets for the entire year.
According to data released by the Controller General of Accounts, the fiscal deficit during April-November was 98.9 per cent of the 2014-15 estimates. The main reason for the high fiscal deficit was subdued revenue realisation.
Continuing where former finance minister P. Chidambaram left, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his budget speech earlier this year, had set a target of restricting the fiscal deficit to 4.1 percent of the GDP.
In line with the Vijay Kelkar committee recommended roadmap for reducing fiscal deficit by 5 per cent annually, the government intends to bring the fiscal deficit down to 3.6 per cent of GDP by 2015-16 and to 3 per cent by 2016-17.
The Responsibility and Budget Management Act also sets the target of achieving a fiscal deficit of 3 per cent of the GDP by 2016-17.
According to official data, government’s net tax revenue, as on November-end, stood at Rs.4.13 lakh crore or 42.3 per cent of the Rs.9.77 lakh crore estimated for the entire fiscal.
The government’s plan and non-plan expenditure during the period stood at Rs.2.93 lakh crore and Rs.7.8 lakh crore respectively. The fiscal deficit in 2013-14 was 4.5 per cent of the GDP, while it stood at 4.9 per cent in 2012-13.

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:: Science & Technology ::

PPC rolls out to make tea a safer beverage

Plant Protection Code (PPC), a set of guidelines for regulating the chemical inputs in tea cultivation, was rolled out on January 1, 2015. The aim is to make Indian tea a safe and healthy drink.
The PPC is a comprehensive document, which deals with safe usage of crop protection products and methodologies that would be followed to reduce pesticide residues in tea.
The code encourages tea growers to critically review their plant protection formulations (PPF), which are a list of chemicals that are used in tea. The code is based on the Codex Alimentarius, which is a set of international food standards and guidelines.
Tea Board Chairman Siddharth said a roll-out was decided with some modifications. These include asking the small tea growers to give a declaration of their output conforming to the PPC before it is sent to the factories. This was necessary as currently this sector accounts for over 30 per cent of the Indian tea output.
The awareness campaign, now on among small tea growers, would be continued, a Tea Board said. It may be mentioned that recently Greenpeace had released a report alleging presence of pesticide residues in Indian tea. The Tea Board and industry had flayed the report.
The PPF, evolved by Tea Board, has detailed the chemicals that can be used in tea plantations making some exceptions for South India. It said that chemical use should be restricted not only in tea estates, but also near water bodies, wildlife habitats and human dwelling to check contamination.