Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 12 May 2015

Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 12 May 2015

:: National ::

GST Bill may go to select panel

  • The Constitution Amendment Bill on the Good and Services Tax (GST) could not be tabled in the Rajya Sabha as the Congress repeatedly disrupted proceedings demanding the resignation of Union Minister Nitin Gadkari over a CAG report on irregularities in a loan extended to the Purti group, which is linked to his family.

  • With the Congress appearing to be in no mood to relent, the Bill is now likely to be referred to a Select Committee of the Upper House.

  • Parliamentary Affairs Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley met leaders of political parties separately to discuss the issue. What emerged from the meetings was that the Bill be referred to a Select Committee.

Kamath to head BRICS bank

  • India has named private banker K.V. Kamath as the first head of the new development bank the BRICS group of emerging market economies is setting up.

Ramalinga Raju, nine others granted bail

  • A metropolitan sessions court granted bail to former Satyam Computers chairman B. Ramalinga Raju and nine others, who were on April 9 convicted to seven years rigorous imprisonment by the trial court in the Rs. 7,000 crore case of accounting fraud against the company.

  • The accused had moved the sessions court against the order of a magistrate court which was exclusively set up to hear the case. They appealed to the sessions court to set aside the order and release them on bail pending further hearing on the merits of the case.

  • While granting them bail, the sessions Judge M. Laxman ordered Ramalinga Raju and others to deposit within a month 10 per cent of the Rs. 14 crore fine imposed on them by the lower court when they were sentenced.
    Ramalinga Raju and his brother Rama Raju, ex-managing director, were also asked to furnish sureties of Rs. 1 lakh each for release on bail, but the amount was restricted to Rs. 50,000 in the case of others. The share of the brothers in the fine amount is Rs. 11.5 crore. Mr. Laxman posted the appeal for hearing in the case to June 30.

  • Ramalinga Raju and Rama Raju apart, the others lodged in Cherlapally jail after they were convicted are Srinivas Vadlamani (chief financial officer), S. Gopalakrishnan and Talluri Srinivas (partners of Price Waterhouse which audited Satyam accounts), Suryanarayana Raju (another brother of Ramalinga Raju, who was the director of the holding company of Satyam), G. Ramakrishna (vice-president), D. Venkatapathi Raju (senior manager), C. Srisailam (assistant manager) and Prabhakar Gupta (global head-internal audit).

  • The sessions’ court had heard the appeal of the accused last week that they should be given bail because the hearing in the case is likely to prolong in view of voluminous documents involved. They had either been lodged in jail or frequented courts in the last six years. Of the seven-year imprisonment awarded to Ramalinga Raju, he might have to spend another two-and-a-half years in jail if the conviction was carried out. But the hearing itself might take four years. It will serve no purpose if the judgement went in favour of the accused at the end of the arguments. They also contented that they were in no position to pay the fine as various investigating agencies froze their accounts or attached properties. Therefore, they should be given relief from payment of fine.

  • This was the third attempt of the accused laying claim for right of appeal against the conviction after another sessions court and the High Court refused to look into their applications.

8-year-old raises $26,000 for quake victims

  • An eight-year-old boy in the U.S. has raised over $26,000 through crowdfunding to aid victims of the devastating 7.9 earthquake that hit Nepal.
  • After learning about the April 25 quake, Neev Saraf from Maryland asked his parents, who hail from Nepal, if he could send some money from his piggy bank there.
  • But it was not long before Neev enhanced his ambitions even further and set out to contact his friends and family to see if they would donate as well.
  • They reached out to the American Nepal Medical Foundation, with whom a crowdfunding page was set up to expand Neev’s philanthropic reach.
  • “Nepal where my family spent their childhood and is their motherland cries for help and support from everyone who can help out,” Neev wrote on the website Crowdrise.

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:: International ::

Saudi King moves to upend status quo

  • For much of the past decade, change has come slowly to Saudi Arabia, if at all.

  • The oil-rich kingdom was led by an ailing monarch who worked quietly behind the scenes to preserve the status quo, propping up friendly dictators around the Middle East and depending on a leadership of aging princes at home.

  • But in the few months since the death of King Abdullah in January, the new King, Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud Salman, has moved fast to reshape foreign and domestic policies. He has rattled alliances with the United States and regional powers that for decades have been the bedrock of stability for his kingdom, and he has also shaken up the Saudi royal family.

  • King Salman (79) has shifted toward an activist foreign policy, going to war in Yemen and increasing support for rebels in Syria as he positions his country as the defender of the region’s Sunnis. In some cases, he has sanctioned allying with Islamists to serve the kingdom’s agenda.

  • Domestically, he has made sweeping changes, promoting younger officials, firing those deemed unfit and giving enormous authority to his untested son, Prince Mohammed bin Salman (29). He has shown close ties to religious conservatives, raising questions about the fate of his predecessor’s limited reforms.

  • His new direction poses stark challenges to the U.S. as Saudi Arabia rallies its Sunni allies to press for a firmer commitment to their security.

  • Those concerns are expected to dominate the conversation when Persian Gulf leaders meet President Barack Obama in Washington this week. The King had been expected to attend, but it was announced Sunday that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef would take his place.

  • King Salman’s policy changes are the efforts of an absolute monarch to re-establish his country’s clout in a region marked by civil wars, where weak states are contending with jihadis and rising sectarianism — as well as U.S. reluctance to get too deeply involved.

  • In another shift, King Salman appears to have discarded his predecessor’s rejection of political Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood as a fundamental threat to the regional order.In Yemen, the king is working with Islah, a Muslim Brotherhood political party, and has warmed relations with Qatar.

  • In March, he received Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in Riyadh. The two leaders agreed to work together to support the rebels seeking to topple President Bashar Assad of Syria, according to Yasin Aktay, the foreign relations chief for Turkey’s governing Justice and Development Party.

Nepal MPs call for national unity govt.

  • Members of Nepal’s Parliament cutting across party lines demanded the formation of a national unity government and faster delivery of relief materials to earthquake victims. Two days back all the political parties had introduced a motion on rehabilitation and reconstruction to “express solidarity.”

  • A national unity government would also help promulgate the new Constitution through consensus, the MPs argued. The suggestion was first floated by Gagan Thapa of the Nepali Congress party. Older leaders, he said, would run the government while the younger leaders would handle relief and rehabilitation efforts.

  • Surendra Pandey of the CPN (Unified Marxist-Leninist) also called for the formation of such a government and promulgation of the new Constitution. He asked the government to identify people affected by the earthquake and distribute relief accordingly.

  • The April 25 earthquake and another one the day after have claimed more than 8,000 lives and left over 17,000 injured. Over 300,000 houses and 15,000 schools were damaged in 13 affected districts. Properties worth billions of rupees have been lost, according to some estimates, though exact figure is yet to be determined.

  • Meanwhile, some MPs complained of slow delivery of relief materials in the districts severely affected by theearthquake. Shakti Basnet of UCPN (Maoist) said that relief efforts in his district, Sindhupalchowk, which was among the most severely-affected, was very slow.

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:: Business and Economy ::

Banks told to appoint internal ombudsman

  • In a move to further beef up the quality of customer service, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has advised all public sector banks and some private and foreign banks to appoint an internal ombudsman.

  • The internal ombudsman would be designated Chief Customer Service Officer (CCSO).

  • The apex bank, however, has made it clear that the CCSO should not have worked in the bank in which he/she is appointed as CCSO.

  • The RBI is keen to ensure that there is undivided attention to resolution of customer complaints in banks. Hence, it has suggested the appointment of an internal ombudsman.

  • While all public sector banks will have to appoint a Chief Customer Service Officer, the private sector and foreign banks which have been told to appoint such officers (or internal ombudsman) are: ICICI Bank Ltd., HDFC Bank Ltd., Axis Bank Ltd., Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd., IndusInd Bank Ltd., Standard Chartered Bank, Citi Bank N.A. and HSBC Ltd.

  • These banks have been selected on the basis of their asset size, business-mix, etc, said a release.

  • The Reserve Bank introduced the Banking Ombudsman Scheme (BOS) in 1995 to provide an expeditious and inexpensive forum to bank customers for resolution of their complaints relating to deficiency in banking services provided by commercial banks, regional rural banks, and scheduled primary co-operative banks. From a total of 11 grounds of complaints, when the scheme was introduced in 1995, today BO Scheme provides for 27 grounds of complaints/deficiencies in bank services.

  • The Reserve Bank operates the BOS, free of cost, so as to make it accessible to all.

  • The bank’s internal ombudsman will now be a forum available to bank customers for grievance redressal before they can even approach the Banking Ombudsman.

  • The Reserve Bank will shortly issue detailed operational guidelines to the banks on this.

Infosys may have to find a new Chairman (Register and Login to read Full News..)

:: Science and Technology ::

India Post launches centre to handle e-commerce biz

  • With online shopping growing at a tremendous pace in the country, India Post, launched a centre in the national capital to exclusively handle all the e-commerce business.

  • “This processing centre will handle exclusively all the e-commerce business with the state-of-the-art technology for quick and smooth operation starting from booking till dispatch,” an official statement said.

  • The centre is capable of handling 30,000 parcels/articles a day.

  • Telecom Minster Ravi Shankar Prasad, who launched the e-commerce centre, said, “India Posts is best equipped to lead government efforts to accelerate pace of economic growth in rural India. It has to be the lead-partner in the private sector’s keenness to reach rural India.”

  • E-commerce players such as Amazon, Paytm, Yepme and Snapdeal have begun availing services at the centre.

  • The Minister said, “I want that in e-commerce, India Post should become the largest player. Growth in the e-commerce business has put India Post in a very advantageous position, and in the backdrop of golden past, there is no reason why it should not take lead position in this sector.”

  • Meanwhile, India Post mobile app was also launched. The android-based app includes features such as real-time tracking, post office search and postage calculator.

  • “India Posts is best equipped to lead government efforts to accelerate pace of economic growth in rural India. It has to be the lead-partner in the private sector’s keenness to reach rural India.” - Ravi Shankar Prasad, Telecom Minister

:: Sports ::

India loses to Malaysia

  • The lack of quality doubles players came back to haunt the Indian badminton team as it suffered a 3-2 loss to Malaysia in its opening tie of the prestigious Sudirman Cup.

  • Saina Nehwal and the women’s doubles pair of G. Jwala and Ashwini Ponnappa won their respective matches but K. Srikanth failed to breach the defence of Lee Chong Wei. The men’s and mixed doubles pairs also bit the dust as India began its campaign on a losing note .

  • India, which reached the knockout stage of the biennial tournament in the 2011 edition, will next take on three-time champion Korea .

  • Manu Attri and Sumeeth Reddy started the proceedings for India but their fight ended with a loss to Goh V. Shem and Tan Wee Kiong.

  • Olympic bronze medallist Saina then brought India back into the contest with a win over world number 56 Tee Jing Yi in a 44-minute women’s singles match.

  • The men’s singles contest between world No. 4 Srikanth and two-time Olympic silver medallist Lee, who is playing his first tournament after serving a backdated eight-month ban for doping, was expected to be a mouth-watering affair but it ended with the former world No. 1 notching up a win.

  • Commonwealth Games silver medallists Jwala and Ashwini then took the court and avenged their Glasgow final loss to Vivian Kah Mun Hoo and Woon Khe Wei with a hard-fought win over the world No. 11 pair.

  • However, in the decider, N. Sikki Reddy and Arun Vishnu could not get it across the world No. 70 pair of Chan Peng Soon and Goh Liu Ying and went down in a 40-minute match.

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Sources: Various News Papers & PIB

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