Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 18 April 2015

:: National ::

Canada, India on same page

• Canada, where some pro-Khalistan groups are still active, pledged support for the unity and integrity of India.

• “Canada overwhelmingly stands by the unity and integrity of India,” Prime Minister Stephen Harper said during a reception hosted for his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi.

• The assurance assumes significance as some pro-Khalistan groups are still active in Canada.

• Mr. Harper, who spent about 50 hours of his time with Modi travelling with him from Ottawa to Toronto to Vancouver, earlier accompanied the Indian leader during his to visit the Air India Memorial in Toronto to pay tributes to the 329 people, mostly of Indian-origin, killed in the Kanishka bombing in 1985.

• The Montreal-New Delhi Air India ‘Kanishka’ Flight 182 exploded 45 minutes before it was to have landed at London’s Heathrow Airport on June 23, 1985.

• The bombing was blamed on Sikh militants in retaliation to Operation Blue Star to flush out militants from the Golden Temple in 1984.

• At the reception, Mr. Harper said that India and Canada are working together to meet security challenges, including terrorism.

• Accompanied by his Canadian counterpart, Mr. Modi visited a gurdwara and a temple here and said Hinduism is not a religion but a way of life.

• Addressing the gathering there, Mr. Modi said the Sikhs in Canada had won respect for India through their work here.

• Subsequently, Mr. Modi and Mr. Harper went to the Lakshmi Narayan Temple where again he praised the Indians living in Canada.

• The Prime Minister wrapped up his three-nation tour of France, Germany and Canada during which a number of important agreements were signed, including for the supply of 36 Rafale fighter jets by France and uranium from Canada.

New I-T return forms to curb black money

• Indian taxpayers have to disclose details of all bank accounts held by them in the country and also foreign trips, as per the new income tax return forms, notified by the Central Board of Direct Taxes. This new disclosure will start with the assessment year 2015-16.

• The requirements for additional disclosure come, as the government is trying hard to curb black money and improve tax collections.

• Individuals having income from salary, pension, one house property and other sources like interest file the returns in ITR-1 form. Apart from this if they earn income from capital gains and foreign assets they file returns in ITR-2 forms.

• The new forms require an assessee to furnish the number of accounts he/she holds including those opened and closed during the previous year and the balance in the account as on March 31.

• The assessee will also have to furnish the name of the bank, account number/numbers, its address, The Indian Financial System Code (IFSC code) and any possible joint account holder.

• “The disclosure requirement on number of accounts and also those opened and closed is interesting. A lot of people have a number of bank accounts and they leave some accounts passive or inactive,” Vineet Agarwal, Partner, KPMG, said.

• On foreign travel, tax payers are required to disclose passport number, the issuance place of the passport, countries visited, number of times such visits are made and in case of a resident taxpayer, the expenses incurred from own sources in relation to such travel.

• The new ITR forms, this time, also feature a new column to include the Aadhaar number of the assessee.

• “This could be part of the longer plan to include Aadhaar as a unique number, it might become bigger than PAN. Already bank accounts and gas subsidy are linked to Aadhaar” said Mr. Agarwal.

• Another feature now is if an assessee has forgotten to file his return or revised return within deadline, he can approach the CBDT directly and get permission to file the return, which the authority will decide on the merits, he added.

SC moved against making Sathasivam NHRC chief (Register and Login to read Full News..)

:: International :

Xi comes calling to Pak., bearing gifts worth $45bn

• Chinese President Xi Jinping is heading to Islamabad on a two-day visit, which, deepened by billions of dollars of likely investments, is expected to test Beijing’s capacity to avoid antagonising India too much.

• The Chinese President is expected to sign infrastructure and energy deals estimated at $45 billion, which would be used to build the Pakistani node of Beijing’s ambitious Maritime Silk Road (MSR).

• In turn, this would provide China another point of access into the Indian Ocean, from Pakistan’s Arabian Sea port of Gwadar.

• The Financial Times is reporting that $34 billion of the $45-billion investment will go into new energy projects. Another $11 billion will be pumped into new infrastructure projects linked to the Pakistan-China economic corridor, which has been woven into the MSR initiative.

• The Karachi-Gwadar-Kashgar rail and road link is at the heart of this project.

• During Mr. Xi’s visit, China is expected to finalise with Pakistan, a deal for eight diesel electric submarines — a move that is bound to raise concerns in India. In a measured response, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar observed, during the course of an interview, that India will have the capability “to match” the proposed Pakistani acquisitions.

India factor in Silk Road project to temper Beijing-Islamabad ties (Register and Login to read Full News..)

:: Business and Economy ::

Absence of new taxes will help manufacturing, says Jaitley

• Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that after the Modi government decided to increase the States’ share in Central taxes in line with the 14th Finance Commission recommendations, not a single State government has introduced new levies and that this will have an impact on the economy.

• “All States have now presented their budgets for this year and no new or additional taxes have been introduced … this will make manufacturing across India competitive for producers,” Mr. Jaitley said.

• He was speaking at an event at the Peterson Institute of International Economics here.

• Responding to a question on the International Monetary Fund’s projection released on Monday that India’s growth would overtake China’s this year, the Finance Minister said: “If in a given year we are numerically higher than their growth rate there are a lot of areas where we need to do a lot more than that.”

• China managed an average 9 per cent growth for three decades to reach where it was, he said.

• Mr. Jaitley also said the financial year that ended on March 31 was one in which the Centre’s receipts from disinvestment were highest ever. “Numerically I have collected much more from disinvestment in a year than other governments since 1991 and this year we will do much more if not twice of last year,” he said.

• Mr. Jaitley also said that as he announced in his Budget speech, the Modi Government would be going in for strategic sales during the year for some public sector units.

Snapdeal faces heat over sale of prescription drugs

• The Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has ordered a search of all the offices and warehouses of online retailer Snapdeal, following complaints that the company was selling prescription drugs without proper licence.

• Other online retail giants such as Flipkart and Amazon will also be reviewed for possible breach of law, said FDA commissioner Dr. Harshdeep Kamble.

• Acting as normal customers, FDA officials ordered medicines which needed a doctor’s prescription and can be sold only by a licensed pharmacist, from Snapdeal. .

• “The information published on the website was also verified and the company’s office in Mumbai was raided on Thursday,” Dr. Kamble told. The two drugs that were available for online sale were Ascoril cough syrup and Vigora tablets.

• The company has been asked to furnish details of persons involved, the medical stores, agreement with drug companies, payment details, challans, etc.

• “We have asked the company to immediately remove the advertisement of the products from the website and stop the sale,” said Dr. Kamble, adding that the company has agreed to follow the orders.

• As per Section 18 (c) of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 only a licensed retailer can offer these drugs for sale on the basis of a prescription.

India is below Bhutan in broadband reach: TRAI

• India is ranked below Bhutan and Sri Lanka in terms of broadband penetration and the multi-layered structure involved in the decision making for the sector needs to be overhauled, telecom regulator TRAI said.

• “India ranks 125th in the world for fixed broadband penetration. Some of our neighbours such as Bhutan and Sri Lanka are ahead of us. We need to seriously think about it,” TRAI Chairman Rahul Khullar said while sharing details of recommendations on the subject of ‘Delivering Broadband Quickly’.

• To promote the use of fixed-line broadband, TRAI also proposed that the licence fee on the revenues earned from fixed line should be exempted for 5 years.

• In the wireless or mobile broadband segment, India is ranked at 113th with a penetration of 3.2 per 100 inhabitants.

• The regulator also suggested the need to revamp government bodies involved in decision making that impact spread of broadband including that of Wireless Planning Commission (WPC) — custodian of spectrum at Department of Telecom.

• TRAI said WPC should be converted into an independent body by de-linking it from DoT and suggested that it could be converted into a statutory body reporting to Parliament or any other existing statutory body.

• The regulator has said that multi-layered structure for decision making, for National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN), was not suitable and structure needs immediate overhaul.

• NOFN project aims to spread broadband across 2.5 lakh village panchayats by 2016 but has missed its target of completing roll out in first 50,000 panchayats by March 2015.

• TRAI has also called for an audit of spectrum held by all the bodies.

• TRAI suggests that the licence fee on the revenues earned from fixed line should be exempted for 5 years.

SEBI allows time to entities of exited stock exchanges to list on nation-wide bourses (Register and Login to read Full News..)

Yamaha makes a foray into commuter bike (Register and Login to read Full News..)

:: Science and Technology ::

77% citizens want govt. to protect net users: survey

• Amid a raging debate over the issue of net neutrality in the country, a new survey has said a whopping 77 per cent citizens want the government to ensure that consumer interest is protected and telecom operators are not allowed to charge more based on the sites/services accessed on the Internet.

• Interestingly, a similar percentage of respondents (77 per cent) said the Central government and the sectoral regulator TRAI have “not done enough” to address issues faced by consumers such as call drop and poor data services.

• The community survey, with focus on telecom services offered in India, was conducted by social media network Local Circles. In all, six questions were put out for the poll, each receiving 20,000-37,700 votes.

• “Five questions that we put out received over 37,000 votes. The question of net neutrality which was put up recently received about 20,000 votes. However, after 10,000-15,000 votes, trends generally stay the same,” Sachin Taparia, Founder and CEO of Local Circles said.

• Fifty-three per cent of the surveyed people said they did not trust the charges levied by operators for the use of data service or value-added services, while 32 per cent said they trust their telecom provider on charges.

New Google app to help you write freely

• Google has designed a new app to test your on-screen penmanship. Called Google Handwriting Input, the app allows users to ‘write’ on a smartphone or tablet screen.

• It automatically interprets letters from 82 languages and transforms them into standard digital text.

• Users can use their fingers as well to write.

SpaceX cargo ship reaches ISS (Register and Login to read Full News..)

Connectivity, neutrality can coexist: Zuckerberg (Register and Login to read Full News..)

Moon formed 4.47 billion years ago, says study (Register and Login to read Full News..)

:: Sports ::

Priyadarshi to probe role of IPL CEO

• The Supreme Court agreed with the Justice R.M. Lodha Committee’s recommendation to appoint senior CBI officer Vivek Priyadarshi to head an investigation team probing the role and activities of IPL CEO Sundar Raman in the IPL spot-fixing and betting scam.

• Mr. Priyadarshi, who has handled investigations into high-profile cases like the 2G Spectrum scam, replaces 1983-batch Assam-Meghalaya cadre IPS officer B.B. Mishra, who retired on March 31, this year.

• Besides examining the role of Mr. Raman and imposing a suitable punishment on him if found guilty, the three-judge committee led by former Chief Justice of India R.M. Lodha will also decide the quantum of punishment for former BCCI president N. Srinivasan’s son-in-law, Gurunath Meiyappan, and Rajasthan Royals IPL team part-owner, Raj Kundra. The apex court held that both had indulged in betting during the IPL. It has also taken up the job of administrative overhaul of the BCCI.

• On February 22, the Lodha Committee decided that further investigation is necessary against Mr. Raman in the light of evidence collected by Mishra’s probe team.

• But on being informed by Mr. Mishra that he would be retiring in March, the Committee had approached the Supreme Court. The apex court had then asked the Committee to consider another officer, following which Mr. Priyadarshi was zeroed in on. “We see no reason to decline the plea and accordingly Mr. Vivek Priyadarshi will head the investigating team in place of Mr. B.B. Mishra who has been superannuated from the service,” a Bench led by Justice T.S. Thakur ordered.

• The apex court said government would take steps to ensure that his service is made available to the Justice Lodha Committee in this task, in addition to his job in the CBI.

Paralympic Committee of India suspended (Register and Login to read Full News..)

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Sources: Various News Papers & PIB

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