Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 02 October 2019

::NATIONAL::

Nation celebrates 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi

The Nation pays homage to the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi on his 150th birth anniversary today. A series of functions have been organized across the country and by Indian Missions abroad.
President Ram NathKovind, Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu, Prime Minister NarendraModi, LokSabha Speaker Om Birla, Home Minister Amit Shah and several Union Ministers, BJP and opposition leaders paid floral tributes to Mahatma Gandhi at his Samadhi Rajghat.
Prime Minister paid tribute to the Father of Nation at the Raj Ghat. Mr Modi stayed for some time at the Raj Ghat where an all-faith prayer meeting was held this morning. In a tweet, Prime Minister expressed gratitude to Mahatma Gandhi for his everlasting contribution to humanity. Mr Modi also said we pledge to continue working hard to realise his dreams and create a better planet.
In a short video on Mahatma Gandhi, Mr Modi said his message of peace is still relevant to the world community. The prime minister also referred to the seven perversions Mahatma Gandhi had cautioned people about. These are: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, visit without ethics, science without humanity, religion without sacrifice and politics without principles.
Prime Minister will visit Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad. Mr Modi will also go to the Sabarmati riverfront where he will declare the country open defecation-free in the presence of over 20,000 village heads. Apart from launching a book titled ‘My Life is My Message’, Mr Modi will also release commemorative postal stamps and coins to mark 150th Birth Anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.

New single window online system to give license to eating and lodging establishments

Union Minister of State for Home Affairs G. Kishan Reddy launched a single window on-line system for licensing of eating and lodging establishments in New Delhi today.
Speaking in the launching event, Mr Reddy said, this unified portal aims at simplifying the regulatory process and will bring transparency in getting statutory clearances from various authorities.
He said, it will also help in avoiding procedural delays. The Minister said, a number of licences are required to run restaurants in the national capital.
He said, government under visionary leadership of Prime Minister Modi is committed to ease of doing business and this is another step taken in the same direction.
Our correspondent reports that earlier process necessitated the applicants to procure four basic clearances separately from municipality, fire department, police and pollution control committee, making the entire process cumbersome, hassle prone and time taking.
In order to address the issue, Ministry of Home Affairs facilitated development of a single window on-line system in consultation with all the stakeholders.

::ECONOMY::

RBI claims banking system in India as safe and stable

With the panic over the crisis at the Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative Bank threatening to snowball, the Reserve Bank of India on Tuesday stepped in to assure depositors.
The central bank issued a statement that the Indian banking system was ‘safe and stable’.Shares of commercial banks took a beating on Tuesday as a crisis of confidence gripped the banking sector. Private sector lender Yes Bank’s shares tanked 22.8% on Tuesday, after declining 15% on Monday. It closed the day at ₹32.00.
Another private lender RBL Bank’s shares fell 8.7% on Tuesday, while IndusInd Bank stock went down by 6.3%. Troubled mortgage financier Dewan Housing Finance’s stock declined 20%.
Amid the falling banking stocks and social media rumours about the health of the Indian banking system following the crisis at the Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative Bank, the Reserve Bank of India issued a statement asking people not to pay heed to such speculation.
Loans by PMC Bank to the now bankrupt real estate developer HDIL had turned sour many years ago, but the lender had not classified those loans as ‘non-performing’, fearing harm of reputation, the former MD of PMC Bank Joy Thomas admitted in a letter to the RBI.
Last week, the regulator imposed restrictions, including a cap on withdrawals from the multi-State cooperative bank due to financial irregularities.

Tourism ministry to ban single use plastics in all monuments

Tourism Minister Prahlad Patel on Wednesday announced that single-use plastic will not be allowed on the premises of historical monuments and within 100 metres of them
The announcement comes days after Prime Minister NarendraModi appealed to the nation to shun single-use plastics.
“Single-use plastics will not be allowed inside monuments and within 100 metres of them,” the tourism minister said while addressing the media at the launch of tourism fair ‘ParyatanParv’ in New Delhi.
The government has, however, shelved the plan to outlaw single-use plastics on the 150th anniversary of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi.
The plan to ban six items, officials said, would have been disruptive for the industry at a time when it is coping with an economic slowdown and job losses.

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::INTERNATIONAL::

U.K dismisses Pakistan claim over Nizam’s fund

In a major setback for Pakistan, the U.K. High Court on Wednesday ruled in favour of India in a decades-old legal dispute with Islamabad over the funds belonging to the Nizam of Hyderabad at the time of Partition in 1947 and deposited in a London bank account.
The Nizam’s descendants, Prince MukarramJah — the titular eighth Nizam of Hyderabad — and his younger brother MuffakhamJah, had joined hands with the Indian government in the legal battle against the Pakistan government over around 35 million pounds lying with NatWest Bank plc in London.
In 2013, Pakistan had waived sovereign immunity by issuing a claim for the fund that opened the way for the current case to proceed. The Pakistan government’s legal team had claimed the fund on two alternative bases.
The ruling marks an important conclusion to an extremely long-drawn legal battle, which also witnessed the Indian government, the princes and the administrator of the estate of Nizam VII compromising their differences and entering into a confidential settlement agreement last year, which meant the case was effectively an India-Pakistan clash in the U.K. courts.

South Korea accuses North for test firing projectiles

North Korea on October 2 fired projectiles toward its eastern sea, South Korea’s military said, in an apparent display of its expanding military capabilities ahead of planned nuclear negotiations with the United States this weekend.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff did not immediately confirm what the weapons were, how many were fired or how far they flew.
But Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary YoshihideSuga said the North fired two ballistic missiles from the country’s east coast, and one of them appeared to have landed inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone off northwestern coast. There were no reports of damage to Japanese vessels or aircraft travelling in the area, he said.
The launches, which were the North’s ninth round of weapons tests since late July, came hours after a senior North Korean diplomat on October 1 evening announced that North Korea and the United States have agreed to resume working-level nuclear negotiations this weekend.
Nuclear negotiations have been at a standstill for months following a February summit between Mr. Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump in Hanoi, Vietnam. Those talks broke down after the U.S. rejected North Korean demands for broad sanctions relief in exchange for partially surrendering its nuclear capabilities.
After their Singapore summit in June 2018, Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim issued a vague statement calling for a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula without describing how or when it would occur.

::SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY::

Study finds humans polluting earth more than volcanoes

Human activity churns out up to 100 times more planet-warming carbon each year as all the volcanoes on Earth, says a decade-long study released Tuesday.
The Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO), a 500-strong international team of scientists, released a series of papers outlining how carbon is stored, emitted and reabsorbed by natural and manmade processes.
They found that manmade carbon dioxide emissions drastically outstrip the contribution of volcanoes — which belch out gas and are often fingered as a major climate change contributor — to current warming rates.
Manmade emissions in 2018 alone topped 37 gigatonnes.Celina Suarez, associate professor of geology at the University of Arkansas, said modern manmade emissions were the “same magnitude” as past carbon shocks that precipitated mass extinction.
“We are on the same level of carbon catastrophe which is a bit sobering,” she said.
By comparison, the CO2 released annually by volcanoes hovers around 0.3 and 0.4 gigatonnes — roughly 100 times less than manmade emissions.

::SPORTS::

Sports ministry flags of Fit India Plog movement

Union Sports Minister KirenRijiju today flagged off 'Fit India Plog run at Indira Gandhi stadium in New Delhi to mark Gandhi Jayanti.
Member of Parliament and Singer Manoj Tiwari, Wrestler BajrangPunia, Poet Ashok Chakradhar among others were present on the occasion.
Plogging is a concept brings together fitness and cleanliness as participants pick up plastic and other waste from the road while jogging. The run is being organised at over two thousand places all over the country including 225 places in the national capital.