Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 07 February 2020

::NATIONAL::

A parliamentary panel has recommended a code of conduct for Internet service providers (ISPs) and strengthening the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights to curb child pornography.
The report, prepared by an ad hoc committee set up by the RajyaSabha and led by Congress MP Jairam Ramesh, was submitted to the Chairman of the House on January 25.
The report was tabled by Women and Child Development Minister SmritiIrani on Thursday. It recommends a multi-pronged strategy detailing technological, institutional, social and educational as well as State-level measures.
Among its key recommendations is a code of conduct or a set of guidelines for ensuring child safety online. It puts a greater onus on ISPs to identify and remove child sexual abuse material (CSAM) as well as report such content and those trying to access them to the authorities under the national cybercrime portal.
The committee has delved into great detail in using technology to curb circulation of child porn such as breaking end-to-end encryption to trace its distributors.

30th of last month on the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal and 790 FIRs have been registered by the concerned Law Enforcement Agencies.
The government today said that 33,152 cybercrime ..............................................

The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) decided at a meeting on Thursday to keep the interest rates unchanged in the wake of a rise in inflation, but emphasised that there would be space for rate reduction.
This is the second straight policy review meeting where the rates have been kept unchanged. The RBI reduced the rates by 135 bps between February and October 2019 before pressing the pause button in the December policy review.
The central bank took two measures that could ease lending rates further. One, it opened a window to extend ₹1 lakh crore to the commercial banks at the repo rate, which is 5.15%.
Second, banks have been exempted from maintaining the cash reserve ratio — which is 4% of the net demand and time liabilities now — for home, auto and MSME loans that are extended from January 31 to July 31.
Markets reacted positively to the tone, with the yield on the 10-year benchmark government paper dropping 6 bps to close the day at 6.45%. Economists said that with RBI worried about growth recovery, the next rate cut could be as early as in April - the next policy review meeting.

Government is creating an enabling framework for the deployment of affordable and secure 5G services in the country.
In a written reply in the RajyaSabha, Minister of State ..............................................

Apart from developing trade via the Chabahar port in Iran, India would like to explore setting up “air corridors” with five Central Asian nations, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said on Thursday.
The air corridors similar to what India established with Afghanistan in 2018 would include regular cargo flights with special clearing and customs facilities to expedite the movement of goods, especially fresh fruit and other agricultural produce, and are currently being discussed by the External Affairs Ministry.
At present, most of the trade between Central Asia goes via Bandar Abbas in Iran, northern Europe or China. In recent years, the government has been seeking to develop more direct routes from Chabahar, a trilateral arrangement with Iran and Afghanistan, the International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC) and becoming a part the Ashgabat Agreement.
However, the rail-link between Chabahar and the crossover into Afghanistan is yet to be developed. At present, $1.5 billion of the $2 billion trade with Central Asia is with Kazakhstan, and more than $1 billion of that comes from crude oil exports to India.

Bangladesh Railway Minister Nurul Islam Sujan has said that the train route between Dhaka and Siliguri is expected to be open by June this year.
Speaking to the media persons in Dhaka yesterday,.................................................

Despite several instances of breach of the voluntary Uniform Code of Pharmaceutical Marketing Practices (UCPMP) by pharma companies, and the demand from the Indian Medical Association (IMA) and doctors to make it mandatory, the Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP), which comes under the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers, has yet again “requested companies to..............................................

Sports Authority of India (SAI) and Hockey India today announced the establishment of the High Performance Centres in seven places across the country to provide state-of-the-art facilities to Junior and Sub-Junior players. The move is aimed at grooming young talent in view of 2024 and 2028 Olympic Games.
While the National Hockey Academy at Dhyan Chand National Stadium, New Delhi along with SAI at Sundergarh, Bhopal and Bengaluru will be active within the next three months, the remaining three centres will be developed over the next one year.
These centres will be closely monitored by Hockey India and its High Performance Director and the programme will also ensure that the athletes are provided with international exposure. These seven centres will be set up under the Khelo India scheme and will have expert professional training, utilization of sports science and education of the youngsters.