Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 12 December 2016

:: National ::

Cyclonic storm Vardah is likely to make landfall along north Tamil Nadu and south Andhra Pradesh coast, close to Chennai, accompanied by strong winds with speeds of 80 to 90 kmph.
The rain would gradually in- crease from the morning of December 12 and was expected to last until the next day in the northern districts of Chennai, Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram.
North Tamil Nadu and south Andhra Pradesh coasts would get to light to moderate rain with possibilities of heavy rainfall of up to 20 cm as the system makes landfall.

The central zonal bench of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has directed the Rajasthan government to cancel allotments of salt pans in the Sambhar Salt Lake that fall within the wetland and run contrary to the mandate of Wetland Rules, 2010.
The bench, in a recent order, also directed the State government not to make any further allotments or permit new salt pans within the wetland areas or in the ‘no construction zone’ identified in accordance with the Wetland Rules, 2010.
The bench, referring to the reports on the matter, directed the authority to examine the sensitive issue in light of observations and recommendations made by the two expert committees in the year 2010.
The illegal business of brine extraction in the Sambhar Lake was first highlighted in the Vinod Kapoor fact-finding report in 2010.
The report had mentioned that 15-20 borewells were operating in every bigha of land during that period and over exploitation of water resources had lowered the groundwater level by almost 60 metres in the area.
While Sambhar Salts Ltd (SSL), a government venture, which has over 90 square miles at Sambhar and Nawa, produces two lakh tonnes of salt per annum, private companies together make around 20 lakh tonnes a year.

Paolo Gentiloni was named as Italy’s new Prime Minister follow- ing reformist leader Matteo Renzi’s resignation in the wake of a crushing referendum defeat.
Mr. Gentiloni, who served as Foreign Minister under Mr. Renzi, was asked by President Sergio Mattarella to form a new Centre-Left government that will guide Italy to elections due by Feb 2018.
Mr. Gentiloni said there was an “urgent need for a fully functioning government” to address a series of pressing international, economicand social issues.
Chief among those is a looming crisis in the troubled banking sector andongoing relief efforts after a series of deadly earthquakes between August and October.

The Indian SpaceResearch Organisation has roped in a consortium of six companies to deliver the country’s first industry-built spacecraft by late 2017.
The contract includes assembly, integration and testing (AIT) of two spare navigation satellites consecutively in around 18 months.
From the third year, Indian industry could expect competitive bids for a new lot of spacecraft of 300-500-kg class, perhaps five a year, for both ISRO and for export, Col. H.S. Shankar (retd), CMD of Alpha Design.
This is the first time that ISRO has out- sourced an entire satellite to industry.
Alpha is a defence manufacturing contractor while the others are small and medium-sized vendors that already supply components to ISRO.
The others in the consortium are Newtech Solutions, Aidin Technologies and DCX Cables of Bengaluru, Vinyas Technologies of Mysuru and Avantel Systems of Hyderabad.
The work will start around January and the first space- craft will be brought out in around nine months.

The legislation required to be passed by Parliament for the roll-out of the GST will not be tabled in the Winter Session as the sixth meeting of the GST Council failed to reach a consensus, next meeting has been shifted to December 22-23.
The Winter session ends on December 16.“Our target is April 1 and we stand by it,” Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told reporters.
“The luxury of time is not available to us. April 1 is the first possible day for the GST to be implemented and the last day is constitutionallydefined as September 16.
So the difference is just five months and 15 days. That’s why we don’t have the luxury of time.”

The FinanceMinistry has asked all the public sector banks and the Indian Banks Association to ensure that deposits of old and new notes are properly reflected in customers’ counterfoils.
Though most banks are already providing the correct information to the customers, they must ensure that this is done in 100 per cent of the cases.
“All the bank branches in the country must be alerted to reflect correctly the cash deposit in old and new currency and informthe customers about the same,” according to the statement.
The Ministry has asked all the heads of the banks to take firm action if the instructions were not followedscrupulously.
It asked banks to prominently display a sign, requesting customers to fill-up deposit slips clearly indicating old and new currency and the denomination.
The action taken in this regard has to be reported to the Department of Financial Services by December 16.