Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 13 FEBRUARY 2019

::NATIONAL::

Jammu & Kashmir administration constitutes secretaries panel to study issues of people inKargil

•  The Jammu and Kashmir administrationon Tuesday constituted a committee of secretaries to look into the demands of the people of Kargil, where a shutdown was observed for the fourth consecutive day on Tuesday over the demand for rotational offices.
•  The spokesman said the government has formed a committee of senior officers "to determine the location and scope and size of division level offices, their staffing, size and most importantly, their location in the division."
•  Meanwhile, a Kargil-based civil society group, Joint Resistance Movement, has decided to continue with its protest shutdown against the administration’s decision to set up divisional commissioner’s office at Leh after Ladakh was declared a separate division recently and was split from Kashmir division.
•  Work in offices and court was suspended for the day. Hundreds of people marched on the streets to press for their demand to have “rotational headquarters at both Kargil and Leh”.
•  Former Chief Minister and National Conference vice-president Omar Abdullah also backed the demand of the people of Kargil. “It seems the decision was taken in a haste and is contrived to pitch one community against the other. Had the idea behind this act been to empower the people of Ladakh, then the governor would have held deliberations,” said Mr. Abdullah.

Survey reports voters demand more women in LokSabha

•  More than 82% voters want more women in the next LokSabha, according to a survey by a citizen’s collective called Shakti.
•  The survey was conducted among 10 lakh voters across 24 States on a mobile application called Neta app. The application has more than two crore verified users and covers all 543 parliamentary constituencies.
•  The users were posed one simple question — Do you want more women in LokSabha 2019? And, in response as many as 82.2% of participants voted ‘yes.’ The finding was shared at an event here on Tuesday.
•  Only 1.4% of independent candidates get elected. Therefore, it is important to focus on political parties and put pressure on them so that more women leaders stand for elections.
•  “We have seen from data from the Election Commission of India that more women get voted than men, but we needed to know whether voters were willing to elect women leaders and that’s the question we asked in our survey,” said Tara Krishnaswamy, co-convener, of Shakti. The collective was set up in December last year to promote participation of women in politics.

::ECONOMY::

RBI penalises banks for non compliances of norms

•  Reserve Bank has imposed monetary penalty of two million rupees each on HDFC Bank, IDBI Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank for non-compliance of various Know Your Customer/ Anti-Money Laundering norms.
•  In a statement issued from Mumbai yesterday, RBI informed that it has imposed monetary penalty of 1.5 Crore rupees each on Allahabad Bank, Bank of Maharashtra and Indian Overseas Bank for non-compliance of norms related to monitoring end use of funds, exchange of information, classification and reporting of frauds and on restructuring of accounts.
•  A penalty of 1 crore rupees was imposed on Andhra Bank for the same reason. The central bank clarified that the action is purely based on deficiencies in regulatory compliance and is not intended to pronounce upon the validity of any transaction by the banks with their customers.

CAG report finds majority registered realty companies operate without PAN

•  In an audit of assessments made by the Income Tax Department on the real estate sector, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) found that a whopping 95% of the companies registered with the Registrar of Companies (RoC) did not have a permanent account number (PAN).
•  In an analysis of the data of the RoCs in 12 States, the CAG also noted that there were several companies that the tax net had failed to capture and that the department had no mechanism to ensure that all the registered companies had PAN or that they filed their income tax returns (ITR) regularly.
•  The CAG said that it forwarded the information received from the RoCs regarding the companies without PAN to the Income Tax Department, but received no reply. “Audit attempted to ascertain whether the companies in RoC data with PAN were regular in filing their ITRs,” the report added.
•  In order to rectify this, the CAG recommended that the Central Board of Direct Taxes and the Ministry of Corporate Affairs set up an inter-ministerial arrangement so that when a company is registered with the RoC, the application for a PAN is automatically submitted to the tax department.
•  “Further, the companies should be compulsorily required to submit a copy of acknowledgement of ITR while furnishing their annual reports in Form MGT-7. This will ensure that companies file their ITRs and at the same time the data of ROC will be in sync with that of ITD.

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::INTERNATIONAL::

India and Maldives ease visa norms

•  India and Maldives on Tuesday exchanged an agreement to facilitate visas for travel between the two countries in a number of categories, easing a bilateral stand off which had resulted in thousands of Indian job seekers being denied work permits last year.
•  Under the agreement, the government will free up the visa regime for Maldives citizens who travel to India for medical reasons and for education in particular. This will include allowing Maldives citizens who receive a visa on arrival in India to change their visa status to medical visas if they require hospitalisation during their stay.
•  Medical visas will also be granted to attendants to accompany patients. The government has also agreed to grant visas for parents and other dependants to live in India while their children attend school here.
•  The facilitation has been a long pending demand of the Maldives government, given the difficulties faced by thousands of short term visa applicants each year.
•  The agreement will ease visas on arrival for Indian businessmen, and bring cheer to Indians applying for work in the Maldives, as it stipulates that work permits will be issued within 15 days to Indian employees, and the visa fees will be paid by employers in the Maldives

EU members of UNSC seek access to eastern Ukraine

•  European Union members of the UN Security Council have asked for humanitarian access to eastern Ukraine's areas held by separatists.
•  The countries said in a statement, some 3.5 million people require humanitarian aid and protection due to widespread mine contamination, escalating psychological trauma and lack of access to basic services.
•  They urged all parties to the conflict, to re-establish full access for all international humanitarian organizations to the non-government-controlled areas and allow speedy delivery of humanitarian assistance.
•  The statement was read to reporters by Jonathan Allen, Britain's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, on behalf of the eight EU countries including Britain, France, Germany and Sweden.

::SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY::

Study reveals Indian and china as pioneers of global greening efforts

•  India and China are leading the global greening effort, a finding that is quite contrary to the general perception worldwide, a study based on NASA satellite data has said, observing that the world is a greener place than it was 20 years ago.
•  “China and India account for one-third of the greening but contain only 9% of the planet’s land area covered in vegetation. That is a surprising finding, considering the general notion of land degradation in populous countries from over exploitation,” said lead author Chi Chen of Boston University.
•  The study published on February 11, in the journal Nature Sustainability said that satellite data (2000 – 2017) revealed a greening pattern strikingly prominent in China and India and overlapping with croplands worldwide.
•  The study says that the greening trend may change in the future depending on various factors. For example, increased food production in India is facilitated by groundwater irrigation. As the groundwater is depleted, the trend may change.
•  The researchers also pointed out that the gain in greenness around the world does not necessarily offset the loss of natural vegetation in tropical regions such as Brazil and Indonesia.

::SPORTS::

India open snooker to be held in Kochi

•  Some of the biggest stars of world snooker, including four-time World champion John Higgins, will be in action in the fifth India Open which begins at the Grand Hyatt, Bolghatty Island, in Kochi, on February 27.
•  The event, the country’s biggest professional snooker tournament and a World-ranking event, carries a total prize fund of Rs. 3 crore. and runs till March 3.
   

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