Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 14 July 2018

::NATIONAL::

India’s proposed DNA databank, to be used during investigation into crimes or to find missing persons, will not permanently store details of people said a senior official in the Department of Biotechnology.
The DNA details will be removed, subject to “judicial orders,”
The aim of the draft legislation( DNA technology use & regulation bill 2018) was to establish an institutional mechanism to collect and deploy DNA technologies to identify persons based on samples collected from crime scenes or to identify missing persons.
To help in investigations, there would be a central databank as well as regional ones, and these would store DNA profiles under various heads, such as a ‘crime scene index’ or ‘suspects index’ or ‘offenders index.’
The bill also deliberated on how, and who were authorised, to collect such information.
The 11-member Board, according to the proposed legislation, is supposed to be the regulatory authority that will grant accreditation to DNA laboratories.
The Board, in consultation with members of the judiciary, will frame rules on how long the DNA details of an entrant on a crime index would be maintained.

The supreme court claimed that the setting up of social media communication hub will intend to make the whole country under mass surveillance by the centre, in a reply to a petition filed in the court.
The petition said that the aim of the hub is to create a technology platform “to collect digital media chatter from all core Social Media Platforms as well as digital platforms.”
It said the hub would operate on a software having the “ability to trawl social media and World Wide Web for data mining. Trawling should be comprehensive and should cover all the major websites and social media handles.”
The Broadcasting Engineering Consultants India Limited, a Public Sector Undertaking, has invited bids and proposals for choosing an agency to set up the hub.
The supreme court will give the final verdict regarding the venture in august.

In a bid to tackle vacancies at the regional Benches of the National Green Tribunal (NGT), the green panel is set to start hearing matters of the other Benches via videoconferencing.
With no recent appointments to the regional Benches in Kolkata, Chennai, Pune and Bhopal, the NGT has been functioning with less than one-third of its sanctioned strength of 20 judicial and expert members.
Travelling to Delhi for every hearing is not a feasible solution and leads to huge financial loss. However, petitioners who are in a desperate situation have no other option but to approach the principal Bench.
This issue is what the NGT plans to resolve, also they claimed that the provision is only a temporary arrangement.

Markets regulator SEBI on Friday said allotment of shares to foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) in initial public offers would need to be verified with PANs to check against any breach of investment limit through multiple entities.
Under the rules, purchase of equity shares of each firm by a single FPI or an investor group would have to be below 10% of the firm’s total issued capital.
Registrar and Transfer Agents have been asked to obtain validation from depositories for investing FPIs, to ensure there is no breach of investment limit.

Union Steel Minister ChaudharyBirender Singh on Friday said the 25% tariff imposed by the U.S. on steel import can ‘indirectly’ affect the domestic sector.
Countries which are exporting to the U.S. will be forced to look at other major steel consuming markets like India to sell their surplus [produce] and [can] slightly distort our domestic market considerably due to dumping leading to indirectly affecting.
In the global steel business about 300 MT [million tonnes] is traded between the countries and due to this U.S. tariff move, at least some 85 MT of steel might find its way to India.

India on Friday reaffirmed that its Indo-Pacific strategy was not aimed at China’s containment.
The Indian side also elaborated on India’s vision for the Indo-Pacific region as articulated in Prime Minister Modi’s keynote address at this year’s Shangrila Dialogue in Singapore.
In his address, Mr.Modi had pointed to the 10 countries of Southeast Asia as the junction of India and Pacific oceans in both the geographical and civilisational sense.
India and China discussed “perspectives on maritime security and cooperation,” signalling their intent to find common ground in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific. They also brainstormed ways to work together in the field of blue economy, and further strengthening of practical cooperation.

Iran has no intention of leaving Syria regardless of U.S. and Israeli pressure, a senior envoy to Iran’s leader said on Friday, reaffirming a tough stance on the issue expected to top the agenda of the upcoming U.S.-Russian summit.
A day earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Mr. Putin that Israel wants Iran to leave Syria.Both the U.S. and Israel want Iran to pull out of Syria, while Russia has warned it would be unrealistic to expect Iran to fully withdraw from the country.

South Africa on Friday formally unveiled a super radio telescope, a first phase of what will be the world’s largest telescope in a project to try to unravel the secrets of the universe.
The 64-dish MeerKAT telescope in the remote and arid Karoo region of South Africa will be integrated into a multi-nation Square Kilometre Array (SKA).
A panorama captured by the MeerKAT telescope on Friday showed “the clearest view yet” of the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way Galaxy, according to the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory
The telescope will be the largest of its own kind in the world — with image resolution quality exceeding the Hubble Space Telescope by a factor of 50 times.

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has found theAll India Chess Federation (AICF) guilty of violating provisions of Section 4 of the Competition Act, 2002 and imposed a fine of Rs. 6,92,350.
The case was filed, in 2011, by four players — Hemant Sharma, DevendraBajpai, Gurpreet Pal Singh and Karun Duggal — banned by the AICF for taking part in tournaments organised by rival Chess Association of India (CAI). At that time, AICF banned several players and removed their international rating (that reflects a player’s playing strength).