Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 15 August 2018

::NATIONAL::

Army personnel moves supreme court against prosecution

Over 300 Army officers on Tuesday moved the Supreme Court against what they called “persecution” by the court and civilian agencies, like the CBI, for doing their duty in the insurgency-hit areas of Jammu and Kashmir and the northeastern States.
According to the petition, an “extraordinary circumstance” was prevailing over armed forces personnel fighting in the insurgency-hit areas and the nation’s borders. They are plagued by doubts whether performing their duty to fight enemies would expose them to prosecution and land them in jail.
The officers said, “The extraordinary circumstances in which their colleagues are being persecuted and prosecuted for carrying out their bona fide duties, without making any distinction or determination with regard to act having been done in good faith, without any criminal intent or mensrea ,” compelled them to approach the court.
Advocate AishwaryaBhati, who is representing them, said the move was undertaken individually by the officers and they had not contacted the Defence Ministry. However, there seems to be tacit support of the Army for the move.
Stating that the Army’s own criminal adjudication system is very robust, Ms.Bhati said the petition was not for protection of fundamental rights of the officers.

Centre claims more sexually abused children in shelter homes

The Centre on Tuesday told the Supreme Court that a survey of 9,589 child care institutions across the country found that 1,575 inmates suffered sexual abuse before they were rescued and placed in these homes.
The survey took two years from December 2015 till March 2017 and was submitted to the Union Social Justice Ministry.
There is a national social audit of child care homes being conducted by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR). This audit, Ms.Anand said, would be completed by October 2018. She said 3,500 shelter homes for children across the country had already been audited.
Several children, who were sexually and physically abused, were recently rescued from State government-funded homes in Bihar. The court is monitoring the rehabilitation of the child victims.
The survey, which is part of the Centre’s affidavit submitted in the Supreme Court on Tuesday, shows that Childline India Foundation mapped 9,589 Child Care Institutions (CCIs) and found that the total number of children found to be in need of care and protection was 3,68,267. Of these, 1,98,449 were boys, 1,69,726 were girls and 92 transgenders.

::ECONOMY::

Centre brings in new bidding model for greenfield airports

The government on Tuesday proposed a new transaction structure for the bid process for greenfield airports, switching from a revenue share model to a fixed fee per passenger to be paid to the concessioning authority.
The Ministry for Civil Aviation is betting that the proposed change to the bid parameters would help ensure affordability of airport services for passengers as well as predictability of revenue for the winning bidder.
The Maximum Blended Aeronautical Yield (MBAY) in terms of rupee per passenger would be determined by the concessioning authority at the beginning of the tender period. This fee has been fixed at Rs. 400 per passenger for the financial year 2018-2019.
The Ministry has also proposed that tariff regulator Airports Economic Regulatory Authority of India may formulate key performance indicators as part of the bid document and could be revised every five years. This would ensure quality of services by the concessionaire.

Rupee depreciates to Rs.70 against dollar

The rupee breached the psychological barrier of 70-to-a-dollar for the first time as the sharp fall in the Turkish lira continued to affect all emerging market currencies.
The rupee had a strong opening against the dollar at 69.85, but fell sharply to breach the 70-mark and went on to depreciate till 70.08, prompting the central bank to intervene, currency dealers said. On Monday, the rupee declined 1.6% against the dollar to close at 69.93.
The domestic currency ended the day at 69.89 to a dollar. The rupee is the worst performer in Asia this year, depreciating 9% against the dollar. The current account gap is widening mainly due to a rise in international crude oil prices as India imports more than 80% of its requirements.
A depreciating rupee puts pressure on prices and hence makes it difficult for the Reserve Bank of India which wants inflation within a range. RBI has raised its key policy rate, or the repo rate, in the last two policy meetings by 25 basis points each to 6.5%.
AbheekBarua, chief economist at HDFC Bank, said while the country is positioned better in terms of vulnerability ratios, the run towards safe haven assets could lead to further depreciation in the short run.

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::INTERNATIONAL::

Australia recommences adoption programme with India

The Government of Australia has decided to recommence the Adoption Programme with India, as per Hague Convention on Inter-Country Adoption.
The adoptions from India had earlier been put on hold by the Government of Australia eight years ago, on the reported charges of trafficking of children for Inter-country adoption by some of the recognized Indian placement agencies (the Adoption agencies mandated to place children in Inter-country adoption at that point of time).
The regulation of Inter-country adoptions have been made strict by the Government of India with the enactment of Juvenile Justice Act, 2015 and notification of Adoption Regulations, 2017.
The Ministry of Women & Child Development along with Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) have been constantly engaging with Australian Government for recommencement of the Adoption Programme.
The recommencement of the adoption programmes will now enable large number of prospective adoptive parents including those of Indian origin settled in Australia in fulfilling their desire of adopting a child from India.

U.K immigration lobby group criticizes Indian IT firms

A lobbying group, which pushes for greater curbs on Britain’s immigration regime, has accused multinational IT companies, “typically based in India”, of exploiting a “gaping” loophole in Britain’s immigration system, and has called for the system to be overhauled.
In a report published on Wednesday, Migration Watch said a small number of multinational IT companies were exploiting a system intended to post senior executives to and from the U.K. to bring “thousands of migrant workers to fulfil contracts with private and public sector organisations”.
“This is known as third-party contracting and usually involves an international IT company, typically based in India, obtaining a contract to deliver a project or support services to a U.K. entity and then staffing it with workers form the company’s home country,” Migration Watch said.
Last week, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) published a report calling for the government to scrap immigration targets. “Intra-company transfers hugely benefit the U.K. boosting investment by international companies and creating jobs in the U.K.,” said Matthew Percival, the CBI’s head of employment.
Trade body TechUK rejected the suggestion that international talent was cutting U.K. domestic skills. “Last year, there were more unfilled vacancies in IT than any other sector,” said Antony Walker, deputy CEO of TechUK.

::SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY::

Scientists develop low cost method to check groundwater pollution

Scientists have developed a low-cost method to monitor groundwater pollutants in real-time, and help reduce potential health risks.
Groundwater contamination is increasingly recognised as a widespread environmental problem, said researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in U.S.
Conventional methods of monitoring involve taking water samples every year or every quarter and analysing them in the lab,” said Haruko Wainwright, a Berkeley Lab researcher.
The researchers tracked levels of tritium and uranium-238 in the groundwater at the Savannah River site, a former nuclear weapons production site in South Carolina in the U.S. They measured the acidity (or pH) levels and specific conductance (a measure of electrical conductance).
The data from the multiple sensors were then fed into a Kalman filter to estimate contaminant concentrations.
A Kalman filter is not a physical filter but rather a mathematical algorithm that can integrate mixed time-series data to make estimates. It is used in various fields, such as traffic prediction and remote sensing. The method provided reliable information about plume over last 20 years.

::SPORTS::

Sunil chettri to get best sportperson award

India football captain Sunil Chhetri will get the ‘Best Sportsperson of the Year’ honour at the Calcutta Sports Journalists’ Club annual awards function to be held here on Thursday.
Davis Cupper Akhtar Ali, international cricketer ArunLal and 1962 Asian Games gold medal winning footballer ArunGhosh will get Lifetime Achievement awards.