Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 20 December 2016

:: National ::

More changes announced by RBI after demonetisation

Eleven days before the window to deposit the withdrawn Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 currency notes is to close, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has placed re-strictions on deposits exceeding Rs. 5,000, using these notes.
RBI said that individuals can de-posit the old Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes, totalling more than Rs. 5,000 only once till December 30 and that too, if they provided satisfactory reasons as to why these de-posits had not been made earlier.
RBI said the explanation provided by the depositor should be kept on record to facilitate an audit trail at a later stage. Banks have been asked to flag the deposits in their systems so that no more deposits were allowed for that account.
According to the latest RBI data, Rs. 12.44 lakh crore of old notes had been deposited back into the banking system, as of December 10.
The total value of the old Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 currency notes in circulation, as on November 8, was Rs. 15.44 lakh crore.
The new RBI circular said that even if the value of a single deposit totalled lessthan Rs. 5,000, and the tenderer had cumulatively exceeded Rs. 5,000 in multiple deposits, they would be subjected to the same procedure.
The banking regulator has also clarified that for ac-counts that are not fully KYC-compliant, the value of deposits using such notes would be restricted to Rs. 50,000.
The central bank clarified that though restrictions had been placed on deposits of specified bank notes, these were not applicable to contributions made under the Taxation and Investment Regime for the Pradhan MantriGarib Kalyan Yojana, 2016

Cyrus Mistry resigned from all listed companies of Tata group

In a surprise move, Cyrus Mistry resigned from the boards of all publicly listed companies of the Tata group after a bitter battle against Ratan Tata's ‘illegal coup to unceremoniously re-move' him as the chairman of Tata Sons on October 24.
However, Mr. Mistry plans to escalate the fight. He is gear-ing up for a long-drawn legal battle.
After tendering his resignation to the companies in the group, Mr. Mistry con-firmed that he was going to drag Tata Sons and its board members to court in his fightfor “governance” within the $103b salt-to-software conglomerate.
Mr. Mistry had decided to step down “for an effective reform; and, in the best interests of the employees, public shareholders and other stakeholders of the Tata group, it would be better served by my moving away from the forum EGMs.

Home ministry will attempt to identify unauthorised diagnostic centres

In an attempt to identify unauthorised and unregistered diagnostic centres in the country, the Ministry of Health and Fam-ily Welfare (MoFW) has decided that all ultrasound ma-chines in States will be mapped.
The mapping will be carried out by the authorities in States visiting every centre and recording details of the devices.
While regularising the diagnostic facilities is the main aim, curbing sex determination tests and fe-male foeticide is another important aspect of the move, which will help reduce the thousands of unregisteredsonography centres that have mushroomed over the years.
The idea is to regulate all centres and thus monitor them thoroughly and minimise malpractices. Mapping will be carried out through a ground-level survey of all centres and ultrasound machines.
Unregulated machines and centres are misused for carrying out illegal sex de-termination tests.
Since they are not registered, they don't follow the rules of submit-ting Form F for every case, which is mandatory under the Pre Conception and Pre Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act.
Form F is a document to be filled by radiologists carrying out ultrasound tests on any pregnant woman. While registered centres are man-dated to keep all records, the centres running illegally get away with breaking the rules.
As per the State's re-cords, there are 7,820 sonography centres and 10,817 ultrasound machines registered in Maharashtra.
While some doctors feel it is impossible that the State had reached out to every centre operating in Maharashtra, others believe the stringent norms implemented post the launch of the ‘Save Girl Child' campaign in 2011 has changed the ground-level scenario.

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:: International ::

Russian Ambassador shot dead in Turkey

The Russian ambassador to Turkey was shot in the back and killed while giving a speech at an art gallery. Turkish security sources said the gunman, who shouted “Don't forget Aleppo”, was an of-duty police officer.
Turkey has struggled with a string of at-tacks by Islamist and Kurdish militants but the killing of a Russian envoy could have resonance throughout the region.
Russia is a close ally of Syrian President Bashar al-As-sad and its air strikes were instrumental in helping Syrian forces end rebel resistance in the northern city of Aleppo.
Turkish President RecepTayyip Erdogan, however, has been a vociferous opponent of Mr. Assad.

:: Business and Economy ::

Small firms will give boost in Budget 2017

The Centre will amend the Income Tax Act in Budget 2017 to reduce the rate of deemed profit from 8 to 6 per cent for small firms with a turnover of less than Rs.2 crore who receive their payments electronically.
While this should encourage the adoption of electronic payments, it could lead to some operational difficulties for companies that conduct their business both electronically and in cash, according to experts.
It has been decided to reduce the exist-ing rate of deemed profit of eight per cent under section 44AD of the Act to six per cent in respect of the amount of total turnover or gross receipts received through banking channel/digital means for the financial year 2016-17.
Under the existing provisions of section 44AD of the Income-tax Act, 1961, in case of certain assesses and having a turnover of Rs.2 crore or less,the profit is deemed to be eight per cent of the total turnover.
If a business has a turnover of less than Rs.2 crore, it is not required to maintain books of account. In such cases, the Income Tax Department takes into account a deemed profit of eight per cent for tax purposes.
The tax is computed on this eight per cent. This change does not apply to service providers.
The statement clarified that this reduction in the rate of deemed profit would apply only to the revenue generated from electronic trans-actions with the rate remaining unchanged forrevenue from cash receipts.
The government said the legislative amendment to make the required changes to the Income Tax Act will be carried out through the Finance Bill 2017.