Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 22 September 2018

::NATIONAL::

CARA allows adoption for individuals in live in relationships

Individuals in a live-in relationship will once again be able to adopt children from and within India after the country’s nodal adoption agency decided to withdraw a circular issued earlier this year disallowing them from doing so.
The Child Adoption Regulatory Authority (CARA), in a circular issued on May 31, barred applicants in a live-in relationship from adopting a child on the ground that “the Authority would like the children to be placed only with a stable family and individuals in a live-in relationship cannot be considered as stable family.”
“We have decided to withdraw the circular and applications from prospective adoptive parents will be examined on a case-by-case basis,” Secretary, Women and Child Development Ministry, R.K. Shrivastava told.
The decision was taken at the last meeting of the steering committee of CARA, chaired by Mr. Shrivastava, in August, and will benefit both domestic and international applicants.
The eligibility criteria under Adoption Regulations, 2017, permit single women to adopt a child of any gender, while single men can adopt only boys. When a married couple seeks to adopt a child, it needs to give its consent for adoption and should be stable marriage for at least two years. Applicants have to be physically, mentally and financially stable to raise a child.

Centre to bring in agencies to ensure environmental compliance of companies

The Central Government proposes to introduce the concept of randomised third-party compliance monitoring of the environment clearance conditions through national-level reputed and competent government institutions to be empanelled by the Ministry,” said a draft notification issued by the Ministry.
India’s environmental laws require project developers to submit themselves to the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA), under which an independent agency, commissioned by the project developer, ascertains the likely environmental impact of a proposed project.
The preparation of an environment impact assessment report and an environment management plan ensures that the adverse environmental impact of projects and activities are assessed and studied and mitigation measures are taken in the implementation of the project to avoid or minimise the adverse environmental impact.
The process obligates the project proponent to file a six-monthly compliance report, and regional offices of the Ministry are supposed to check whether industries are complying with these norms.
Independent observers describe the proposal as a “big shift” in how projects are appraised. “ It is a big shift, but one that is outsourcing the monitoring to scientific institutions [some of them are already doing EIAs]. The core issue of the affected people being kept out of the monitoring and compliance paperwork is embedded in this proposal,” said KanchiKohli, an environmental researcher with the Centre for Policy Research.

::ECONOMY::

SEBI revises KYC norms for FPI’s

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has announced the revised guidelines for know your client (KYC) requirement for foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) allowing non-resident Indians (NRIs), resident Indians (RIs) and overseas citizens of India (OCIs) to be part of such FPIs investing in India.
Such NRIs, OCIs and RIs can be part of a FPI if their aggregate holding in such an overseas fund is less than 50% of the corpus of the fund. Further, the individual share of such entities cannot exceed 25% in an FPI.
“Contributions by NRI/ OCI/ RI, including those of NRI/ OCI/ RI controlled investment manager, should be below 25% from a single NRI/ OCI/ RI and in aggregate should be below 50% to corpus of FPI,” SEBI said in a circular issued on Friday.
More importantly, the regulator has also laid down that FPIs can be controlled by investment managers that are owned or controlled by NRIs, OCIs or RIs. Such, investment managers, however, need to be properly regulated in their home jurisdiction and also registered with the SEBI.
Existing FPIs will be given two years’ time — from the date the new regulations come into force — to fulfill the new eligibility criteria. Also, in case of a temporary breach of the norms, the entity will get 90 days to comply with the regulations.
Meanwhile, FPIs will be subject to periodic review and any change in material information or disclosure would warrant such a review. For category II and III FPIs from high risk jurisdictions, KYC review would be done annually, said SEBI.

NBFC’s defaulters panic stock markets

Driven by fears about fresh defaults from non-banking finance companies and regulatory restrictions on housing finance companies, the stock markets went into panic mode on Friday.
The Sensex swung 1,500 points between its high and low points during the day, eventually recovering to end at 36,841.60 points, down by 279.62 points compared with Wednesday’s close.The recovery was driven by institutional buying, led by mutual funds, in select index stocks.
In the Sensex pack, Yes Bank was the biggest loser shedding more than 34% during intraday trades with most brokerages reviewing their outlook on the stock after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) allowed Rana Kapoor to continue as the managing director and chief executive officer (CEO) only till January 31, 2019.
Market participants say that the already brittle investor sentiment due to the news flow on debt defaults was aggravated by the talk about restrictions on housing finance companies.
Interestingly, there was also a buzz that the massive intraday fall in the Sensex during the afternoon session was on account of a bunch of algorithmic trades that quickly escalated the magnitude of the fall. The overall market breadth was extremely weak with almost 2,200 stocks in the red as against only 542 gainers.

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::INTERNATIONAL::

India calls off meeting with pakistan

India blamed ‘Pakistan-based entities’ for Friday’s killing of three special police officers in Shopian in Kashmir and called off the planned meeting of Foreign Ministers in New York.
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said talks in the current circumstances would be futile and also cited stamps issued by Pakistan in July in memory of Kashmiri militant Burhan Wani as reasons for the cancellation.
Apart from the killing of policemen and reported intimidation of serving policemen by militants in Kashmir, India took note of the postage stamps in memory of the slain militant Burhan Wani that were issued by Pakistan. Sources said the MEA took note of the stamps on Thursday.
The sudden cancellation came a day after Delhi agreed to Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s proposal for the talks and announced that a meeting between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi would take place on the sidelines of the annual session of the UN General Assembly in the next few days.
The MEA stated that the decision to go ahead with the meeting in New York was taken because the proposal from Prime Minister Imran Khan had indicated a desire to discuss ‘terrorism’ with India.
Officials said the decision to cancel the meeting between the two Ministers was taken after “wider consultation” in the MEA and with all stakeholders in the government.

China, Russia warn U.S on sanctions

Moscow and Beijing lashed out on Friday at Washington’s new anti-Russian sanctions that also target China for the first time, warning the the United States could face consequences.
President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman accused Washington of playing unfairly and using new measures to squeeze Moscow out of the global arms market, after the United States slapped sanctions on China for buying Russian warplanes and missiles and threatened to target its other clients.
“This is unfair competition, dishonest competition, an attempt to use non-market methods that run counter to norms and principles of international trade to squeeze the main competitor of U.S. makers out of the markets,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
On Thursday, Washington placed financial sanctions on the Equipment Development Department of the Chinese Defence Ministry, and its top administrator, for the recent purchase of Russian Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets and S-400 surface-to-air missile systems. It was the first time a third country has been punished under the CAATSA sanctions legislation for dealing with Russia, signalling Donald Trump’s readiness to risk relations with other countries over Moscow.
“The U.S. actions have seriously violated the basic principles of international relations and seriously damaged the relations between the two countries and the two militaries,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman GengShuang. “We strongly urge the U.S. to immediately correct their mistake and withdraw their so-called sanctions, otherwise the U.S. will have to bear the consequences.”
United in their resentment of America's global influence, China and Russia have sought in recent years to tighten their ties and this month conducted a joint military drill, Moscow's largest ever war games.

::SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY::

ISRO getting ready for Gaganyaan mission

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is setting up a third launch pad at Sriharikota to undertake the Gaganyaan manned space flight programme, an ISRO official said on Friday. In addition, ISRO is scouting for a location on the western sea coast near Gujarat to set up another launch pad for Small Satellite Launch Vehicles (SSLV).
“We have two launch pads currently, which are already full. A third launch pad is being set up for the human space flight. It will be ready in time for the mission,” a senior ISRO official said.\
ISRO Chairman Dr. Sivan had stated earlier that ISRO has begun work on the manned mission in 2004, and that many of the critical technologies required for human spaceflight have already been validated through various tests — Space Capsule Recovery Experiment, Crew Module Atmospheric Re-Entry Experiment and Pad Abort Test.
ISRO will use its GSLV Mk-III launch vehicle, which can carry the heavier payload of the Gaganyaan, and this will take off from the new launch pad.
In addition to the third launch pad at Sriharikota, ISRO is also scouting for a new location near Gujarat for the SSLV.
ISRO is developing the SSLV to offer affordable launch options for smaller satellites through Antrix, the space agency’s commercial arm. ISRO currently piggybacks smaller satellites on the PSLV and GSLV along with bigger satellites.

::SPORTS::

World’s women boxing championship to be held in India

The World Women’s Boxing Championships, to be hosted by India after more than a decade, will be held from November 15 in the national capital, a top official of the international body said on Friday.
The teams will have to be here by November 13, with the competition starting a couple of days later.The marquee tournament was last held in India in 2006 and remains the best for the country in terms of performance.
India had topped the medal tally with four gold, three silver and one bronze medal.