Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 05 April 2016

:: NATIONAL ::

Govt ordered special agency to investigate ‘Panama Papers’

The BJP-led NDA government ordered the formation of a special agency to investigate Indians who figure in the ‘Panama papers’ — a set of over 11 million leaked documents that reveal how the rich used tax havens for wrong practices.
The documents, about the clients of one of the world’s biggest law firms offering such services, were leaked to a German newspaper, which in turn shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
The multi-agency group that was set up following directions from Prime Minister Narendra Modi will consist of officers from the investigative units of the Central Board of Direct Taxes, the Financial Intelligence Union and Foreign Tax & Tax Research division and the Reserve Bank of India.
The Special Investigation Team on Black Money, appointed under the Supreme Court’s directions, had in its third report submitted last year to the court said that various departments were not prepared to share the information received in tax evasion cases.
Newspapers reported that over 500 Indians, including high-profile actors and businessmen, could have links to secret firms in overseas tax havens.
Among those are actors Amitabh Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, real estate firm DLF’s promoter K.P. Singh and Vinod Adani, elder brother of Adani Group founder and chairman Gautam Adani.

First of its kind educational institutions ranking released by government

In the first of its kind ranking of educational institutions released by the government, JNUand the UoH, which were recently embroiled in controversies, are among the topmost institutions in the country.
The National Institutions Ranking Framework (NIRF), unveiled by the Human Resources and Development Ministry on Monday, declared the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Madras the best institute for engineering and the Indian Institute of Management (IIM)-Bangalore the best for management.
The NIRF covers 3,500 institutions in four categories: university, engineering, pharmacy and management.
In the category of universities, the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, is rated the top-ranked institute followed by the Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT), Mumbai.
Jawaharlal Nehru University, which was recently in the news for the arrest of its students’ union president Kanhaiya Kumar, is ahead of all other central universities.
Perception among students, alumni, parents, employees and the public was one of the parameters for the ranking done by a committee of experts.
Teaching and learning resources, graduation outcomes and research were the other criteria.
The Indian Institutes of Technology have occupied all 10 places in the engineering category of the ranking announced by the government.
While six old IITs made it to the list, four new ones — Ropar, Gandhinagar, Patna and Hyderabad — were also among the top ten. The IIT-Madras beat the IIT-Bombay and the IIT-Kharagpur to claim the first position.
The data used for evaluation was submitted by the institutions themselves and the National Institutes Ranking Framework (NIRF) says that the responsibility for accuracy and authenticity of the data lies with the respective institutions.

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:: International ::

China looking for big market to become energy exporter

In tune with its One Belt, One Road initiative, China is positioning itself as a formidable energy exporter, targeting markets that span from Germany to India along the New Silk Road.
Two factors are driving Beijing’s ambitions of emerging as a regional electric supply hub. First, China is already a surplus power producer following a decade of continuous investments at home in all forms of energy.
Since 2004, when it suffered chronic outages that threatened to restrain its manufacturing, the Chinese went into overdrive, investing heavily in hydro and coal-fired plants, apart from escalating development of nuclear and renewable energy.
Second, China has mastered ultra–high voltage (UHV) technology, which has allowed State Grid, China’s state-owned power behemoth, to transmit electricity from production centres in West — in places such as Xinjiang — to coastal industrial centres in the faraway east.
China has the technical capacity to increase the voltage to 1500 kilovolts, so that it can transport power 8,000 km away. And it is financially viable to expand.
Now, with Xinjiang in western China as the hub, China has the proven technological heft to transmit electricity as far as Germany.
While focusing on the One Belt One Road for now, Mr. Liu has even more ambitious plans.
The idea is to connect these and other power grids to a global grid that will draw electricity from windmills at the North Pole and vast solar arrays in Africa’s deserts, and then distribute the power to all parts of the world.

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:: BUSINESS and ECONOMY ::

Purchasing managers index show turn around in manufacturing sector

Indian manufacturing saw a significant upswing in March due to a pickup in domestic demand and an increase in output, according to the Nikkei India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI).
Analysts said that the Index, which stood at an eight-month high of 52.4 in March, suggests a turnaround in the manufacturing sector and assumes significance following the country’s core sector output clocking its fastest growth in 15 months in February.
A value above 50 in the PMI implies an expansion, while one below 50 shows a contraction. The corresponding index values in January and February were 51.1. Core sector output grew 5.7 per cent in February.
In the last ten years, the manufacturing PMI has fallen by an average 0.6 points between February and March, so this year’s 1.3 point rise is indicative of an improvement in the underlying trend, primarily led by strengthening domestic order demand.

Freight handling target reduced due to global slowdown

The government has scaled down the freight handling target of major ports for the year 2016-17 after they failed to achieve 695 million tonnes set by the Shipping Ministry for 2015-16 as a global slowdown affected cargo volumes.
13 major ports in the country ended 2015-16 by recording a moderate growth of 4.13 per cent over the year-ago period by handling 606.37 million tonnes of cargo.
Several other reasons for the ports missing out on cargo targets including European economic crisis, ban on export of iron ore by some states, a drop in imports from China and decrease in industrial output in India.
Following this, the Ministry scaled down the target for 2016-17 to 644 million tonnes, lower by nearly 51 million tonnes from the 695 million tonnes fixed for 2015-16.
For the current year, six ports (Haldia, Paradip, Kamarajar, Chennai, V.O. Chidambaranar and Cochin) have been asked to handle 10 per cent more cargo than they handled during 2015-16, five ports (Mumbai, JNPT, Visakhapatnam, New Mangalore and Kandla) are to handle an additional 1 to 5 per cent cargo while targets for Kolkata and Mormugao have been scaled down marginally.
During 2015-16, major ports handled 606.37 million tonnes against 581.34 million tonnes in the year-ago period. Coal for power plants, fertilisers, pulses, iron and steel and petroleum products were the main drivers of this growth.
According to Shipping Ministry statement, since 2012-13, only four, three and four ports respectively had crossed the target.
This year, only Mormugao Port could do it. During March 2016, Kandla Port created history by handling 100 million tonnes of cargo. In the east coast, Paradip Port moved 76.38 million tonnes of cargo.

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:: Sports ::

Virat Kohli became WC T20 player of the tournament

Virat Kohli has been named as the player of the tournament. He has fend off completion from Badree of West Indies, Joe root of England etc.
He said “Although I am disappointed that we were not able to make it throughto the final and win the ICC World Twenty20 title on home soil,I am proud to be named Player-of-the-tournament”