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Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 11 December 2015

:: National ::

In what may be a precedent preventing illiterate persons from participating in grass roots democracy, the Supreme Court upheld a Haryana State law mandating that only those having “minimum” educational qualifications will be eligible to contest panchayat elections in the State.
The other grounds for disqualification from contesting polls under the Haryana Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Act, 2015 are failure to pay arrears to any primary agriculture co-operative society or agriculture co-operative banks, failure to pay electricity bill arrears and not having a functional toilet at home.
The “minimum” education required for eligibility to contest in a panchayat election is completion of matriculation in case of general candidates; completion of Class 8 for a woman candidate or a candidate belonging to Scheduled
Caste; and completion of Class 5 pass for a Scheduled Caste woman candidate con- testing for the post of ‘Panch’.
The law leaves 68 per cent of the Scheduled Caste women and 41 per cent of the Scheduled Caste men in Haryana ineligible to contest panchayat elections.
The judgment may become a rallying point for other States also to amend their laws in the same fashion.

The Pakistan-born American national and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative, David Coleman Headley, will depose as a prosecution witness before a special court, after the court granted him conditional pardon and accepted his proposal to turn approver in the November 26, 2008 Mumbai terror attack case.

Kerala is expected to be declared the first digital State in the country shortly, on the strength of its digital infrastructure and e-governance initiatives.
State had succeeded in leveraging ICT for economic growth and making government services affordable and accessible for the masses.
several initiatives were taken by the state under the Digital Kerala programme.
The high mobile and Internet penetration and the increasing use of smart phones had hastened the evolution of Kerala as a digital society.

The bilateral discussions on the Paris Agreement produced “many converging points”, notably on India’s demand that developing countries be differentiated explicitly from the developed world in the text of the pact, as provided for in the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The major points covered by the discussions were differentiation, the nature of the agreement, finance and technology transfer, and harmony between the agreement text and the ‘decision’ that will be made by CoP21.
Transparency measures in implementation, which will be laid down for all countries to follow in a prescribed manner, also figured in the talks.
India wants the sanctity of voluntary national pledges to reduce carbon emissions, called INDCs, to be maintained in the agreement.
It was unacceptable that when 186 countries had submitted their INDCs, representing a huge movement forward, there was only one optional mention of such pledges in the outcome draft released.
If Europe and America adopt ideas which are in sync with the Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDC) and the Brazil, South Africa, India, China (BASIC) group, the Paris Agreement can successfully move ahead.
India’s IPR import bill highlights the importance of technology transfer to fight climate change without rigid Intellectual Property Rights restrictions.
In a six-year period, $21 billion has been spent, representing total Indian expenditure on all kinds of technology, not climate change.

Bullet trains will be a reality soon in India. The contract to build the bullet train link between Mumbai and Ahmedabad is expected to be declared in favour of Japanese bullet train major Shinkansen at the weekend summit meeting between Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Mr. Abe’s December 11-13 vis- it, will have a new set of guidelines that Japan has reportedly extended a Rs. 98,000-crore loan for the ultra modern high-speed train project.
The new guidelines are meant to scuttle plans by rivals like China n the Indian infrastructure market.
Another key initiative to be unveiled during the visit will cover transfer of technology in defence.

Income tax rebate is one of the incentives being considered by the government to encourage people to move away from cash transactions and curb black money flows, a senior official said on condition of anonymity. The move may eventually use cashless transaction records to build a credit history for the poor and help them access loans.
While the usage of cards and mobile payment solutions such as PayTM and Eze-ap is expanding rapidly in ur-ban India, the government is looking at ways to take this to the hinterland.
Following the expansion of bank accounts coverage under Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, the government wants to scale up the infrastructure for making digital payments so that the same convenience and acceptability as cash can be attained. The National Payments Corporation of India is building a part of that infrastructure.
one of the ideas being examined is that if an income tax rebate could be offered to those who make a substantial part of their annual payments in the cashless mode. Since bank statements are already submitted at the time of filing tax returns, it would easy to gauge the quantum of cash withdrawals made from their accounts.
Of the many solutions to tame black money, cashless transaction is one of the very important solutions, PrimeMinister, Narendra Modi, said, stressing that people should make cashless transactions a habit.. “This is a very big opportunity and we should promote this.

Gurpreet Singh won the men’s 25-metre standard pistol gold with a score of 573 in the 59th National shooting championship
The 27-year-old Gurpreet, a rapid fire specialist who has won the Olympic quota place in air pistol, had 195 in the 150-second series and 189 each in the20-second and 10-second series.