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Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 29 December 2015

:: NATIONAL ::

The government has decided that the benefit of the LPG subsidy will not be available for LPG consumers if the consumer or his/her spouse had a taxable income of more than Rs. 10,00,000/- during the previous financial year.
t present, all households are entitled to 12 cylinders of 14.2 kg at the subsidised rate of Rs. 419.26. The market price is Rs. 608 a cylinder.
There are 16.35 crore LPG consumers in the country, according to the government, of whom 14.78 crore receive the subsidy directly in their bank accounts.
Such a decision will likely affect at least 60 lakh people, if one were to go only by the number of people who filed their returns in the government’s e-filing portal.
The government had also launched a scheme for people to give up their subsidies so that the less privileged would benefit. So far, 57.50 lakh LPG consumers have opted out.

Delhi is gearing up for the odd-even scheme to check vehicular pollution, but road dust, burning of biomass and municipal solid waste, and industrial stacks contribute a far greater share of the city's air pollution, according to a study by the Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur.
The draft report found that particulate matter (PM) pollution from road dust, from various sources, was the highest in both categories: PM10 and PM2.5. Road dust contributed 56% of all PM10 pollution while it was 38% for PM2.5.
According to the same report, vehicular pollution from trucks, cars and two vehicles made up 9%-20% of the particulate matter pollution depending on whether it was summer or winter.
Other key contributors to pollution are burning of bio-mass (17%-26%), municipal solid waste (6%-7%) and secondary particulate matter that could range from 25%-30%, according to the report.

South Korea and Japan reached an agreement on Monday on their dispute over wartime sex slaves that has soured relations for decades, as Tokyo’s leader hailed a “new era” in ties with Seoul.
Japan offered a “heartfelt apology” and a one-billion yen ($8.3 million) payment to Korean women forced into Japanese military brothels during World War-II.
The fate of the 46 surviving South Korean “comfort women” is a hugely emotional issue in South Korea.
As part of the agreement Seoul will try to relocate a statue symbolising comfort women which currently stands in front of the Japanese embassy through consultations with relevant NGOs.

An expert panel led by former Finance Secretary, Vijay Kelkar, has called for swift amendments to the anti-corruption law and an endorsement from the Parliament for a new policy for public private partnerships or PPPs that balances risk-sharing between private and public partners, in order to spur infrastructure building.
The report, said rebooting PPPs is an urgent priority to take advantage of the historical conjunction of the country’s infrastructure needs and the availability of long-term funding, adding it is critical for India to make the leap from a low-income country to a high-income one in two to three decades, else it risks falling into a ‘middle income’ trap.
Report has also asked to ‘discourage’ the ‘Swiss Challenge’ the for auctioning infrastructure projects, under which any bidder can ofer to improve upon a project proposal submitted by another player.
This model has been adopted by the government since July to redevelop 400 railway stations.
The panel called for urgent changes to the Prevention of Corruption Act of 1988 as well as government’s vigilance and conduct rules in order to distinguish “genuine errors” in decision-making by public servants from acts of corruption, the panel has emphasised the need to guard officers against ‘witch hunt’ while taking immediate measures to punish malafide actions.

Sources: Various News Papers & PIB

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