(Current Affairs) National Events | February: 2016

National Events

Very less chance that GST will go through in this session

  • Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday said the winter session of Parliament, which had started with much promise of a détente between the Government and the Opposition, was “threatened with a washout.”
  • He also said “The last session of Parliament did not function. The current session is also threatened with a washout. The reasons for the washout of the current session keep changing by the hour,”.
  • The Congress, which had appeared to be thawing on the GST issue at the beginning of the session, continued its aggressive stance against the government, from the day a Delhi court refused to exempt Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi from personal appearance in the National Herald case.

General B.K. Loshali sacked

  • Coast Guard Deputy Inspector General B.K. Loshali, who was facing an inquiry for publicly contradicting the government over the sinking of a Pakistani ship off the Gujarat coast on New Year’s Eve, has been dismissed.
  • He was dismissed after the Board of Inquiry found him guilty of all charges on Saturday. The inquiry was conducted by a panel of senior Deputy Inspector General (DIG) rank officers for over three months.

India and pakistan will have comprehensive talks soon

  • Expressing the hope that the renewed dialogue with Pakistan would open a new chapter of peace and development in the region, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Monday told both Houses of Parliament that a “comprehensive bilateral dialogue” would start and the Foreign Secretaries of the two countries would work out its modalities.
  • India had emphasised the need to speed up the judicial process in the 2008 Mumbai terror attack by militants from the neighbouring country killing scores of people.
  • Shushma Swaraj said that government accords the highest priority to the country’s security. In order to meet the threats, the government will take all steps, including through diplomatic channels.

Uttar Pradesh still tense after comments from leaders

  • A fresh wave of tension has swept over western Uttar Pradesh following a series of mass protests by Muslims against alleged comments by Hindu Mahasabha leader Kamlesh Tiwari.
  • The spectacle of over a lakh of protesters demanding the hanging of the Hindutva activist for his objectionable statement against the Prophet, has provoked widespread anger and heightened tensions in the communally sensitive region.
  • Prominent farmers and political leaders of western U.P. who are seen as close to the BJP, have taken exception to the large protests.
  • Tiwari was arrested by the State police over a week back after his statement. He had made an “objectionable” statement in response to the SP leader Azam Khan calling RSS workers “homosexual”.

Future of earth is secured after paris deal feels world leaders

  • U.S. President Barack Obama said it is a big step forward in securing the planet for future generations and said the agreement showed what was possible when nations stood together.
  • Paris pact agreement represents the best chance we've had to save the one planet we've got. I believe this moment can be a turning point for the world,” he said.
  • As a result of the climate agreement, we can be more confident the earth will be in better shape.
  • The agreement represents “a huge step forward in securing the future of the planet,” British Prime Minister David Cameron said, adding that it showed what “unity, ambition and perseverance can do.”

Binding agreements in Paris deal

  • The Paris Agreement on climate, adopted by the member countries of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, creates an enhanced transparency framework that requires all countries to submit
    a national inventory of greenhouse gas emissions arising from human activity using standardised methodologies accepted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

  • External monitoring of the national pledge on climate action to “track progress made in implementing and achieving the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)”, a technical review of the emissions data submitted, and
    participation in a facilitative, multilateral consideration of progress are among the provisions in the Agreement, all of which are significant for India.

  • In the voluntary pledge — the Intended NDCs (INDCs) — submitted to the UNFCCC, India lists investments in agriculture, water resources, coastal regions, health and disaster management, besides major goalssuch as reducing emissions intensity of the GDP by 33-35 per cent over 2005 levels by 2030.

  • Although India's INDC includes a caveat that the country will not be bound by any sectorspecific mitigation, and only aims at achieving better overall energy efficiency reflected in lower intensity, the measurements pre-scribed under the transparency framework clearly stipulate that the national inventory should be “by source.”

  • One of the provisions in the Paris Agreement that India was not comfortable with during the negotiations pertains to submission of an NDC every five years. The public Indian position throughout the talks was that it had submitted its INDC for the period between 2021 ad 2030.

  • Article 4, however, mandates that each country should, in fiveyear cycles, prepare, communicate and maintain an NDC.

  • The Paris agreement revises the architecture of climate system with the means of differentiation that looks forward, not back. It provides for robust financial and technological support for the poor and developing countries with a strong participation of the private sector.

EPFO increases its ranking in pension funds across world

  • The retirement savings managed and overseen by the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) are set to cross the Rs.10 lakh-crore mark this month, making it the eleventh largest pension fund in the world
  • EPFO is al-ready India's second largest non-banking financial institution with only Life Insurance Corporation of India having a bigger kitty.
  • Globally, pension funds are one of the largest pools of capital with a long-term horizon for investments. The 300 largest pension funds in the world together had over 15 trillion dollars under management in 2014, rising by 3 per cent from a year ago, according to a recent report by Towers Watson, a consulting firm
  • After years of resistance, EPFO started investing in equities this year. It has al-ready invested over Rs3,200 crore in the stock mar-ket. While the Union Finance Ministry has allowed non-government provident funds to invest up to 15 per cent of their fresh accretions into equities, the EPFO has decided to make a cautious start, allocating 5 per cent of its net inflows into stocks.

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