Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams

02 February 2016

:: NATIONAL ::

SC concedes mistake in notice to Arunachal Governor

• Just a few days after ordering Arunachal Pradesh Governor J.P. Rajkhowa to respond why he recommended President’s rule in the sensitive border State, the Supreme Court recalled the order, saying it made a “mistake” by not realising that Governors have “complete immunity”.

• The turn of events was triggered by Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi, for the Centre, drawing the Bench’s attention to Article 361 (1) of the Constitution which gives the President and the Governor protection from legal action.

• Under the Article, both the President and the Governor of a State “shall not be answerable to any court” for acts done in performance of their powers and duties.

• However, such immunity to the Governor under Article 361 does not take away the power of the Supreme Court to examine the validity of his action on the ground of mala fide.

Explosive spread of Zikamerits do be declared as global emergency says WHO

• The World Health Organization has announced that the explosive spread of the Zika virus in the Americas is an “extraordinary event” that merits being declared an international emergency.

• The agency convened an emergency meeting of independent experts to assess the outbreak after noting a suspicious link between Zika’s arrival in Brazil last year and a surge in the number of babies born with abnormally small heads.

The Bombay HC says mothers getting child through surrogacy can also take maternity leave

• The Bombay High Court on Monday directed the Central Railway (CR) to grant three months’ maternity leave to its employee who became a mother by using a surrogate.

• The court ruled that a mother enjoys the same benefits of maternity leave as any other working woman under the Child Adoption Leave and Rules.

• While challenging the CR for disallowing herleave, the woman’s lawyers argued that if the maternity leave was refused, it would certainly violate the right of a child to develop a bond with the mother.

• The petitioner got married in 2004 and underwent IVF in 2007 on two occasions but lost her baby. In 2012, she was advised to have a child through surrogacy.

• When the surrogate mother completed 33 weeks, the petitioner applied for maternity leave in January 2014 as the baby was expected to be delivered in the first week of February.

Sashastra Seema bal gets first women head for any paramilitary force

• Senior IPS officer Archana Ramasundaram was appointed Director General of Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), the first woman to head a paramilitary force.

• Ms. Ramasundaram, a 1980 batch officer of the Tamil Nadu cadre, is currently Special Director, National Crime Records Bureau.

• She has been appointed to the post till the date of her superannuation — September 30, 2017.

• The SSB is entrusted with guarding the country’s frontiers with Nepal and Bhutan.

• The other four paramilitary forces are the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), the Border Security Force (BSF), the Central Industrial Security Force and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police.

• IPS officers K. Durga Prasad and K.K. Sharma have been appointed Directors- General of the CRPF and the BSF respectively. They will take over after the incumbent chiefs of these forces retire this month-end.

:: International ::

In a move that is likely to raise ethical issues Britain granted licence to gene editing

• Britain granted its first licence to genetically modify human embryos for research into infertility and why miscarriages happen, in a move likely to raise ethical concerns.

• The decision makes Britain one of the first countries in the world to grant this type of authorisation for experimentation on human embryos, although similar research has been carried out in China.

• Modification of the embryos would be done using a technique known as CRISPR-Cas9, which allows scientists to insert, remove and correct DNAwithin a cell.

• The embryos will not become children as they must be destroyed within 14 days and can only be used for basic research.

• Research plans to find the genes at play in the first few days of fertilisation when an embryo develops a coating of cells that later become the placenta.

• The embryos to be used in the research are ones that would have been destroyed, donated by couples receiving In-Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) treatment who do not need them.

Negotiations between Britain and European Union continue

• An agreement on a possible re-negotiated membership status for Britain in the European Union (EU) failed to materialise during talks between European Council (EC) president Donald Tusk and British Prime Minister David Cameron.

• However, negotiations on an acceptable draft text are to continue over the next 24 hours.

• Mr. Tusk had earlier hoped to put up a draft for discussion before the 27 EU heads in Brussels on Monday. A summit on ‘Brexit’ (Britain’s exit from the EU) is scheduled for February 18 and 19.

• State benefits to refugees Britain’s demand that it be al- lowed to restrict state bene- fits to EU migrants for the next seven years has emerged as a sticking point.

• As per this condition, any migrant arriving in Britain over the next seven years will have to wait for a period of four years be- fore becoming eligible for any government benefit that British citizens enjoy.

• The European Commission (EC) has instead offered the option of an “emergencybrake” — a ban on benefits that can be activated only if the country can prove that its public services are under un- sustainable pressure.

• This cannot be invoked by the country concerned but has to be voted on by the EU.

:: India and world ::

TPP and its effect on India

• The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), or the mega-regional free trade pact led by the U.S. and including 11 other Asia-Pacific countries, is likely to indirectly impact India’s exports in several industrial sectors.

• Sector such as textiles, plastics, leather, clothing, cotton and yarn, besides the country’s regime on investment, labour standards, intellectual property rights (IPR), government procurement and State-owned enterprises (SOE) will face problem.

• The challenges arising from the TPP — which has set very high standards for the international trading regime — could be similar to those experienced by India post the 1991 economic liberalisation.

• The External Affairs Ministry would soon do a study in the context of TPP and in- form the government what the priorities should be in terms of policy-making in the next six months.

• The TPP agreement (which India is not a part of) was reached in October last year and the member countries have two years to ratify the pact. In the meantime, the Indian government will have to consider improving the country’s standards in areas such as labour laws by holding stakeholder consultations.

• The investor-State dispute settlement mechanism adopted by the TPP was also a concern from India’s point of view.

• Some of the TPP standards were higher than that of the WTO norms, including on IPR and possible ever-greening of patents, which could hurt India’s pharma sector.

• The operations and the production methods of India’s public sector units (or SOEs) could also be constrained due to the TPP.

• Several Indian export sectors such as cotton and yarn could be affected as trade may be diverted to the TPP region due to its benefits of low or nil duties.

• Pointing out that the TPP, RCEP and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (a proposed mega- regional between the U.S. and the European Union) excluded African countries, the Minister said India would also have to focus on improving its trade with African countries.

• Meanwhile, India is also considering engaging with the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation countries to ensure that it did not miss out on the emerging trade dynamics.

:: BUSINESS ::

Core sector output recovers,grows 0.9 per cent in Dec.

• Core sector output returned to positive territory in December 2015 byregistering a 0.9 per cent growth after shrinking (-) 1.3 per cent in November 2015 but was still muchlower than 3.2 per cent growth re-corded in December 2014.

• The output of eight core industries — that comprise almost 38 percent of the weight of items includedin the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) — could record only a 0.9per cent growth in December 2015 due to 4.1 per cent contractionin output of crude oil (the fourthconsecutive month in the negativeterritory), 6.1 per cent contractionin natural gas (falling for the thirdsuccessive month) and 4.4 per centshrinkage in steel (falling for thesixth consecutive month).

• During April-December 2015 period this fiscal, the output of theseeight sectors slowed to a 1.9 per centgrowth from 5.7 per cent growth in the same period last fiscal. In 2014-15, these sectors had grown by 4.4per cent,

• The core sector growth had registeredthe steepest fall in over a decade when it shockingly shrank 1.3 percent in November 2015 compared tothe same month a year ago

• In December, fertiliser output registered double digit growth for the fifth successive month with 13.1per cent growth while coal production grew by 6.1 per cent (up from3.5 per cent in November).

• Cement output increased by 3.2 per cent (upfrom -1.8 per cent in November). Electricity production also grew by 2.7 per cent (from flat growth inNovember, and has been in the positive growth territory this fiscal bar-ring April 2015), while refinery products grew by 2.1 per cent (up from 2.5 per cent in November.

• In December 2014, the growth in output of coal was 7.5 per cent,crude oil (-1.4 per cent), natural gas(-2.9 per cent), refinery products(6.1 per cent), fertilisers (-1.6 percent), steel (flat growth), cement(3.8 per cent) and electricity (4.8per cent).

TRAI for PPP model for Bharat Net Project

• The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India(TRAI) on Monday recommended public private partnership (PPP) model for the roll out of the Bharat Net project that has been marred by delays.

• Bharat Net seeks to connectall of India’s households, particularly in rural areas,through broadband by 2017,forming the backbone of the government’s ambitious Digital India programme.

• as rural broadband pro-vision is prone to market failures as well as government failures (as is evident by the slow implementation of National Optical Fibre Network or NOFN), employing a PPP-based model to expand broad-band coverage is the only other viable option

• At present, a special purpose vehicle, Bharat Broad-band Network Ltd (BBNL),under the telecom ministry ishandling the roll out of optical fibre network. The project isbeing executed by BSNL,Railtel and Power Grid.

• APPP model that aligns private incentives with long-term service delivery in the-vein of the Build-Own-Oper-ateTransfer/Build-Operate-Transfer models of implementation be the preferred means of implementation,

• The regulator has also suggested that contract period should be of 25 years, which can be further extended in block of 10, 20 or 30 years.

• The UPA Government had approved Rs. 20,000 crore for laying optical fibre network-in 2011.

• However, it missed all the deadlines. The new NDAGovernment re-examined the project status with a deadline of 2016 end. A committee setup by the DoT proposed in-creasing the scope and scale of the project at an estimated cost of over Rs.70,000 crore and extending the deadline toDecember 2017.

Indian likely to become CFO of AIIB’

• India is likely to bag the post of Chief Financial officer(CFO) in the newly launchedAsian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) — the multilateral bank, whose formation was steered by China in order to boost infrastructuredevelopment in Asia.

• The Vice-President fromGermany would serve as theChief Operating Oicer,while his peer from India would become the bank’s firstCFO.

• The Chief Administrative officer would be from Indonesia, while the South KoreanVice-President would be handle risk affairs.

• The BritishVice-President is expected to head the communicationsdepartment.

• The AIIB along with the upcoming New DevelopmentBank (NDB) of the Brazil-Russian-India-China-SouthAfrica (BRICS) grouping and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development(EBRD) are likely to anchor funding for the Eurasian LandCorridor or the China-pro-posed Belt and Road connectivity initiative, along with opening up a new channel of financial flows for the GlobalSouth.

• The three institutions have been established outside the framework of the BrettonWoods Charter, which led to the post-war emergence of the western-back International Monetary Fund and theWorld Bank.

• The run up to the formation of the bank opened cracks within the Atlantic Alliance.Despite U.S. objections, European countries includingBritain, France and Germany joined the AIIB.

• Australia andSouth Korea — top U.S. allies in the Asia-Pacific — also decided to participate in the development bank as its found-ing members.

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