Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams - 02 November 2017

::NATIONAL::

Indira Canteen to go mobile due to lack of govt owned land

• The Karnataka government’s flagship initiative — Indira Canteen — that provides subsidised food is set to go mobile in some locations in the city. Unable to find government-owned land in at least 15 wards to build the canteens, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has decided to operate food trucks instead.
• Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had cleared the proposal to operate mobile canteens on food trucks in wards where no land was available to build the canteens. Ironically, the BBMP is yet to formulate rules for operating food trucks in the city.
• Each Indira Canteen needs 1,600 sq. ft of land, which will cost over Rs. 1 crore in most of the wards where the BBMP has been unable to find government land.

SC asks Centre to set up special courts to speed up trial of politicians

• The Supreme Court asked the government to frame a central scheme for setting up special courts across the country to exclusively try criminal cases involving ‘political persons.’
• In a determined effort to cleanse politics of criminality and corruption, the apex court said it takes years, probably decades, to complete the trial against a politician.
• By this time, he or she would have served as a minister or legislator several times over.
• Countering the Centre’s argument that setting up such courts would depend on the availability of funds with the States, the apex court said “the problem can be resolved by having a central scheme for setting up of courts exclusively to deal with criminal cases involving political persons on the lines of the fast track courts...”
• The Bench said the Supreme Court would directly interact with the State governments on issues like the appointment of judicial officers, public prosecutors, court staff and other requirements of manpower and infrastructure for the special courts.
• Giving no quarter, the apex court directed the Centre to submit a report card by December 13 on the status of the 1,581 criminal cases pending against Members of Parliament and State Legislative Assemblies at the time of the 2014 elections.
• The court said it wanted to know whether its March 10, 2014 order to complete the trial in all these cases within a year’s time had been complied with or not.

EC wants a life ban on the convicted from contesting elections

• The Election Commission (EC) took a definitive stand in the Supreme Court that convicted persons should be banned from contesting elections for life.
• While the government showed reluctance to make a commitment, the Commission reiterated its stand before a Bench led by Justice Ranjan Gogoi that such a move would be a firm step against criminalisation of politics.
• Noting that it has been “championing the cause of decriminalisation of politics”, the EC, in March, endorsed a public interest litigation petition in the Supreme Court seeking life-long bar on convicted legislators from contesting polls.
• It had said that a uniform ban would be in the spirit of the fundamental rights of the Constitution, including the right to equality.
• As of now, a person, on conviction, is debarred from contesting any elections for the period of his or her prison sentence and six years thereafter.
• The affidavit said the Commission was “alive to the issues that concern the conduct of free and fair elections and functioning of healthy democracy and as such asserting for bringing in electoral reforms which further the cause of free and fair elections”.
• The Commission said it had submitted a proposal for poll reforms, which include decriminalisation of politics, making bribery a cognisable offence and prohibition on advertisements 48 hours before elections and a ban on paid news as recommended by the Law Commission in its reports.

Draft regulations for drone operations

• The Indian air space is set to get more interesting in 2018, with the government issuing draft regulations for drone operations that could be used for anything from e-commerce deliveries to photography.
• The draft regulations, which Civil Aviation Secretary R.N. Choubey said will be finalised by December 31 this year after hearing out stakeholders’ views, envisage a virtually unregulated flight at heights up to 50 feet for nano drones that weigh 250 grams or lower.
• All drones will have to operate within a visual line of sight, will be allowed only during day time and below 200 feet.
• Barring the nano drones that could also be used indoors, all drones will have to register with the Director General of Civil Aviation. Dropping human payload, animals or hazardous material will not be permitted, though, Mr. Sinha said, it was possible to imagine air rickshaw drones that could ferry passengers.
• The other classifications of drones, officially termed unmanned aircraft systems, are Micro (250 gm to 2 kg), Mini (more than 2 kg to 25 kg), Small (more than 25 kg till 150 kg) and Larger (over 150 kg).

Anti-microbial resistance may be aggravated through mass bathing in Ganga

• Mass-bathing in the Ganga during pilgrimages may be contributing to anti-microbial resistance (AMR), says a government-commissioned report on the threat from AMR. Such resistance —previously acknowledged to be widespread in India — is said to be the reason for certain key antibiotics becoming ineffective against diseases, including tuberculosis.
• Some years ago, researchers from the Newcastle University in the United Kingdom and the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi sampled water and sediments at seven sites along the Ganga in different seasons.
• In 2014, they reported in the peer-reviewed Environmental Science and Technology that levels of resistance genes that lead to “superbugs” were found to be about 60 times greater during the pilgrimage months of May and June than at other times of the year.
• The researchers had then said preventing the spread of resistance-genes that promote life-threatening bacteria could be achieved by improving waste management at key pilgrimage sites.
• The report of the Ganga as a reservoir for AMR genes sits alongside a 2016 study by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research — still not made public — that portions of the the river had “anti-bacterial” properties.
• The government report —— Scoping Report on Antimicrobial Resistance in India — made public cites this study too along with a compilation of all scientific studies done in India on the threat from AMR, causes and sources that aggravate it.
• The report was commissioned by the Department of Biotechnology and the UK Research Council and prepared by the Centre for Disease Dynamics and Economic Policy.
• Resistance to the broad-spectrum antibiotics fluoroquinolones and third generation cephalosporin was more than 70% in Acinetobacter baumannii, Escherichia coli, and Klebsiella pneumoniae, and more than 50% in Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
• In 2014, India was the highest consumer of antibiotics, followed by China and the United States. However, the per-capita consumption of antibiotics in India was much lower than in several other high-income countries.
• Other than ‘cultural factors’ such as bathing in the Ganga, the drivers of AMR included excessive use of antibiotics in the livestock industry and unchecked discharge of effluents by the pharmaceutical industry. However, in spite of the challenge, too little work had been done so far to understand it. “This mapping exercise indicates that AMR research studies in India were of limited scope in all areas, ” the researchers noted.

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::INTERNATIONAL::

Iran and Russia talks

• Russian President Vladimir Putin met Iran’s leadership in Tehran as the two Damascus allies push a Syria peace plan and the Kremlin offers its backing for a landmark nuclear deal facing U.S. opposition.
• Mr. Putin — on his first visit to Tehran since 2015 — held talks with President Hassan Rouhani, before he was due to meet supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Mr. Putin will also take part in a three-way summit with Mr. Rouhani and the leader of ex-Soviet Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev aimed at bolstering economic ties between their energy-rich nations.
• Moscow said Syria will be a focus of Mr. Putin’s visit, which comes after Russia, Iran and Turkey pledged after negotiations in Kazakhstan on Tuesday to bring the Syrian regime and its opponents together for a “congress” to push peace efforts.
• Russia and Iran, key military supporters of President Bashar al-Assad, and Turkey, which backs Syrian rebels, have organised a series of peace talks in the Kazakh capital Astana this year, agreeing on the establishment of “de-escalation” zones.
• Talks were also to focus on the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which saw sanctions lifted in exchange for limits on Tehran’s atomic programme and which is under pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump.
• Tehran signed the deal with six countries including Russia and the United States, but Mr. Trump refused to certify it, drawing criticism from Moscow which slammed the U.S. President’s “aggressive and threatening rhetoric” against Iran.
• Ahead of Mr. Putin’s arrival, Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported that Russia’s chief of staff Valery Gerasimov flew into Tehran for talks with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Bagheri to discuss “Syria... and the fight against terrorism.”
• The military might of Moscow and Tehran in Syria has helped prop up Mr. Assad’s forces and turn the protracted conflict in his favour with a string of key battlefield victories.

::ENVIRONMENT::

UN Environment Emissions Gap Report 2017

• The UN Environment Emissions Gap Report 2017 warns that a big carbon emissions gap exists between the levels that can be achieved in 2030 with present climate commitments, and what needs to be done using set pathways to limit increases in global average temperature to less than 2° Celsius or a more ambitious 1.5° C by the year 2100.
• The report says full implementation of the unconditional Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and comparable action afterwards “could result in a temperature increase of about 3.2° C by 2100 relative to pre-industrial levels”, while full implementation of conditional NDCs would marginally lower that projection by about 0.2°C.
• The breaching of the safe limits that is possible even with current climate commitments — the NDCs that form the core of the Paris Agreement — indicates that governments will need to deliver much stronger pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions when they are revised in 2020, said the report released ahead of the 23rd Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC in Bonn, commencing on November 6.
• Fossil fuels and cement production account for about 70% of greenhouse gases, the report noted. The alarming number and intensity of extreme weather events in 2017, such as hurricanes, droughts and floods, add to the urgency of early action, it said.
• The report reveals a large gap between targeted 2030 emission levels and those consistent with least expensive pathways to the 2°C and 1.5°C goals. The 2°C emissions gap for the full implementation of both the conditional and unconditional NDCs for 2030 is 11 to 13.5 gigatonne CO2 equivalent (GtCO2e).
• The gap in the case of the more ambitious 1.5°C target is 16 to 19 GtCO2e. Should the U.S. follow through with its threat to leave the Paris Agreement in 2020, the picture could become bleak.
• The Paris accord pledges only a third of what is needed to avoid climate catastrophe, and adopting new technologies in key sectors, at investments of under $100 per tonne of emissions, could cut them by up to 36 gigatonnes per year by 2030, which is more than sufficient to bridge the current gap.
• A large part of the potential to close the emissions gap lies in solar and wind energy, efficient appliances and passenger cars, afforestation and stopping deforestation. These six factors hold a total potential of up to 22 GtCO2e per annum, the report says.
  Strong action on plugging other greenhouse gases, such as hydrofluorocarbons, through the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, and other short-lived climate pollutants such as black carbon, could contribute.
• CO2 emissions have remained stable since 2014, driven in part by renewable energy, notably in China and India.
• This has raised hopes that emissions have peaked. But, the report warns that other greenhouse gases, such as methane, are still rising, and a global growth spurt could send CO2 emissions upward.

World largest monolith rock banned for climbers

• Climbing the world’s largest monolith Uluru was banned amid concerns it was becoming a “theme park”, undermining the giant red rock’s deep cultural significance.
• Scrambling up the symbol of the Outback, also known as Ayers Rock, is seen by many tourists as a must-do on their visit to Australia.
• But they do so against the wishes of the traditional Aboriginal owners, the Anangu, to whom the site is sacred.
• At a meeting of the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park Board, made up of traditional owners and National Park representatives, a unanimous decision was made to ban the activity. It will come into force in October 2019.
• The rock’s traditional Aboriginal owners’ connection to the site dates back tens of thousands of years and it has great spiritual and cultural significance to them.
• Park authorities have long looked to close the climb permanently. It is currently left up to visitors to decide whether to tackle the sandstone monolith, which soars 348 metres.
• About 3,00,000 people visit each year and, while there are no official figures on how many climb, their numbers are reported to have declined significantly.
• Tackling Uluru’s sandstone slopes is not an easy exercise and there have been numerous deaths over the years on the rock.

::BUSINESS AND ECONOMY::

Plan to develop a Comprehensive national e-commerce policy

• India is considering drafting a comprehensive national e-commerce policy to develop an ecosystem that would support exports and protect consumer interests, said a senior government official.
• However, the country is of the view that starting negotiations on World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules in e-commerce would be premature at this stage as it was still unclear how they would benefit developing nations, including their companies and consumers
• Several countries were enthusiastic about negotiating multilateral rules to govern international trade through e-commerce. However, such rules could hurt the interests of most developing countries, including India.
• The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) was working on a paper on e-commerce, which will soon be put in public domain for debates and comments. Inputs from the feedback could form the basis for a national e-commerce policy, he indicated.
• Mr. Pandey said about 24 papers had been submitted to the WTO for international rule-making on e-commerce. India would also engage in discussions with other developing nations on the issue for support for its stance.
• Global e-commerce market was estimated at $25 trillion of which trans-border component was a minuscule 5% — meaning the remaining 95% was domestic e-commerce trade, he said.
• The size of the Indian e-commerce market was just $30 billion. National rule-making for e-commerce was also a daunting task as there were many issues which were overlapping. Thus, the varied arms of the Centre were trying to address the issues pertaining to their domain to help in formulating an overarching national policy for e-commerce.

First Google Cloud platform in India is Mumbai

• Google announced the opening of its first Google Cloud Platform region in Mumbai.
• The India region will offer several services including computing, big data, storage and networking. The Internet major said that with the India region going live, enterprises will be able to take advantage of the high speeds, low latency and performance benefits uniquely offered by Google Cloud Platform (GCP) services.
• Further, Indian customers will now be able to buy these services directly in rupees.
• Hosting applications in the new region can improve latency from 20-90% for end users in Chennai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, “and of course Mumbai, compared to hosting them in the other closest region, Singapore,” said Mr. Stiver.
• The unveiling of the cloud region, which will have three zones, also opens up newer opportunities for several new partners “who will benefit from building their services on Google cloud” said the company.
• The new Mumbai region joins Singapore, Taiwan, Sydney and Tokyo in Asia Pacific, according to the statement.

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