Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams

03 April 2016

:: NATIONAL ::

US President warns India and Pak for moving in wrong direction in nuclear Arsenal

• India and Pakistan need to make progress in reducing their nuclear arsenal and ensure they do not “continually move in the wrong direction” while developing military doctrines, U.S. President Barack Obama said.

• “One of the challenges that we are going to have here is that it is very difficult to see huge reductions in our nuclear arsenal unless the U.S. and Russia, as the two largest possessors of nuclear weapons, are prepared to lead the way,” Mr. Obama said.

• “The other area where I think we need to see progress is Pakistan and India, that subcontinent, making sure that as they develop military doctrines, that they are not continually moving in the wrong direction.” He said

• At the end of the summit, world leaders were shown a classified video that Mr. Obama said focussed attention on possible scenarios that might emerge with respect to terrorist networks laying their hands on a nuclear device. U.S. officials would not term such a threat “remote or imminent,” but call it “real.”

• The fourth NSS, the last in its current format, ended with leaders from over 50 countries and four international organisations stating in a communiqué that “more work remains to be done to prevent non-state actors from obtaining nuclear and other radioactive materials, which could be used for malicious purposes.”

Unclaimed funds to be used for senior citizens welfare

• Savings that remain unclaimed in Employees’ Provident Fund and Public Provident Fund accounts and other small savings schemes for seven years, will be diverted to finance a Senior Citizens’ Welfare Fund, according to new rules notified by the Finance Ministry.

• The Senior Citizens’ Welfare Fund was announced in the last Budget. Trustees of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation termed the move as unconstitutional.

• Three officials — two from the EPFO and one from the Labour Ministry — told The Hindu that unclaimed deposits of PF contributors cannot be diverted for any other purposes, as per the EPF Scheme, 1952.

• Section 5 of the EPF Act 1952 says any decision related to EPF deposits has to be taken up with the CBT.

• The CBT is chaired by Union Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya and has representatives from the government, employers and employees.

• According to the rules, the concerned government office “shall try to contact” every account holder of the unclaimed deposits through written notice, e-mail or telephone at least two times in 60 days before transferring the amount to the Senior Citizens’ Welfare Fund.

• The EPF board had rolled back a 2011 decision to stop interest credits on inoperative PF accounts.

• Now, while such accounts will continue to get interest credits, the entire balance could be lost to the Senior Citizens' Fund after seven years of inactivity, though it's not clear how this will be implemented.

Union in consultation with States to come up with water conservation bill

• The Central government is likely to begin consultations with the States to frame a Bill to prevent the misuse of groundwater, a rapidly diminishing resource in India.

• Water is a State subject and it is incumbent on States to protect their resources … we will consider a model Bill to help with this.

• All groundwater is considered freshwater, which, however, can also include water from ponds, lakes and other sources of surface water.

• The India Water Week — a multidisciplinary conference, set to begin on Monday, to discuss India’s challenges with freshwater management — will have a session on legal remedies to address the depleting groundwater resources and also discuss legal aspects of the issue.

• The India Water Portal says as much as 85 per cent of drinking water in rural area is drawn from wells, with 88 per cent of it used for irrigation.Up to 48 per cent of the urban population uses groundwater.

• A recent study by the Central Ground Water Board found that groundwater exploitation and contamination has affected nearly 60 per cent of Indian districts.

• Since the 1970s, says a report by the now-renamed Planning Commission, laws have been mooted to encourage States to use groundwater more judiciously these laws haven’t been effectively implemented.

:: INTERNATIONAL ::

IS loosing ground in Syria

• IS has in recent months claimed responsibility for deadly attacks in Brussels and Paris, but has lost ground in Syria and Iraq.

• Days after Syrian troops backed by Russian forces recaptured Palmyra and its ancient ruins, the army “uncovered a mass grave of officers, soldiers, members of the popular committee”.

• In a major symbolic and strategic coup for President Bashar Al-Assad, the Syrian Army on last Sunday recaptured Palmyra and its UNESCO World Heritage Site, which IS had overrun in May 2015.

• During their nearly 10-month occupation of Palmyra, the jihadists executed at least 280 people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor which confirmed the discovery of the mass grave.

• Soon after IS stormed Palmyra, it shot dead 25 soldiers in the ancient Roman theatre.It later released a video of the mass killing in which the executioners appeared to be children or teenagers.

• Syria’s five-year war has left at least 270,000 people dead. Few mass graves have been found, however.

• About 70 km to the west, Syrian troops on Saturday pounded the city of IS-held Sukhna, which the Army wants to take back in order to consolidate its grip over Palmyra.

• It was one of the single highest tolls that IS has suffered in a single strike since it emerged in Syria in 2013, the monitor said.

US military allowed Sikhs to maintain articles of faith

• In a landmark decision, the U.S. military has granted a decorated Sikh-American officer a long-term religious accommodation, allowing him to continue serving while maintaining his articles of faith of keeping a beard and wearing a turban.

• The move makes Captain Simratpal Singh (28) the first active duty Sikh soldier to receive approval to maintain his articles of faith while actively serving in the U.S. Army.

• He had sued the Defence Department last month in a first of its kind lawsuit, saying he was being subjected to “discriminatory” testing because of his turban and beard.

• The Army granted the permanent accommodation, saying in a court document that it would only be revoked if the beard and turban affected “unit cohesion and morale, good order and discipline, health and safety”.

:: India and World ::

India along with other nations will ratify Paris agreement

• India will join 100 nations in ratifying the Paris agreement on climate change on April 22, Union Environment, Forests and Climate Change Minister Prakash Javadekar said.

• The United Nations agreement, negotiated in Paris in December 2015, sets out a global action plan to put the world on track by limiting global warming below 2 degrees Celsius and attempt to shield the world from the catastrophic effects of climate change.

• Mr. Javadekar described the Paris agreement as an image makeover for India.India was always perceived to be a naysayer and negative in its approach and took a corner seat in most of the international conferences.

• But in Paris, Prime Minister Narendra Modi introduced the concept of climate justice driving home the message of sustainable development.

• The global 1 degree rise in temperature was due to 150 years of uncontrolled carbon emission by the developed world.

• He said while 30 per cent of cumulative contribution was that of the United States, 50 per cent by Europe, Canada and other developed world and 10 per cent by China, India was responsible for only 3 per cent.

• Among India’s proactive measures to combat the pernicious effects of global warming was Rs. 400 per tonne green cess on coal and a proposed Compensatory Afforestation Funds Bill, 2015, which would unlock Rs. 40,000 crore of funds made available to States to take up afforestation programmes.

PM Modi arrived in Riyadh for two-day visit

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Riyadh on his maiden two-day visit to Saudi Arabia as both countries are set to firm up a raft of pacts to bolster their strategic partnership, besides exploring ways to enhance security and counter-terror cooperation.

• Mr. Modi announced a 24X7 multilingual helpline for Indian expatriates, and said a move to regularise migration was in the offing through an online programme.

• He announced the setting up of worker resource centres in Riyadh and Jeddah to provide them help.

• Addressing a gathering of L&T workers who are constructing a metro rail here, he said India was proud of their contribution which had enhanced India’s image abroad and opened doors for overseas employment opportunities for their compatriots.

• Combating threat of terrorism and radicalisation is expected to figure high on the agenda of the talks between Mr. Modi and the leadership of Saudi Arabia.

• Riyadh has recently formed a major coalition of 34 Muslim nations to fight terror, particularly of the Islamic State type.

• India’s ties with Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s leading oil producers, have been on an upswing over the past two decades based on burgeoning energy ties and both countries may look to move beyond a buyer-seller relationship in the sector and go for joint ventures and investment in refineries and oil fields.

• Mr. Modi may seek deeper involvement of Indian companies in upstream and downstream oil and gas sector projects in the Gulf nation whose economy has been hit due to falling prices of crude oil, cut in oil exports and slowing down of domestic consumption.

Report in Nuclear security summit praises India

• India has taken multiple measures to prevent terrorists from acquiring nuclear weapons, according to a progress report circulated at the Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) in Washington.

• The idea behind the two-day summit, hosted by U.S. President Barack Obama, is to get political leaderships across countries directly involved in dealing with the threat of nuclear terrorism.

• India has set up a permanent team of technical and security experts from multiple ministries and agencies that conducts tabletop exercises simulating nuclear smuggling, phased out the use of highly enriched uranium (HEU) and built a database of all radioactive sources in the country.

• It has also started real-time tracking of radioactive sources when they are transported and set up a network of 23 emergency response centres across the country for detecting and responding to any nuclear or radiological emergency.

• India is also in the process of equipping all major seaports and airports of the country with radiation detection machines.

• While nuclear security is a serious domestic concern, India also used the platform to push its desire for membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), the exclusive club that controls global nuclear trade.

• “India’s export controls list and guidelines have been harmonised with those of the NSG, and India looks forward to strengthening its contribution to shared non-proliferation objectives through membership of the export controls regimes,” the progress report said.

• Besides the IAEA, global coordination to prevent terrorists from acquiring nuclear material will continue in four other forums — Interpol, the U.N., the Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction, and the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism.

• The security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons remains a key concern for the U.S., but that was not a topic at the NSS.

• The U.S. has repeatedly said Pakistan’s decision to deploy battlefield weapons could increase the risks associated with its theft or sabotage.

• But the U.S. was particular that the NSS could not be a forum for “naming and shaming any particular country.

• Mr. Modi, however, touched upon the risk of insider threats to nuclear material in general terms.

:: Business and Economy ::

Uttar Pradesh has generated maximum employment among large states

• Among the larger States, Uttar Pradesh has seen the highest growth in enterprises and employment generation over the past decade, outstripping the economically strong states such as Gujarat, Maharashtra and Punjab, according to data from the Sixth Economic Census released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.

• Uttar Pradesh has seen a 67.4 per cent growth in the number of economic establishments in the state between 2005 and 2013 compared to a national average of 41.8 per cent.

• The country’s most populous state has fared better than all of the major economic states such as Gujarat (66.3 per cent), Tamil Nadu (15.6 per cent), Karnataka (15 per cent), Maharashtra (47.8 per cent) and West Bengal (41.4 per cent).

• Notably, Uttar Pradesh has been placed third in terms of growth in employment (79.4 per cent) over the last decade generated by its economic establishments, significantly ahead of the other states such as Gujarat (65.9 per cent), Maharashtra (37.9 per cent), Karnataka (19.9 per cent) and Tamil Nadu (22.5 per cent).

• The Economic Census also provides data on whether the enterprises and employment have been created in rural or urban areas.

• Overall, urban India has performed better, seeing a growth of 47 per cent in the number of establishments and 42 per cent growth in employment over the last decade. Rural India saw a growth of 38.4 per cent and 34.8 per cent, respectively.

• The growth of establishments in the last decade was 90 per cent in rural Uttar Pradesh, more than twice as fast as the 40 per cent seen in urban Uttar Pradesh.

• Similarly, employment growth in the state came in at 97.7 per cent in its rural portion and 61.3 per cent in its urban centres.

Civil aviation policy will be released soon

• The government is close to reaching a consensus on the civil aviation policy, including the contentious flying abroad norm for airlines, also known as the '5/20 rule'.

• The 5/20 rule requires an airline to have five years of domestic flying experience and 20 aircraft in its fleet before it can fly to overseas destinations.

• The government’s plan to ease the 5/20 rule has divided the aviation industry with the incumbent airlines opposing any move to relax the norms and the new airlines Vistara and AirAsia India pressing for abolition of the rule.

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