Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams

08 March 2016

:: NATIONAL ::

Government takes action against Vijay Mallya

• In a setback to businessman Vijay Mallya, the Bengaluru Bench of the Debt Recovery Tribunal on Monday temporarily restrained U.K.-based Diageo Plc from paying $75 million to him as per the reported agreement signed with him

• the sum would stand attached till further orders on the proceedings initiated by the banks to recover money borrowed by the Mallya-owned Kingfisher Airlines Limited

• According to the banks, the total outstanding is now nearly Rs. 10,000 crore

• The tribunal also directed Diageo and Mr. Mallya to provide particulars of their agreement to the banks led by the State Bank of India, which have sought a garnishee order claiming first right over the $75 million that Mr. Mallya is to get from Diageo.

• It was reported that Diageo had offered to pay $75 million to Mr. Mallya in a five year period for stepping down from the post of Chairperson of United Spirits Ltd, which Diageo had acquired, and agreeing not to compete in business with it for a certain period

• The ED has received a copy of the CBI case of corruption and criminal conspiracy registered in October 2015 against Mr. Mallya as director of Kingfisher Airlines

• The ED will soon summon Mr. Mallya and the other accused to record their statements

• The Directorate’s move to investigate money-laundering charges comes in the backdrop of the Karnataka High Court order to issue notice to Mr. Mallya and nine others based on a petition filed by SBI and 12 other banks.

Reduced disolved oxygen kills fishes in Karnataka

• Garden city’s famed Ulsoor Lake became a graveyard. Thousands of fish were found dead, floating on the lake’s waters, all victims of the early summer heat and soaring temperature

• Fish kill in the city’s lakes have almost become an annual phenomenon, during the onset of summer. It is usually a direct result of reduced dissolved oxygen level in the water.

• While algae in the lake release oxygen into the water during daytime, it uses up dissolved oxygen during night time along with the fish creating a big drop in the dissolved oxygen levels. So, most fish kills are observed in early mornings.

• Raw sewage let into the lake will be thick during summer compared to the rainy season, leading to a higher concentration of nutrients in the lake, which also causes drop in dissolved oxygen levels.

• The water temperature of the lake will also shoot up,leading to such fish kills

India's first test tube baby born

• Born at Jaslok Hospital to India’s first test tube baby Harsha

• Harsha Chawda is India’s first test tube baby, a feat that had made IVF specialist Indira Hinduja a household name in the country

Palaeolithic hand-axe found in north Kerala

• Belying 19th century British geo-archaeologist Robert Bruce Foote’s argument on prehistoric habitation in the State, north Kerala is fast emerging as the site of fresh discoveries of remnants of Stone Age cultures.

• Findings include the typical Palaeolithic hand-axe from Vanimel river basin (Kozhikode) and pointed choppers and side scrapers from Anakkayam and Cheerkkayam river basin of Chandragiri (Kasaragod) are some of the first-time evidence of Palaeolithic implements in these districts.

• This revealed that handaxe fabrication technique in quartz was also familiar among the prehistoric settlements in the area

• The evidence includes black and red ware pottery, eagle head-like figures made of clay, iron chopper and dagger, black ware, smoke pipe, iron knife, iron sickle and several iron ingots. The well-polished symmetrical shaped Stone Adzes made of quartz showed the high expertise in quartz fabrication of Neolithic people in Kozhikode.

Indians could face a higher risk of diabetes-induced lung ailments

• Diabetes may be impeding the normal functioning of lungs and common medicines that are used to treat insulin resistance may actually be exacerbating conditions such as asthma, report a team of Indian, European and American scientists in a forthcoming edition of the American Physiological Society Selectjournal.

• There is a suspect link between diabetes — a condition characterised by the hormone insulin failing to regulate blood sugar in the body — and impaired lung function that makes Indians particularly vulnerable to respiratory disease

• Recently, there have been a number of studies showing that when adjusted for body size, Indians have among the smallest lungs in the world or nearly a third smaller than a white European of similar size.

• This means a reduced efficiency to filter oxygen from ingested air, an accelerated decline in lung function with age as well as an increased propensity to contract respiratory diseases

• The International Diabetes Federation showed that nearly 6.9 crore people in India were sufering from diabetes in 2015 and their ranks are expected to swell to 12.5 crore by 2040.

• Human lung tissue that were treated with excessive insulin and saw an abundance of two kinds of tissue — primary human airway smooth muscle (ASM) cells and induced collagen — that are known to indicate deteriorating lung quality

• Most medicines to treat diabetes attempt to control the excess blood sugar by pumping in everincreasing quantities of insulin into the body. That only makes matters worse. There’s no solution to this other than exercise and a diet that strikes a balance between protein and carbohydrates

:: International ::

International Women's day gift by Air-India

• National carrier Air India said it flew the “world’s longest” all women operated and supported flight from the national capital to San Francisco

• The flight, which travelled a distance of around 14,500 km in close to 17 hours, was operated as part of International Women’s Day celebrations.

• This year for the first time, on the world’s longest non-stop flight, entire flight operations from cockpit crew to cabin crew, check-in staf, doctor, customer care staf, ATC [air traffic control] and the entire ground-handling... were handled by women

• The flight was under the command of Kshamta Bajpayee and Shubhangi Singh, along with First Oicers Ramya Kirti Gupta and Amrit Namdhari. The carrier has about 3,800 women employees, including pilots, cabin crew, engineers, technicians, doctors, security personnel and executives

Ray Tomlinson, credited with inventing e-mail died

• Ray Tomlinson, the U.S. programmer credited with inventing e-mail in the 1970s and choosing the “@” symbol for the messaging system, died at the age of 74.

• Mr. Tomlinson invented direct electronic messages in 1971. Before his invention, users could only write messages to others on a limited network.
  Peace talks of syria will start in March 14

• Syria’s regime said it had been invited to peace talks in Geneva from March 14 but the opposition said it was still considering whether to attend despite a major lull in fighting.

• The United Nations is hoping to restart peace talks that collapsed last month, building on a ceasefire that has led to the first significant decline in violence in Syria’s nearly five-year civil war.

• The UN’s Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura has said he hopes the talks can begin from Thursday but officials have indicated it could take several days of preparations for the negotiations to get off the ground.

Peace talks of syria will start in March 14

• Syria’s regime said it had been invited to peace talks in Geneva from March 14 but the opposition said it was still considering whether to attend despite a major lull in fighting.

• The United Nations is hoping to restart peace talks that collapsed last month, building on a ceasefire that has led to the first significant decline in violence in Syria’s nearly five-year civil war.

• The UN’s Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura has said he hopes the talks can begin from Thursday but officials have indicated it could take several days of preparations for the negotiations to get off the ground.
   

:: India and World ::

Security concerns increases on Arabian sea

• Several ageing Pakistani fishing boats have been washing ashore in the Sir Creek area in Gujarat, leading to much speculation in the security establishment.

• Most of the recoveries were made along the 32-km long G-Line, the nearest habitation being 30 km away in Lakhpat, to the south

• “Following the alert by the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the Gujarat Police, the security along the area has been enhanced.

• The recovery of so many fishing boats has led to several theories. Some oicials argued that these were old boats used by drug syndicates for moving drugs from the Pakistani shore to the mid-sea where the cargo was transferred to other boats that take them to various destinations across the globe.

• These boats were possibly abandoned and pushed towards the Indian side because of tidal movement.

• Another group believed these were boats used for illegal fishing, and when those who manned them suspected that the Indian side had detected them, they abandoned the boat

• Credible evidence has emerged that a major global drug smuggling racket is active in the waters of Gujarat. In April 2015, a boat carrying drugs worth over Rs. 600 crore was seized of Gujarat. A few weeks later, an Iranian fishing boat was found floating in the waters of Kerala

:: Business and Economy ::

Government identifying banks for consolidation

• The government will identify six to ten public sector banks which will drive the consolidation process among the state-owned banks

• Large lenders like State Bank of India (SBI), Bank of Baroda (BoB), Punjab National Bank (PNB) and Canara Bank could become the anchor banks

• The government will set up an expert panel for the consolidation process. The Bank Board Bureau headed by former Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Vinod Rai, which was recently formed to select chief executives and board members of public sector banks, will also help in the consolidation process.

• Merger between the banks will be based on geographical and technological synergies, human resources and business profile, among others

• Consolidation among public sector banks has been under discussionfor about a decade now.

• There are 22 public sector banks in the country apart from five associate banks of State Bank of India. The present National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government has looked at the consolidation process diferently and initiated it.

• Interestingly, during Gyan Sangam in Pune, bankers had opposed the idea of consolidation among public sector banks on the ground that the financial health of most of the banks had deteriorated. Hence, no bank was ready to absorb even a weaker institution

• The financial performance of public sector banks reflected a sharp deterioration after the RBI conducted an Asset Quality Review (AQR). During the review, the central bank’s inspectors found that many accounts, which ideally should have been treated as nonperforming, were not classified so by the banks.

• The RBI then directed the banks to classify those accounts as non-performing and provide accordingly during the October-December and January-March quarters.

• As a result, as many as 11 public sector banks including Bank of Baroda, IDBI Bank, Bank of India and Indian Overseas Bank reported losses last quarter.

Finance minister says infrastructure projects will not be delayed in the future

• Plans outlined in the Union Budget, along with the enactment of the recently amended arbitration law, could make the spectre of stalled infrastructure projects across the country a thing of the past

• One of the important factors that stalls these projects is that with the passage of time, costs escalate beyond estimates, both because of raw material and labour costs going up and therefore, nobody in government is willing to take the responsibility for such cost escalations

• A statutory mechanism to negotiate cost escalations under an oversight would be put into operation.

• The country’s arbitration law now provided a fast-track mechanism to resolve cases within a year and commercial divisions had been created in every High Court

Ahead of Aadhaar Bill’s passage, Govt. okays housing subsidy for workers

• Even as the Aadhaar Bill is yet to be passed in the Lok Sabha, the government has begun approving new subsidies to be delivered using the biometrics-backed Unique Identification (UID) number.

• Labour Ministry has approved a scheme to offer higher housing subsidies to about 75 lakh beedi workers and miners working in non-coal mines using Aadhaar

• However, the UID Authority of India (UIDAI) will find it diicult to capture their fingerprints owing to the nature of their work, according to its own biometric authentication standards

• Finance Minister Arun Jaitley tabled the Aadhaar (Target Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016 in Lok Sabha.

• The Bill, tabled as a Money Bill (not requiring Rajya Sabha’s approval) is aimed at providing legal backing for transferring all government subsidies using Aadhaar.

• Under the Revised Integrated Housing Scheme of 2016, the Labour Ministry will give Rs.1.5 lakh as subsidy through direct benefit transfer, from the current Rs.40,000, to beedi and nonmine workers to build a house on their own land.

• The move comes despite the UIDAI’s own suggestion that construction and mining workers be put in the list of exceptions to which the Aadhaar system may not apply.

• In a detailed document titleded ‘Aadhaar Authentication Framework’, the UIDAI had said that people engaged in hard manual labour like construction workers or mining workers may be treated as “exceptions” in the Aadhaar system as they had “all of their fingers in extremely poor condition with respect to fingerprint quality

• There will always be a set of population who will be temporarily or permanently excluded from a specific biometric system. They are termed as ‘outliers, in such cases, alternative biometrics such as iris scan could be used.

• The new Housing Scheme of the Labour Ministry will give assistance to workers having their own land with a carpet area of at least 30 square metres.

• The subsidy amount will be released in three instalments: the first amount of Rs. 37,500 will be given as advance, second Rs.90,000 after the construction of house reaches the lintel level and the third instalment of Rs.22,500 after completion of the construction work. The worker can make an additional contribution at his or her own will.

• Also, for the first time, the government may give Rs.1.5 lakh as an upfront amount to those workers who want to secure a bank loan to build houses.

• The ‘Housing for All’ project, which provides Rs. 1 lakh as Central grant for a house under the slum rehabilitation programme and Rs. 1.5 lakh to economically weaker section households, aims to build 2 crore houses in five phases till 2021-22.

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