Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams 10 January 2017

Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams

Her son was three years old when she realised that there was no school she could send him to. British and American schools were too expensive and she didn’t want to send him to a local school.
That prompted Zeenat Jafri to start the second Indian school in Saudi Arabia — International Indian School — in 1982 with her husband.
She was among the 30 people feted for her achievement during the PravasiBharatiya Divas, when the PravasiSamman Awards were given away by President Pranab Mukherjee.
Another person of Indian origin who was recognised with the award was Ariful Islam, coordinator and nodal point in the Embassy of India in Libya.
The most recent episode he was involved was in the rescue of three abducted Indians from the IS in a dramatic operation in 2016 from the deep Libyan deserts.
The event saw double the number of awardees as it was being held after an interval of two years.
Among the other prominent winners of the award were Portugal Prime Minister Antonio Luis Santos da Costa, Labour Member of the European Parliament representing the West Midlands Neena Gill, British politician Priti Patel.

The recently-released data by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) and the Customs show a 50 per cent jump in smuggling of Indian, foreign and counterfeit currency notes over the previous years.
The data also reveals a 100 per cent rise in smuggling of narcotics, electronic, fabrics, and aircraft parts.
Nearly Rs. 36.87 crore of foreign currency notes was seized in 2016, as opposed to Rs. 25.09 crore in 2015.
The seizure of Indian notes was to the tune of Rs. 6.85 crore in 2016 as against Rs. 3.71 crore in 2015, while the seizure of counterfeit Indian notes rose to Rs. 2.72 crore in 2016 from Rs. 1.24 crore in the previous year.
The biggest haul was reported at the IGI Airport on January 5 when two passengers were caught with Rs. 1 crore of foreign notes.
The recent seizures of gold and currency notes in Mumbai, Delhi, Goa and Tamil Nadu have all been based on specific inputs targeted at syndicates operating in Dubai.
However, gold smuggling post demonetisation has in fact upped substantially starting of 2017, and the jump will be reflected in next year’s figures.

The Supreme Court dismissed a Telangana government petition against a decision of the Krishna Water Dispute Tribunal-II to limit the re-allocation of the river water only to the two successor States of Andhra and Telangana.
The tribunal had decided that the details of the re-distribution would be decided as per the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act of 2014 by an apex council.
The Bench explicitly told Telangana that it would not want to go into the entire award of the tribunal nor delve into a fresh consideration of the water dispute.
Telangana contended that, on its formation, it was confronted with the situation of “inadequate utilization of Krishna water out of the en bloc allocation of 811 TMC of 75 per cent dependable water, made by the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal-I.
The projects identified and allocations made by the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal-II in Telangana region of erstwhile A.P. is also woefully inadequate being just 9 tmcft of 448 tmcft of surplus water among the riparian States.

Ashley Tellis, a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, could be named the next U.S. Ambassador to India.
Mr. Tellis was not available for a response, but had last week declined to comment on speculations about him joining the administration.
Mr. Trump has said that Ambassadors who are political appointees will not be given a grace period after he takes over as President on January 20th. The current U.S. Ambassador to India, Richard Verma, is a political appointee.
Mumbai-born Tellis was a key figure in negotiations for the India-U.S. nuclear deal and is a proponent of stronger ties between the two countries, particularly in the area of defence cooperation.
He has served in the U.S. embassy in Delhi as an adviser to the Ambassador. He has also been on the National Security Council.
Mr. Tellis has good relations with both the Democrats and the Republicans and, if selected, could easily be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

Khanderi, the second Scorpene submarine under Project-75 being built at Mazgaon Docks Limited (MDL) in Mumbai is all set to be launched into water.
Meanwhile, the first submarine Kalvari is close to completing sea trials and likely to be inducted into the Navy by the middle of this year.
Six Scorpene submarines are being built with assistance and technology transfer from DCNS and others of France and under a $3.75-billion deal signed in October 2005.
The submarines are being built using modular approach in which different sections are built separately and later assembled on a pontoon.
Khanderi, named after the Island fort of Maratha ruler Chhatrapati Shivaji, was supposed to have been launched in December last year but was slightly delayed.
It is scheduled to be commissioned into the Navy in December 2017. The other four submarines are expected to roll out at intervals of nine months.
After a series of delays in the project, the first submarine Kalvari was launched in April last year and was expected to be commissioned by year end.
The infamous 22,400-page data leak pertaining to Scorpene submarines in Australia has also put a shadow on the programme even before they joined the force. However, the Navy has asserted that the leak was not serious.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley dismissed reports of a slowdown due to demonetisation as anecdotal, and said the “real” tax collection numbers gave a more accurate picture of how the economy was faring.
Direct and indirect tax collections for the nine months through December grew by 12% and 25% respectively, according to figures released by Mr. Jaitley.
Tax consultants, however, said the performance in some key areas had been disappointing, pointing to a slowdown in the economy.
Central excise duty receipts grew 43% in the period while service tax collections grew 23.9% and customs duty collections advanced 4.1%.
Last year, the same period saw excise duty collections grow 68.2%, service tax rise 24.45%, and customs collections up 17.6%.

Companies can soon make statutory provident fund contributions to the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation via private sector banks.
A Labour Ministry notification dated January 4 allows employers to make such payments “through scheduled banks in India, including private sector banks.”
At present, contribution can be made only through nationalised banks and payment portal PayGov.

The Centre will soon hold discussions with insurance and pension regulators on a proposal to enable pension funds and insurance companies such as Life Insurance Corporation to invest in start-ups.
It also said that online sales of medicines was allowed under the existing law and the Health Ministry would soon issue a clarification in this regard.
Stating that the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), the nodal agency on the start-up policy, had held “preliminary discussions” on the proposal of insurance and pension funds investing in start-ups.