Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams

11 August 2016

:: National ::

All party meet to discuss Kashmir issue

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold talks with all political parties on the Kashmir unrest, Home Minister Rajnath Singh informed the Rajya Sabha.
• The House also passed a unanimous resolution appealing to the people of the Kashmir Valley to restore peace and harmony, adding that there “cannot be any compromise on national security.”
• Asserting that security forces were asked to show “maximum restraint” in using pellet guns against protesters, Mr. Singh was non-committal on their immediate withdrawal.
• He said Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorists were issuing threats to family members of security forces and civil administration officials in the Valley.
• Mr. Singh said there was no question of handing over Kashmir to the Army and rumours were being spread “deliberately.”

First unit of Kudankulam started

• A President, a Prime Minister and a Chief Minister sitting in three different cities met virtually to dedicate the first unit of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP) to the nation.
• Nearly 28 years after Russia and India signed the agreement to set up the plant, PM Narendra Modi, Russian President and Tamil Nadu CM did the honours through a video conference organised from Moscow, Delhi, Chennai, and Kudankulam.
• The 1,000-MWe KNPP-1 is the largest single unit of electrical power in India. “In years ahead, we are determined to pursue an ambitious agenda of nuclear power generation.
• At Kudankulam alone, five more units of 1,000 MWe each are planned,” Mr. Modi said.
• He said the government planned to build a series of bigger nuclear power units in cooperation with Russia.
• But Mr. Modi, a big proponent of solar power, also made a case for building partnerships “for green growth.”

Search operations still on for missing An-32

• Finding no trace of the An-32 aircraft that went missing over the Bay of Bengal on July 22, two specialised vessels have now been deployed to beef up the search.
• Oceanographic research vessel Samundra Ratnakar of the Geological Survey of India and research vessel Sagar Nidhi of the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) will undertake sea bed profiling.
• Sagar Nidhi , which was in Mauritius, was specifically called in for the purpose and it joined the search.
• Assistance of these vessels was requested after the searching aircraft and ships failed to pick up any signal or visible signs of the aircraft. They have submersibles, which can be sent deep once a possible location is identified.
• Meanwhile, ships and aircraft of the Navy, the Coast Guard and the IAF and a submarine are continuing the search both in surface and sub-surface domains.
• Now that it is 20 days since the aircraft went missing, the teams are relying on passive means by scanning the sea floor.
• The depth in the general search area is about 3-3.5 km. Officials said special cells had been formed to keep the families posted on a daily basis on the search efforts.

Opposition raised issues in Citizenship(amendment) bill

• The Opposition parties, led by the Congress, want the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, which was introduced in the Lok Sabha by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh in July, sent to a Standing Committee of Parliament.
• The original Act, passed in 1955, lists the ways to acquire citizenship, denying to undocumented migrants.
• The amendments now seek to allow citizenship to undocumented migrants of all faiths barring Islam from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
• The 1955 Act defines an illegal migrant as a foreigner who enters India without a valid passport or travel documents or stays beyond the permitted time.
• But a key amendment readsIn short, members of every major religious community barring Islam coming into India without legal passports or staying on without valid papers will be entitled to Indian citizenship after six years of residence in India.
• Peeved Opposition MPs are now pushing for the Bill to be sent to a Standing Committee.
• A senior Congress member in the Rajya Sabha said: “This revives memories of 1947. How can one community be left out? India is not yet officially a Hindu state.”

:: International ::

US supports India’s aid in Afghanistan

• The U.S. is in favour of India providing greater security assistance to Afghanistan.
• The gift of four MI-25 attack helicopters by India to Afghanistan was specially cited by the U.S. military commander while flagging the crucial role India is playing in the war-torn country.
• The tremendous cooperation India has made in the human capital of Afghan security forces is the one contribution that is going to be enduring.
• He said efforts were under way to create a facility in Afghanistan for servicing Russian made military equipment such as the MI-25 helicopters they got from India.
• The fight against Taliban, he said, is making progress. “Last year, Afghan forces suffered over 5,000 deaths. But by the end of the year, they were able to take control of all major population centres.
• After President Obama gave authority to attack the IS in January this year, U.S. forces have been aggressively targeting them.

:: Business and Economy ::

Cabinet approved foreign investment changes in NBFCs

• The Cabinet approved a proposal to amend rules for foreign investment in non-banking finance companies (NBFCs).
• Foreign investment in ‘other financial services’ that are not regulated by any regulators or by a government agency can be made via the approval route,
• Further, minimum capitalisation norms as mandated under FDI policy have been eliminated as most of the regulators have already fixed minimum capitalisation norms
• The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs approved a one-time grant of Rs.900 crores spread over three years for an R&D project for the development of Advanced Ultra Super Critical (AUSC) technology for thermal power plants.
• The estimated cost of the project is Rs.1,554 crore, according to the government.
• The Rs.900 crore, commencing from 2017-18, is to be provided as plan gross budgetary support to Bharat Heavy Electricals (BHEL) for the implementation of the R&D project.
• The Cabinet gave its ex-post facto approval for the amendment of Section 64 and section 65 and the consequential amendment in Section 115 of the Factories Act, 1948 by the introduction of the Factories (Amendment) Bill, 2016 in Parliament.
• The Cabinet also approved the introduction of pension and post-retirement medical services benefits to the employees of the Food Corporation of India.
• “The annual financial implication for both schemes combined would be around Rs.134.4 crore at present level of salaries of the employees,” the government said.

Govt came up with new norms for appraisal and approval of public-funded schemes

• Finance Ministry has issued new norms for the appraisal and approval of public-funded schemes as well as to improve the delivery of goods and services to citizens.
• With the announcement in the Union Budget 2016-17 of doing away with Plan Non-Plan distinction at the end of Twelfth Five Year Plan, it is imperative that a plan non-plan neutral appraisal and approval system is put into place.
• One of the guidelines is that no new scheme or sub-scheme can be initiated without the prior “in-principle” approval of the Department of Expenditure. This will not apply to the announcements made in the Budget Speech for any given year.
• The new policy also empowers ministers to approve expenditure proposals of up to Rs 500 crore, up from the previous limit of Rs 150 crore.
• The Finance Ministry move is aimed at improving the delivery of goods and services to citizens.

:: Science and Technology ::

Cassini spacecraft has discovered steep-sided canyons on Titan

• NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has discovered steep-sided canyons, hundreds of meters deep, on Saturn’s moon Titan that are flooded with liquid hydrocarbons.
• The finding represents the first direct evidence of the presence of liquid-filled channels on Titan, as well as the first observation of the deep canyons, NASA said.
• The observations show that the channels — in particular, a network of them named Vid Flumina — are narrow canyons, generally less than a kilometre wide, with slopes steeper than 40 degrees.
• This suggested that the channels might also be filled with liquid, but a direct detection had not been made until now.
• Cassini’s radar was used as an altimeter, sending pings of radio waves to the moon’s surface to measure the height of features there.
• Earthly examples of both of these types of canyon-carving processes are found along the Colorado River in Arizona.
• An example of uplift powering erosion is the Grand Canyon, where the terrain’s rising altitude caused the river to cut deeply downward into the landscape over the course of several million years.

The Wildlife Institute of India will now house the country’s first repository on tigers

• The Wildlife Institute of India (WII) here will now house the country’s first repository on tigers, under its new Tiger Cell.
• The Dehradun-based WII has about 23,000 images of tigers. “This has to be maintained and the Tiger Cell will do that,”.
• Project clearanceThe Tiger Cell could also help with the development-conservation debate.
• When a project needs environmental clearance, our spatial data can be used to overlay the project plan on our maps and check whether the project would interfere.

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