Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams

11 January 2016

:: NATIONAL ::

Seed funding provided to start-ups by Indian angel investors to be scrapped

• The government has decided to scrap a tax on seed funding provided to start-ups by Indian angel investors in the upcoming Union Budget, to help domestic financiers bankroll new entrepreneurial ventures under its Start Up India campaign.

• The tax provision in question treats infusion of funds by domestic angel investorsas income in the hands of the start-up, making India the only country in the world to penalise local angel investors in such a manner.

• The tax is one of the key reasons that 90 per cent of Indian start-ups are financedby foreign venture capital and angel funds.

India is not likely to join anti-IS forces in Syria

• India is likely to say it has “no interest” in sending troops to Syria to fight in any of the anti-IS coalitions, but could indicate it is open for a bigger role in the Syrian regional reconciliation in West Asia.

• The issue is expected to be discussed when Syrian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Walid al Moualem meets National Security Adviser and External Affairs Minister during a three-day visit to New Delhi.

• The visit is significant as it comes just ahead of a series of trips by the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi focused on West Asia.

• Mr. Moualem could ask India toplay a “conciliatory” role in reconciling the positions of all the major players in the region, given India’s standing with them.

• U.S.-led coalition of more than 60 countries that are conducting strikes on IS locations and supporting anti-Assad rebel groups, the Russian forces sent in to support President Assad’s Syrian military forces against IS and other groups, and the newly announced Saudi Arabia-led coalition of 34 Muslim nations, which claims it will attack IS as well.

BJP leader Subramaniam swamy says Ram Temple construction will start in 2016

• Exuding confidence that the Supreme Court's verdict will come in favour of building Ram Temple at Ayodhya, BJP leader Subramaniam Swamy said the work on its construction could start before the end of this year.

• Mr. Swamy was speaking on the concluding day of a two-day seminar titled 'Shri Ram JanmaBhoomi Temple: Emerging Scenario' organised at Delhi University's Arts Faculty by Arundhati VashishthaAnusandhanPeeth (AVAP), a research organisation founded by late VHP leader Ashok Singhal.

Telangana introduced compulsory gender education at the graduate level

• Telangana has be- come the first State to introduce compulsory gender edu- cation at the graduate level; without repeating gender stereotypes in its bilingual textbook titled, ‘Towards a World of Equals.’

• The book discusses gender in its composite form without limiting itself to crime against women.

• It also touches upon complex subjects like female-centric history and male-female relationships.

• The book is being taught over 14 weeks in a semester at the rate of two classes per week.

• Credits earned in the end semester examination add up to students’ GPAs.

• A nine-member, all-women, panel which drafted the syllabus and developed its content has already held four training workshops forgroups of 15 to 40 teachers and is expected to take up yet another session this week.

:: INDIA and WORLD ::

Indian origin girl gets score of 162 on an IQ

• An 11-year-old Indian-origin girl in the U.K. has achieved the top possible score of 162 on an IQ test of Mensa, becoming one of the youngest brainiest students in the country.

• Mumbai-born Kashmea Wahi achieved the top score of 162 out of 162, putting her in the league of scientists Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking and in the top one per cent of the country’s brightest.

:: BUSINESS and ECONOMY ::

India’s three archaic legislations to be combined

• The Union Cabinet will soon consider a law to combine India’s three archaic legislations to make it easier for companies to retrench employees and to raise severance pay.

• Inter-ministerial consultations on the proposed Industrial Relations Bill were completed, and it would soon be submitted to the Cabinet.

• In a first, workers affected by retrenchment or factory closure will be re-skilled by employers.

• A re-skilling fund will be set up, and employers will contribute 30 days’ wage of every retrenched worker immediately before the retrenchment.

• An employer will need to give compensation to a worker laid of for prolonged ill- ness.

• At present, organisations can lay of workers on the ground of continued ill- health without giving a one- month notice or compensation, both mandatory in other cases under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947.

• The Bill will club the Trade Unions Act, 1926, the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946, and the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, into a single code.

• Trade unions continue to oppose the proposed law that will allow companies with a staff of 300 to retrench workers without government permission, up from the present requirement of up to 100 workers.

Hi-tech startups urge PM’s support to ignite defence industry

• SDR- software-defined radio is a radio communication system where components that have been typically implementing educing hardware are instead replaced by software.

• This reduces cost, power consumption and size of componentson a personal computer or embedded system.

• Software radios have significantutility for the military which mustserve a wide variety of changingradio protocols in real time.

• As Prime Minister NarendraModi unveils ambitious ‘Start UpIndia’ programme,, hi-tech companies are asking the government to pay attention to the aerospace and defence innovations offered by them.

• Tonbo makes night vision systems for Indian and international customers including DARPA, an advanced-technology branch of the U.S. Department of Defense.Its products are being used on observation platforms, reconnaissance drones, and artillery and naval weapon systems.

• But frombeing a purely Indian company, Tonbo had to become a globalproducts business based out ofSingapore.

• This is because bene-fits are offered to international suppliers on buy-global Indian programmes.

• Indian suppliers are levied customs duties at the component level and taxes at the product level. Foreign bidders don’tface this problem.

• India’s defence spending is expected to hit $620 billion (Rs 41lakh crore) between 2014 and 2022, according to according to a reportby industry lobby Federation of In-dian Chambers of Commerce andIndustry and financial services firm Centrum Capital.

• India was the largest importer ofmajor arms in 2010–14, accountingfor 15 per cent of the global total, according to Sweden-based Stock-holm International Peace Re-search Institute (SIPRI).

• In 2010–14 India’s imports were three timeslarger than those of either of its regional rivals China and Pakistan

• With 22.5 per cent of the world’sunmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)imports, between 1985 and 2014,India ranked first among drone-importing nations, followed byUnited Kingdom and France, ac-cording to data provided by SIPRI.

:: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY ::

A green world in Kerala’s laterite hills

• Under their barren look, the laterite hills in northern Kerala conceal patches of biodiversity-rich small groves, known as Kanam in local parlance.

• With ecological significance of these hills remaining unknown, Kanams are re-corded as waste lands in revenue records and often assigned to development projects. Mining too is damaging this system.

• As the lateritehills are recorded as wasteland since it is not productivefor agriculture there is thetendency to allot these areas to large-scale projects, whichleads to the destruction of theunique ecosystem

• The floral diversity of four Kanams (Kanayi, Vannathi,Easwaran, and Vattappoyil)in the Kavvayi River Basincaught the researchers by surprise. They were able todocument 452 plant species in these four Kanams.

• Of these, 56 were endemic to thearea and 35 were endemic toWestern Ghats. They also re-ported that two endemic species recorded from theseareas were classified as endangered and five as vulnerable to extinction in the RedList of the InternationalUnion for Conservation ofNature.

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