Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams - 16 February 2018

::NATIONAL::

Tiger Census in Odisha

The Odisha government will employ 900 cameras during its week-long annual tiger census.
Both direct and indirect methods will be used to ascertain the status of the big cats in the State.
The week-long census that coincides with the national tiger census will be carried out in all forest divisions.
Field officials of all the divisions have been trained for the programme.
After completion of the week-long census operation, the data will be shared with the Union Ministry of Environment and Forest.
Unlike earlier, the State government has brought the entire Similipal Tiger Reserve, which houses the State’s largest tiger population, under the scope of the census.
Of the State’s total population of 40 tigers, 29 are stated to be in Similipal.
The State forest department officials are hoping for a rise in the tiger population count this year.
Earlier on January 19, a dolphin census was conducted across six coastal divisions of the State.
The Forest and Environment Department's wildlife wing pegged the number of endangered Irrawaddy dolphins in the Chilika Lake at 114.
The dolphin population in the State has now gone up to 469 compared with 450 in 2015.
A total of 307 dolphins have been sighted in the Bhitarakanika National Park. Of these, 108 were Indo-Pacific dolphins and 62 were Indian humpbacks.

Punjab and Income Tax

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and his Ministers announced that they would voluntarily pay their own income tax, which at present is being given from the State exchequer.
The development comes within days of Capt. Singh suggesting that elected representatives of the State, including Ministers and MLAs, pay their own income tax.
The announcement followed a personal appeal by the Chief Minister during a meeting of the State Cabinet here, an official spokesperson said.
With respect to MLAs, Capt. Singh had said that decision on their self-payment of income tax would be taken after receiving their feedback on the proposal.
The tax is currently being paid by the government and draining the exchequer, Capt. Singh had said.
Punjab is probably the only State in the country where the government paid taxes for all Ministers and MLAs, he had said.
He had pointed out that the tax being paid by the State government in this regard stood at Rs. 11.08 crore. While Rs. 10.72 crore was being spent on payment of income tax of the MLAs, the remaining was for the Ministers, Capt. Singh had said.
The Chief Minister has also been appealing to members of the Congress in Punjab and rich farmers to give up their power subsidy in the State’s larger interest.

SC to give its verdict on Cauvery waters

A Special Bench of the Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, will on February 16 pronounce its verdict on appeals filed by Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala against the final award of the Cauvery Tribunal in 2007 on the allocation of the river waters to the three States.
Chief Justice Misra has authored the judgment.
On September 20 last, the final day of the marathon hearings, Tamil Nadu made a fervent plea to the Bench, also comprising Justices Amitava Roy and A.M. Khanwilkar, not to reduce the State to a beggar before Karnataka.
The Tamil Nadu government, represented by senior advocate Shekhar Naphade, urged the Supreme Court to initiate a “fundamental change” in the water-sharing arrangement.
“Several years have gone by... the river is perennial but the litigation should not be,” Mr. Naphade had submitted.
Tamil Nadu said it wanted a judicial order and did not want to depend on the Centre that took six years to publish the Tribunal award in the gazette in 2013.
In its turn, the Centre, represented by the then Solicitor-General Ranjit Kumar, had tried to apprise the Bench that it was Parliament’s call to finalise the water-sharing scheme under the Inter-State Water Disputes Act, 1956.
But the court remained firm, saying the judiciary had a role and the judgment in the appeals would speak for itself.

We are an autonomous body: Prasar Bharati

Aggressively defending its autonomy, public broadcaster Prasar Bharati has rejected a range of “directives” coming from the Information and Broadcasting Ministry.
They said it constituted “contempt” of the Prasar Bharati Act.
Chairman A. Surya Prakash and members of the Prasar Bharati Board, at their meeting, took “strong exception” to the “wording of a direction” to terminate the services of all contractual employees of Prasar Bharati.
A sizeable number of employees, both in Doordarshan and All India Radio, work on contract and sacking them without arranging for an alternative would lead to the collapse of both organisations, Prasar Bharati officials said.
The Ministry’s proposal to hire two senior journalists, Siddharth Zarabi and Abhijit Majumdar, was withdrawn as the board was not in favour of hiring media persons on exorbitant compensation packages.
The Ministry had fixed an annual compensation of Rs. 1 crore for Mr. Zarabi and Rs. 75 lakh for Mr. Majumdar.
The members argued that the highest compensation paid to contractual employees in Prasar Bharati was about Rs. 1.6 lakh a month and a jump to Rs. 1 crore a year cannot be justified.
Another agenda item withdrawn during the board meeting was the appointment of a serving IAS officer as Member (Personnel) on the Prasar Bharati Board.
The chairman and members took strong exception to the wording of the resolution.
They also said provisions of the PB Act would be violated and the office of Vice-President would be denigrated.

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::INTERNATIONAL::

Newly elected President to South Africa after Zuma quits

Cyril Ramaphosa was elected South Africa’s President by the ruling party legislators on after the resignation of Jacob Zuma.
Zuma’s scandals brought the storied African National Congress (ANC) to its weakest point since taking power at the end of apartheid.
Mr. Ramaphosa was the only candidate nominated for election after two Opposition parties said they would not participate.
The two parties instead unsuccessfully called for the dissolution of the National Assembly and early elections.
Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng presided over the parliamentary election and congratulated Mr. Ramaphosa, who was Mr. Zuma’s deputy and in December was narrowly elected leader of the ANC over Mr. Zuma’s ex-wife.
The ANC had instructed Mr. Zuma this week to step down or face a parliamentary motion of no-confidence that he would almost certainly lose. Mr. Zuma denies any wrongdoing.
Mr. Ramaphosa is South Africa’s fifth President since the end of the apartheid system in 1994.
Cyril Ramaphosa, who has been elected as South Africa’s new President by legislators replacing the scam-tainted Jacob Zuma, said on Thursday that fighting corruption is his priority.
“I will try very hard not to disappoint the people of South Africa,” Mr. Ramaphosa said in ending his speech to Parliament shortly after it elected him.
He said the issue of corruption is on “our radar screen”.
As some South Africans cheered the end to Mr. Zuma’s era, the rand currency strengthened against the dollar in early trading on Thursday.
Mr. Ramaphosa now is challenged with reviving the reputation of the ANC, Africa’s most prominent liberation movement, which fought apartheid and has been in power since the first all-race elections in 1994.
The party’s popularity fell as anger over corruption allegations grew and it suffered its worst showing at the polls in municipal elections in 2016.
The prospect of facing a possible coalition government for the first time helped push some ANC leaders to decide that Mr. Zuma had to go.
Mr. Zuma announced he had stepped down in a late-night television address.
In a 30-minute speech, Mr. Zuma said he had “come to the decision to resign as President of the republic with immediate effect”.
On Thursday, the foundation of Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first Black President, welcomed Mr. Zuma’s departure but said the state must act against “networks of criminality” that have hurt the country’s democracy.
Meanwhile, South African police issued an arrest warrant for one of the brothers of the Gupta business family, allies of Mr. Zuma.

India-Arunachal Pradesh-China

China has slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh, saying it was not helpful in creating “enabling conditions” for boundary talks and improving Beijing-New Delhi ties.
Xinhua news agency quoted Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang as saying on Thursday that China was “firmly opposed” to Mr. Modi’s visit to the “disputed area.”
“China’s position on the China-India boundary question is consistent and clear-cut,” Mr. Geng said.
“The Chinese government has never recognised the so-called Arunachal Pradesh and is firmly opposed to the Indian leader’s visit to the disputed area,” the spokesperson observed. “We will lodge stern representations with the Indian side.”
Mr. Geng said that China and India had reached “important consensus” on properly managing disputes and the two sides were working to resolve territorial disputes through negotiation and consultation.
“The Chinese side urges the Indian side to honour its commitment and abide by the relevant consensus, and refrain from taking any action that may complicate the boundary question.”
He urged India to cherish “the hard-won momentum of improvements in bilateral relations and create enabling conditions for the boundary talks and the development of bilateral relations.”

Iran President visits India

Indian investment in Iran, including billions of dollars in connectivity, infrastructure and oil projects topped the agenda as Iranian President Hassan Rouhani arrived for a three-day visit to India.
“The two countries are on the same positive, right track,” Mr. Rouhani said, just before leaving for Hyderabad.
He told reporters that the Chabahar investment project is a “key objective” for Iran while several MoUs would be signed after his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The visit, which comes close on the heels of a decision by the Modi government to allow Indians to invest in Iran in rupees signals an independent line from the United States.
US is threatening new sanctions against Iran in the coming months.
The rupee investment plan is expected to ease the path for businessmen wishing to circumvent challenges posed by the current sanctions regime against Iran.
Although many of the sanctions were officially lifted after the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on nuclear scrutiny was signed in 2015, the U.S.’s stern posture on Iran has meant that few international banking and insurance companies are willing to assist investments there.
The absence of banking and payment channels have been a challenge for Indian businessmen, and we have been making special efforts to address those challenges.
Officials also said the government was committed to “speeding up” work at the Chabahar Shahid Beheshti Project, denying reports that there had been any “slowdown” due to pressure from the U.S.

::ECONOMY::

Trade Deficit

The country’s goods trade deficit widened to $16.30 billion in January 2018 from $9.9 billion in the same month a year earlier and $14.88 billion in the previous month owing to imports outpacing exports, data released by the Commerce Ministry.
The January trade deficit is a more than three-year high. It was $16.86 billion in November 2014.
Exports for January went up by 9.07% year-on-year to $24.38 billion.
However, goods imports rose 26.1% to $40.68 billion.
According to G.K. Gupta, president, Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO), though exports in January 2018 witnessed positive growth for third time in a row, the rate of growth is declining on a month-on-month basis.
Besides, export growth of about 9%, more than 6% has been contributed by petroleum products alone.
Labour-intensive sectors like garments, carpets, handicrafts, man-made textiles are exhibiting negative growth primarily due to liquidity crunch emanating from blocking of funds in GST, Mr. Gupta said in a statement.
FIEO estimates that the trade deficit in this fiscal will touch about $150 billion.
During the April-January 2017-18 period, trade deficit was $131.15 billion.
Exports during April-January 2017-18 increased by 11.75% to $247.89 billion, while imports during the 10-month period of the current fiscal registered a 22.21% growth to $379.05 billion.
FIEO wants the government to look into the refund issues by undertaking a clearance drive so as to clear all cases by March 31, 2018.
Alternatively, banks may be asked to finance exporters against the pending GST refund claims with interest to be borne by the government, it said.
Shipments of chemicals, engineering goods and petroleum products grew by 33%, 15.77% and 39.5% in January, while gold imports shrunk 22% to $1.59 billion.
Shipments of ready-made garments declined by 8.38% to $1.39 billion last month.
Oil and non-oil imports during January jumped by 42.64% and 20.49% to $11.65 billion and $29 billion, respectively.
During April-January 2017-18, oil imports increased by 26.35% to $87.80.billion. Meanwhile, data put out by the Reserve Bank showed that the exports in services in December 2017 were valued at $16 billion. The imports stood at $9.85 billion.