Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams - 16 November 2017::NATIONAL::

Kerala’s Mullaperiyar proposal cleared by NGT

• The Southern Bench of National Green Tribunal (NGT) gave the go-ahead to Kerala’s proposal to undertake development work in Periyar Tiger Reserve, pointing out that National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) had already approved the project.
• Tamil Nadu has been opposing the project, which also includes construction of a parking lot in the area abutting Mullaperiyar dam, claiming that the construction falls within its leased area and the water spread area of the dam, and hence will affect the ecology of the region.
• The Bench, comprising Justice M.S. Nambiar and expert member P.S. Rao, in its order held that the proposed construction activity in the area for tourism purposes was as per Tiger Conservation Plan (TCP) and in conformity with National Wildlife Action Plan.
• The Bench observed that the NTCA was a statutory body headed by the Minister for Environment and Forests and comprising responsible authorities and experts in the field as members.
• The order said tourism activities in the TCP had been approved by the competent authority, and “we hold that such activities do not amount to diversion of forest land and utilisation of forest land for non-forest purpose attracting the provisions of the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980”.
• The Bench also said there was no necessity to get a further approval from the MoEF & CC, since the Chairperson of the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC), who decided forest clearance proposals, was also a member of the NTCA that approved the TCP.

Delhi to have BS-VI norms from 2018

• In a bid to deal with the critical pollution situation in the national capital, the Ministry of Petroleum has brought forward the date for the rollout of BS-VI fuel for Delhi to April 1, 2018 instead of the original deadline of April 1, 2020.
• The Ministry said in a statement that the decision to advance the launch, prompted by “the serious pollution levels in Delhi and adjoining areas,” was taken in consultation with the Public Oil Marketing Companies.
• OMCs have also been asked to examine the possibility of BS-VI auto fuel introduction in the whole of the National Capital Region (NCR) area with effect from April 1, 2019.
• The auto manufacturing umbrella body, the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), has said that while the switch to the BS-VI fuel in Delhi can reduce the particulate emissions from the existing fleet of vehicles, there are more steps the government can take, such as stringently enforcing the order banning BS-II and earlier vintage vehicles from plying in the NCR.
• Environmentalists welcomed the Centre’s decision to advance the rollout of cleaner fuel, compliant to Bharat Stage-VI (BS-VI) norms, in Delhi by two years, but added that a regional approach was needed to make it more effective.
• The Union Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas announced that BS-VI fuel norms would be implemented in Delhi by April 1, 2018, instead of the scheduled deadline of April 2020. For the rest of the country, the earlier deadline would remain.
• In a statement, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) said that it was ironic that the Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry had taken the lead instead of the Ministry of Environment and Forests, which is the nodal ministry for environment regulations.
• While the complete gains of the BS-VI norms would only be seen when vehicles also moved from BS-IV to the new norms, the decision to advance the cleaner fuel standards should not be underestimated, said AnumitaRoychowdhury, CSE’s executive director and the head of its anti-air pollution campaign.
• For others, the step, though welcome, did not cover a large enough area. With the National Capital Region facing a smog crisis due to a combination of crop burning in Punjab and Haryana and high background pollution in Delhi, the need for region-wide action was once again highlighted

NGT panel angry over lack of facilities to devotees at Amarnath shrine

• Coming down heavily on the Amarnath Shrine Board for not providing enough infrastructure to devotees, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) constituted a committee of experts to maintain the “sanctity of the shrine”.
• Directing the board to build eco-friendly washrooms, a bench headed by NGT chairperson Swatatnter Kumar said: “There are no proper facilities for toilets. Do you even know how humiliating this is for women? You have allowed shops on the path near the shrine. You are giving priority to commercial activities over pilgrims.”
• The panel asked the committee to consider the construction of an iron bridge from Panchawati to the steps of the shrine to protect the glaciers.
• The tribunal directed the authority to remove an iron rod from the cave to facilitate devotees offering prayers.
• he committee is headed by the Additional Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Forests.
  Ratings for Indian roads
• In a bid to make Indian roads safer and curb fatalities, a global charity unveiled an India Road Assessment Programme (IndiaRAP) that will rate highways’ safety levels, and seek to eliminate the most unsafe roads.
• “Local leadership is the key to life-saving success in all of our partnerships across 80 countries worldwide. As India invests in large-scale road upgrades across the country, maximising the safety of this investment will deliver strong transport, health and economic benefits,” said Rob McInerney, chief executive officer, International Road Assessment Programme.
• Since 2010, teams from the global organisation have already undertaken star rating assessments on more than 10,000 km of roads across several states in India.
• The ratings are assigned on the basis of the level of safety which is ‘built-in’ to a road for vehicle occupants, motorcyclists, bicyclists and pedestrians. Five-star roads are the safest while one-star roads are the least safe.
• The IndiaRAP programme is being supported by FedEx Express and will be hosted by the Asian Institute of Transport Development, and will work with government agencies as well as investors, researchers and NGOs to assess existing highways and promote the use of better design to make roads safer.

::INDIA AND WORLD::

France prefers a bilateral cooperation than multilateral in Indo-Pacific

• France will like to deepen cooperation with India in the Indo-Pacific bilaterally and not as a part of a multilateral arrangement like the recently convened “quadrilateral” between India, U.S., Japan and Australia, officials said.
• “We have a growing cooperation in the Indian Ocean, where both India and France have focal positions, and we are in the process of forming a defence and security partnership in the Indo-Pacific,” announced France’s Ambassador Alexandre Ziegler, adding that this new cooperation would be discussed as part of the strategic partnership along with cooperation in counter-terrorism, defence hardware, nuclear energy, and space cooperation during the upcoming visit of Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian to India.
• However, senior diplomats clarified that France and India have a “special and specific” interest in the Indian Ocean, and would prefer to conduct their exchanges across the Indo-Pacific bilaterally.
• France is the only western country with large territory in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) including the Reunion Islands, that spans about two million square kilometres of an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), and it has a population of one million French Citizens in the region, including about 30% of Indian origin.
• The French navy maintains bases in the UAE, Djibouti as well as in Reunion, with a total of 20,000 forces permanently based in the IOR. In addition, said the official, France is India’s oldest strategic partner, and has conducted India’s first international ‘Varuna’ joint naval exercises since 1983.
• “Therefore, the idea would not be for France to join some other formation, but for others to join what India and France are already doing,” the official said in reply to a question about whether France would consider joining the quadrilateral that met in Manila on November 12.

::INTERNATIONAL::

In Zimbabwe military seize power

• Zimbabwe’s military seized power early saying it was targeting “criminals” around President Robert Mugabe, the only ruler the country has known in its 37 years of independence.
• Soldiers seized the state broadcaster. Armoured vehicles blocked roads to the main government offices, Parliament and the courts in central Harare, while taxis ferried commuters to work nearby. The atmosphere in the capital remained calm.
• The military said Mr. Mugabe and his family were safe. Mr. Mugabe himself spoke on the telephone to the President of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, and told him he was confined to his home but fine, the South African Presidency said in a statement.
• It was not clear whether the apparent military coup would bring a formal end to Mr. Mugabe’s rule; the main goal of the generals appears to be preventing Mr. Mugabe’s 52-year-old wife Grace from succeeding him.
• But whether or not he remains in office, it is likely to mark the end of the total dominance of the country by Mr. Mugabe, the last of Africa’s generation of state founders still in power.
• • Mr. Mugabe, still seen by many Africans as an anti-colonial hero, is reviled in the West as a despot whose disastrous handling of the economy and willingness to resort to violence to maintain power destroyed one of Africa’s most promising states.
• The generals believed that the move was aimed at clearing a path for Ms. Grace Mugabe to take over and announced on Monday that they were prepared to “step in” if the purges of their allies did not end.
• Whatever the final outcome, the events could signal a once-in-a-generation change for the southern African nation. Once one of the continent’s most prosperous, it was reduced to poverty by an economic crisis Mr. Mugabe’s opponents have long blamed on him.

Australians vote ‘yes’ to same-sex marriage

• Celebrations swept across Australia as voters emphatically endorsed same-sex marriage after more than a decade of divisive debate, and political leaders immediately began moves to enshrine the historic shift in law by Christmas.
• Thousands of marriage equality supporters took to parks and squares across the vast country, hugging, dancing and singing under clouds of glitter when the results of the two-month-long postal survey were announced.
• Almost 62% of the 12.7 million people who participated voted “yes” to the question: “Should the law be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry?” Just 38.4% voted “no”, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, which carried out the poll.
• Nearly 80% of eligible voters took part in the poll, with the “yes” vote winning a majority in all of Australia’s States and territories.
• Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, a moderate conservative who backed the “yes” camp, hailed the result of the non-binding vote and vowed to pass a bill legalising marriage equality “before Christmas”.
• Within hours of the vote result, Dean Smith, a Senator from Mr. Turnbull’s Liberal Party who is gay, introduced a bill that would legalise gay marriage.

The Zimbabwean Army says it is not a military coup

• The Zimbabwean Army, which put President Robert Mugabe under house arrest, said the situation will return to normalcy “as soon as we have accomplished our mission”.
• “The President... and his family are safe and sound and their security is guaranteed,” Major General SibusisoMoyo said, slowly reading out a statement on national television. “We are only targeting criminals around him who are committing crimes... As soon as we have accomplished our mission we expect that the situation will return to normalcy.”
• Gen. Moyo said: “This is not a military takeover of government.”
• But the generals’ actions posed a major challenge to the 93-year-old Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980.
• Tensions between Mr. Mugabe and the military establishment, which has long helped prop up his authoritarian rule, erupted in public over recent weeks.
• The ruling ZANU-PF party accused Army chief General Constantino Chiwenga of “treasonable conduct” after he criticised Mr. Mugabe for sacking Vice-President EmmersonMnangagwa.
• The U.S. embassy warned its citizens in the country to “shelter in place” due to “ongoing political uncertainty”.
• President Mugabe and Grace made no public comment and their exact whereabouts was not known, while government and Army spokesmen were not available to comment.
• Mr. Mugabe is the world’s oldest head of state, but his poor health has fuelled a bitter succession battle as potential replacements jockey for position. In speeches this year, Mr. Mugabe has often slurred his words, mumbled and paused for long periods.
• His lengthy rule has been marked by brutal repression of dissent, mass emigration, vote-rigging and economic collapse since land reforms in 2000.
• Speculation has been rife in Harare that Mr. Mugabe had sought to remove Army chief Chiwenga, who is seen as an ally of the ousted Mnangagwa.
• Mr. Mnangagwa, 75, was previously one of Mr. Mugabe’s most loyal lieutenants, having worked alongside him for decades.
• Earlier this year, Zimbabwe was gripped by a bizarre spat between Grace Mugabe and Mr. Mnangagwa that included an alleged ice-cream poisoning incident that laid bare the pair’s rivalry. Grace Mugabe — 41 years younger than her husband — has become increasingly active in public life in what many say was a process to help her eventually take the top job.

::BUSINESS AND ECONOMY::

Cybersecurity to get push from Centre

• To encourage development of new technologies in the field of cybersecurity, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology will offer challenge grants of up to Rs. 5 crore to start-ups to spur research and development, Minister for Electronics and IT, Ravi Shankar Prasad said.
• “We are in the process of working with Data Security Council of India to conduct challenge grant for cybersecurity…,” the Minister said, adding that India would invite cybersecurity scholars from the Asia Pacific region to do their research here. “We will offer scholars... to do Ph.D in any of the top 100 universities in India, including IITs,” he said at the Asia Pacific Computer Emergency Response Team (AP-CERT) Conference.
• Stating that India was working on a data privacy law, Mr. Prasad pointed out that the same people who had advocated RTI earlier, were now pitching for right to privacy.
• The government, he said, was also in process of setting up a centre of excellence for blockchain technology. “The technology holds immense potential and we propose to use it in various areas, including banking, entertainment, e-governance and land records.”

GST rate changes given effect

• The Centre notified the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council’s latest decisions, giving effect to the revised tax rates on goods from November 15. The government said all product prices must reflect the change.
• “A consumer shall be charged the revised reduced rates of 18% on these items with effect from the 15th November, 2017. On 178 items the GST rate has been brought down from 28% to 18%,” the government said in a release. “Accordingly, there would be a corresponding reduction in price/MRP on these goods. Consumers may take note of these reductions while making purchases.”
• The GST Council had pared the number of items in the highest tax slab of 28% to 50. It had also cut the rate on restaurants — except for those in hotels having a room tariff of Rs. 7,500 or more — to 5% and removed their eligibility to claim input tax credits.
• The Council also allowed companies having an annual turnover of less than Rs. 1.5 crore to file their July-September GSTR-1 forms by December 31, the October-December GSTR-1 forms by February 15, 2018, and the January-March GSTR-1 forms by April 30, 2018.
• Similarly, firms clocking Rs. 1.5 crore or more a year can now file their forms for July to October by December 31. Thereafter, they would have to file monthly returns, but with a delay of 40 days from the end of taxable period. That is, the returns for November would have to be filed by January 10, those for December by February 10, and so on.
• The latest notifications come “as a huge sigh of relief for businesses both in terms of compliance as well as working capital loss,” Abhishek Jain, Tax Partner, EY India, said in a statement.
• In furtherance to the Government’s earlier move of exempting businesses with up to Rs. 1.5 crore from paying GST on receipt of advances for future supply of goods, similar exemption has also been extended to all except those who have opted for composition scheme.

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