Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams 17 October 2017

::National::

Seeking OROP for retired judges

• A former Madras High Court judge has approached the Supreme Court for implementation of the ‘One Rank, One Pension’ norm for retired High Court judges, saying there is disparity in the pension paid to those appointed from the Bar and those promoted from the subordinate judiciary.

• Retired Madras High Court judge, Justice M. Vijayaraghavan, has sought a direction from the Court to the Centre to evolve a formula “to obviate the disparities in the pension payable to judges drawn from subordinate judiciary and the judges drawn from the Bar in tune with ‘One Rank, One Pension’ norms laid down by the Supreme Court in the 2014 judgment in Ramakrishnam Raju’s case.”

• The petition quotes the 2014 judgment, observing that “when persons holding constitutional office retire from service, making discrimination in the fixation of the pensions depending upon the source from which they were appointed is in breach of Article 14 and 16(1) of the Constitution of India. One Rank, One Pension must be the norm in respect of a constitutional office.”

• In fact, this 2014 judgment was based on complaints from retired judges that pension for those appointed directly from the Bar was less than that of counterparts promoted from the subordinate judiciary.

• The 2014 judgment had led to the High Court and the Supreme Court Judges (Salaries and Conditions of Service) Amendment Act, 2016. This law amended provisions in the High Court Judges Act of 1954 and the Supreme Court Judges Act of 1958.

• However, the petition, filed through advocate B. Balaji, contends that the amended law “highly discriminates” between high court judges drawn from the subordinate judiciary and judges drawn from the Bar in many respects relating to retirement pension.

Taj Mahal removal from tourism brochure backed by BJP MLA

• Weeks after the controversy over the Uttar Pradesh government dropping the Taj Mahal from its tourism brochure, Sangeet Som, BJP MLA and an accused in Muzaffarnagar riots of 2013, said the monument was a “blot on Indian culture”.

• Justifying the State government’s move to exclude the Taj Mahal from its list of tourism sites, Mr. Som said it was built by “tyrants” who worked to destroy the Hindus of Uttar Pradesh and the country. He said blots like Mughal emperors would be removed from the pages of Indian history.

• “Many people were sad the Taj Mahal was removed from the tourism booklet of the State government. What history are we talking about? The history that the builder of the Taj Mahal had imprisoned his father? [In fact, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, who built the Taj Mahal in memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal, was the one imprisoned till the end of his days by his son Aurangzeb] The history that the builder of the monument eliminated Hindus from U.P. and from India? It is quite sad and unfortunate that such tyrants are still part of our history,” Mr. Som, MLA from Sardhana said, addressing a gathering in Meerut after inaugurating the statue of an eighth century king, Anangpal Singh Tomar.

• Mr. Som also said the BJP governments at the Centre and in Uttar Pradesh were working to change history.

• “I can tell you with complete guarantee that history will be changed. History which was misrepresented and distorted is being corrected now. The State government and the Central government are working to fix the history and include Lord Ram, Maharana Pratap and Shivaji in the history books. The governments at the State and Centre are working to remove stories of the blot that Babur, Akbar and Aurangzeb stand for,” he said
  West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee criticised Mr. Som for questioning the Taj Mahal’s place in India’s heritage, and said the day was not far when the BJP would try to change the country’s name. She alleged that the party was making “divisive statements” with a “political agenda”.

Ban on stubble burning farmers appoint farm rakshaks in Punjab

• With the harvesting of paddy — the key kharif season crop — on in full swing in Punjab and the stand-off over stubble burning unresolved, farmers here are preparing to take on the state machinery. They have formed groups in villages to confront officials and prevent them from taking any action against those who burn the crop residue.

• The farmers are unwilling to shun the practice unless the State government comes up with some financial incentive to offset their cost of disposal.

• The Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) has been imposing penalties on farmers found involved in burning of crop residue, following the National Green Tribunal order banning stubble burning.

• Mr. Korjiwala said farmers in most of the villages have decided to defy the ban on stubble burning and will not allow government officials to enter villages while farmers burn the crop residue.

• Admitting that there have been cases of farmers confronting teams of officials during stubble burning incidents, senior PPCB official G.S. Gill said that so far Punjab has recorded as many as 295 cases of stubble burning in the ongoing harvesting season.

• Meanwhile, the Punjab government on Monday said it will unveil a comprehensive agricultural policy for the State in the next Assembly session. The announcement was made during a high-level meeting convened by Chief Minister Amarinder Singh with various farmer unions and their representatives in Chandigarh, said an official spokesperson.

• During the meeting, the Chief Minister pointed out that his government has ruled out penalising farmers over stubble burning and that the State government was exploring alternatives and following up with the Centre for award of compensation for paddy residue management.

Remote sensing to boost Horticulture

• Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh announced March 2018 as the deadline to complete the ambitious project of developing the horticulture sector using remote sensing technology and geo-informatics.

• India is the second-largest producer of fruits and vegetables in the world and the biggest producer of fruits such as banana, mango, papaya and lemon among others. But the country still has some distance to cover in terms of exports as post-harvest wastage of produce in India is high.

• In 2015, the Modi government started project CHAMAN — acronym for Coordinated Horticulture Assessment and Management using geo-informatics — to prepare a comprehensive horticultural plan.

• Using remote sensing technology to study soil conditions, land use, weather and cropping patter, the Centre has chosen 185 districts across the country where seven selected crops are being promoted.

• Once complete, the findings of the project would be shared with all states to give to boost to cultivation of horticultural crops.

• Different states have been divided into different groups to grow banana, mango, citrus fruits, potato, tomato, onion and chilli.

• This sector provides nutrient rich crops to the people and better remunerative prices to the farmers and increases their incomes.

• Under CHAMAN, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Gujarat and Maharashtra have been identified as the major banana-growing states. Mango cultivation is being promoted in Andhra, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Telangana, while onion is the focus for Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh.

India moves into elite group through its stealth ship

• The country is rapidly marching towards indigenisation and the commissioning of the third Kamorta class Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) stealth corvette is a classic example of that, said Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

• INS Kiltan , the third of the four Project-28 Kamorta class ASW was commissioned

• This ship is unique, as about 81% is built indigenously and is the first built by India that has a superstructure made up of carbon fibre composite material. This makes it a stealth corvette and makes India one among the few nations that have this technology or this class of ships.

• The keel was laid in 2010 under the Project-28 scheme and was built by Garden Reach Ship Builders and Engineers (GRSE), Kolkata.

• Ms. Sitharaman said the Indian Navy was moving from the status of a ‘buyer’s navy to builder’s navy.’

• Chairman and Managing Director of GRSE V.K. Saxena said the partnership between GRSE and the Indian Navy began in 1961 and so far it had built over 100 ships for the Navy and the Indian Coast Guard. “In the next few years, we will be delivering about 10 ships to the Navy with state-of-the-art technology,” he said.

• INS Kiltan has been constructed using high grade steel (DMR 249A) produced by the state-owned Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL). It has a displacement of 3500 tonnes, spans 109 meters in length and 14 meters at the beam and is propelled by four diesel engines to achieve speeds in excess of 25 knots with an endurance of 3450 nautical miles.

• The carbon composite material gives it an extra stealth edge and also lowers the top weight and maintenance cost.

• The installed propulsion and auxiliary systems provides very low radiated underwater noise feature, required for anti-submarine warfare.

• The enhanced stealth features include ‘X’ form of Hull, full beam superstructure, inclined ship sides and use of Infra Red Signature Suppression (IRSS).

First ever Cherry Blossom Festival in India

• Cherry blossom admirers have a reason to cheer as a festival is lined up next month in Shillong.

• Meghalaya Chief Minister Mukul M. Sangma invited people to visit the northeastern city during the festival from November 8-11.

Digital technology pushing the boundaries of Akshaya Patra

• One of the largest mid-day meal programmes, Akshaya Patra, is adopting digital technology to increase productivity, scalability and cost-efficiency.

• Cisco will help in this effort, and the upgraded network will link their offices in Bengaluru, Gurgaon, and field kitchens across 7 locations (two kitchens in Bengaluru, one each in Lucknow, Vrindavan, Bellary, Guwahati, and Jigani).

• This is expected to help them efficiently track kitchen production, distribution, supply chain and logistics. The Akshaya Patra programme serves wholesome food to over 1.66 million children from 13,958 schools across 12 states in India.

• The move will help Akshaya Patra Foundation to analyse and operationalise disparate sets of data in near real-time, and thereby boost operational efficiency by about 5% in the initial phase.

::INDIA AND WORLD::

A new beginning through Italy PM’s visit

• Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni will travel to India to meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 30, in a visit described as a “breakthrough” that will effectively put to rest more than five years of tensions over the Italian Marines case, sources have confirmed to The Hindu .

• The visit, the first by any Prime Minister on either side since 2007, was discussed during the meeting between Mr. Modi and Mr. Gentiloni on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Hamburg in July this year, officials familiar with the decision said.

• “The visit of Prime Minister Gentiloni now is a breakthrough, which will consolidate the progress in ties we have witnessed since Ms. Swaraj’s visit,” former Ambassador to Italy Anil Wadhwa.

• Diplomatic ties between India and Italy virtually came to a standstill over the m.v. Enrica Lexie case, the ship on which two Italian marines were on guard duty in February 2012, when two Indian fishermen were shot and killed off the coast of Kerala.

• The marines, Latorre Massimiliano and Salvatore Girone, were suspected of shooting the fishermen, and taken into custody, although Italy claimed the ship was in international waters and hence only subject to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS).

• As the case moved to the Supreme Court, India refused to hand over the Italian marines, except giving them furlough to travel to Italy on a few occasions, which became a major campaign issue in Italy.

• Finally, in September 2014, the government let Mr. Latorre return home after the Supreme Court issued an order on health grounds, while Mr. Girone was allowed to go in May 2016. Both are now in Italy, pending the order from the arbitration court at The Hague, where the trial against them will be held.

• The decision to release the marines in 2016 bore fruit as India and Italy re-engaged, officials said. Italy reversed its decision to block India from the Missile Technology Control Regime , and the European Union and India also re-engaged.

::SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY::

Confirmation of neutron star merger

• The announcement of the neutron star merger, detected on August 17 by the LIGO-VIRGO collaboration of gravitational wave detectors, has been reinforced by the observation of short gamma ray (light waves) bursts almost simultaneously by other space and earth-based observatories.

• “This discovery is so fundamental that it is definitely a strong candidate for another Nobel prize,” K.G. Arun, who was part of the team that studied the astrophysical implications of the joint detection, said in a press release from the Indian Institute of Technology- Madras.

• Dr. Arun is one of nearly 40 members of the LIGO-VIRGO scientific collaboration who have contributed to the source modelling, developing the algorithms that search for binary mergers amid noisy data from many detectors, testing Einstein’s theory and separating signals from experimental and environmental artefacts.

• The second part of the discovery — the observation of Gamma ray bursts by several telescopes — includes the observations by the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT), the Himalayan Chandra Telescope (HCT) and AstroSat.

• The sensitive CZTI instrument on AstroSat helped narrow down the location of the gamma-ray flashes. The HCT obtained optical images at locations of neutrinos detected by other telescopes at the same time as the burst, and showed that they were unrelated to the gravitational-wave trigger.

• The GMRT played a key role in understanding jet physics and refining models of radio emission from the remnant formed by the merging neutron stars.

• P. Ajith of ICTS-TIFR, Bengaluru, one of the leading scientists in the LIGO-VIRGO collaboration, on the importance of the discovery, said: “Neutron-star mergers are incredibly rich and complex phenomena. Virtually every area of physics and astrophysics can learn something from this unique laboratory set up by nature!”

French-made radars on Tejas

• Thales, a French multinational that makes aerospace and defence equipment, has flight-tested an active array radar built specifically for Tejas, the indigenously built light combat aircraft.

• The radar is based on the company’s successful RBE2 radar installed on Rafale fighter jets, 36 of which India is buying from Dassault. It meets the specific requirements of the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. to equip the 80 Tejas-Mk1A aircraft under development.

• The tests were conducted during summer this year at the Cazaux air base in France, on a test-bench aircraft, focussed on metrological analyses of the radar performance, Thales said.

• These test flights proved that the radar is fully operational and perfectly corresponds to the specific requirements of the HAL for its combat and air-superiority missions. It is therefore ready and able to adapt to the tight schedule imposed by the Mk1A LCA.

• A Tejas Mk-1A variant with specific improvements is under development and HAL had earlier this year floated a tender for Advanced Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar and Self-Protection Jammer.

• The Defence Ministry has already approved 83 Mk1A for the Air Force, in addition to the 40 basic variants.

::BUSINESS AND ECONOMY::

Inflation slows

• Inflation at the wholesale level cooled to 2.6% in September due in large part to a slowdown in the increase in food prices, according to official data released on Monday.

• Growth in the Wholesale Price Index slowed in September from 3.24% in August. Inflation in the primary articles category slowed to 0.15% in September from 2.66% in August.

• Within this, inflation in the food articles segment slowed drastically to 2.04% from 5.75% over the same period. Inflation in the overall food group, which combines the food category in the primary articles segment and the manufactured food category as well, slowed to 1.99% in September from 4.41% in August.

• The correction in vegetable prices was the chief driver of the decline in primary food inflation to 2.0% from 5.8%.

• A favourable base effect aided the moderation in inflation for fuel and power, despite the recent rise in prices of petrol, diesel, ATF and other fuels.

• Inflation in the fuel and power segment slowed to 9.01% in September from 9.99% in August.

• The crude oil and natural gas segment in the primary articles category saw prices contracting 11.5% in September and August, compared with a contraction of 10.8% in July.

• Citing this, the rating agency said inflation for September 2017 could subsequently be revised higher. Inflation in manufacturing accelerated to 2.72% in September from 2.45% in the month of August.

NITI Aayog bats for fiscal stimulus

• NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar has pitched for fiscal stimulus to boost growth, with a rider that additional expenditure should be used only for increasing productivity and capital expenditure.

• Faced with slowing economic growth, the industry has been clamouring for a stimulus package from the government. “I do see a case for stimulus,” Mr. Kumar told PTI in an interview.

• Mr. Jaitley’s remarks followed increased speculation over a possible fiscal stimulus that can go above Rs 40,000 crore after six successive quarters of dip in the economic growth, which slid to 3—year low of 5.7 per cent in the April—June quarter.

• The finance ministry has pegged the fiscal deficit target for 2017-18 at 3.2% of the GDP and at 3% for the following year. Any fiscal stimulus to boost sagging growth would push up fiscal deficit.

• Various experts have argued against fiscal stimulus as it would jeopardise the fiscal consolidation programme.

• On apprehensions about the stimulus, Mr. Kumar said: “It depends on how you increase government spending. If you... throw money away and give doles then, yes, of course it will give [the] wrong signal. But if you are doing that by increasing productivity and capital investment by making, for example, more roads, more airports, more railways, nobody can argue that this will give a bad signal.”

• Mr. Kumar further noted that the only issue, then, was whether stimulus could be productively absorbed. Stimulus money should be used on increasing investment, increasing demand and improving physical and rural infrastructure.

• The newly constituted Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister wants the government to stick to its fiscal consolidation road map and has suggested that stimulus to the industry should not be at the cost of fiscal prudence.

• The RBI had cautioned the Centre against a stimulus package to revive sagging growth, arguing that breaching the fiscal deficit target will fire up inflation and hurt long-term macroeconomic stability.

• As at August end, the government has already run up 96.1% of its fiscal deficit targets for the year 2017—18 as it has advanced spending on core infra sectors like roads, ports and railways.

India attracted $10 bn investment in food processing

• India has attracted investment commitments of about $10 billion in the food processing sector ahead of the mega ‘World Food’ event to be held in November in New Delhi, Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal said.

• More investment is likely to be committed by the end of the event, said the Minister of Food Processing. The event will see participation of 30 countries and more than 50 global CEOs along with CEOs of leading domestic food processing firms and 27 States, she added.

• “We had kept a target of $10 billion investment. I am happy to share we have already achieved the target. More investment is likely to flow as we still have 2-3 weeks for the event,” Ms. Badal said at the curtain raiser of the three-day event set to begin from November 3. She declined to share the names of the companies which have committed to make the investments.

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