Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams - 23 February 2018

::NATIONAL::

BioAsia 2018 focused on Life Sciences sector

BioAsia 2018, a part of the prestigious, annual series focused on life sciences sector, got under way.
The Telangana government reaffirming its commitment to growth of the sector with multiple initiatives, including expansion of Genome Valley, setting up an incubator focused on vaccine development and activating an infrastructure fund.
With 800 companies, the life sciences ecosystem is valued at $50 billion in the State.
“Our aim is to double the figure to $100 billion in the next 10 years,” Industries and IT Minister K.T.Rama Rao said, inaugurating the 3-day event.
Sharing the State's vision, he said the goal is to leverage “our existing strength in Life science sector and make it an economic growth engine to create 4 lakh jobs,” with most of them in manufacturing,” he declared.
A new Life Sciences policy, with the framework encouraging established companies to partner with incubatees and help create an innovation exchange, is also on the anvil.
On the Genome Valley Cluster, located on city outskirts and among the largest such in Asia, he said the government would strengthen its dominant position.
It would immediately initiate formulation of an integrated master plan for the cluster's expansion, “marking the beginning of Genome Valley 2.0.”
Noting that the State produced about 33% of global vaccines dosages, he said the government is also committed to see at least one new vaccine being launched from companies in the State every year.
To support this, “we are contemplating various initiatives and support infrastructure, including a first of its kind incubator focused on vaccine development in Genome Valley.”
Significant progress, he added, had been made on the Life Sciences Infrastructure Fund.
The State government was keen to establish an institute focused on emerging areas like Immunotherapy, personalised medicine and nanomedicine.

SC on adult marriages

Courts cannot annul marriages between two consenting adults or resort to a “roving enquiry” on whether the married relationship between a man and a woman is based on consent, the Supreme Court said.
A Bench, led by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, defined the limits of the court’s jurisdiction in the Hadiya case.
Ms. Hadiya, a 26-year-old homoeopathy student, had converted to Islam and then married a Muslim.
“Can a court say a marriage is not genuine or whether the relationship is not genuine? Can a court say she [Hadiya] did not marry the right person? She came to us and told us that she married of her own accord,” Justice D.Y. Chandrachud observed.
The Kerala High Court had annulled Ms. Hadiya’s marriage to Shafin Jahan.
Her father, Asokan K.M., alleged that she had been indoctrinated by a “well-oiled network,” involved in recruiting Indian citizens and trafficking them abroad to strife-prone countries like Syria to work as “sex slaves”.
“She said on the telephone to her father that she wants to go to Syria to rear sheep. There may be fathers who receive such news with calm and fortitude, but this father was alarmed,” senior advocate Shyam Divan, for Asokan, addressed the Bench. Mr. Divan said Hadiya was a victim of an “enormous trafficking exercise”.
Justice D.Y. Chandrachud countered that if there was trafficking of citizens involved, the govt. had the power to stop it on the basis of credible information.
If citizens were travelling abroad to be part of a manifest illegality, then too, the government had the authority to stop them.
“But in personal law, we cannot annul marriages because she did not marry the right person,” he asked Mr. Divan.

UIDAI says Biometrics in state hubs destroyed

A statement was made in the Supreme Court on the instructions of the UIDAI chief that all biometrics stored in State Resident Data Hubs have been “destroyed”.
Appearing before a Constitution Bench, led by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi made the statement on behalf of the UIDAI’s top officer, who was present in the courtroom.
Mr. Dwivedi submitted that biometrics were now stored in the Aadhaar central database or the Central ID Repository.
Mr. Dwivedi said the Aadhaar Act of 2016 does not allow biometrics to be stored with State-level authorities. This is a precaution to prevent leakages, he said.
Meanwhile, petitioners challenging the Aadhaar Act sought an extension of the deadline for Aadhaar linkage from March 31.
Senior advocate Gopal Subramanium and Shyam Divan said appropriate interim orders to extend the deadline, considering the fact that the Supreme Court is still hearing the question of Aadhaar validity, should be passed in order to avoid a “last-minute scramble”.

Canadian PM on bilateral trade

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said while the focus of his country's relations with India has shifted from aid in the 1950s to trade today.
It was important to ensure that greater bilateral trade and investment benefits all, especially the poor.
Speaking at the India Canada Business Session organised by the industry body CII along with the Canada-India Business Council and the Indo-Canadian Business Chamber, Mr. Trudeau pointed out that so far “too many people” have not been beneficiaries of trade and investment.
He emphasised that “economic growth must benefit all...trade and investment must benefit the poor.”
Terming democracy and diversity as common factors for India and Canada, he said, “If you want to progress as a community, you should not just tolerate diversity but champion it.”
“Diversity, including of religion and gender, enriches us, make our communities stronger and more resilient,” he said, adding that diversity opens societies to new ways of thinking and spurs innovation.
In this regard, the Prime Minister cited Toronto in Canada and Bengaluru in India as examples of multi-cultural cities that are also hi-tech hubs.
He said Canada and India need to capitalise on people-to-people ties, and leverage business and knowledge networks.
This week alone saw business deals of over $1billion between companies of both nations that will in turn create many good jobs, he said.
To improve business ties, he also referred to the benefits of Canada’s ‘startup visa program’ to start businesses in Canada, and its ‘global skills strategy’ to help firms recruit and bring talent to Canada at short notice.

PNB Scam

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) seized property worth around Rs. 100 crore belonging to Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi in connection with the alleged Letter of Undertaking fraud unearthed in the Punjab National Bank earlier this month.
The ED had on February 14 registered an offence against diamond trader Mr. Modi, his wife Ami, brother Nishal and uncle Mr. Choksi, along with two officials of the PNB.
This happened after the CBI booked them for issuing fraudulent LoUs worth Rs. 280 crore.
The value of the fraud, subsequent investigations revealed rose to Rs. 11,500 crore.
The ED seized nine cars belonging to the Nirav Modi group, along with shares and mutual funds owned by Mr. Modi and Mr .Choksi even as the CBI continued to question PNB officials in Mumbai and Delhi.
The ED has so far seized assets worth Rs. 5,716 crore from scores of properties owned by Mr. Modi and Mr. Choksi’s firms.
It has also started the process of tracing the trail of money involved in the case.
Investigating officers said inquiries have indicated that Mr. Modi and Mr. Choksi availed of LoUs from multiple banks to pay off previous liabilities.
Income-Tax Department officials said property worth Rs. 1,200 crore of the Gitanjali Group located in Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Hyderabad has been attached in a fresh action.

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::INTERNATIONAL::

Maldives: Distorted facts by India

India’s public statements regarding the suspension of democracy in the Maldives have ignored facts and ground realities, the government of President Abdulla Yameen said.
The statement, which came a day after India’s sharp comments against the extension of emergency rule in the country, urged cooperation from the international community.
“..the public statements issued by the Government of India.. ignore the facts and ground realities with regard to the ongoing political developments in the Maldives. The assertion by India that the extension of the state of Emergency by the People’s Majlis was unconstitutional is a clear distortion of facts which ignore the Constitution and Laws of the Maldives,” stated a press release from Male.
The Government of Maldives said the declaration of Emergency was backed by Article 253 of the Constitution, which empowers the President of the nation to protect national security with suspension of democracy.
“The Supreme Court had cleared the validity of the Emergency in its ruling on 21 February, 2018,” said the statement.
The exchange comes days after former President Mohammed Nasheed called upon India to intervene to restore democracy.

::ECONOMY::

DoT strategic plan

The government unveiled a ‘strategic plan’ to enable seven state-owned companies under the Department of Telecom (DoT) to work closely with an aim of promoting greater operational synergy among them.
It includes pooling in of resources and effective utilisation of human resources as well as land and buildings.
The action plan covers MTNL, BSNL, Indian Telephone Industries (ITI), Centre for Development of Telematics (CDOT), Telecommunications Consultants India Ltd. (TCIL), Testing and Certification of Telecom Equipments (TEC) and BharatNet (BBNL).
“Under the plan, we have identified specific areas where our teams will work on including manpower, settlement of legal issues and utilisation of vacant space,” Telecom Minster Manoj Sinha said.
He, however, added there were no plans to merge BSNL and MTNL for now.
Work for the strategic plan began in January 2016 when a core committee of senior officers was formed to look into “the whole issue of synergy in totality and prepare a comprehensive plan covering various issues affecting the functioning of different organisations.”
The strategic plan, finalised after several discussions between all stakeholders, entails effective utilisation of human resources, optimum use of vacant space and promoting ‘Make in India’, among other things.
Some units have excess manpower whereas others face a shortage, the minister explained.
Under the plan, the Centre intended to train and redeploy manpower, he said.
Also, telecom PSUs will refrain from going to court against one another and, instead, first approach DoT for resolution of disputes.
The strategic roadmap will also cover other areas such as standards and certification, and preparing to tap opportunities in areas like 5G and Internet of Things.

Payment Bank norm will delay Jio Bank

Reliance Jio, which was planning to unveil a payments bank, would have to wait following a new diktat by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
It said the know your customer (KYC) process would have to be done by third party entities and not by telecommunication firms.
“Telecom companies, being not included in the ‘reporting entities’ in terms of the PML (Prevention of Money Laundering) Act, are not subject to requirements of the said Act,” the RBI said in a letter to the chief executive officers of payments banks
“Therefore, reliance on KYC done by telecom companies is not permissible,” it said in the letter, a copy of which was made available.
According to RBI’s operating guidelines, payments banks have to complete KYC verification independently through third parties.
The move would also impact Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Vodafone payments banks as well.
Reliance Jio, which was planning to unveil a payments bank in association with India’s largest lender, State Bank of India (SBI), was banking on the e-kyc done using Aadhar for enrolling Jio customers for the new entity.
“We want to ensure that everything is in place before we launch our payments bank,” a senior Reliance Jio official said during the announcement of results.
Reliance Jio has more than 160 million customers as on December 31, 2017.
A mail sent to Reliance Jio seeking response remained unanswered till the time of going to print. Bharti Airtel unveiled its payments bank in November 2016.
It has more than 25 million customers out of its 280 million subscribers. When asked for comments, Bharti Airtel Payments Bank spokesperson told The Hindu , “whatever the changes in guidelines are, we will fully comply.
Meanwhile, Jio Money said it would suspend all personal and bank transfers for its customers from wallet from 27 February.
As per RBI guidelines, personal and bank transfers from wallet will be suspended from 27.02.2018.
To address the inconvenience, a one-time bank transfer without any charges is permitted till 26.02.2018.
Reliance Jio is in process of seeking its customers’ consent to move them from Jio Money to the proposed Jio Payments Bank in existing capacity, it said.