Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams 24 October 2017

::National::

No need for an Indian to “wear his patriotism on his sleeve”

• The Supreme Court’s controversial order mandating moviegoers to stand up when the national anthem is featured in cinema halls before every show found criticism from within the highest judiciary itself.

• Supreme Court judge, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, lashed out at the logic behind the November 30, 2016 order, saying there is no need for an Indian to “wear his patriotism on his sleeve.”

• “Next thing will be that people should not wear T-shirts and shorts to movies because it will amount to disrespect to the national anthem ... where do we stop this moral policing,” Justice Chandrachud observed in open court.

• Justice Chandrachud was part of a three-judge Bench led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra hearing a petition filed by the Kodungallur Film Society in Kerala to recall the November order.

• Incidentally, it was a Bench led by Justice Misra, before he became Chief Justice, which passed the order in November 2016, making it mandatory for movie halls to play the national anthem before every show. Justice Misra had reasoned that the practice would “instill a feeling of committed patriotism and nationalism.”

• Finally, the court left it to the government to bring out any notification, if necessary, to make or not make the playing of the anthem mandatory in cinema halls.

Special representative to hold talks on J&K

• In a reversal of its earlier stand, the Centre announced the appointment of former Intelligence Bureau (IB)chief Dineshwar Sharma as a “special representative” to initiate and “carry forward a dialogue” with the elected representatives, various organisations and individuals concerned in Jammu and Kashmir.

• The last time such an exercise was held was in 2010 when the UPA government appointed a group of three interlocutors to hold sustained dialogue with all sections. Soon after the BJP-led NDA came to power, on September 23, 2014 Home Minister Rajnath Singh ruled out the appointment of any interlocutor saying it was a “non-productive” practice.

• Responding to a question whether Mr. Sharma would have talks with the Hurriyat Conference, the Minister said he holds the rank of a Cabinet Secretary and would have complete independence in deciding who to hold talks with.

Sewage treatment plants norms relaxed

• The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has relaxed standards for upcoming sewage treatment plants (STP), including those to come up on extremely polluted stretches of the Ganga.

• One of the prongs of the government’s Rs. 20,000 crore push to clean the river was a 2015-proposal to have higher standards for STPs. That is, they would have to ensure that the biochemical oxygen demand (Bod) — a marker for organic pollutants — in the treated water had to be no more than 10 mg/litre. Existing laws permit BoD up to 30 mg/litre.

• However, a notification by the Union Environment Ministry this month has junked the 10 mg/litre target.

• It says that STPs coming up after June 2019 — except in major State capitals and metropolitan cities — need only conform to 30 mg/litre of BoD.

• These include proposed STPS to treat sewage in stretches of the river downstream of Haridwar, including Kanpur and Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh. New STPs in State capitals, however, have to cap BoD at 20 mg/litre.

• Plants in Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir, Andaman and Nicobar islands, Daman & Diu, Lakshwadeep and Dadra and Nagar Haveli, also don’t need to stick to higher sewage-treatment criteria.

• A senior CPCB official said that the 10 mg criteria was impractical and required advanced technology that was too costly for most States.

Paika Rebellion to be named as 1st War of Independence

• The ‘PaikaBidroha’ (Paika rebellion) of 1817 will find a place in the history books as ‘the First War of Independence’ from the next academic session, HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar said.

• Mr. Javadekar had first made the announcement at a function to mark the bicentenary of the Paika rebellion, and added that the Centre has allocated Rs. 200 crore for commemorating it across the country.

• “PaikaBidroha will find a place as the First War of Independence against the British Rule in the history books. The students should learn factual history of 1817,” he said at a press conference.

• Paikas were peasant militia under the Gajapati rulers of Odisha who rendered military service to the king during times of war. They rebelled against the British rule under the leadership of Bakshi Jagabandhu Bidyadhara as early as 1817.

• Earlier, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had, in a letter to the Centre, urged that it should recognise ‘PaikaBidroha’ as the First War of Independence against the British rule as it took place four decades before the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny, which has so far been regarded as the First War of Indian Independence.

Rajasthan govt controversial bill backed by Law Minister

• Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the controversial Bill tabled by the Vasundhara Raje government to protect public servants from investigation without prior sanction from the government was meant to prevent “motivated complaints.”

• At a press briefing, Mr. Prasad said that it was a move to protect public servants from complaints by vested interests. “As per a survey done by the State government, 73% of the complaints against public servants turned out to be without any basis,” he said.

• Minister of State for Law P.P. Choudhary, openly defended the Bill. “This law is perfect and balanced. This considers both media and individual rights. This law is much needed at this point of time,” he said.

• These votes of confidence were not shared by the Editors Guild of India that released a statement on Sunday asking that the Rajasthan government take back the ordinance.

• The Bill seeks to protect serving and former judges, magistrates and public servants in the State from being investigated for on-duty action, without its prior sanction. It also bars the media from reporting on such accusations till the sanction to proceed with the probe is given by the government.

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::INDIA AND WORLD::

INDIA-BANGLADESH

• India will resolve all irritants in ties with Bangladesh with sincerity, External Affairs Minister SushmaSwaraj said as she inaugurated 15 Indian-assisted development projects worth about $8.7 million.

• On the second and concluding day of her visit, Ms. Swaraj lit the ceremonial lamp to mark the opening of the sprawling chancery complex of the Indian High Commission here.

• During the ceremony, she also launched 15 development projects being funded by India. “India is following a policy of neighbours first, and among the neighbours Bangladesh is foremost,” Ms. Swaraj said at the function, describing bilateral relations as having gone beyond a strategic partnership.

• She also referred to the peaceful solution of the land and maritime boundary issues. She said the relations between the neighbours were now outstanding, and that both countries were working to resolve irritants in the spirit of “friendly relations and with the right intention”. She did not specify the nature of the issues, but the water sharing of common rivers, particularly the Teesta, had long been pending.

• The development projects, worth about $8.7 million, include installation of 11 water treatment plants in the southwestern coastline of Pirozpur, 36 community clinics and reconstruction of Dhaka’s historic Ramna Kali Temple destroyed by invading Pakistani troops in the 1971 liberation war.

• Bangladesh’s Foreign Minister A.H. Mahmood Ali, Health Minister MohamadNasim and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s political affairs adviser H.T. Imam were among those present.

• Ms. Swaraj also gifted books, computers, multimedia equipment to the Hindi and Sanskrit departments of the University of Dhaka, Chittagong and Rajshahi.

::INTERNATIONAL::

Trump to discuss on ‘predatory trade’ , investment practices of China

• U.S. President Donald Trump will take up the issue of “predatory” trade and investment practices of China when he meets the country’s leaders including President Xi Jinping during a three-day visit to Beijing.

• Mr. Trump will travel to to Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines from Nov. 3 to 14 in his first trip to Indo-Pacific, a term that official consistently used on Monday.

• The President is also scheduled to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in the Philippines. A meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin is also being considered, the official said.

• “The visit will send a clear signal that for bilateral economic relations to be sustainable, China must provide fair and reciprocal treatment to U.S. companies and must desist from predatory trade and investment practices,” the official said.

• Asked to explain what he meant by “predatory”, the official cited some instances: “the forced technology transfer; the fact that American companies have had an enormous amount of their intellectual property stolen, sometimes through cyber-enabled means... the complete lack or reciprocity in investment permissions for services companies… Right now, to my knowledge, there’s not a single American web company that has succeeded in China...”

::SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY::

Planet formation through dense rings of comets

• Scientists using NASA telescopes have spotted narrow dense rings of comets coming together to form massive planets on the outskirts of at least three distant solar systems.

• Estimating the mass of these rings from the amount of light they reflect shows that each of these developing planets is at least the size of a few Earths, according to Carey Lisse, a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory.

• Over the past few decades, using powerful NASA observatories such as the Infrared Telescope Facility in Hawaii and the Spitzer Space Telescope, scientists have found a number of young debris disk systems with thin but bright outer rings composed of comet-like bodies at 75 to 200 astronomical units from their parent stars — about two to seven times the distance of Pluto from the sun.

• The scientists are especially intrigued by the red dust ring surrounding the star system called HR 4796A, which shows unusually tight form for an infant solar system.

• “The only apparent solution to these issues is that multiple mini-planets are coalescing in these rings,” Mr. Lisse said.

• The researchers did not see red ring dust in the star systems called Fomalhaut or HD 32297, but instead observed comet dust containing ices — because these systems’ rings are far enough out that their comets are cold and mostly stable.

World’s first 3D-printed bridge in Netherlands opens to cyclists

• We now have a 3D-printed bridge too. Touted as the world’s first, it is meant for cyclists, and was opened in the Dutch town of Gemert.

• 3D printing is a method of manufacturing an object using a computer by placing layers of material one over the other.

• The 8-metre bridge, which has around 800 layers, is made of reinforced, pre-fabricated concrete, and it took about three months to make it. It connects two roads across a water-filled ditch.

• “One of the advantages of printing a bridge is that much less concrete is needed than in the conventional technique in which a mould is filled. A printer deposits the concrete only where it is needed,” Eindhoven University of Technology said.

::ECONOMY AND BUSINESS::

Tourism Ministry proposes reduction in GST for 5-star hotels

• The tourism ministry has proposed a reduction in the Goods and Services Tax (GST) rates for five-star hotels and the grant of ‘infrastructure status’ as part of measures to boost the vital jobs- and foreign exchange generating sector.

• Providing land on lower lease rentals for hotel construction, cutting the number of permits needed to open hotels, as well as establishing a National Tourism Regulator and the related regulatory framework are some of the other proposals made by the ministry on Monday.

• The aim is to ensure that within five years the sector generates 100 million jobs (from the current 43 million), attracts 40 million tourists (from 14.4 million now), and generates $100 billion worth of foreign exchange earnings (from about $24 billion at present).

• The ministry has also set up four Joint Working Groups (JWGs) — one each on hospitality sector, start-ups, ‘MICE’ or ‘Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Events’-tourism, and niche tourism — to work on recommendations from the industry, and bring out an ‘Action Plan’ with specific targets and time lines to achieve them.

• The JWGs would each have a representative from the tourism ministry, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, industry, and the government’s investment facilitation and promotion wing ‘Invest India’.

• The JWGs would submit their suggestions within a month, with the Centre placing the recommendations in the public domain and also sharing regular Action Taken Reports.

• According to the tourism industry, the 28% GST rate renders India uncompetitive, with foreign tourists opting to travel instead to neighbouring countries such as Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore where the tax rate on hotels was only 7% or lower.

• On the proposed national tourism regulator, the minister said it is to bring out and implement a regulatory framework for the sector, including for home-stays and online portals.

• ‘Infrastructure status’ to the hotel sector would also help spur an increase in the construction of budget hotels, the minister said. He said currently, the infrastructure status was only available for projects above Rs. 200 crore, adding that it should be extended to projects above Rs. 50 crore.

• Pointing out that currently, the industry needs to obtain more than 70 permits to open a hotel, the minister said the number of permits should be reduced drastically from such “outrageous” levels. The minister said the approach being used by the Madhya Pradesh government, especially on making it easier for the industry to get land and infrastructure, would be passed on to other state governments as a model that they could consider adopting.

• Additionally, the Centre would also work with the industry to soon bring out a massive skill development programme aimed at the tourism industry, in a manner that would help those being trained to secure jobs, Mr. Kannanthanam said.

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