Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams

28 June 2016

:: National ::

India joined the Missile Technology Control Regime

• In a boost to its non-proliferation credentials, India joined the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).

• The Ministry of External Affairs said India’s MTCR membership would help in “furtherance of international non-proliferation objectives,”.

• MTCR chair at The Hague said India would enjoy “full participation in organisational activities, including the October 2016 plenary of the regime in South Korea.”

• India had intensified efforts at gaining membership of the MTCR, the NSG, the Australia Group and Wassenaar Arrangement since getting a waiver at the NSG in 2008.

• Membership of these groups would help India trade more effectively in critical high tech areas.

NITI Aayog is working on a strategy for a tracking system for health parameters

• The NITI Aayog is working on a strategy to put in place a tracking system for monitoring health parameters of target beneficiaries under the National Nutrition Mission on a real-time basis.

• The tracking system is likely to be Aadhaar-linked, NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant told reporters after a meeting with States and Chairman, Tata Trusts, Ratan Tata, on the Mission.

• There are multiple programmes under various ministries aimed at addressing the multitude of the related issues of gender discrimination, infections, diseases, food fortification, education opportunities, sanitation etc, all of which affect stunting and under-nutrition in children below the age of five.

• The Centre’s effort has been to converge the schemes and now the Prime Minister wants that at the district, block and, if possible, at the village level, the healthcare parameters of target beneficiaries.

• The Centre was also working out policy measures and a strategy to converge the various schemes that impacted malnutrition.

• The outcomes at the grass root levels that should be monitored in the Ministry of Women and Child Welfare would also be finalised.

• NITI Aayog Member Bibek Debroy said the challenge was and the target should be to identify individual households or individuals for the purpose of monitoring the outcomes.

U.S. wants progress in investment pact talks with India

• The new model text on the basis of which India is negotiating its Bilateral Investment Treaties (BIT) is making it difficult for America to hold bilateral talks on the proposed India-U.S. BIT.

• This is mainly because India’s model BIT text “substantially narrows the scope of investments” that can be covered by the proposed India-U.S. BIT, he said.

• The model text, he said, also “requires that disputes be exhausted in local Indian jurisdictions before alternative investor-state dispute mechanisms can be initiated.”

• The objective of BITs is protection of the interests of investors but in the process these pacts aim to balance the obligations of the respective governments and the rights of investors.

• Investors from developed countries including the U.S. have been citing ‘judicial delays’ in India to demand that they be granted the flexibility in the BITs to take disputes to international arbitration tribunals without waiting to exhaust remedies available in India.

• The sources said these investors have also demanded that the BITs should ensure protection of even the investment commitments they make on the basis of existing policies in India.

• India had become very cautious about the Investor-State Dispute Settlement mechanism in its BITs following instances of governments being dragged by investors to international courts on the basis of the existing treaties.

• Foreign investors — seeking such international arbitration — usually claim huge compensation for “losses” they “suffered” owing to reasons including government policy changes.

• The first round negotiations on the India-U.S. BIT was held in August 2009. However, the negotiations were initially delayed as India and the U.S. had undertaken a review of their respective model BIT texts.

:: International ::

After Brexit domestic turmoil is new challenge for Britain

• British leaders battled to calm markets and the country after its shock vote to leave the EU, while insisting London would be not rushed into a quick divorce.

• Despite governments soothing words, shares in banks, airlines and property companies plunged on the London stock exchange as investors singled out those three sectors as the most vulnerable.

• The reassurance halted the fall of sterling, which collapsed by 10 per cent on the day of results, but only temporarily as it then plunged again to its lowest level against the dollar in almost 31 years.

• EU leaders have urged a swift divorce amid fears a drawn-out process could imperil the integrity of the alliance.

• But Prime Minister David Cameron has said negotiations on Britain’s departure must wait until a successor is chosen from his Conservative party, which could be as late as October.

:: Science and Technology ::

Scientists have decoded the long-standing mystery behind mitochondria

• Scientists have decoded the long-standing mystery behind how and why mitochondria are only passed to offspring through a mother’s egg — and not the father’s sperm.

• Experiments from the study show that when paternal mitochondria persist for longer than they should during development, the embryo is at greater risk of lethality.

• Harboured inside the cells of nearly all multi-cellular animals, plants and fungi are mitochondria, organelles that play an important role in generating the energy that cells need to survive.

• Shortly after a sperm penetrates an egg during fertilisation, the sperm’s mitochondria are degraded while the egg’s mitochondria persist, researchers said

• The paternal mitochondria were found to partially self-destruct before the mitochondria were surrounded by autophagosomes, which target components within a cell and facilitate their degradation.

• This suggests that another mechanism, something within the paternal mitochondrion itself, initiates the degradation process.

:: Business and Economy ::

Monetary policy committee notified

• The Centre brought the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) one step closer to reality by notifying the changes made to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Act.

• Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das tweeted: “Amendments to RBI Act for Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) and connected rules notified. One step closer to its formation and operationalisation”.

• The six-member Committee — tasked with bringing “value and transparency to monetary policy decisions” — will comprise three members from RBI, including the Governor, who will be the ex-officio chairperson, a Deputy Governor and one officer of the central bank.

• The other three members will be appointed by the Centre on the recommendations of a search-cum-selection committee to be headed by the Cabinet Secretary.

• The Committee is to meet four times a year and make public its decisions following each meeting.

No tax will be collected at source when cash component is less than Rs.2 lakh

• No tax will be collected at source when cash component of the payment for goods and services is less than Rs.2 lakh even if the total consideration is more than this amount.

• CBDT has issued a new circular on Tax Collected at Source (TCS) clarifying that the levy will not be applicable when cash part of the payment for certain goods or services is less than Rs.2 lakh, even when the total payment is more than this amount.

• It illustrated this statement by an example that in a case where a good worth Rs.5 lakh is sold for which the consideration amounting to Rs.4 lakh has been received in cheque and Rs.1 lakh has been received in cash.

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