Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams - 30 November 2017

::National::

Defence Acquisition Council approved procurement of more than 260 SDRs

• The Defence Acquisition Council approved the procurement of more than 260 Software Defined Radios (SDR) for the Navy at a cost of more than Rs. 490 crore.
• “This is the first indigenously designed and developed SDR to be procured by any of the three services. These will replace the existing systems on-board warships,” a defence source said.
• The development of the SDRs was carried out by the Defence Electronics & Applications Laboratory of the DRDO. Bharat Electronics Limited will be the the production Agency.
• This technology will improve information sharing and situational awareness through secure voice communications and data transfer capabilities , the source added.

SC says law should be followed in Dowry cases

• The Supreme Court said it did not intend to frame guidelines for the police regarding registration of FIRs on subjecting a married woman to cruelty for dowry, as the process had to be governed by statutory provisions.
• Bench apparently disagreed with the guidelines framed by a two-judge Bench on how to proceed in dowry harassment cases and said it would hear the matter in the third week of January.
• The top court was hearing pleas filed by NGOs Social Action Forum and ‘Nyayadhar’ alleging that such guidelines had created roadblocks in the registration of FIRs and the penal provision be allowed to operate as per the statute.
• On July 27, the two-judge Bench had voiced concern over ‘abuse’ of the anti-dowry law and directed that no arrest should ‘normally be effected’ without verifying charges as violation of human rights could not be brushed aside.
• It passed a slew of directions to deal with complaints under Section 498A of the IPC and observed that many such complaints were not bona fide.

India accounted for 6% of global malaria cases and 7% of deaths

• India accounted for 6% of global malaria cases and 7% of deaths caused by it in 2016, according to a report released by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
• This is in the same ballpark as last year, though the WHO figures also suggest that India is unlikely to reduce its case burden beyond 40% by 2020.
• In contrast, Maldives, Sri Lanka and Kyrgyzstan achieved malaria-free status in 2015 and 2016 respectively.
• There were an estimated 4,45,000 deaths from malaria globally in 2016, compared with 4,46,000 estimated deaths in 2015. About 80% of the deaths were accounted for by 15 countries, namely India and 14 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.
• A key impediment to eliminating malaria is a weak surveillance system. India and Nigeria, two major contributors to the global burden of malaria, were able to detect only 8% and 16% of cases respectively via the system.
• Moreover, 51% of Plasmodium vivax cases — the milder cousin of the P. falciparum — were traced in India. This could at least be partially explained by resistance to chloroquine, the first line treatment to P. vivax infections that has been detected in pockets of the country earlier this decade.
• For a long time, P. falciparum dominated India’s case burden and, though its share has decreased, there is a slight increase in malaria cases by other parasites.
• Bhutan, Nepal, Thailand, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Indonesia, says the WHO, are among the countries poised to reduce malaria incidence by over 40% by 2020.
• India — due to low funding per person at risk and resistance to certain frontline insecticides — is only expected to achieve a 20%-40% reduction.
• In 2016, an estimated Rs. 13,000 crore was invested in malaria control and elimination efforts globally by governments of malaria endemic countries and their international partners.
• The majority (74%) of investments in 2016 was spent in the WHO’s Africa region, followed by the WHO regions of Southeast Asia (7%), the Eastern Mediterranean and the Americas (each 6%), and the Western Pacific (4%).

BSF said they had instructions to push back the Rohingya to Bangladesh

• Border Security Force (BSF) Director General K.K. Sharma said that they had instructions to push back the Rohingya to Bangladesh as they become a “liability” once they are arrested.
• Mr. Sharma said this year they apprehended 87 Rohingya Muslims along the border, and 76 were “sent back to Bangladesh.”
• He said it was difficult to distinguish between Rohingya and Bangladeshis as they had similar facial features and the BSF personnel were not equipped to differentiate between the two on the basis of dialect.
• He said that around 36,000 Rohingya were present in various parts of the country and the BSF was prepared to stop their entry into India as their links with terror organisations could not be ruled out.

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::Business and Economy::

Centre is mulling a new approach to bring Make in India and Invest India together

• The Centre is mulling a new approach that institutionalises the combined strengths of its ‘Make In India’ (MII) and ‘Invest India’ initiatives with an aim to streamline them for attracting more investments, including from overseas, in the manufacturing sector.
• The MII was unveiled in September 2014 to “transform India into a global design and manufacturing hub” while ‘Invest India’ is the government’s investment promotion and facilitation agency.
• “We are encouraging the concerned people on this [the plan to combine MII and Invest India],” Suresh Prabhu, Commerce and Industry Minister, told The Hindu. “ We had a programme in Stockholm, Sweden [last month], where we requested them that Invest India and MII can go hand-in-hand.”
• He said MII was being upgraded, and “new sectors, new products and new territories” being identified.
• Mr. Prabhu said even in the exports sector, “new products and new markets” are being considered for incentives, adding that “we are trying to work on a holistic strategy” to make India a global manufacturing and export hub.
• He said the government was also trying to improve the Start-up India policy by studying why only 74 start-ups had qualified for tax benefits since the policy was unveiled in January 2016.

TRAI has stuck to its recommendation of allowing free data to consumers

• TRAI has stuck to its recommendation of allowing free data to consumers in a non-discriminatory manner by third-party aggregators while agreeing with the telecom department’s views that government money can be used for connectivity rather than supporting free data scheme to rural subscribers.
• The regulator noted that data had become affordable due to a tariff war in the telecom sector, and that “concern with regard to availability of affordable data services has been mitigated.”
• “The authority tends to agree with the views of DoT (Department of Telecom) that a larger focus is required on connectivity, content availability in local language and digital literacy. The resources could therefore be effectively utilised to address the said issues,” TRAI said.
• In December last year, Trai had recommended that a “reasonable” amount of free data access — say a 100 MB per month — be provided to rural subscribers and the scheme could be funded from the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF).
• However, the DoT subsequently pointed out that cost of an Internet enabled mobile handset was a bigger “obstacle” than the tariff of Internet access, and that the latter had already been addressed to an extent through market competition.
• DoT questioned whether it would be worthwhile to provide a subsidy to those rural subscribers who already owned smartphones. It opined that the applicability of the proposed scheme was “limited”, thus undermining its tenability.

RBI has asked co-operative societies not use the word ‘bank’ in their names

• The RBI has asked co-operative societies not use the word ‘bank’ in their names as it violates the Banking Regulation Act.
• In a statement, the Reserve Bank said that it has also “come to the notice” that some co-operative societies are accepting deposits from public which tantamount to conducting banking business in violation of the provisions of the Act.
• “It has come to the notice of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) that some co-operative Societies are using the word “bank” in their names.
• “This is a violation of Section 7 of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949...,” the central bank said.

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