Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams - 26 September 2017

::NATIONAL::

‘Saubhagya’ scheme for household electrification

• The welfare of the poor is linked to the identity of the NDA government, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said.
• He was speaking at the launch of a Rs. 16,000 crore scheme, Saubhagya, under which households across the country that have no access to electricity, will be given power connections free of cost.
• Under the PM SahajBijli Har GharYojana (Saubhagya), every household in the country, whether it is in a village or a city or in a far-flung area, will be given an electricity connection. No price will be charged for the poor to get an electricity connection, and the government will go to their houses to give them the connection.
• The government will bear the expected Rs. 16,000 crore cost of giving electricity connections to the four crore households in the country, which the Prime Minister regretted are yet to get any electricity and haven’t seen a light bulb.
• “It’s been over 125 years when the famous scientist Thomas Alva Edison invented the bulb and said: ‘We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles’,” Mr. Modi stressed, highlighting that it was unfortunate many households were still lit only with candles or lanterns.
• Arguing that few would have imagined a government that would give bank accounts to 30 crore poor people, insure 15 crore people at a cost of 90 paise per day and reduce the price of stents and knee replacements, the Prime Minister said the dreams of the poor were the dreams of his government.

Two Telangana districts secured top rankings in Swachh Bharat Mission implementation

• Adding another feather to the State’s cap, two districts from Telangana have featured in the top position for their performance under the Swachh Bharat Mission Grameen (SBM (G)) initiative of the Central Government.
• Jagtial and RajannaSircilla districts have found place in the 39 out of the 619 districts across the country for their performance in improving sanitation with individual household latrines and open defecation-free coverage as parameters.
• The two districts secured top rankings in performance, sustainability and transparency. These districts were ahead of many others in their performance in terms of IHHL and ODF coverage, forming pillars of SBM (G) implementation.
• In terms of transparency, the Union government had taken into consideration verification and implementation of the SBM (G) parameters through geo-tagging and capturing Aadhaar details and the two districts received full marks on this count too, according to an official release.
• Jagtial and Rajanna- Sircilla along with Udipi in Karnataka are the only districts from the South to figure in the list.

Economic Adviosry Council to be reconstituted

• With the economy hitting a rough patch in recent months, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has decided to reconstitute the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, rendered defunct after the previous UPA government demitted office in May 2014.
• NITI Aayog member BibekDebroy has been picked as the Chairman of the Council, which will include NITI Aayog’s Principal Adviser and former Finance Secretary Ratan Watal as its member-secretary.
• Economist SurjitBhalla, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy director Rathin Roy and Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research professor Ashima Goyal have also been roped in as members of the Economic Advisory Council.
• The terms of reference of the Council include analysis of any issue, economic or otherwise, referred to it by the PM and advising him on the same, and attending to any task ‘as may be desired’ by the PM from time to time, as per an official statement.
• The formation of the Council at this time suggests it could play a critical role in reviving the economy’s growth momentum that has slumped over the past few quarters, with the first quarter of this financial year clocking just 5.7% growth, down from 7.9% a year ago.
• The last chairperson of the PM’s Economic Advisory Council, when Manmohan Singh was the PM, was former Reserve Bank of India Governor C. Rangarajan.

Oxytocin drug misuse

• The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation under the Directorate General of Health Services has directed all State drug controllers to initiate strict regulatory control on manufacture, sale and distribution of Oxytocin drug to curb its misuse.
• The drug, used to induce labour in women, is illegally used by dairy farmers to augment milk production in cows. This drug has long-term ill effects on cattle.
• G.N. Singh, Drugs Controller General (India), has asked all State drug controllers to set up a special task force in each district (of their States) to ensure that no prohibited/regulated drug, including Oxytocin, is freely available in the open market, except in the manner prescribed.
• The State drugs controllers have also been asked to post monthly statement of licences issued, production and sale of Oxytocin.

Uneven rain to have toll on farm output

• The uneven distribution of monsoon will impact output of kharif, or summer crop, according to data released by the Union Agriculture Ministry.
• The first advanced estimates of kharif crop for 2017-18 put the overall production at 134.67 million tonnes, 3.86 million tonnes lower than last year’s record output of 138.52 million tonnes.
• The Agriculture Ministry said “these are preliminary estimates and will undergo revision based on further feedback from the States.”
• Among food grains, rice will see a drop of 1.91 million tonnes from the previous year as the estimates suggest 94.48 million tonnes of rice production.
• Pulses, a staple Indian diet that is highly sensitive to supplies, too will see a marginal drop of 70,000 tonnes. Estimates put the pulse production at 8.61 million tonnes for 2017-18.
• Production of coarse cereals too might decrease to 31.49 million tonnes. Maize production is pegged at 18.73 million tonnes
• However, sugarcane production for 2017-18 will go up. That should be sweet news for consumers.

Delhi HC says consent to be key factor in defining sexual assault

• The High Court discusses the various “models” of sexual consent in the modern world. The debate is part of an 82-page judgment which acquits film-maker MahmoodFarooqui in a rape case giving him the benefit of the doubt that he might have misread the ‘no’ of the woman as a ‘yes’.
• In normal parlance, consent would mean voluntary agreement of a woman to engage in sexual activity without being abused or exploited by coercion or threats, Justice Ashutosh Kumar, who authored the verdict, observes.
• The consent can be revoked any moment. “Thus, sexual consent would be the key factor in defining sexual assault as any sexual activity without consent would be rape,” the judgment says.
• On the “various models of sexual consent”, the judge starts with the “traditional and the most accepted” one, which is the “affirmative model” where a “yes is yes and no is no.”
• But the judgment goes on to tackle a situation where a woman’s affirmative consent or positive denial is not asserted, but conveyed in an “underlying/dormant” fashion, leading to a “ confusion in the mind of the other.” The court says there are “differences between how men and women initiate and reciprocate sexual consent.”
• “The normal construct is that man is the initiator of sexual interaction. He performs the active part whereas a woman is, by and large, non-verbal. Thus, gender relations influence sexual consent,” Justice Kumar notes. But this may not be true in the case of modern society where gender equality is the “buzzword”, Justice Kumar adds.

::INTERNATIONAL::

Pakistan-Russia

• Pakistan and Russia are holding a two-week long military exercise focussing on counterterrorism operations to enhance defence ties, ahead of Army chief General QamarJavedBajwa’s visit to Moscow next month.
• The joint exercise DRUZBA 2017 between special forces of Pakistan and Russia Armies started in MinralnyeVody, Russia

India-Myanmar

• India is examining the impact of an existing bilateral agreement with Myanmar, which allows free movement of Indian and Myanmarese citizens within 16 km of the border, as the pact is being exploited by militants for smuggling arms, drugs and fake Indian currency.
• The move comes amid the mass exodus of the Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar.

BUSINESS AND ECONOMY

Aadhaar linking of GPF, PPF and EPF accounts of employees

• The Cabinet Secretariat is keen on a central database of government and private sector employees who have subscribed to the general provident fund (GPF), public provident fund (PPF) and employees’ provident fund (EPF) with Aadhaar as the primary identifier.
• It has directed the various departments monitoring such savings schemes to ensure that 100% Aadhaar seeding of all salaried accounts takes place by December 31,
• The proposal came up in a meeting chaired by the Cabinet Secretariat with the Ministry of Finance, Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and the Ministry of Labour and Employment on August 25 to discuss the “interoperability of savings schemes” and linking them to Aadhaar.
• The objective of meeting is to deliberate on Aadhaar linking of GPF, PPF and EPF accounts of employees, examine the possibility of a centralised repository of employees’ fund details with Aadhaar as the primary identifier and establishing portability of fund accounts across organisations.
• The Department of Economic Affairs informed that small savings schemes, including PPF, were operated by post offices, public sector and private banks. The Cabinet Secretariat asked the Ministry of Finance to examine whether a centralised platform of all savings schemes was being worked out as all banks had their own systems in place.
• For government employees, the Ministry of Finance said that it is developing Employees’ Information System, an online salary application system, which may also be used to maintain information related to GPF.
• While EPF is the savings scheme for private sector employees, the GPF is meant for government employees and PPF can be subscribed to by all workers.
  The Department of Posts informed the Cabinet Secretariat that 4.7 crore out of 56 crore PPF accounts in post offices were linked with Aadhaar. “All stakeholder departments to ensure 100% Aadhaar seeding of GPF, PPF and EPF accounts by December 31, 2017” the Cabinet Secretariat directed.

Telecom operators requested TRAI to defer new call drop rule by six months

• Telecom operators have requested the sector regulator TRAI to defer the new call drop rules by six months in order to tune their networks as per the new norms.
• “We have written to TRAI that give us two quarters to actually tune networks to implement the new regulation. TRAI has said that they would consider it. However, the regulator has not come back to us. It is a measurement issue. We are facing problem in getting space for installing cell towers,” COAI director general Rajan S.Mathews told reporters.
• The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on August 18 issued stricter version of quality of service rules which will be come into effect from October 1.
• Under the new rule, penalty of up to Rs. 10 lakh will be imposed if telecom operators fail to meet call drop benchmark and call drop will be measured at mobile tower-level instead of telecom circle.

India, S. Korea will expand FTA soon

• Even as the India-South Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA) will be expanded soon to boost bilateral trade and investment, New Delhi has voiced concerns about the low utilisation of the FTA by India due to the ‘complicated’ provisions in the pact as well as South Korea’s regulations.
• The recent bilateral talks in Seoul saw India cite the difficulties being faced by its English teachers in getting permission to teach in South Korea. Though, going by the FTA, Indian English language teachers should be getting opportunities to teach in primary and secondary schools in South Korea, this is not being implemented effectively in practice.
• This is because the ‘English Program in Korea’ (EPIK) stipulates that those eligible to teach English in South Korea must “be a citizen of a country where English is the primary language.”
• The EPIK specifies that “EPIK teachers must be citizens of one of the following countries: Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, U.K, U.S., or South Africa.”
• India has now asked that it be included in the EPIK country-list by pointing out that South Africa was on the list though that country has 11 official languages including Afrikaans, and English was only one of them.
• India is also keen on sending its yoga teachers for short-term work while Seoul has stated their services may not be needed since many Koreans are now learning yoga in India and returning to teach it in South Korea.
• On the goods side, India is keen that norms are eased to upgrade the FTA in a way that Indian goods get greater market access.
• Since the implementation of the FTA in 2010, India’s trade deficit with South Korea has increased from about $5 billion to more than $8 billion.
• To ensure greater market access for Indian products, India is seeking a set of mutually accredited bodies for export inspection.

::SPORTS::

Sindhu recommended for Padma Bhushan by Sports Ministry

• Olympic silver medallist shuttler P.V. Sindhu has been recommended for the prestigious Padma Bhushan, the country’s third highest civilian award, by the Sports Ministry.
• The 22-year-old clinched the 2016 China Open Super Series Premier, India Open Super Series, bagged a historic silver at the Glasgow World Championship before laying claim to her third Super Series title at the Korea Open this month.
• A three-time Macau Open champion, Sindhu also won the Syed Modi Grand Prix Gold in Lucknow this year.
  Riding on a series of good performances, Sindhu achieved a career-best world ranking of No. 2 in April for a brief period. Last week, she climbed back to her No. 2 position, following a good week at Seoul.
• In 2014, Sindhu won four bronze medals at the Commonwealth Games, Incheon Asian Games, Uber Cup and Asia Championship.
• In March 2015, Sindhu was awarded India’s fourth highest civilian honour, the Padma Shri.
   

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