Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams - 01 November 2017

::NATIONAL::

Air India, AI Express will be sold together

• The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government is working to conclude the sale of national carrier Air India by June 2018 and is keen on selling its core airline operations, together with its low-cost international airline, Air India Express.
• As per a decision taken by the Air India-specific Alternative Mechanism — a group of Ministers led by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to decide on the modalities of stake sale in the national carrier — the Centre will look to sell AI’s regional airline Alliance Air to a separate universe of bidders while Air India and Air India Express will likely go together.
• The rationale is that prospective buyers from international airlines can be found if bids are called for Air India and Air India Express together. Since Alliance Air operates flights mainly on regional domestic routes, it makes more sense to sell it off separately
• The decision was taken after the government held several rounds of backchannel talks with prospective buyers of Air India and its subsidiaries.
• The government met companies involved in MRO, ground handling and airline operations to examine whether all the subsidiaries should be sold off together or calling for separate set of bidders would increase Air India’s valuation.
• Till now, low-cost airline IndiGo has formally expressed interest in mainly buying Air India’s international operations, including Air India Express which flies to various airports in the Gulf, Middle East and South East Asia predominantly from Kerala.
• IndiGo co-founders have said that though it has been eyeing Air India’s international operations since “day one”, it would still be interested if the government sells Air India’s entire airline operations to a single entity.
• While Turkey’s Celebi Aviation Holding and Delhi-based Bird Group have shown interest in Air India’s ground handling arm, India’s oldest private MRO firm AirWorks is keen on buying AIESL. Without revealing names, officials at the Civil Aviation Ministry said other airlines, both domestic and international, are also keen to bid for Air India’s airline operations.
• The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, gave an in-principle nod for strategic disinvestment of Air India. The ministerial panel, led by Mr. Jaitley, is aiming to divest stake in Air India and its subsidiaries by June 2018.
• The panel is also in favour of hiving off Air India’s properties and non-operational assets into a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to retire a portion of the national carrier’s debt.
• The Union government recently chose consultancy firm EY and investment banker Rothschild as the transaction advisors and Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas as the legal advisor to help it with the disinvestment.

Budget allocation to fight Tuberculosis has been increasing since 2015

• India’s domestic budget for fighting tuberculosis showed a dramatic jump from about Rs. 700 crore in 2015 to Rs. 2,500 crore 2016, according to a report from the World Health Organisation (WHO).
• Typically most of India’s budget to combat the bacterial infection that claimed 4.2 lakh last year—used to be dominated by international funding.
• But, for the first time this has flipped. Domestic resources accounted for 74% of the $525 million spent in India last year, while it was only 38% in 2015.
• The big difference is that nearly Rs. 1,000 crore of non plan expenditure got added. The role of the private sector is critical in reducing TB numbers.
• In 2016, India recorded a 12% dip in the number of TB deaths from the previous year though the incidence dipped marginally by 1%.
• The number of notified cases of drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) jumped from 79,000 to 84,000 in 2016, a government official said, pointing to the deployment of better diagnostics.
• However, with 1.7 million new cases in 2016, India still continues to be the largest contributor to the global burden with up to a quarter of the 6.3 million new cases of TB (up from 6.1 million in 2015). In spite of the dip, India accounts for about 32% of the number of people worldwide who succumbed to the disease.
• The government has committed to achieve a ‘90-90-90 target’ by 2035 (90% reductions in incidence, mortality and catastrophic health expenditures due to TB). This is premised on improved diagnostics, shorter treatment courses, a better vaccine and comprehensive preventive strategies. In 2016, the WHO said that India had many more deaths and incidence of the disease than had been estimated over the years.
• However, several activists say that in spite of the government commitments, TB is still stigmatized and under-reported — especially from the private sector — and top-line drugs are still inadequate to treat people who suffer from the drug-resistant forms of the disease.

online test which could make India enter into Guinness Book of World records

• The government said it will attempt to enter the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest online science examination for school students.
• Vidyarthi Vigyan Manthan will be conducted in November for around 91,000 students.

::INDIA AND WORLD::

No plan to divert water from Brahmaputra- China

• China denied a media report that it was planning to divert water from the Brahmaputra in Tibet to its arid Xinjiang province by constructing a 1,000 km tunnel.
• “This is untrue. This is a false report,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying in response to a question. The report, if true, would have had a major impact on livelihoods in India and Bangladesh, as the Brahmaputra, known as Yarlung Tsangpo in China, passes through both these countries before emptying into the Bay of Bengal.
• The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP) had reported that Chinese engineers were testing techniques that could be used to build a 1,000 km tunnel the world’s longest to carry water from Tibet to Xinjiang.

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::INTERNATIONAL::

Operation to blow up a tunnel gives way to tensions

• Tensions rose after an Israeli operation to blow up a tunnel from the Gaza Strip killed seven Palestinian militants in one of the deadliest incidents since a devastating 2014 war.
• The seven men, from the armed wings of Gaza’s rulers Hamas and allied group Islamic Jihad, were killed when Israel blew up the tunnel it said had crossed into its territory and was intended for attacks.
• Israel said it had been monitoring the digging of the tunnel for an unspecified length of time and was forced to act after “the grave and unacceptable violation of Israeli sovereignty”.
• It said the operation was carried out on the Israeli side of the border and stressed it was not seeking a further escalation. No tunnel opening had been found on the Israeli side of the border. It had come from the vicinity of the city of Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip, Israel’s military said.
• The operation comes at a sensitive time, with rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas pursuing a reconciliation accord aimed at ending their 10-year rift.
• Hamas is due to hand over control of the enclave’s borders to the Palestinian Authority under the deal mediated by Egypt and signed on October 12. It is due to return the Gaza Strip to full PA control by December 1. Both Mr. Haniya and Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah spoke of ensuring the reconciliation pact remains on track.

Trump to push for U.S. vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific region

• U.S. President Donald Trump will “present the U.S. vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific region” in a speech in Da Nang, Vietnam on November 10, at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEOs meet, the White House said.
• Mr. Trump’s visit to the region from November 3 to 14 will be the longest by a U.S President in 25 years, and will “underscore the long-standing U.S commitment to the region”, a senior administration official said. Mr. Trump will travel to Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines, and this will be the largest number of countries covered by a U.S. President in a single trip to the region, since George W. Bush in 2003.
• The official said Mr. Trump’s visit will make the “message clear to China that for trade relations between the two countries to be sustainable, it has to be free and fair”.
• “It is very important to note that the President is making a long term commitment to the region, based on the shared principles of rules-based, high-standard, economic system and reduction of chronic trade deficits,” the official said.
• At the recent congress of the Chinese Communist Party, Chinese President Xi Jinping had asked countries to emulate the Chinese model of development, and shun Western liberalism.
• “China must provide fair and reciprocal treatment, not just to the U.S. but all countries in the region”, the official said, accusing Beijing of “predatory investment and economic practices”.
• The official said the Chinese economy has become so big that its practices are negatively impacting not only the U.S. but all other countries in the region. The President will press China on these issues, the official said.

500 years since “95 Theses”

• Germany celebrated 500 years since theologian Martin Luther nailed his “95 theses” to a church door, marking the start of the Reformation that created the Protestant church and transformed European society.
• Catholic and Lutheran leaders issued a joint statement saying they begged forgiveness for violence waged during the revolution that saw Protestants break away from the Roman Catholic church.
• The deadliest of Europe’s religious conflicts was the Thirty Years’ War that ended in 1648 and after which religion’s role in European politics was reduced.
• There are many theological differences between Protestants and Roman Catholics, including whether or not the Bible is the highest authority in matters of faith and whether the Pope has full power over the Church. Both parties committed to “overcome remaining differences between us” and celebrate what they have in common.
• German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier attended a service at the Schlosskirche church in Wittenberg where Luther is said to have first displayed his list of criticisms of the Catholic Church in 1517.

::BUSINESS AND ECONOMY::

India ranked among top 100 in Ease of Doing Business

• India climbed 30 positions in the latest ease of doing business ranking by the World Bank, in its Doing Business 2018 report released. The report ranks India at 100 among 190 countries. Last year, India was ranked 130.
• Improving India’s ranking in the report has been a key component of PM Narendra Modi’s economic agenda.
• Indian government has been focussed on reforms and has been looking at this area, trying to understand what we measure, how we measure, what is the value of it and designed a reform programme that addresses some of the shortcomings that were measured by the indicators.
• India’s upward jump in ranking is based on the improvement in the distance to frontier score — an absolute measure of progress towards the best practice.
• India found a place for the first time in the top ten economies improving the most in a given year. The ranking compares economies with one another; the DTF score benchmarks economies with respect to regulatory best practice.
• The report measures aspects of regulation affecting 11 areas of the life of a business. India made eight reforms across these areas in 2016, the highest for the country in a single year. India is one of the three countries in 2016 that undertook reforms in as many as eight areas.

Crypto currencies come under SEBI scanner

• The rising popularity of crypto currencies and the increasing number of entities looking at raising funds through Initial Coin Offerings (ICO) has caught the attention of the capital market regulator, which is evaluating whether such instruments and offerings can be brought under its regulatory purview.
• The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) is mulling whether an ICO can be regulated under the existing legal framework or certain amendments would be required in case the government wants the capital market watchdog to be the regulatory authority for such issuances.
   
• Incidentally, crypto currencies like bitcoin, ethereum and such offerings have been under government radar for long and discussions have been held between various bodies, including SEBI and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), on the possible ways in which this segment can be regulated. The central bank is of the view that these instruments are securities and so SEBI should be the regulating body.
• The regulator is evaluating whether these instruments can be regulated under the current SEBI Act or if there is a need for the government to give additional powers or amend the existing law.
• An ICO, like an equity initial public offer (IPO), is an issuance of digital tokens that can be converted into crypto currencies and are mostly used to raise funds by start-up firms dealing in blockchain technology and virtual currencies like bitcoins and ethereum.
• Unlike an IPO, which is governed by SEBI regulations, there is no regulatory body for ICOs in India.
  According to data from UK-based CoinDesk, nearly $2.7 billion has been raised globally through ICOs since 2014. Concerns related to ICOs can be gauged from the fact that China recently banned such offerings after its central bank said that ICOs are “illegal public finance” mechanism used for issue of securities and money laundering.
• According to a recent study, more than 2,500 Indians invest in bitcoin daily. Start-ups like Zebpay, Unocoin, Coinsecure, Searchtrade, Belfrics and Bitxoxo are some of the well-known players in the bitcoin and blockchain segment in India.
• “Bitcoins are neither ‘commodities derivatives’ nor ‘securities’ under Securities Contracts (Regulation) Act, 1956. Amending definition of ‘securities’ alone may not resolve the issue of bitcoin regulation as there are numerous issues revolving around.
• Bitcoin players, meanwhile, feel that instead of a regulator, the industry is in more urgent need of a self-regulatory organisation (SRO) that could formally lay down principles to take care of concerns like money laundering and other possible misuse.

6-month high seen in core sectors

• Eight core sectors grew to a six-month high of 5.2% in September, aided by a robust performance in coal, natural gas and refinery segments, official data showed.
• The eight infrastructure sectors — coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertilisers, steel, cement and electricity — had witnessed a growth of 5.3% in September last year. The expansion in September is highest since April, when the core sectors’ growth stood at 2.6%.
• The production of coal, natural gas and refinery products rose by 10.6%, 6.3% and 8.1%, respectively on annual basis, according to data released by the Commerce and Industry Ministry. Crude oil output registered a growth of 0.1% during the month under review as compared to a contraction of 4.1% in September 2016.
• On the other hand, growth rate of steel and cement production was slower in September this year as against the same month previous fiscal.

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