Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 02 April 2017

:: National ::

In a major crackdown, ED conducted searches on 300 shell companies

In a major crackdown, the Enforcement Directorate conducted searches on 300 shell companies across 16 States on suspicion of large-scale money laundering and foreign exchange violations.
The premises of some professionals, the “brains” behind the operation of such companies, were also searched.
The searches were conducted at 110 locations in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Hyderabad, among other places.
Some of the companies searched were allegedly involved in major money-laundering cases related to the former Maharashtra Deputy CM Chhagan Bhujbal, the Andhra Pradesh Opposition leader Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy.
Galaxy Impex, Snowcity & Co, B.K. Electro Tool products, Green International, Metal Tradus and Horizon Trading were the six firms searched.

Financial assistance of 3,000 crore from NDRF to Tamil Nadu and Karnataka

The Central government will provide financial assistance of around Rs. 3,000 crore from the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) to Tamil Nadu and Karnataka for drought and cyclone relief.
“Based on approval of the High Level Committee (HLC), the Central government has sanctioned Rs. 1,793 crore to Tamil Nadu and Rs. 1,782 crore to Karnataka for drought relief from NDRF,” the statement said.

Parity between military officers and their civilian counterparts to come (Register and Login to read Full News)

China asked India to exercise “restraint” (Register and Login to read Full News)

:: International ::

U.S. not pressing for Bashar Al-Assad of Syria to leave power

U.S. President Donald Trump has abandoned the goal of pressing President Bashar Al-Assad of Syria to leave power, marking a sharp departure from the policy that guided the Obama administration for more than five years.
“The United States has profound priorities in Syria and Iraq, and we’ve made it clear that counterterrorism, particularly the defeat of ISIS, is foremost among those priorities,” the White House press secretary said.
In a sense, Mr. Spicer’s comments — and similar comments by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Nikki R. Haley, have merely made explicit an assumption that has guided the Trump administration’s policy toward the region in recent months.
During the presidential campaign, Mr. Trump had said that while he did not like Mr. Assad, he was glad the Syrian leader was “killing ISIS”.
Since taking office, however, Mr. Trump has shied away from forging a military alliance in Syria with Russia, let alone with Mr. Assad.
Instead, the administration’s single-minded focus has been to help Syrian fighters oust the IS from the northern city of Raqqa.

:: India and World ::

India and Malaysia agreed to cooperate to defeat Islamic State

India and Malaysia agreed to cooperate to defeat Islamic State militants and the growing threat of radicalisation and extremism.
Visiting Malaysian PM Najib Razak held talks here with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and sealed six agreements, while extending support to India for a greater role in the maritime security of the Asia-Pacific region.
Mr. Razak, expressed support for greater synergy with India on the security front, especially in the maritime domain, and said, “We appreciate the greater role of India in the maritime security of the Asia-Pacific region.”
The visiting delegation’s comments on the maritime issue is significant as both the countries have been demanding freedom of navigation in the South East Asian region, where China has been flexing muscles and has claimed most of the South China Sea.
Both sides signed agreements on air services, sports, human resources, palm oil production and research, and technological development. An agreement that will allow India to build a fertilizer plant in Malaysia was also signed.
A bilateral joint statement issued by the India-Malaysia CEOs Forum emphasised the need for visa-free travel for Indians and Malaysians as travel and tourism in both countries contribute to their economic growth.
Both sides also highlighted that Malaysia would allow Indian Ayurveda and Siddha practitioners to serve in that country.
As part of the move to popularise courses in Ayurveda, the government of Malaysia and the Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman would provide courses in Ayurveda.

:: Business and Economy ::

Government pins its hopes on Smart cities

By 2050, about 843 million people are expected to reside in the urban areas — accounting for about 50 per cent of the overall population.
The Smart City Mission (SCM) of the Centre is part of the overall game plan to accommodate the massive urbanisation that is expected in the future — by modernising the existing mid-sized cities.
‘Smart city’ is a relatively new concept. While there is no specific way to define it, the most popular is from Frost and Sullivan.
Smart cities are those which are built on smart and intelligent solutions and technology that lead to at least five of the following smart objectives — smart energy, smart building, smart mobility, smart healthcare, smart infrastructure, smart technology, smart governance, smart education and smart citizen.
In 2011, there were no smart cities in the world. However, there will be 26 of them by 2026,. Beijing, Tokyo, Singapore, Sydney and Amsterdam will be among them, while there will be none from India. Yes, you read it right, none.
Indian cities have got a long way to go before they qualify as ‘smart cities’; may be another 15-20 years. The Indian government’s SCM, which is essentially a five-year game plan, is actually just one baby step towards forming smart cities in the real sense.
The Centre proposes to develop 100 smart cities over the next five years with overall budgetary plan of about Rs. 1,00,000 crore. It will be investing Rs. 100 crore every year for the next five years in each of the short-listed 100 cities.
Most of the projects, about 85 per cent, are area-centred projects. They focus on local area issues instead of implementing it throughout the city.
As per the Ministry of Urban Development, Rs. 1,30,000 crore worth of projects have been awarded and are in various stages of implementation.
A cursory look at the project plans of 60 cities shows that the plan content varies drastically with the needs of cities.
Housing is the biggest opportunity emanating from SCM. For cities of Surat, Ahmedabad, Thane, Indore, Bhopal, Jabalpur and Bhubaneshwar, it is the single largest project. However, the nature of projects differs.
While in places like Surat, the focus is on affordable housing, in Indore, it is about slum redevelopment.
With 40 more cities expected to get qualified for smart city funding, the opportunity for residential housing is huge. Moreover, improved urbanisation will result in more people moving into the city, triggering demand for more houses.
Moreover, the ‘satellite towns’ around these smart cities will be a good opportunity to develop affordable housing.
With the recent Budget doling out ‘infrastructure status’ to affordable housing projects, many real estate players are jumping on the bandwagon.
Many of the cities have taken up energy-based projects in a big way to address power shortages.
NDMC is looking at spending about Rs. 1,500 crore in building smart grid for efficient energy management. It is also investing into alternate energy by building 40-MW solar power plants at a cost of Rs. 430 crore.
Transport is another big focus area for many cities, including Pune, Raipur, Thane and Great Warangal.
SCM projects relating to transport broadly address issues of high travel demand, last-mile connectivity, traffic management and transit. Investments into development of back-bone infrastructure and transport systems are also common.
Also, to reduce the carbon footprint, many cities are introducing electric rickshaws (e-rickshaws). As against the regular autorickshaws that run on CNG or petrol, e-rickshaws will be powered by batteries charged from solar power.
Smart waste management could be classified as that relating to waste handling, its sorting and segregation, transportation and its disposal.
Sensor-based collection, for instance, helps identify the status of bins and optimise pick-up routes and schedules. Automated waste collection systems, in turn, reduce the need for manpower.
NDMC is spending about Rs. 200 crore towards water and waste-water management, while Kanpur is investing Rs. 70 crore towards water metering and strengthening of its existing water supply network.
ICT (information and communications technology) plays a critical role in the building of Smart cities.
For instance, in the case of citizen services, technology plays an integral role by providing access to online citizen engagement and participatory process. Provision of Wi-Fi services at public places and online service delivery are other ways.
Moreover, ICT plays a key role in improving city governance by building city command and operations centres. Many of the cities have lined up huge investments in this space.

:: Science and Technology ::

Researchers found a novel way to recycle the mounting pile of electronic waste

Indian Institute of Science (IISc) researchers have found a novel way to recycle the mounting pile of electronic waste more efficiently and in an environmentally friendly manner.
According to the United National Environmental Programme, about 50 million tonnes of e-waste is generated annually across the world.
The new approach is based on the idea of crushing e-waste into nanosize particles using a ball mill at very low temperature ranging from -50 to -150 degree C.
When crushed to nanosize particles for about 30 minutes, different classes of materials — metals, oxides and polymer — that go into the making of electronic items get physically reduced into their constituent phases, which can then be separated without using any chemicals.
There is also a lower limit to which materials can be broken into when e-waste is milled at room temperature.
The maximum size reduction that can be achieved is about of 200 nanometre. But in the case of low temperature ball milling the size can be reduced to 20-150 nanometres.
The polymer becomes brittle when cooled to -120 degree C and ball milling easily breaks it into a fine power. Metals and oxides too get broken but are a bit bigger in size.
The crushed powder was then mixed with water to separate the components into individual classes of materials using gravity.
The powder separated into two layers — the polymer floats at the top due to lower density, while metals and oxides of similar size and different density settle at the bottom.
The bottom layer when diluted further separated into oxides at the top and metals at the bottom. The oxides and metals were present as individual elements.