Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 12 July 2017

Daily Current Affairs for IAS Exams

Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 12 July 2017

::National::

SC stayed the Centre’s notification which banned cattle sale

The Supreme Court stayed the Centre’s May 26 notification, banning cattle sale in livestock markets for slaughter and religious sacrifices.
The order came after the government acquiesced that public outcry and objections from the States about the law's impact on livelihoods made it realise that the rules need “tweaking”.
Additional Solicitor- General said the government had received a “large number of representations” that “certain aspects” of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Regulation of Livestock Markets) Rules, 2017.
And the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Maintenance of Case Property Animals) Act, 2017 were “troubling” and threw up some “sensitive” questions about the Central rules.

Group of U.S. researchers working to map undulating pollution on Godavari

The Ganga may be the focus of the government’s river-cleaning efforts, but a group of U.S. researchers is working on a system to map undulating pollution trends in the Godavari, India’s second longest river.
Using a mix of methods, including satellite-monitoring, traversing stretches of the river to collect water samples and using special sensors to measure bacterial and chemical pollution, the researchers are trying to develop a cost-effective forecast system.
The team’s long-term objective is to be able to inform State officials and citizens of a probable spike in, say, levels of dangerous microbes or effluents, similar to weather and air pollution forecasts.
The project started eight months ago and has so far identified two “hotspots” of pollution, which Mr. Malani declined to reveal, saying he would first inform the Andhra Pradesh government about them.
The sampling exercise, being done along a portion of the 1,400-km river spanning Rajamahendravaram (East Godavari district) and Kovvur, Narsapur and Palakol (all in West Godavari), measures parameters such as total dissolved salts, nitrate, pH, temperature, turbidity and electrical conductivity.
These are relayed to a website called Thoreau , a wireless sensing network maintained at the University of Chicago to map parameters, for analysis.
Some river attributes such as microbial levels require to be measured in laboratories, though the team hopes eventually to be able to use low-cost sensors that measure them, too, in real time.
The exercise is part of a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation project to support the programme of the Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI) to provide city-wide sanitation improvements in urban Andhra Pradesh.

Sixth mass extinction of life on Earth is unfolding more quickly than feared

The sixth mass extinction of life on Earth is unfolding more quickly than feared, scientists have warned.
More than 30% of animals with a backbone — fish, birds, amphibians, reptiles and mammals — are declining in both range and population, according to the first comprehensive analysis of these trends.
Around a decade ago, experts feared that a new planetary wipeout of species was looming.
Today, most agree that it is under way — but the new study suggests that the die-out is already ratcheting up a gear. It provides much-needed data about the threat to wildlife, mapping the dwindling ranges and population of 27,600 species.
For 177 mammals, researchers combed through data covering the period 1900 to 2015. The mammal species that were monitored have lost at least a third of their original habitat, the researchers found.
Forty per cent of them — including rhinos, orangutans, gorillas and many big cats — are surviving on 20% or less of the land they once roamed. The loss of biodiversity has recently accelerated.
Globally, the mass die-off — deemed to be the sixth in the last half-billion years — is the worst since three-quarters of life on the Earth, including the non-avian dinosaurs, were wiped out 66 million years ago by a giant meteor impact.
Tropical regions have seen the highest number of declining species. In South and Southeast Asia, large-bodied species of mammals have lost more than four-fifths of their historical ranges.
As many as half of the number of animals that once shared our planet are no longer here, a loss the authors described as “a massive erosion of the greatest biological diversity in the history of Earth”.
The main drivers of wildlife decline are habitat loss, overconsumption, pollution, invasive species, disease, as well as poaching in the case of tigers, elephants, rhinos and other large animals prized for their body parts.

::International::

German Chancellor says open to EU-US trade talks

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says she’s open to restarting talks with the United States on a trade deal with the European Union.
Ms. Merkel told a business audience in Bavaria that President Donald Trump’s administration had signaled it is ready to negotiate and that “for me a Trans-Atlantic agreement remains on the daily agenda.”
On a trip to Berlin last month, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the U.S. and EU should have a free trade agreement.
Negotiations for the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership deal, known as TTIP, started under the Obama administration but have been stalled since last year.

::Business and Economy::

Centre concerned with minuscule number of start-ups for tax breaks

The Centre is concerned about the minuscule number of start-ups becoming eligible for tax benefits under the Startup India programme
With just 39 start-ups qualifying for such concessions even 18 months after the flagship initiative was introduced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
With the norms specifying that in order to obtain tax benefits, a start-up should be a private limited company or a limited liability partnership, few companies qualified for tax benefits in the initial period as there were not many corporate entities incorporated on or after that cut-off date.
The passage of time is mitigating this problem with several firms becoming eligible, said the official, who did not wish to be named.
The recent relaxation in norms that include doing away with the requirement of ‘letter of recommendation’ from an incubator/industry association for recognising a company as a start-up or for tax benefits will also help increase the number of start-ups that will qualify for tax benefits.

5 States and a UT formally adopted Government e-Marketplace

In a spirit of cooperative federalism, 5 States and a Union Territory (UT) on Tuesday formally adopted the Centre’s initiative called the Government e-Marketplace (GeM).
It aims to ensure that public procurement of goods and services in India worth more than Rs. 5 lakh crore annually is carried out through the online platform for transparency and to eliminate corruption.
The States and the UT that signed an MoU with the Centre include Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Telangana, Puducherry and Arunachal Pradesh.
Four more, including Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu and Haryana, will ink such an MoU soon. They would have done so but for some technical issues, and more states/UTs are likely to adopt the GeM later.
This follows a call made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to all the Chief Ministers in April to ensure that priority is accorded to transparency in public procurement of goods and services.

Finance Minister said that banks should divert loans to self-help groups

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that banks should divert loans to self-help groups in order to help generate employment in the unorganised sector in the country.
He said that although India had grown over the last two-and-a-half decades, the distribution of this development has not been equitable. “In the last 2-2.5 decades, our growth has increased,” he said.
When the economy improves, in the development, some people are left behind. The number of people left behind is not small. More benefit is received in cities, businesses and [the] organised sector.
The urban slums, tribal areas, people on the margins, they do not receive much benefit.
It was keeping this in mind that self-help groups were devised 25 years ago, so that those in the unorganised sector could get loans.