Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 25 April 2017

:: National ::

India may be finding it tough to secure extraditions due to torture cases

• India may be finding it tough to secure extraditions because there is a fear within the international community that the accused persons would be subject to torture here, the Supreme Court said.

• A Bench said it was a matter of both Article 21 and of international reputation that the government must consider promulgating a standalone, comprehensive law to define and punish torture as an instrument of “human degradation” by state authorities.

• “Such a law is in the national interest. The difficulty that India faces in matters of extradition may be because there is torture,” Justice Chandrachud observed.

• The court referred to the setback suffered by the CBI in its efforts to get Kim Davy — a Danish citizen and prime accused in the Purulia arms drop case of 1995 — extradited from Denmark.

• A Danish court had rejected the plea on the ground that he would risk “torture or other inhuman treatment” in India.

• The court agreed with former Union Law Minister Ashwini Kumar, who filed the PIL plea in his personal capacity, that India, which had signed the UN Convention against torture way back in 1997, had still not ratified it.

• No steps had been taken to implement the Prevention of Torture Bill 2010 even six years after it was passed by the Lok Sabha on May 6, 2010 and recommended by a Select Committee of the Rajya Sabha of which he had been Chairman.

• Centre had avoided an independent legislation on torture, saying that some States were not in favour of such a law and the Indian Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code were more than sufficient.

• Indian Penal Code did not specifically and comprehensively address the various aspects of custodial torture and was “grossly inadequate in addressing the spiralling situation of custodial violence across the country.”

Centre is set to launch a scheme for students from higher educational institutions

• The Centre is set to launch a scheme for students from higher educational institutions to volunteer to offer innovative, original and practical solutions to problems facing the country and get rewarded for their efforts.

• The Human Resource Development Ministry has identified a handful of areas pertaining to which the problem-solving skills of students will be tested.

• These are affordable healthcare, computer science and ICT, energy, affordable housing, healthcare, agriculture, education, water resources and river systems, affordable infrastructure, defence, cybersecurity and information security, and environment and climate change.

• The scheme that will invite students to find solutions to problems in these fields — and offer a prize of Rs. 1 crore to the best solution in each field — is to be called IDEAS, or Innovations for Development of Efficient and Affordable Systems.

• Under each of the above areas or themes, 10 problem statements will be prepared and widely publicised.

• All higher educational institutions will be eligible and encouraged to participate, but participation of IITs, NITs and CFTIs will be mandatory.

PM asked for cultural exchange to unite India (Register and Login to read Full News)

Maoists killed 25 Central Reserve Police Force personnel (Register and Login to read Full News)

:: International ::

IMF and WB made an elaborate effort to impress the US administration

• The annual Spring Meetings of the World Bank and the IMF that concluded made an elaborate effort to impress the Donald Trump administration that they were of value to his plans for America but there is no evidence that it worked.

• There was a pointed attempt to reassure the largest owner of the institution— the U.S. has a 16% stake — that it is not merely relevant, but even essential to tackle the many issues that the Trump administration finds critical for the country.

• President Donald Trump’s budget draft proposes to cut U.S. support for multilateral development banks over the next three years by $650 million.

• U.S. development assistance through the bank has already shrunk to its lowest, before Mr. Trump took over.

• In September 2016, of the $75 billion that the Bank raised for development assistance for the next three years, the U.S. has committed only $7.5 billion, a mere 10% of the total.

• The U.K. is the top donor and after Brexit, it has increased its global commitments through the Bank.

• The U.K has committed £60 million for the Global Concessional Financing Facility of the total of over $370 million in donor pledges to Jordan and Lebanon for hosting refugees in West Asia.

• The target is to raise over five years $1 billion for these two countries and an additional $500 million for potential future refugee crises in middle income countries across the globe.

• Mr. Kim and the UN Secretary General met over the weekend to buttress the agenda. The second focus point is getting private funds into development financing.

• The institutions were careful to avoid a confrontation with the Trump administration. In a communiqué in October — when the U.S. was in the midst of the election campaign — the IMF had called all nations to “resist all forms of protectionism”.

:: Business and Economy ::

The government will put under the hammer coal blocks

• The government will put under the hammer coal blocks for private coal-to-gas, liquid and polychemical projects this financial year, Coal Secretary said.

• The development takes on significance as domestic coal gas can help lower the country’s import bill by $10 billion in five years and cut carbon emission.

• Coal India will attempt all this from whatever coal mines they have. Second, fresh coal blocks would be auctioned to the private sector through competitive bidding for exploring coal-to-gas, liquid and polychemicals.

• The mines will not be out of the 204 cancelled blocks but will be fresh ones under the MMDR Act.

Small and mid-sized cars may see a small increase in prices after GST

• Small and mid-sized cars may see a small increase in prices after the Goods and Services Tax (GST) is rolled out from July 1 as different goods are fitted into the four-slab rate structure.

• The GST will unify at least 10 central and state taxes into one. Goods and services will have to fall into one of the approved four rate categories, of 5%, 12%, 18% and 28%, which is closest to the present incidence of taxation.

• Small cars currently attract a 12.5% central excise duty. States levy 14.5-15% VAT, with total tax incidence at 27-27.5%. Mid-sized cars of up to 1500 cc are levied 24% excise and 14.5% VAT taking the tax incidence to 38.5%.

• This category will attract the highest tax rate of 28% and a state compensation cess to take the total incidence closer to current levels.

Nasscom said that only 6 of the top 20 H-1B recipients were Indian (Register and Login to read Full News)

Click Here for Archive

Half Yearly Current Affairs for UPSC IAS (Pre.) Exam

This is a Part of Online Coaching Programme for IAS Exam

Buy Printed Study Material for IAS Pre General Studies (Paper-1)

Join Online Test Series for IAS (Pre.) Exam