(Current Affairs) National Events | December: 2016

Supreme Court cancels Shahabuddin’s bail

  • Finely balancing societal interest with concerns about individual liberty, the Supreme Court ordered former RJD MP Mohd Shahabud-din to be sent back to prison 20 days after he came out on bail.
  • The Supreme Court however ordered the Bihar government and the trial court to complete the trial as early as possible. In a “judicious” decision taken after pouring through evidence, a Bench of Justice P.C. Ghose and Amitava Roy said Shahabuddin should be “forthwith” taken back into custody.
  • The Supreme Court observed that the High Court erred in granting Shahabuddin bail as a “matter of course” without taking into consideration “the overall facts”.
  • It noted that several cases against him are pending in various stages of trial and appeal in various courts of Bihar and in the Patna High Court.
  • The Bench made it clear that it has taken serious notice of Shahabuddin's repeated contention that there was a “conscious delay” in the conduct of his trial by directing that “all steps as contemplated in law to dispose of the case, as early as possible”.
  • The order quashing the High Court decision to free Shahabuddin came despite the Bench flaying the lacklustre performance of the Bihar government on the prosecution side.
  • The Bench had castigated the State for its 17-month delay in conducting the trial and the almost zero interest it showed to pre-vent Shahabuddin's bail.

Bihar’s liquor law amendment’s are ultra virus says HC

  • The Patna High Court set aside the amended Bihar Prohibition and Excise Bill, 2016, which had banned the sale and consumption of liquor in the State.
  • A division bench of the court, comprising Chief Justice Iqbal Ahmed Ansari and Justice Navaniti Prasad Singh, quashed the April 5 notification of the government.
  • It said, “Section 19(4) of the Bihar Excise Act 1915 as amended with effect from 01.04.2016, (passed by the legislature on 31.03.2016) is ultra vires the Constitution and unenforceable.”
  • The Bench, in its 142-page order, went on to say, “The impugned notification, issued by the State under Section 19(4) of the said amended Act is also ultravires the Constitution, and, consequently unenforceable.”

High alert sounded at many places across the country

  • Security has been strengthened at vital installations across Punjab and a high alert has been sounded at all airbases across the State, even as evacuation of people residing in villages along the Inter-national Border continued.
  • High alert has been sounded on all airbases of the region, including at Chandigarh, Ambala, Bathinda, Adampur and Halwara near Ludhiana.
  • Border Security Force (BSF) has put the Inter-national Border on further alert after the surgical strikes.
  • Security has also been strengthened in and around other vital installations, including oil refinery and important power plants in Punjab.Punjab shares 553-km border with Pakistan.
  • It has six districts which lie close to the International Border. Meanwhile, evacuation of people residing in about 1,000 villages within 10 km of the International Border continued following orders of the authorities.
  • Heads of local gurdwaras and temples, sarpanches and the police reached out to people using loudspeakers, asking them to start evacuation at the earliest in the light of escalating situation between the two countries.
  • The SGPC, the apex religious body of the Sikhs, has announced every possible help to the evacuees.

PM Modi said re-use and recycling of waste should be technology driven

  • Prime Minister Narendra Modi said re-use and recycling of waste should be technology driven and insisted that there should a focus on the concept of “waste to wealth” so that revenue models could be developed around cleanliness.
  • Re-use and recycling have been our habits for a long time...these need to be made more technology-driven so that we can create wealth from waste,” Mr. Modi said during his in-augural address at the India Sanitation Conference here.
  • Mr. Modi said garbage can be used as a means to create employment and wealth by recycling and then, cleanliness will be-come a by-product.
  • “While no one likes dirtor dirty surroundings, the habit of cleanliness takes some effort to develop.
  • Let's join hands and start a ‘Swachhagraha' — an initiative for cleanliness to get the country dirt-free on the lines of Mahatma Gandhi's ‘Satyagraha' that freed us from British rule,” said Mr. Modi.

Defence Minister says Pakistan still unaware that surgery has been done

  • Pakistan is like a patient who has been given anaesthesia and doesn’t know that surgery has already been done on him, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said.
  • The Minister’s remarks are first comments from a member of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) following the “surgical strikes” on terrorist launch pads along the Line of Control.
  • Mr. Parrikar’s comments came even as Army chief Gen. Dalbir Singh visited the Northern and Western Commands and reviewed the Army’s operational preparedness in these two crucial commands.
  • Addressing a gathering in Peethsain in Pauri district of Uttarakhand, the Minister warned that India would not hesitate to carry out more such operations in the future if its interests were harmed.
  • “If Pakistan continues with such conspiracies, we will give them a befitting reply again,” the Minister said.
  • Army chief interacted with top commanders and got a first hand assessment of the security situation amid heightened tensions along the LoC and the international border.

CBDT received disclosures of more than 65000 crores under IDS

  • Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced that the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) had received total disclosures of Rs. 65,250 crore under the Income Disclosure Scheme, 2016 in the form of cash and other assets.
  • The Minister added that since some disclosures that were received manually were yet to be tabulated and verified, the figure could be revised upward.
  • The four-month window under the scheme for declaring undisclosed income or black money that had escaped assessment closed.
  • Mr. Jaitley refused to draw comparisons of the current Income Declaration Scheme (IDS), 2016 with the Voluntary Disclosure Scheme of 1997.
  • Then government had mopped up Rs. 9,760 crore in taxes at an average of about Rs. 7 lakh per declarant.
  • Unlike the IDS, Mr. Jaitley said, the earlier scheme had not penalised the declarents and allowed them to value the assets declared at the market prices of 1987 rather than current rates.

Karnataka sought an urgent review of Apex court orders

  • Karnataka sought an urgent review of the Supreme Court orders to set up the Cauvery Management Board (CMB), saying the directions amounted to judicial legislation.
  • Also, it violated the National Water Policy of 2012 which gives Karnataka’s requirement for drinking water first priority over Tamil Nadu’s need for water to irrigate its farm land.
  • The review petition, filed in the Supreme Court a day after the court directed the Centre to set up the CMB, contends that the judicial orders to release Cauvery water and form the CMB had gravely prejudiced the Karnataka people’s right to life.
  • Karnataka said its civil appeal against the 2007 final order of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal was still pending consideration in the Supreme Court.

Another terrorist attack in Baramulla

  • Militants planned to mount a Uri-style attack at the Baramulla Army camp but BSF constable Nitin Kumar (24) put paid to their designs, when he came out of his bunker, all alone, to challenge them.
  • A senior Border Security Force (BSF) official said on Monday that Kumar was killed when the terrorists hurled grenades at the bunkers outside the Army camp and shrapnel hit him.
  • The BSF is co-deployed with the 46 RR Battalion of the Army and mans some of the bunkers there as part of its road opening duty.
  • Attackers, three-four, fled from the spot through the narrow alleys of the congested old town after their bid to carry out a Uri-style attack was foiled in effective fire.
  • A compass, one Global Positioning System (GPS) device and a wire cutter were found near the encounter site.
  • Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who is on a two-day visit to Leh, said he had spoken to National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and BSF DG K.K. Sharma.

Home ministry to tighten the rules on foreign funding

  • The Ministry of Home Affairs is all set to amend the Foreign Contribution Regulation Rules making it mandatory for all voluntary organisations to have dedicated accounts only in banks with core banking facilities for their real-time access.
  • This would allow the security agencies to access the accounts on real-time basis.
  • The Home Ministry is also making rules to ensure that no NGO is allowed to get foreign funds under the prior permission category more than once.
  • The move comes in the backdrop of Amnesty International India getting foreign funds under the prior permission category at least thrice.The new Foreign Contribution Regulation Rules are expected to be notified soon.
  • There are around 33,000 NGOs registered under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act. However, at least 6,000 of them do not have their FCRA accounts in banks with core banking facilities.
  • Many have their FCRA accounts in cooperative banks or State governments-owned apex banks.

SC put on hold order to constitute the Cauvery Management Board

  • In another roller-coaster hearing, the Supreme Court put on hold its order to constitute the Cauvery Management Board and finally settled for the Centre’s suggestion to appoint a “technical team” to visit the Cauvery basin.
  • The technical team led by G.S. Jha, Chairman, Central Water Commission, will visit the river basin along with nominees of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Kerala to submit a report in the Supreme Court by October 17.
  •  The court will hear the matter on October 18.
  • Tamil Nadu accused the Centre of “playing into the hands of the Karnataka government” to deny the people of Tamil Nadu their share of Cauvery water.

GSAT-18 to be launched from the European spacepad of Kourou

  • GSAT-18, India's heaviest satellite to date at 3,404 kg, is scheduled to be launched from the European spacepad of Kourou in French Guiana.
  • It. is expected to add a few new transponders for Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
  • The 48 transponders on the new satellite , including 12 in the Ku-band, should ease ISRO’s shortfall in meeting the growing demand from its numerous users.
  • GSAT-18 will be lifted to its space orbit on a European Ariane-5 rocket, ISRO said.
  • ISRO last launched a communication satellite in November last year. That spacecraft, GSAT-15, did not add new numbers but has replaced the ageing INSAT-3A and a partially crippled INSAT-4B in the 93 degrees East slot.
  • GSAT-18 was approved in May 2015 with a budget of Rs. 1,022 crore, which includes the fee to launch provider Arianespace. It will supplement the INSAT-4CR, sent to orbit in 2007, at the same slot of 74 degrees East longitude.
  • In the coming days, when it is in its final slot GSAT18 is expected to support the services of users in telecommunication, broadcasting, VSAT services and digital satellite news gathering areas.

India gets EU support for surgical strikes

  • The European Parliament has backed India’s surgical strike on terrorist training camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
  • In a signed article in EP Today , the Vice-President of European Parliament, Ryszard Czarnecki, said India’s cross-border action against terrorists should be “commended and supported by the international community.”
  • Praising the Indian Army for its professional approach to a situation that was becoming graver by the day, Mr. Czarnecki said the message was loud and clear that India would no longer allow Pakistan to fuel cross-border terrorism.”

The government has made Aadhaar mandatory for availing LPG subsidies

  • The government has made Aadhaar mandatory for availing cooking gas (LPG) subsidies but has given two months grace period for citizens to get the unique identification number.
  • The government currently gives 12 cylinders of 14.2-kg each at subsidised rates per household in a year.
  • The subsidy on every cylinder is transferred in advance directly into bank accounts of individuals, who then buy the cooking fuel at market rates.
  • For those not yet having Aadhaar, it gave time till November 30, 2016 to make application for enrolment for the unique identification number. Oil marketing companies have been asked to facilitate enrolments.
  • Till the time Aadhaar is assigned, LPG subsidy would be transferred based on bank photo passbook and Aadhaar enrolment ID slip or voter ID card or ration card or kisan photo passbook or passport or driver licence.
  • The Ministry said use of Aadhaar as identifier for delivery of services /benefits/ subsidies simplified the government delivery processes, brought in transparency and efficiency, and enabled beneficiaries to get their entitlements directly

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