Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 14 March 2016

:: NATIONAL ::

Government hopeful to bring big bang reforms

The National Democratic Alliance government hopes to press the accelerator on reforms and pass the landmark Constitution (122nd Amendment) Bill for a national Goods and Services Tax (GST) and a separate bill for Bankruptcy and Insolvency Code, 2015.
The current session of Parliament has already seen the passage of one landmark legislation the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies and Services) Bill, 2016.
The legislation meant to provide statutory backing to the unique identification number.
FM said “We are trying to have special emphasis now both in terms of legislative changes and resources being put to strengthen the banking system. Next few months, in bringing about structural change, are going to be extremely important.”
Mr. Jaitley said that the constituency within India supporting reforms is much bigger than its opponents. He also said that exhibiting determination to move on the reforms path, India can provide a significant amount of growth to the world.
The GST Bill was passed by the Lok Sabha but is stuck in the Upper House, where the ruling NDA does not have a majority and is dependent on the support of the Congress for its passage.
The Constitution amendment Bill needs two-third majority or 162 votes in the 242-member Rajya Sabha. After it clears the Rajya Sabha, the legislation will have to be ratified by at least half of the 29 States.
Also speaking at the Conference, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said that the world had lots to learn from India’s Aadhaar initiative that would affect revenue generation in a big way.
Ms. Lagarde also told reporters she didn’t see much of a downside from the global economy to India’s growth rate since the country has a “solid” growth model, a growing population, scale of market and was pursuing reforms.

RSS calls for end of caste based reservation

At its annual meeting, the RSS’s highest decision-making body, Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha, made a pitch for social justice, passing a resolution on the need to end caste discrimination.
RSS general secretary Suresh (Bhaiyyaji) Joshi said that while Hindu thought was supreme, many discriminatory practices had come up over time for which Hindus should take responsibility.
He added that harmony was a must and caste discrimination must end.
Taking a progressive yet cautious line on the recent controversy over temple entry for women in a Maharashtra temple, Mr. Joshi said that regressive thinking of gender segregation needed to be addressed, but through dialogue rather than agitation.

Restrictions lifted from women entry to Para military forces (Register and Login to read Full News..)

UNDP says marital rapes criminalisation is commitment under SDG (Register and Login to read Full News..)

:: International ::

Indian born business man Rajat Gupta released after two years

India-born former Goldman Sachs Director Rajat Gupta has been released after completing his two-year prison term, weeks after a U.S. court agreed to rehear his appeal to throw out his 2012 insider trading conviction.
While Gupta’s prison term was to end on March 13, but since the date fell on a Sunday, he was released on Friday, four years after he lost his insider trading trial and suffered multiple legal setbacks to overturn his conviction.
Apart from the two-year prison term, he was fined $5 million and the Securities and Exchange Commission also slapped a $13.9 million penalty against him.
Gupta started out his prison term in 2014 at FMC DEVENS, an administrative security federal medical centre with an adjacent minimum security satellite camp in Ayer, Massachusetts.

:: Science and Technology ::

New findings will reduce power consumption by computers’

In a breakthrough for energy-efficient computing, engineers at the University of California-Berkeley have shown for the first time that magnetic chips can operate with the lowest fundamental level of energy dissipation possible under the laws of thermodynamics.
The findings mean that dramatic reductions in power consumption are possible — as much as one-millionth the amount of energy per operation used by transistors in modern computers.
This is critical for mobile devices, which demand powerful processors that can run for a day or more on small, lightweight batteries.
On a larger industrial scale, as computing increasingly moves into ‘the cloud’, the electricity demands of the giant cloud data centres are multiplying, collectively taking an increasing share of the country’s — and world’s — electrical grid.
Magnetic computing emerged as a promising candidate because the magnetic bits can be differentiated by direction, and it takes just as much energy to get the magnet to point left as it does to point right.

:: India and World ::

BSF and BGB of Bangladesh conducted first ever joint exercise in Sundarbans

In an attempt to bring in more synergy in coordinated border management, border-guarding forces of Bangladesh and India conducted their first-ever joint exercise in the riverine borders of the Sundarbans.
The exercise between the Border Security Force (BSF) and the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) commenced with troopers, including dog and bomb squads, from both the forces carrying out joint searches of cargo vessels on the Ichamati river.
Congratulating both the forces on the successful conduct of the drill, senior BSF and BGB officers said the exercise would become a “regular affair” in the future.
The drill can be a big deterrent to smugglers and criminals who will have to deal with the combined efforts of both the forces.
The officials said the joint exercise would be extended on land as well to make it part of a coordinated border management plan.
Speaking about cross-border smuggling, both BSF and BGB officers pointed out that smuggling of cattle has come down by nearly 60 to 70 per cent in the recent times.
BSF officials also flagged concerns about smuggling of Fake Indian Currency Notes (FICN).
Regarding concerns about smuggling of Phensedyl from India to Bangladesh, BSF officials said the recent decision to ban on the cough syrup would help the forces to stop smuggling.

:: Business and Economy ::

Government devised three part strategy for stressed loans

As part of the government’s three-part plan to address stressed assets of public sector banks, structural issues would be dealt with to avoid recurrence of these problems, whether wilful or due to policy paralysis or business challenges, in future.
Last week, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told Parliament that Rs. 1 lakh crore of stressed assets were added in the first nine months of the current financial year itself.
In the case of the largest public sector bank, State Bank of India, loans worth Rs. 11,700 crore have been reported to be locked up as non-performing assets with nearly 1,160 defaulters wilfully deciding not to repay.
The list includes Winsome Diamonds & Jewellery which owes Punjab National Bank (PNB) Rs. 900.37 crore and Zoom Developers (owing Rs. 410.18 crore to PNB).
The state-owned PNB has declared 904 borrowers who owe it a combined Rs. 10,889.71 crore as wilful defaulters. Of these, 140 companies were added to the PNB’s list of wilful defaulters in the December quarter alone.
Separately, speaking also at the Advancing Asia Conference, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde said that Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan’s move to address bank balance sheets “head-on” is the right approach.

SEBI debarred over 1000 entities for tax evasion

In a major clampdown, regulator SEBI has debarred over 1,000 entities from the capital markets after they were found to be misusing stock exchange platforms for tax evasion to the tune of more than Rs 15,000 crore.
SEBI has also suspended trading in shares of as many as 167 companies, while the regulator has written to the Income Tax Department in nearly 100 cases where more than 1,800 entities are suspected to have traded in shares valued beyond their disclosed income.
Such activities were mostly happening through shares of shell companies or thinly-traded penny stocks. There has not been any instance of a blue-chip stock being used for generating bogus profits or losses to evade taxes.
An analysis of the enforcement and surveillance measures taken by Sebi since August 2014 shows that 167 stocks have been completely suspended for trading and trading has been restricted to a lower price band of 2 per cent for 123 others.
SEBI has also written to Income Tax Department with details of 1,854 entities who have provided exit to preferential allottees for trade value of nearly Rs 3,900 crore.

India Ratings and Research revised its outlook for telecommunications services (Register and Login to read Full News..)

:: Sports ::

Vijender singh beats Hungary’s Alexander Horwath

There was no stopping Indian boxing star Vijender Singh as he notched up his fourth successive knockout professional win by pummelling Hungary’s Alexander Horvath in under three rounds here.
Vijender had little trouble outpunching his opponent, who failed to get up after being thrown off balance by his body blows in the third round of the six-round contest of the middlewight (75kg) category late on Saturday night.
The 30-year-old Indian, who went into the contest on the back of three successive knockout triumphs, continued to be a cut above his rivals, who talk big but deliver little inside the ring.
The 20-year-old Horvath, with an experience of seven pro fights, had been drinking snake blood to prepare himself but it seemed the bizarre routine helped little in countering the ferocity of India’s first Olympic and World Championships bronze medallist.
Vijender will next be seen in action on April 2, the opponent and venue for which would be decided later.