Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 09 October 2015

:: Business ::

ICICI Bank launches mVisa-based mobile payment service

ICICI Bank has announced the launch of a service that enables customers to make electronic payments from their smart phones at traditional stores, e-commerce sites, deliveries made at home, radio taxi and utility bills among others.
To start with, this facility has been introduced in Bengaluru with 1,500 merchants. The bank said it will shortly extend it to other cities as well.
The service is based on 'mVisa', a new mobile payment solution from Visa. ICICI Bank said it is the first bank globally to launch a mobile app based 'mVisa' solution for consumers and merchants.
With this service, users of 'Pockets' app can make cashless payments from their smartphones using their debit card by simply scanning a 'mVisa' quick response (QR) code at a merchant location without swiping the card at an EDC machine.
The service provides customers the convenience of speed to complete a transaction along with enhanced security as the card remains in possession of the customer.
To use this facility, a customer is simply required to click on the 'mVisa' icon on the home screen of the 'Pockets' app.
The app automatically activates the camera in the phone, allowing customers to scan the QR code and enter their debit card PIN.

:: Sports ::

South Africa whitewash India take series 2-0

The third and final Twenty20 international between India and South Africa at Eden Gardens was washed out without a ball being bowled, giving the tourists the series 2-0.
No play was possible after a heavy evening shower left the ground water-logged.
The forecasted rain arrived about an hour and a half before the scheduled start of play, and while it did not last for more than 30 minutes the damage was enough to get the Eden Gardens ground staff into overdrive mode.
The match referee and umpires convened several times to inspect the pitch and conditions, but too much water had seeped into various spots on the outfield and ultimately, after three official inspections the decision was taken to call off the match soon after 9:30pm IST.
The teams now move into the five-match ODI series, the first of which is in Kanpur on Sunday.

:: Miscellaneous ::

Vodafone gets relief from Bombay HC in transfer pricing case

In a big relief for telecom major Vodafone India, the Bombay High Court set aside an order of Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT), which had ruled that the IT department had powers to raise tax demand on the company in a Rs. 8,500 crore transfer pricing case.
The transfer pricing case dates back to 2008 relating to sale of one of its call centres in Ahmedabad in 2007.
Transfer pricing involves related entities dealing at arm’s length to ensure fair pricing of the asset that is transferred.
Vodafone had appealed against the order of the Tribunal, which was admitted by High Court division bench of Justices S.C. Dharmadhikari and Anil Menon.
The IT Appellate Tribunal had on December 10 last year, held that the company had structured the deal with another India-based entity Hutchison Whampoa Properties with the intention to circumvent the transfer pricing norms, even though it was an international transaction wherein there was no arm’s length dealing between the two related entities.
However, the Tribunal had referred the case back to the IT department asking it to revise the amount to be recovered from Vodafone.
Vodafone pleaded in High Court that IT department had no jurisdiction in the transfer pricing casebecause the said transaction was not international and did not attract tax.
The Tribunal had then ruled that the deal relating to sale of the call centre business was structured with the motive to “circumvent the transfer pricing provisions of the Income Tax Act” and was essentially an “international transaction between two related parties and thus would be subject to the transfer pricing provisions.”
The dispute relates to the sale of the Ahmedabad-based call centre business (Vodafone India Services formerly known as 3 Global Services) for assessment year 2008-09.
The department slapped a tax demand on the company on October 31, 2012 under various sections of the Income Tax Act.

:: Prize ::

Belarusian author Svetlana Alexievich wins Literature Nobel

The Nobel Prize 2015 in Literature went to 67-year-old Belarusian author Svetlana Alexievich.
The Nobel was awarded “for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time”.
Ms. Alexievich is the 14th women Literature Laureate.
Ms. Alexievich used the skills of a journalist to create literature chronicling the great tragedies of the Soviet Union and its collapse- World War II, the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster and the suicides that ensued from the death of Communism.
The academy’s permanent secretary, Sara Danius, told that Swedish broadcaster SVT that she reached the writer just before the announcement.
The daughter of two village schoolteachers, Alexievich studied journalism in Belarus, which at the time was part of the Soviet Union.
She now lives in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, and like many intellectuals supports the political opponents of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, who is up for re—election on Sunday.
Last year’s literature award went to French writer Patrick Modiano.
This year’s medicine prize went to scientists from Japan, the U.S. and China who discovered drugs to fight malaria and other tropical diseases.
Japanese and Canadian scientists won the physics prize for discovering that tiny particles called neutrinos have mass.
The Nobel announcements continue with the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday and the economics award on Monday.