Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 18 July 2017

::National::

Centre says Supreme Court should look into special status to Jammu and Kashmir

• The Centre asked the Supreme Court to debate on the special status granted to the State of Jammu and Kashmir, saying it was both a sensitive and constitutional matter.

• “It is a very sensitive matter. It is a constitutional issue. A debate is required,” Attorney General K.K. Venugopal submitted before a Bench led by Chief Justice J.S. Khehar.

• The top law officer said We the Citizens, contending that the J&K government, given the State’s special autonomous status under Articles 35A and 370, was discriminatory against non-residents as far as government jobs and real estate purchases were concerned.

• The Bench agreed to schedule the case before a three-judge Bench after six weeks.

• The hearing comes in the backdrop of an earlier Jammu and Kashmir High Court, which ruled that Article 370 assumed a place of permanence in the Constitution and the feature was beyond amendment, repeal or abrogation.

• The court said Article 35A gave “protection” to existing laws in force in the State.

• It also observed that the President under Article 370 (1) was conferred with power to extend any provision of the Constitution to the State with such “exceptions and modifications” as may be deemed fit subject to consultation or concurrence with the State government.

• The High Court said J&K, while acceding to the Dominion of India, retained limited sovereignty and did not merge with it.

Government said no to grace period for depositing demonetised notes

• The Centre told the Supreme Court that it took a conscious decision to not give any grace period for citizens to deposit their demonetised notes after the cut-off date of December 30, 2016.

• Doing so would have defeated the very purpose of demonetisation, the government said.

• It was replying to the Supreme Court’s appeal to open a window for genuine people, like the terminally ill and invalids, to name a few, who were unable to deposit their demonetised Rs. 1,000 and Rs. 500 notes between November 9 and December 30 last year.

• Noting that these people had over 51 days to deposit and exchange their old notes for the new currency through multiple outlets.

• The NDA government said now there exists “no necessity or any justifiable reason” to provide them a “grace period” till December 30, 2017, as many petitioners have sought in a bunch of petitions.

Telangana State will have eco-friendly bridges across Tiger corridor

• In a first of its kind, Telangana State will have eco-friendly bridges over a canal cutting across the tiger corridor linking the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR) with the forests in Telangana's Kumram Bheem Asifabad district.

• The intervention requires the laying of fertile soil to grow grass and plants over the structure, so that fragmentation of the reserve forest is camouflaged.

• The ‘eco-bridges’ will be constructed at key spots along the 72 km-long, and at some places over a kilometre wide, right flank canal of the Pranahita barrage in the Bejjur and Dahegaon mandals.

• One of the locations tentatively earmarked for the eco-bridge is a spot close to Sulgupalli in the Bejjur forest range. Here, the canal is over a kilometre wide and the need to facilitate the movement of wild animals is quite necessary.

• The concept emerged after visits by experts from the Wildlife Board of India and the Wildlife Institute of India.

• They were concerned about the large-scale destruction of pristine forest along the corridor, which would result in cutting off tiger movement between TATR and Bejjur.

• The Telangana Irrigation Department has given its consent for the construction of the eco-bridges. Recommendations on the size and locations of the bridges are awaited from the National Board of Wildlife.

• In recent years, big cats from the TATR have ambled into the mixed and bamboo forests of the Bejjur range via the Sirpur forests.

• The TATR and its buffer area, which are contiguous with the Sirpur forests, boast of a speedily multiplying tiger population, the cause of the frequent migration of tigers into Sirpur and Bejjur.

Policy on GM mustard crop yet to be finalised

• The government informed the Supreme Court that a policy decision on the commercial release of the Genetically Modified (GM) mustard crop is yet to be finalised.

• The Centre said it was poring through the various suggestions on and objections to the commercial rollout of the GM crops.

• A Bench, led by Chief Justice of India J.S. Khehar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, granted the government one week to report back on when the policy would be finalised. It said the policy should be good-intentioned and well-informed.

• The court had on October 17, 2016, extended the stay on the commercial release of the GM mustard until further orders. It had asked the Centre to collect public opinion before the release.

• The government had assured the court that there would be no commercial release of GM seeds till the views of the public were collected and placed before the appraisal committee.

• The hearing was conducted on the basis of a petition filed by activist Aruna Rodrigues, who had alleged that the government was sowing GM seeds without the relevant tests.

• Mustard is one of India’s most important winter crops, sown between mid-October and late November.

Indonesia named part of South China Sea as North Natuna Sea

Indonesia has named waters in its exclusive economic zone that overlap with China’s expansive claim to the South China Sea as the North Natuna Sea, an assertion of sovereignty that has angered Beijing.
The decision has been in the works since mid-2016 and was vital to law enforcement at sea and securing Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone, said Arif Havas Oegroseno, the deputy Minister for Maritime Sovereignty.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said the “so-called change of name makes no sense at all”.
China claims most of the South China Sea, putting it in dispute with many southeast Asian nations, and has carried out extensive land reclamation and construction on reefs and atolls to bolster its claims.
Philipppines also has claims to the South China Sea. But Filipino officials behind an arbitration case in which the Philippines won a resounding victory over China last year are expressing alarm that Beijing continues to defy the decision.

::Business and Economy::

Process for formulation of a new industrial policy has been initiated

• The process for formulation of a new industrial policy has been initiated and consultations are being held with stakeholders.

• Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said consultations were on with industry bodies, academia, think-tanks, state governments and concerned ministries and departments of the central government.

• The government is also preparing a national plan for manufacturing clusters with an aim to bring about convergence in development of industrial areas by central and state governments.

• Ms. Sitharaman said that inputs from central ministries and departments and states have been taken for development of an industrial information system. She said action for constitution of a committee to evolve a cluster framework had been taken.

• To a question on special economic zones, she said in April-June this fiscal, exports from SEZs stood at Rs. 1.38 lakh crore.

• The minister also said that in case of lack of substantive progress in the project or on a request by the developer, the Board of Approval cancels the letter of approval for the SEZ. So far, letters of approval of 109 SEZs have been cancelled.

GST council revisits some of the tax rates

• The Goods and Services Tax Council, on Monday, decided to increase the cess applied on cigarettes by as much as 31% in certain categories.

• The cess on these items is over and above the 28% GST rate applied to them.

• “In respect of cigarettes, the Fitment Committee had recommended that in line with the weighted average VAT rate (28.7%) the GST rate on cigarettes may be kept at 28%,” the official statement said.

• In addition, Compensation Cess may be levied on cigarettes at rates equal to 1.05 times the specific excise duty rates (net of NCCD).

• However, this method of calibrating the compensation cess did not take into consideration the cascading of taxes (that is in earlier regime VAT being charged on value inclusive of the excise duty).

• As a result, the total tax incidence on cigarettes in GST regime has come down, as compared to the total tax in pre-GST regime.

• The statement said while any reduction in the tax incidence on items of mass consumption would be welcome, the same would be unacceptable in case of demerit goods like cigarettes.

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