Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 19 December 2016

:: National ::

Single, permanent Tribunal to adjudicate all inter-State river water disputes

The Centre has decided to set up a single, permanent Tribunal to adjudicate all inter-State river water disputes, a step which is aimed at resolving grievances of States in a speedy manner.
This body will subsume-existing tribunals. Besides the tribunal, the government has also pro-posed to float some Benches by amending the Inter-State Water Disputes Act, 1956 to look into disputes as and when required.
Unlike the tribunal, the Benches will cease to exist once the disputes are resolved. A decision to approve an amendment to the Act was taken at the Union Cabinet earlier this week.
Along with the tribunal, the amendment proposes to set up Dispute Resolution Committee (DRC). The DRC, comprising experts and policy-makers, is pro-posed to handle disputes prior to the tribunal.

Govt stuck with conventions in RAW, IB nominations

Though government overlooked the seniority criterion while appoint-ing the Army Chief, it stuck to the convention while appointing the heads of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW).
Rajiv Jain, a 1980-batch IPS officer of the Jharkhand cadre, now heads the security desk in the IB. Mr. Jain will take over as the IB chief on January 1, a day after the present chief, Dineshwar Sharma, retires.
Mr. Jain has been appointed for a fixed tenure of two years. He was the senior-most in the IB hierarchy and the appointment comes months before he was to superannuate in March 2017.
Mr. Jain has also served at a subsidiary unit of the IB in Ahmedabad from 2004 to 2008. During his present stint as Special Director, Mr. Jain had the primary role of monitoring and strengthening cybersecurity.
He had served in Jammu in the 1990s when militancy was at its peak.
The appointment of Anil Dhasmana as the next RAW chief has generated much interest in Pakistan as he is an expert on the Baloch issue, a subject close to the heart of the present dispensation.
He succeeds Rajinder Khanna, who completes his tenure on December 31. Mr. Dhasmana has close ties with the Nepal station of RAW , one of the most critical desks in the region.

EC asked govt to ban anonymous contributions over 2000

Seeking to stop financing of election campaigns using black money, the Election Commission has urged the government to amend laws to ban anonymous contributions of Rs. 2,000 and above made to political parties.
There is no constitutional or statutory prohibition on receipt of anonymous donations by political parties.
But there is an “indirect partial ban” on anonymous donations through the requirement of declaration of donations under Section 29C of the Representation of the People Act, 1951.
But, such declarations are mandated only for contributions above Rs. 20,000. As per the amendment proposal, sent by the com-mission to the government, and made part of its compendium on proposed electoral reforms.
All reports on the alleged privilege to political parties are false & misleading. Political parties have not been granted any exemption or privilege, post demonetisation & introduction of Taxation Amendment Act, 2016.
Post-demonetisation, no political party can accept donations in Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes since they were rendered illegal tenders.
The poll panel has also proposed that exemption of income tax should be extended only to political parties that contest elections and win seats in Lok Sabha or Assembly polls.
Section 13A of the Income-Tax Act, 1961 confers tax ex-emption to political parties for income from house property, voluntary contributions, capital gains and other sources.
Only income under the head ‘salaries and income from business or profession' are chargeable to tax in the hands of political parties in India.
In yet another recommendation to check black-money, the EC has asked the Law Ministry to ensure that political parties are made to register details of donors for coupons of all amounts on the basis of a Supreme Court order of 1996.
Coupons are one of the ways devised by the political parties for collecting donations and hence are printed by the party itself. There is no limit as to how many coupons can be printed or its total quantum.

:: International ::

Protests, looting lead to delay of demonetisation in Venezuela

With protests rock-ing his unpopular government, embattled President Nicolas Maduro delayed until January 2 taking Venezuela's highest denomination bill out of circulation.
The 100-bolivar bills would temporarily remain legal tender, Mr. Maduro said, but the borders with Colombia and Brazil will remain closed to hit what he claims are “mafias” hoarding Venezuelan cash abroad in a U.S.-backed plot to destabilise the country.
The bill is worth about 15 U.S. cents at the highest official rate, and until recently ac-counted for 77 per cent of the cash in circulation in Venezuela.
Venezuela has the world's highest inflation rate, set to hit 475 per cent this year ac-cording to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The government is trying to introduce new bills in denominations up to 200 times higher than the old ones, but the plan derailed when Mr. Maduro banned the 100-bolivar note before the new bills arrived.
Four airplanes with the new currency set to arrive from abroad were delayed by international sabotage, Mr. Maduro said. He did not say where the money was coming from, or what type of sabotage.
Rioting and angry protests erupted in several Venezuelan cities as the chaotic reform left people without cash to buy food or Christmas presents.

:: Business and Economy ::

Dedicated fund of Rs 10000 crore for infrastructure development

The country's infrastructure sector, requiring investments of more than $1.5 trillion in the coming ten years, is set to get a boost with a dedicated fund of Rs.10,000 crore to provide credit enhancement for commercially viable projects.
The fund — through ‘un-conditional and irrevocable partial credit guarantee' — will help enhance the credit rating of bonds issued by infrastructure firms so that they, in turn, can attract long-term investments especially from global insurance, pen-sion and sovereign wealth funds.
Prior to the setting up of the dedicated fund, the RBI is expected to bring out a comprehensive regulatory framework for credit enhancement to infrastructure projects and Non-Banking Finance Companies (NBFC) keen on the business.
The central bank's norms for credit enhancement products will include capital requirement and bad loans or asset classification.
The dedicated fund will be in the form of a Special Pur-pose Vehicle (SPV) and will be categorised an NBFC-Infrastructure Finance Company.
Its promoters are likely to include LIC, General Insurance Corporation of India, State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Power Finance Corporation, Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency and India Infrastructure Finance Company Ltd (IIFCL).
The government is keen on roping in international financial institutions such as Asian Development Bank, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, New Development Bank, Inter-national Finance Corporation, and talks are on in this regard.
Also, other Indian public sector insurance companies, large state-owned banks and the National Investment & Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) are expected to contribute to the fund that will have an authorised capital of Rs.10,000 crore.
The initial minimum paid-up capital will be Rs.500 crore, which will be quickly scaled up with regular capital infusion to Rs.10,000 crore.

Point of sale terminals

The government wants banks to install three lakh Point of Sale terminals in the next three months.
Following the withdrawal of high-value currency notes, activity at PoS terminals saw exponential growth, even as the number of new such ma-chines installed has also gone up.
A point-of-sale (POS) terminal is a computerised re-placement for a cash register which can process credit and debit cards. A customer needs to enter a card PIN to complete the transaction us-ing the PoS terminal.
If you are a merchant, then you can request the bank where you have an account to install PoS machines at your establishment.
The end-customer does not have to pay any charges for swiping his or debit/ credit cards at the PoS terminals. However, the merchant has to pay the issuer bank what is known as merchant discount rate (MDR).
The issuer bank is the one which installs the machines at the merchant establishment.
In theory, though customers don't have to pay, in practice, merchants increase the cost of the product and ser-vices sold, in a move to pass on the charge incurred by them to the customer.
MDR is capped for debit cards but not for credit cards. Effective July 1, 2012, RBI capped the MDR for debit cards at 0.75 per cent of the transaction amount for value up to Rs.2,000 and 1 per cent for a transaction amount for value above Rs.2,000.
For credit cards, the MDR varies between 1.5 per cent to 2.5 per cent. Following the withdrawal of legal tender status to the old Rs.500 and Rs.1,000 currency notes, RBI had asked banks to waive of the MDR till the end of December.
Last week, RBI also lowered the MDR cap for debit cards efective between January 1 to March 31, 2017.
In this period, MDR is capped at 0.25 per cent for debit card transactions up to Rs.1,000 and 0.5 per cent for transactions above Rs.1,000 up to Rs.2,000.
The accounts are settled at the end of the day when the merchant opts for it. The bank credits the amount to the merchant's account, after deducting charges, the next day.
The MDR that the mer-chant pays is divided among three entities, the issuer bank (which issues the debit card), the acquirer bank (which installs the PoS), and the payment gateway. The is-suer bank gets the maximum share of the MDR.