Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 26 February 2018

::NATIONAL::

India from Women Development to Women-led Development

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has stressed the need to have women as equal partners in the development of the country.
“Today, the country is moving forward from the path of women development to women-led development,” he said in the 41st edition of his Mann Ki Baat radio broadcast.
Recalling Swami Vivekananda’s words that “the idea of perfect womanhood is perfect independence”.
Mr. Modi said: “Today, it is our duty to ensure the participation of women in every field of life, be it social or economic life; it is also our fundamental duty.”
The Prime Minister said a woman’s power today underlined inner fortitude and self-confidence, which made her self-reliant.
“Not only has she herself advanced but has carried forward the country and society to newer heights ... Today the country is moving forward from the path of women development to women-led development,” he said.
Referring to International Women’s Day observed every year on March 8, he said, “We are part of a tradition where men were identified because of women. Yashoda-Nandan, Kaushalya-Nandan, Gandhari-Putra, these were identities of a son ...”
Apart from women’s rights, Mr. Modi spoke at length about National Safety Day, National Science Day and issues such as clean energy.
“If we are not aware of safety in our daily life, if we are not able to attain a certain level, it will get extremely difficult during the time of disasters,” he said.
Mr. Modi regretted that while people read signboards put up on safety issues, they often ignored the messages.
He urged the people to inculcate safety in their day-to-day lives, stressing that India had to become a “risk-conscious” society.
He said that till three years ago, thousands of people lost their lives every year because of heat waves.
Since then, the National Disaster Management Authority had organised workshops on heatwave management to raise awareness among the people, the Prime Minister said.
“In 2017, the death toll on account of heatwave remarkably came down to around 220 or so. This proves that if we accord priority to safety, we can actually attain safety,” he said.
‘Gobar Dhan’ scheme
Mr. Modi also referred to the newly launched “Gobar Dhan” scheme for converting rural waste into clean energy through biogas under the government’s Swachch Bharat campaign.
‘Gobar Dhan’ — Galvanising Organic Bio Agro Resources — would ensure a hygienic environment in villages and monetise cattle dung and solid agricultural waste.

Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill soon

The Union government may consider enacting the Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill to confiscate assets of those who flee the country and refuse to return after committing frauds in excess of Rs. 100 crore.
Such a law assumes significance as major bank frauds have come to light in quick succession of late.
Nirav Modi, a diamond merchant accused in the Rs. 11,400-crore Punjab National Bank case, and his family members are currently abroad.
The passports of Mr. Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi have been revoked.
In another case involving Rs. 389 crore of the Oriental Bank of Commerce, a Delhi-based jewellery exporter and his business partners fled the country in 2014.
Under the existing laws, the bank has failed to recover the dues in the past three years.
A draft of the Bill, which is in consonance with similar legislation in several countries, was circulated last May seeking comments from all stakeholders.
The Bill was cleared by the Union Law Ministry with certain recommendations on reconciliation of provisions with the existing laws.
The draft Bill followed an announcement in the Union Budget for 2017-18 that the government planned to introduce a legal measure to confiscate assets of the economic offenders who flee to foreign jurisdictions to escape the clutches of law.
The move came after Vijay Mallya, who owed more than Rs. 9,000 crore to the public sector banks, flew out of the country and refused to come back.
It set off prolonged and multi-pronged legal proceedings, with the government still fighting a legal battle for his extradition from the U.K.
The draft Bill defines a fugitive economic offender as any individual against whom an arrest warrant has been issued and who has either left the country or refuses to come back to face prosecution.
As proposed, the Enforcement Directorate will be empowered under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) to initiate the proceedings.
It has a provision enabling repayment of dues to creditors by disposing of confiscated assets, in case the accused offender continues to evade prosecution.
As listed in the draft Bill’s schedule, it will be applicable to various financial and allied offences as defined under the Indian Penal Code, the Prevention of Corruption Act, the Securities and Exchange Board of India Act, Customs Act and so on.

Assessing Green cover of the city using Drone in Tirupati

Keen to assess the precise green cover, the State government has initiated an aerial survey through drones and has successfully completed the study over the Tirupati region.
It is set to take it up in the Vijayawada region now, said S. Mustafa, general manager of the Andhra Pradesh Greening and Beautification Corporation.
The survey would help identify green cover in a specific geographical area.
“It will take one week to complete (the survey) in the Vijayawada region, which will be followed by Visakhapatnam,” he said.
Emphasising the corporation’s efforts to improve green cover in 13 districts, he said gardening workshops were being conducted in the city and already 100 candidates were trained in the nuances of the art.
Amaravati would need thousands of professional gardeners to improve green cover.
“We have in-house architects and horticulturists who will visit various municipalities and corporations in the State and give their designs as per the requirements. We are taking up green enhancement in temples and the best example is the Kanaka Durga temple here,” Mr. Mustafa said.

States can relax Highway liquor ban: SC

The Supreme Court gave the State governments the discretion to decide, on facts, whether areas covered by local self-governing bodies or areas proximate to municipal pockets should be exempted from the court’s nationwide prohibition on sale of liquor within 500 metres along the highways.
On July 11, 2017, the court exempted municipal areas from the prohibition. It said the ban mainly targeted busy national and State highways inter-connecting cities, towns and villages along.
The purpose of the ban, imposed in a December, 2016 judgment, was to prevent drunken driving along these busy thoroughfares.
“The order does not prohibit licensed establishments within municipal areas,” the court said.
However, the July 11 order triggered more questions than answers. States, especially Tamil Nadu, came back to the court, asking whether panchayats would also come under the definition of “municipal areas” mentioned in the July 11 order.
Tamil Nadu said “municipal areas” were not “intended to exclude areas within the jurisdiction of local self-governing bodies.”
The States reasoned that in future, these panchayats might be developed in a manner similar to municipalities, or some of them might be geographically proximate to an urban agglomeration.
They sought a clarification about the “obvious uncertainties” thrown open by the order.
Without intervening, a Bench of Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and Justices Amitava Roy and D.Y. Chandrachud said the court left it to the States to take a decision after examining “whether an area covered by a local self-governing body is proximate to a municipal agglomeration or is sufficiently developed” to apply the exemption granted in the July 11 order.
“In deciding whether the principle which has been set down in the July order should be extended to a local self-governing body, the State governments would take recourse to all relevant circumstances, including the nature and extent of development in the area and the object underlying the direction prohibiting the sale of liquor on highways,” the court said.

Bihar Budget session

The budget session of Bihar Assembly, which gets under way, is likely to be a stormy one in view of the by-elections to be held in some constituencies.
The ruling NDA and the Opposition RJD-Congress alliance have gone into poll-mode in the run-up to the Rajya Sabha biennial polls which is also slated for next month.
The session would begin with address of the Governor to a joint sitting of the two Houses while the budget for 2018-19 and supplementary demand grant for 2017-18 will be presented the next day.
In all, there are 24 working days in the session during which the truncated grand alliance of RJD-Congress is likely to make all efforts to put the ruling NDA in the dock over alleged lack of adequate action in Srijan scam, irregularities in construction of toilets, poor law and order and high-handedness in implementation of prohibition.
By-elections for two Assembly and one parliamentary constituencies besides six Rajya Sabha seats scheduled for next month.
Both the alliances are also likely to corner each other over the CBI and the ED enquiries into allegations of corruption against RJD supremo Lalu Prasad and his family members as also the Srijan scam and bungling in construction of toilets in which the Opposition has been alleging the involvement of people close to the NDA.
The bypolls, scheduled for March 11, and the Rajya Sabha by-elections on March 23, will provide the first opportunity for trial of strength of the two sides since the JD(U) broke away from the grand alliance in July last year and rejoined the NDA.

Rustom-2 UAV test successful

India’s under-development Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Rustom-2 was successfully test-flown by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
“This flight assumes significance because of the fact that this is the first flight in user configuration with a higher power engine. All parameters were normal,” the DRDO said in a statement.
The flight was conducted at the DRDO’s Aeronautical Test Range at Chitradurga in Karnataka.
Rustom-2 belongs to a family of UAVs under development, besides Rustom-1 and Rustom-H. It is a Medium Altitude Long Endurance drone (MALE).
It can fly up to an altitude of 22,000 feet and has an endurance of over 20 hours. It is capable of carrying payloads for electronic and signal intelligence missions.
Currently, the three services employ hundreds of Israeli drones and have projected a requirement of hundreds of more UAVs, including armed variants, in the near future.
The DRDO is also developing other drones in different categories.

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::INTERNATIONAL::

CPC lifts two term limit for President and Vice Pres.

China cleared the decks for President Xi Jinping’s third consecutive term in office, ahead of a crucial session of parliament next month.
China’s Xinhua news agency reported that Communist Party of China (CPC) proposed on Sunday that the President and the Vice-President will not be constitutionally restricted to two consecutive terms in office.
This, in effect, means that Mr. Xi, who is serving his second consecutive five-year term, can continue beyond 2023.
Analysts point out that the removal of a two-term restriction on the Vice-President is also significant.
There is speculation that Wang Qishan, the country’s anti-corruption czar and Mr. Xi’s trusted ally, who officially retired in November, could be reappointed as Vice-President.
Alternatively, he could head a new National Supervisory Commission that will be empowered to throw its dragnet beyond the 86 million members of the CPC, including private business houses.
Xinhua said the CPC had proposed that the expression that the President and the Vice-President “shall serve no more than two consecutive terms” be removed from the Constitution.
Some observers, however, highlight that the CPC’s move is not confined to Mr. Xi’s term,
The announcement came after the powerful 25-member Politburo met.
The Central Committee of the CPC will meet to discuss the proposed changes. The flurry of political activity will culminate in the March 3 session of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s parliament.
The NPC will give final shape to major decisions taken at the National Party Congress held in October 2017.
Xinhua also reported that the party proposed that Mr. Xi’s political theory — Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era — be written into the Constitution.
Besides, the formation of the National Supervisory Commission, as a constitutional entity, was planned.

::ECONOMY::

Lending to Corporates should not freeze

Lending to corporates should not be choked as a fallout of the Rs. 11,400-crore fraud at Punjab National Bank.
This especially at a time when credit growth is about to recover and the economy is set to grow at a higher pace, India Inc has cautioned.
The Indian industry had called for better control systems to check financial frauds and had also, earlier, suggested gradual reduction in government holding in public sector banks (PSBs).
Government, regulators and industry must act fast to address systemic risks in the financial sector.
The three key solutions for the banking sector are better management and operational efficiencies, use of technology such as blockchain and big data analytics, and lowering government shareholding in public sector banks.
Assocham cautioned against allowing the alleged fraud in the PNB to halt the entire system of corporate lending as demoralisation would set in among the top functionaries and employees of government-owned banks.
It was something the country could ill-afford at a time when credit growth was about to recover and the economy was set to grow at a higher pace, Assocham said.
Meanwhile, lenders are now planning to increase insurance cover against delinquencies by their employees to protect bottomlines.
“Frauds of such magnitude and scale... have forced us to consider substantially much higher risk cover than the basic banker’s indemnity policy,” a top public sector bank official said.
PNB had bought a basic banker’s indemnity policy covering employee fraud up to Rs. 2 crore, which would not cover even a fraction of the value of the recent fraud.

Rural Electrification by Lithium ion batteries

The shift towards lithium ion batteries from the older technology of lead acid batteries has allowed firms like Kaho India Private Limited to help the Centre achieve its rural electrification target even in areas beyond the reach of the grid.
Kaho India Private Limited, started in 2012, seeks to provide last-mile energy access through compact solar modules to areas that are so far not connected to the grid.
For instance, in Chhattisgarh, there are various tribal regions with no electricity and the grid cannot reach there maybe for the next 10 years because even roads cannot be built there due to the high intensity of LWE (left wing extremism) activities.
The device, developed by the company, can power three lights, one fan, one phone charger and has a socket to power a DC-power television.
The firm provides all the related appliances as well, except for the TV.
The firm had initially developed a unit using lead acid battery but found that the short lifespan of these batteries rendered the entire product all but useless.
Subsequently, the firm began looking at other battery options and settled on lithium ion batteries.
This solved a lot of problems for the customer as well as for a lot of government schemes as well.
In lead acid batteries, the typical calculation is that you have to put 8 VAh per peak watt of solar panel.
In lithium ion, you need to do 4.8 VAh per peak watt. So, you have the size benefit.
In a smaller package, we could put in more storage, so it also became cheaper for the government on a per-energy cost basis.
However, the introduction of the more efficient battery technology was accompanied by a rise in the price of the product.
This, though, was not much of a problem for the firm because it decided to sell its products to the government instead of to individual households.
Now, it priced at Rs. 50,000 per unit. But the government is buying them now under the REC plan and the Saubhagya scheme.
Another benefit of using lithium ion batteries was that they were much lighter than lead acid batteries, a key issue when delivering these units to remote locations.
Also, the charging time had reduced by half with the introduction.