WBCS Current Affairs 13/09/2014 to 18/09/2014

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1.Kaushik Basu, Chief Economist and Senior Vice President of World Bank, has been appointed as president-elect of the association by the International Economic Association (IEA). Meanwhile, Basu will continue serving as Senior Vice President and World Bank Chief Economist. A World Bank Chief Economist is appointed for a 4 year term and Basu started his Job as Senior Vice President and World Bank Chief Economist on October 1, 2012.

2.Indian scientist Kamal Bawa, an eminent professor of biology at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, won the Midori Prize (2014) in Biodiversity for his research, including in climate change in the Himalayas.
Kamal Bawa, founder president of the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) in Bangalore, will accept the prize with a cash award of $100,000 during the Oct 16-17, 2014 Conference of Parties (COP-12) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in South Korea. India, the at present the chair of the COP-11 and India will pass the baton to Korea at the COP-12 in South Korea. The theme of this year’s COP-12 meeting is ‘Biodiversity for Sustainable Development’.
Other Awardees For Year 2014
Alfred Oteng-Yeboah (Ghana) Chair, Ghana National Biodiversity Committee
Bibiana Vila (Argentina) Director, Vicuñas, Camelids and Environment (VICAM), Principal Researcher, National Research Council (CONICET) Argentina.
Midori Prize for Biodiversity
Established in 2010 at the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the AEON Environmental Foundation, the Midori Prize is regarded a major element “at the service of the objectives of the United Nations Decade on Biodiversity 2011-2020.” The Prize honors 3 individuals who have made exceptional contribution to conservation and sustainable use at local and global levels, and who have inspired several biodiversity-related works, as well as fostering consciousness about biodiversity. Each winner gets a certificate, a memorial gift and a cash prize of USD100,000. The MIDORI Prize serves as a key instrument at the service of the aims of the United Nations Decade on Biodiversity 2011-2020.

3.Government has permitted the launching of National Ayush Mission (NAM) to attend to the gaps in health services in vulnerable and far-flung parts of the country. The judgment to launch the NAM was taken in a meeting of the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Via the AYUSH Mission (Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy), the Govt. is looking forward to address gaps in health services by backing the attempts of state governments for delivering Ayush health services and education in the country, mainly in vulnerable and remote areas. The Mission will assist in improving the Ayush education via improvement in the number of advanced educational institutions and deliver improved access to Ayush services via growth in number of Ayush hospitals and dispensaries. The mission will also assist sustained accessibility of quality raw material for Ayush systems of medicine and advance accessibility of quality drugs via growth in number of pharmacies and drug laboratories.

4.Finance Ministry is in the final stages of the course to double the commission to banks at 2% of the quantum of funds they transmit to individual beneficiaries under the government’s Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme. The current rate of commission is 1% per for every transaction under the DBT.
The government transfers money to the bank account of consumers of kerosene, LPG, etc. via its DBT scheme in order to do away with the loopholes and ascertain corruption free delivery. Now, the Finance Ministry plans that for all accounts, whether under Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana or otherwise, if subsidy is routed via the DBT scheme, 2% of the total amount will be given to banks as administration cost. This money will not be cut from the consumer’s account but the government will spend extra 2%.
Example, if in a year, a bank transfers Rs 10 crore as DBT payments, then the government will transfer Rs 10.2 crore to that bank.
Banks play a very important role as Govt agents in routing subsidies via DBT Schemes.

5.The government has made alterations to the norms governing expenses on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) undertakings under the fresh Company Law (2013). Now a particular class of profitable companies are necessitated to spend minimum 2% of their 3-year yearly average net profit towards CSR works.
The obligation is part of the Companies Act, 2013, maximum of whose requirements came into effect from April 1, 2014. As per the rules, companies are permitted to build CSR capabilities for their own personnel via other institutions given that such expenses do not exceed 5% of the total expenditure incurred on social welfare activities in one financial year. This 5% cap would include “expenditure on administrative overheads”.
The changes have been made to the Companies (Corporate Social Responsibility Policy) Rules, 2014. As per earlier norms, companies were allowed to build CSR capacities of their own personnel as well as those of their implementing agencies via institutions with established track records of at least 3 financial years but such expenditure shall not exceed 5% of total CSR expenditure of the company in a single financial year.
The new CSR norms would be applicable on companies having at least Rs 5 crore net profit, or Rs 1,000 crore turnover or Rs 500 crore net worth. Such corporates would required to spend 2% of their 3-year average yearly net profit on CSR activities in each financial year, beginning 2014-15 fiscal.
Several activities including livelihood improvement and rural development projects, lessening inequalities faced by socially and economically backward groups, working towards safeguard of national heritage, art and culture, comes under the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) domain.

6.To simplify the procedure of executing better corporate governance norms by listed firms, the market regulator Sebi relaxed several provisions of the fresh law, particularly for smaller companies, and stretched the deadline for appointing at least one woman director to April 1, 2015.

7.Researchers at the Cavendish Laboratory of the Cambridge University for the very first time have developed a grapheme-based flexible screen. The advancement is important because it will lead to the development of next-generation high-tech wearable and foldable electronic devices in future. Professor Andrea Ferrari, Director of the Cambridge Graphene Centre and Plastic Logic demonstrated a flexible display incorporating graphene in its pixels’ electronics.

8.Meghalaya Governor Dr Krishan Kant Paul sworn in as the 15th Governor of Manipur. Manipur High Court’s Chief Justice Lakshmi Kanta Mahapatra administered the oath of office and secrecy to Dr KK Paul.

9.Union Human Resource Development Ministry to fund the Swachh Vidyalaya (Clean Schools) campaign, via the Swachh Bharat Kosh.
Centre will setup “Swachh Bharat Kosh” to fund the “Swachh Bharat (Clean India)” campaign. HRD Ministry will anchor the “Swachh Vidyalaya (Clean Schools)” drive. The campaign purposes to make sure the facility of toilets in all government schools by August 15, 2015. Swachh Vidyalaya campaign is part of mission to make India a clean country by 2019, the 150th birth anniversary year of Mahatma Gandhi.
Swachh Bharat Campaign, announced by PM Narendra Modi on the eve of 68th Independence Day on August 15, 2014, is scheduled to be launched on October 2, 2014. As part of the drive, public sector units under 25 Ministries have vowed Rs. 400 crore for the drive and private and public sector companies would be persuaded to build toilet blocks in schools. Tata Consultancy Services and Bharti Enterprises have pledged Rs 100 Crore each.

10.India will soon launch “Project Mausam”, a PM Narendra Modi government’s utmost noteworthy foreign policy project for answering China’s rising impact in the Indian Ocean region. After the astonishing triumph of China’s “Maritime Silk Road” scheme, India plans to soon takeoff its own Project Mausam, a transnational program aimed to restore its ancient maritime routes and cultural links with republics in the region.
Titled “Project Mausam”: Maritime Routes and Cultural Landscapes crossways the Indian Ocean, the project emphasizes on the natural wind phenomenon, particularly monsoon winds used by Indian sailors in ancient times for maritime trade, that has formed relations amongst nations and groups linked by the Indian Ocean. Project Mausam purposes to determine the versatile Indian Ocean “world” — expanding from East Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, the Indian subcontinent and Sri Lanka to the Southeast Asian archipelago.
Though India is also amongst the nations asked to join China’s maritime silk route plan, India has been worried by the curiosity displayed by Sri Lanka and Maldives in the Chinese offer, which supposedly looks to restore ancient economic links.
India government will try to pull on its ancient connections with nations in this region as it proposes an alternative, which could counter-balance the maritime silk route of China. India also faces the difficult job of matching China’s stress on building landmark infrastructure in the region, including ports in Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Whereas the facilities are held to be civilian, India doubts China obtaining operational control of these.

11.Once synonymous to watches in India “HMT” is set to be winded up in a phased manner. Burdened with losses for more than a decade, the government is set to shut down HMT Watches, which was restructured in 1999, but nothing changed for HMT.
During 2012-13, HMT reported losses of Rs 242 crore on revenues of Rs 11 crore. In contrast, Titan’s watch business reported sales of Rs 1,675 crore during the year. HMT employs 1,105, which includes 181 executives.

12.Union Home Minister, Rajnath Singh launched the integration of Border Security Force (BSF) with Bhaskaracharya Institute for Space Applications and Geo Informatics (BISAG) project of Gujarat Government at BSF Camp in Bhuj, Gujarat, in order to provide for devoted, encrypted channel for the Para Military Forces.

13.The US President, Barack Obama for the first time, authorized US air strikes against Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants in Syria. He also asked to increase the airstrikes in Iraq. This will be the first unrestricted bombing crusade of the US against jihadist ISIS militants in Syria. As per the strategy, the airstrikes will be a organized crusade of against the group.

14.The Supreme Court ruled 3% quota for disabled persons in all government jobs including IAS. A bench headed by Chief Justice R M Lodha held that the disabled people have not got their due in the last 19 years even though the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act was passed in 1995.
The government argued that reservation cannot be given in case of promotion to Group A and Group B officers category as it is not a case of appointment and held that the the Persons With Disabilities Act provides for 3% quota for the differently-abled people.
The bench, however, noted that ‘appointment’ is a wider concept and the Centre is giving a limited interpretation of it. Therefore, Supreme Court permitted the reservation in all classes of government jobs containing in the matters of appointment, selection, direct-recruitment, deputation and also for promotions. The bench held that the principle of not exceeding 50% reservation would not be valid while allowing quota for differently-abled people.
The bench ruled that the purpose of the reservation policy, as envisioned by the Parliament, was indisputable that the differently-abled people must get the advantages with no technical hurdles.

15.Approximately 30 years after the protections of the Montreal Protocol were put into action, there’s more proof that the international contract to safeguard Earth’s ozone layer is effective, as per a fresh by 300 scientists. The large quantity of most ozone-depleting matters in the atmosphere have fallen since the earlier assessment, in 2010, and Earth’s shielding ozone layer is displaying signs of recovery, as per the “Assessment for Decision-Makers,” part of a larger report to be released early next year.
The report is the most recent in a sequence delivered every four years by the international scientific community, headed by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and co-sponsored by NOAA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the European Commission. The Decision-makers trust on these logical updates and have used them to increase protection of the ozone layer, banning or restricting the use of ozone-depleting substances, for example.
The stratospheric ozone layer, a fragile shield of gas, safeguards the Earth from dangerous ultraviolet rays of the sun. Maximum ozone is located in the stratosphere, far above Earth. The ozone layer acts as a safeguard, absorbing Ultra-Violet (UV) radiation from the Sun and safeguarding Earth’s surface from dangerous volumes of UV radiation. In the 1970s, NOAA researchers started to identify that particular chemicals, including chemicals called Chloro-Fluoro-Carbons (CFCs) and Halons, used extensively in cooling and firefighting, could reach the stratosphere and activate reactions that damages ozone. In 1985, scientists noticed that a seasonal “Ozone Hole” was establishing in the Antarctic spring, NOAA researchers performed a key role in showing that those same chemicals were triggering the hole.Because of the Montreal Protocol, several ozone-damaging chemicals have been substituted by substances that don’t destroy ozone. Nonetheless, certain new chemicals, including the CFC-substitute Hydro-Fluoro-Carbons (HFCs), are powerful greenhouse gases and could substantially lead to climate change in the upcoming periods. Researchers from NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory play a significant part in this subject, testing offered new materials to understand if they are harmless for the ozone layer, climate and the environment.

16.As per the the 6th Economic Census Report 2013, Arunachal Pradesh has the maximum percentage of hired workers amongst all states, including in segments like education and health.

Percentage of female hired workers in Arunachal Pradesh: 30.3%
Growth rate in the number of establishments over the 5th Economic Census is 34.09% and that of total employment is 17.73%
Growth rate of total number of persons employed over 5th Economic Census 2005 has been recorded at all India level at 34.73% but at Arunachal Pradesh level it is 17.73%,.
Total number of establishments in the Arunachal Pradesh is 36,602 with the 19,288 of them in rural and 17,314 in urban areas. The number of establishments in urban areas has increased at 83.22%, which is more than 3 times the population growth. This development is owing to the fact that in between the 5th and 6th Economic Census 10 districts or SDO headquarters having concentration of establishment has been notified as urban areas.
But in rural areas, the increase of 8.08% is found to be 3 times less than the population growth.
The average number of workers per establishments was found to be higher than the national average in spite of the having the lowest population density and scarce workers.
The 6th Economic census was organized by the Department of Economics and Statistics in association with the district administration in 2013. The activities covered in the 6th Economic Census have a share of about 86% in total GDP of the country.

17.Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India launched a new payment gateway integrated to the e-filing system of the Intellectual Property Office (IPO). This new facility will be dedicated to the working of the Indian Patent Office as International Searching Authority (ISA) and International Preliminary Examining Authority (IPEA) under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT).
The new facility will facilitate payment by means of internet banking, credit cards or debit cards of more than 70 Banks as against internet banking of 2 banks previously. This will result in rise in online filing of forms for patent and trademarks by 25 to 75%.

18.The western zone bench of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has banned the burning of tyres in public areas and also the reuse of old tyres as fuel in industries and brick kilns.
The bench has instructed the environment division of the state government to take a resolution on the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board’s (MPCB) suggestions in 8 weeks and release essential notification in 2 weeks later. Burning of tyres in open areas, public places and localities, such as residential areas, schools, hospitals and offices, is banned, the bench noted whilst holding the police, district administration and ULBs (Urban Local Bodies) accountable for executing the prohibition. Any disobedience has to be regarded as an offence under section 188 of the Indian Penal Code (disobedience to order promulgated by public servant), it said.
Why burning of tyres is harmful for environment?
Burning tyres emit toxic soup of pollutants that contains harmful gases and chemicals viz. carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, chromium, arsenic, zinc, barium, cobalt, copper, iron, aluminum, manganese and vanadium, etc. which are hazardous to the human beings as well as to the environment. Minuscule particles released during the burning can settle deep in the lungs. Tyres contain 25 % extender oils derived from benzene, 25% styrene, a derivative of benzene, and 25% 1,3 butadiene. – both benzene and 1,3 butadiene are suspected human carcinogens. (A carcinogen is any substance, radionuclide or radiation, that is an agent directly involved in causing cancer).

About National Green Tribunal
A special fast-track court to handle the expeditious disposal of the cases pertaining to environmental issues.
Established on October, 2010 under the National Green Tribunal Act 2010.
Objective: For effective and expeditious disposal of cases relating to environmental protection and conservation of forests and other natural resources including enforcement of any legal right relating to environment and giving relief and compensation for damages to persons and property and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.
Shall not be bound by the procedure laid down under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, but shall be guided by principles of natural justice.
New Delhi is the Principal Place of Sitting of the Tribunal and Bhopal, Pune, Kolkata and Chennai shall be the other four place of sitting of the Tribunal.
Note: The National Green Tribunal ruling can only be challenged in the Supreme Court.

19.On September 17, 2014 i.e. PM Modi’s Birthday, the Chinese president Xi Jinping will land in Gujarat and will carry besides him $100 billion or Rs 6 lakh crore of investment promises over 5 years through his forthcoming India visit. This is approximately thrice the $35 billion locked by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his recent Japan trip.
China will firstly invest $7 billion in industrial parks in Pune and Gandhinagar, which is just the tip of the iceberg as Chinese firms are eyeballing over $50 billion worth of investments in transformation of the Indian railways and running bullet and hi-speed trains in India. The Indian Railways has been granted approval for 100% FDI, and consequently it will come up with a wide-ranging plan for facilitating FDI in the sector. China is eager to invest additional $50 billion in roads, ports and the NDA government’s determined river-linking plan. The Chinese leader is coming with a delegation of over 100 business heads, involving those from China Harbour, China Railway Construction Group and Huawei, midst others, and will speak to a trade gathering of over 400 Indian CEOs in Delhi. The giant 4 Chinese banks (Bank of China, Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), China Construction Bank and the Agriculture Bank of China) are also arriving with the delegation to give billions of dollars in advances to Indian infrastructure plans to be completed in joint venture with Chinese companies.

20.The Bihar government recognized recognise kinnar/kothi/hijra/transgender (eunuch) as “third gender”.
The cabinet acknowledged declaring them as backward class annexure II category which will offer them quota advantage for availing or getting government jobs. The Transgenders from upper castes will be considered as OBC annexure II and get reservation advantages, however transgenders from Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes will continue in the same castes.
Earlier in 2014, the Supreme Court delivered a judgment recognizing transgenders as third gender and called for the Union Government to consider transgender as socially and economically backward. The Supreme Court in its judgment held that the transgenders should be permitted admission to educational institutions and given work on the footing that they fit in the third gender category and they should be regarded as as OBCs.
See: Supreme Court creates a ‘Third Gender’ for transgenders.

21.Senior IAS officer Subhash Chandra Garg, a 1983-batch IAS officer of Rajasthan cadre, was selected as the ED (Executive Director) of the World Bank. The order released by the Appointments Committee of Cabinet (ACC) held that Subhash Garg will have tenure of 3 years from the date of assuming charge of the post.

22.The Union Ministry of Science & Technology also announced KIRAN (Knowledge, Involvement, Research, Advancement through Nurturing) for women scientists – A unique advertising scheme to bring about, as far as possible, gender equality in the field of science and technology.
Objectives:-
To increase the number of women researchers in India.
Provide Research grants particularly to those female researchers and technologists who had to take a break in career owing to household reasons.
Bring about, as far as achievable, gender parity in the field of science and technology.

23.Over 5,000 “highly accomplished” scientists employed with numerous departments under the Science and Technology Ministry will dedicate time to teach students of many schools and colleges in the country. It would be “mandatory” for the scientists various departments to essentially, formally, take lecture classes in schools and colleges.