Current Affairs Update - 19 Dec, 2014

• Over five crore subscribers of the EPFO will get 8.75 per cent interest this fiscal on their provident fund deposits - the same rate as the previous year.
• "Finance Ministry has ratified the decision of the EPFO's Central Board of Trustees (CBT) to retain 8.75 per cent rate of interest for the current fiscal," said a source.
• The rate was same in the previous year, 2013-14, when it was raised from 8.5 per cent in the 2012-13 fiscal.

• Japanese telecom & internet giant SoftBank Corp on 16 December 2014 announced its third investment of 570 crore rupees in Housing.com.
• SoftBank will acquire around 30% stake in the property portal for 470 crore rupees. With this, the value of Housing.com increased to 1550 crore rupees.
• Online real-estate ventures have seen a steady flow of investor money in recent months with the likes of PropTiger getting a 30 million US dollar investment from Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp.
• The existing companies in the housing sector are 99acres, Magicbricks, part of the Times Group, and new-age startups like Bengaluru-based Commonfloor.
• Housing sector is witnessing a promising future because of its technology backbone and heavy focus on data and analytics.

• IT services company HTC Global Services on 19 December 2014 acquired a US based firm CareTech Solutions Inc. Both companies are headquartered in Troy, Michigan.

• Madhava Reddy, president and CEO of HTC Global Services, will also take on the role of chairman of CareTech Solutions.
• However, Jim Giordano will continue to lead CareTech as president and CEO.
• CareTech will retain its brand name and will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of HTC under its current leadership team.

• Established in 1990, HTC Global Services is an INC. 500 Hall of Fame company and one of the fastest growing privately held companies in Michigan.
• HTC Global Services has offices in several countries and global delivery centres in North America, India and Malaysia to serve customers across the globe.
• Recently, HTC Global Services won the annual Aetna Supplier Award for 2014.

• Zomato has acquired Italy's leading restaurant search service Cibando. Zomato has now acquired five companies globally in a short span of five months
• Deepinder Goyal, Founder and CEO of Zomato, said, "Cibando is one of the largest restaurant search services in Italy. Their existing traffic and user base will give us a great start as we launch Zomato in the country."
• The entire Cibando team is joining Zomato and will lead the effort of building the business in Italy.
• This is Zomato's fifth acquisition in recent months. Zomato acquired MenuMania in New Zealand, Lunchtime in Czech Republic, Obedovat in Slovakia, and Gastronauci in Poland recently.

• On Saturday, defence shipbuilder, Garden Reach Shipyard & Engineers (GRSE) will hand over to Mauritius a 1,300-tonne offshore patrol vessel (OPV) named "Barracuda". This $58-million (Rs 365 crore) vessel is the first warship ordered by a foreign country from an Indian shipyard.
• Meanwhile, GRSE is bidding to build two frigates for the Philippines Navy, for an estimated Rs 1,000 crore each. If GRSE wins that order - for which major global shipyards are bidding, including Navantia of Spain, STX of France and Korean majors, Hyundai and Daewoo - it would be the first time a warship designed and built in India is selected in an international tender.
• India has gifted several warships to smaller Indian Ocean countries such as Maldives, Seychelles and Mauritius. It has sold used vessels, such as a Sukanya-class OPV that now serves as the Sri Lankan navy's flagship.
• GRSE is also finalising the design of a series of 140-tonne Fast Patrol Boats for the Vietnam Navy. New Delhi has offered a line of credit to Vietnam for that order.

• The Lok Sabha on 18 December 2014 passed the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2014 to legalize e-rickshaws by bringing them under the ambit of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988.
• The Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2014 was introduced in Lok Sabha on 15 December 2014. The Bill seeks to amend the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988.

• Under the Act, a motor vehicle or vehicle is defined as any mechanically propelled vehicle adapted for use upon the roads. 
• The bill does not include (i) a vehicle running upon fixed rails or (ii) a vehicle of a special type adapted for use only in a factory or in any other enclosed premises or (iii) a vehicle having less than four wheels fitted with engine capacity of not exceeding 25 cc.
• The Bill brings e-carts and e-rickshaws under the ambit of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988.  E-carts and e-rickshaws are defined as special purpose battery powered vehicles, having three wheels, and with power up to 4000 watts. 

• TVS chairman Venu Srinivasan was made Honorary Citizen of Busan, Korea on 18 December 2014. He was conferred with the citizenship for his efforts to enhance friendship and cooperation between India and Republic of Korea.
• He was conferred the title by Mayor of Busan Metropolitan City, Suh Byung-soo during the honorary citizenship ceremony held at Busan, the second largest city in Korea, after Seoul.
• Srinivasan, who is also Honorary Consul General of the Republic of Korea in Chennai, is the first Indian industrialist to be granted honorary citizenship.

• He is an Indian industrialist who is the Chairman and Managing Director of Sundaram Clayton Ltd and Chairman of TVS Motor Company, the third largest two wheeler manufacturer in India.
• For the year 2009-10, he served as the President of Confederation of Indian Industry.
• In 2010 he was conferred with Padma Shri by the President of India for his contributions in the field of trade and industry.

• GSLV Mark-III-X was in news recently because Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on 18 December 2014 launched it successfully from Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh.
• GSLV Mark-III-X is the heaviest rocket (630 tonnes) of India, which was launched on an experimental mission along with human Crew module Atmospheric Reentry Experiment (CARE). It was launched with an aim to check its atmospheric stability with luggage of around four tonne and to study re-entry characteristics of the crew module.
• In the experimental mission, the crew module separated itself from the rocket at an altitude of 126 km for re-entry into the earth's atmosphere. Crew module, in the process of re-entry into earth’s atmosphere, was controlled by 3 parachutes which helped it to splash safely into the Bay of Bengal off Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
• Further, the crew module was successfully recovered by the Indian Coast Guard near Indira Point, the southernmost point of India.

• In what will become a feather in the cap for the diamond city - Surat, the local civic body has tied up with technology giant, Microsoft for bringing innovative and online solutions in civic services and make them more responsive, efficient and people-centric.
• Microsoft's CityNext service will empower citizens in Surat with open data and digital way of accessing civic services, thereby making Surat a Smart City.
• Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) and Microsoft India will jointly transform Surat into a smart city by adopting process automation and technology-driven citizen services, a statement said.
• The engagement between Microsoft and SMC would involve citizen services across RTI, property tax payments, birth & death registration, grievance redressal system, vaccination alert system, application tracking systems, disease statistics/reports for hospitals and solid waste management system. Also, it would include utility services including water supply and sewage systems.
• Microsoft CityNext is a people-first initiative to enable residents and city leaders to use technology to build a foundation for sustainable growth and prosperity.
• The CityNext initiative has been successfully implemented in cities across the world including Paris, Washington DC and Auckland.

• Veteran Gandhian and freedom fighter Chunibhai Vaidya passed away on 19 December 2014 at Ahmedabad, Gujarat following brief illness. He was 97.

• Chunibhai Vaidya was born on 2 September 1918 in a small village in Patan district of North Gujarat.
• He began his life in activism with freedom struggle. He also actively participated in Vinoba Bhave’s Bhoodan Movement.
• Being an editor of Bhoomiputra magazine, he raised battle against political emergency in 1975 and faced imprisonment.
• Vaidya formed Gujarat Lok Samiti, a voluntary organization in 1980.
• He was felicitated with Vishva Gujarati Pratibha award by Vishva Gujarati Samaj.
• He wrote a book titled Assassination of Gandhi : Facts and Falsehood which was translated and published in eleven languages.

• The most hated man in Pakistan is a 36-year-old father of three and volleyball enthusiast nicknamed "Slim".
• His real name is Umar Mansoor and the Pakistani Taliban say he masterminded this week's massacre of 132 children and nine staff at a school in Peshawar - the deadliest militant attack in Pakistan's history.
• A video posted on Thursday on a website used by the Taliban shows a man with a luxuriant chest-length beard, holding an admonishing finger aloft as he seeks to justify the December 16 attack. The caption identified him as Umar Mansoor.
• The Taliban say the attack, in which gunmen wearing suicide-bomb vests executed children, was retaliation for a military offensive carried out by the Pakistani army. They accuse the military of carrying out extrajudicial killings.
• The accusation is not new. Many courts have heard cases where men disappeared from the custody of security services. Some bodies have been found later, hands bound behind the back and shot in the head, or dismembered and stuffed into sacks.

• Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi will remain in jail for at least three more months with Pakistani authorities on Friday slapping stringent provisions under public security against the key accused in the 2008 Mumbai attack, a day after a court gave him bail sparking outrage in India.
• Lakhvi (54) was detained for three months under Maintenance of Public Order (MPO).
• Lakhvi was granted bail by Islamabad Anti-Terrorism Court on Thursday due to lack of evidence against him.
• The order of detention was handed over to Adiala Jail superintendent before Lakhvi’s counsel could show his bail order to jail authorities.
• The prosecution chief further said that the government had decided in principle to challenge the trial court’s decision in the high court.

• NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft, which is carrying out a new mission has made its first exoplanet discovery — a ‘super-Earth’ located 180 light-years from Earth.
• Lead researcher Andrew Vanderburg, a graduate student at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, studied publicly available data collected by the spacecraft during a test of the new K2 mission in February 2014.
• This led to the discovery of a planet, HIP 116454b, which is 2.5 times the diameter of Earth and follows a close, nine-day orbit around a star that is smaller and cooler than our Sun, making the planet too hot for life as we know it.
• HIP 116454b and its star are 180 light-years from Earth, toward the constellation Pisces.
• The discovery was confirmed with measurements taken by the HARPS-North spectrograph of the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo in the Canary Islands, which captured the wobble of the star caused by the planet’s gravitational tug as it orbits.
• HARPS-N showed that the planet weighs almost 12 times as much as Earth. This makes HIP 116454b a super-Earth, a class of planets that does not exist in our solar system.

• The US President Barack Obama on 18 December 2014 signed Ukraine Freedom Support Bill, 2014 passed by the US Congress. With this, the Bill has now become Ukraine Freedom Support Act, 2014.
• The Act authorizes more sanctions on Russia for its role in the Ukraine crisis.  However, it does not intend to impose sanctions on Russia.  Rather, the Act gives the administration additional authorities that could be utilized if any circumstance arises.
• The Act also authorizes 350 million US dollars in lethal and non-lethal military aid to the Ukrainian government, including anti-Tank weapons, munitions and surveillance drones.
• The Act also gives the administration the authority to impose further sanctions on Russia against Ukraine crisis, that is, Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine and support for separatists in eastern Ukraine.
• The Act extends applicability of certain US sanctions involving Russia and Ukraine to non-US persons.
• However, the Act would terminate when the US President certifies to Congress that Russia has, among other actions, ceased undermining the peace, security, stability, sovereignty, or territorial integrity of Ukraine.

• The US Senate on 16 December 2014 unanimously passed a resolution recognising Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai as symbol of peace. Satyarthi and Malala are the joint winners of Nobel Peace Prize for the year 2014.
• The resolution recognised them as symbol of peace and advocates for ending the financial exploitation of children and for the right of all children to an education. They were recognised for their efforts to end the scourge of child slavery and advance education for all children. 
• The resolution also lauded all individuals working around the world to end the scourge of child slavery and to advance education for all children. It recognised the challenges that remain in ending the financial exploitation of children and providing access to an education for all children.
• The resolution was introduced by outgoing Senator Tom Harkin on 11 December 2014 and was the last item passed by the US Senate in the 113th Congress.

• The United Nations (UN) on 18 December 2014 sent a team of international experts to help Bangladesh in cleaning up the Sundarbans oil spill. The team belonging to the United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) was sent on a request from Bangladesh government.
• The UN team will help Bangladesh government in the ground work and will also conduct an assessment and advise on recovery and risk reduction measures. The team comprises of experts from Britain, European Union, France and the United States.
• Besides, the UN asked Dhaka to impose a complete ban on the movement of commercial vessels through the Sundarbans.
• Sundarbans, the world largest mangrove forest, was hit by huge oil spill after an oil-tanker carrying 350000 litres of furnace oil collided with another vessel in Mongla near River Shela in Bangladesh on 9 December 2014.
• The oil spill has now spread 350 sq km inside the delicate protected mangrove forest area that are home to rare Irrawaddy and Ganges dolphins and endangered Royal Bengal Tigers.
• The accident occurred inside one of three sanctuaries set up for the dolphins in 2011 after studies found they are home to some 6000 dolphins.

• Wasp Network was in news recently because the United States in third week of December 2014 released three Cuban spies of this network. These spies were released as part of announcement restoring diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba after more than 50 years of enmity.
• The Wasp Network is a spy ring of Cuba that included five members of a 14 member espionage team called La Red Avipsa.
• The Wasp Network was engaged in a wide range of activities, including locating vulnerable points of entry into the state of Florida for the importation of arms and explosives, infiltration of the US Southern Command, and the attempted subversion of anti-Communist organizations in the US.
• In 2001, five members of spies of Cuba were convicted of being unregistered foreign agents, and three also were found guilty of espionage conspiracy for failed efforts to obtain military secrets from the US Southern Command headquarters.

• Noted Pakistan-born poetess Imtiaz Dharker was on 17 December 2014 awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry 2014 for her latest poetry collection Over the Moon.
• The award recognizes Imtiaz Dharker life’s contribution to poetry. It will be presented to Dharker in 2015.
• Earlier on 4 December 2014, Dharker was unanimously chosen for the award by the Poetry Medal Committee at Windsor. Her nomination was approved by the Queen of the United Kingdom.

• Dharker was born in Pakistan in 1954 but grew up a Muslim Calvinist in a Lahori household at Glasgow, Scotland.
• Some of her poems are included in syllabus of schools in the United Kingdom.
• She has so far published five books including Postcards from God and Purdah in 1997, I Speak for the Devil in 2001, The Terrorist at my Table in 2006, Leaving Fingerprints in 2009 and Over the Moon in 2014.

• United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on 17 December 2014 renewed its authorization for humanitarian aid to Syria for 12 months without Syria’s government consent. The resolution, pursuant to resolution 2165 passed in July 2014, extends the humanitarian assistance for Syrian civilians until 10 January 2016.

• The humanitarian aid renewed is for conflict lines and four border crossings in Syria from Turkey, Iraq and Jordan.
• The four border crossings namely are Al Yarubiyah on the Iraq border, Al-Ramtha from Jordan, Bab al-Salam and Bab al-Hawa from Turkey.
• It called on UN humanitarian aid agencies and their partners to scale up humanitarian deliveries into hard-to-reach and besieged areas, including by using, as effectively as possible, (the authorized) border crossings.
• It expressed grave concern over the ineffective implementation of its previous resolutions 2139 and 2165 and demanded increased aid access to civilians in hard-to-reach areas.

• The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on 18 December 2014 adopted a resolution referring North Korea to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for human right abuses and for charges of crimes against humanity.
• The UNGA adopted the resolution with 116 accepted votes to 20 rejected votes. More than 50 countries abstained from voting. China and Russia voted against the resolution along with Belarus Cuba, Iran, Syria and Venezuela.
• The resolution also called UNGA to consider targeted sanctions against the Pyongyang leadership for the repression of civilians in North Korea.
• A UN report released in February 2014 revealed that civilians of North Korea faced unspeakable atrocities. It also detailed wide-ranging abuses in North Korea which includes deliberate starvation, forced labour, executions, torture, rape and the denial of reproductive rights enforced through punishment, forced abortion and infanticide.
• The report also revealed that North Korea didn’t co-operate with the report findings.
• In November 2014 UN human Rights Committee voted in favour of referring North Korea to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and also condemned human rights abuses of North Korea.

• Michael Garcia on 18 December 2014 resigned as Independent Chief Ethic investigator of Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) Ethics Committee.
• He resigned from the post in protest over the handling of his 430-page report on awarding the bid for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar respectively. FIFA had earlier awarded bid to Russia and Qatar despite allegations of corruption.
• Garcia resigned a day after FIFA's appeal panel rejected his challenge that FIFA Judge Hans-Joachim Eckert had submitted a wrong summary of his report and cleared Russia and Qatar as World Cup hosts.

• 2 December 2010: Russia and Qatar chosen to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups
• 4 October 2013: FIFA sets up taskforce to look into alternative dates for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar
• 1 June 2014: Surfacing of news that former FIFA Vice-President Mohamed bin Hammam paid 3 million pounds to FIFA officials for support to Qatar’s bid
• 5 September 2014: Michael Garcia submits report into the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding process to FIFA
• 13 November 2014: 42-page summary of Garcia report released by FIFA clearing Russia and Qatar of corruption
• 13 November 2014: Garcia disowns the summary released and claimed it contains erroneous representations
• 16 December 2014: FIFA rejected Garcia appeal against FIFA Judge Eckert's
• 17 December 2014: Garcia resigned as Independent Chairman of the FIFA Ethics Committee's Investigatory Chamber