Current Affairs Update - 9 Oct, 2014

• ·         The tax authorities of India and Japan will soon ink a bilateral advance pricing agreement in respect of a Japanese company, Revenue Secretary Shaktikanta Das has said.
• ·         This will give a strong signal to other Japanese companies to look at India more positively (for investments), Das said at an international tax conference organised by Assocham here on Thursday.
• ·         “The APA between the tax authorities of India and Japan has been finalised in respect of a Japanese company. It will be inked shortly,” Das said.
• ·         This will be the first bilateral APA to be signed by India and would come close on the heels of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's official visit to Japan recently. Das, however, declined to name the Japanese company that will benefit from the bilateral APA.
• ·         The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has so far signed five unilateral APAs with different companies in India.

• ·         A committee headed by NTPC Chairman Arup Roy Choudhury has endorsed the Government’s view on revival of sick public sector undertakings with the help of cash-rich PSUs.
• ·         The committee has submitted its report to the Ministry of Heavy industries and Public Enterprises. It had been asked to examine the feasibility of cash-rich Maharatnas, Navratnas and other Central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) seeding a a joint venture (JV) company that would revive sick PSUs.
• ·         A senior Heavy Industries Ministry official said there would be consultations with cash-rich PSUs and accordingly, a detailed note would soon be put up before the Cabinet for a final decision. Profitable PSUs have over ₹2 lakh crore of cash lying with them, mainly in banks.
• ·         Heavy Industries Minister Anant Geete recently said there are 70 sick PSUs, of which 43 can be revived. However, according to an answer given by the Ministry in Parliament, there were 61 sick CPSEs as on March 31, 2013, with over 1.53 lakh employees.
• ·         The official said the proposal drew inferences from various countries, including China. The proposed JV will select sick companies that have potential.

• ·         Central Government officers will not have to submit boarding passes to claim travel allowance (TA) for official tours undertaken by them.
• ·         In a circular, the Department of Personal & Training (DoPT) said that difficulties had been expressed by various quarters in producing original boarding passes along with TA claims from time to time.

• ·         Veteran journalist Madhav Vittal Kamath, popularly known as MV Kamath, died in Kasturba Hospital in Manipal on Thursday morning. He was 93.
• ·         Born on September 7, 1921, in Udupi, he had his education in St Cecily’s Convent, Christian High School, and Board High School in Udupi, and Government College in Mangalore. He got his degree in chemistry and physics from St Xavier’s College in the then Bombay in 1941.
• ·         He was present at the ceremony announcing India's Independence at midnight on August 14, 1947.
• ·         He served as editor-in-charge of the Free Press Journal from 1950 to 1955.
• ·         Kamath was appointed as special correspondent of the Press Trust of India (PTI) at the United Nations, New York, from 1955-1958.
• ·         He served as European correspondent of the Times of India at Bonn in Germany from 1959-63, and served as Sunday editor of the Times of India from 1967-1969. He was the Washington correspondent of the paper from 1969-1978.
• ·         He served as editor of the Illustrated Weekly of India from 1978-1981.
• ·         Kamath was a board member of the Dr TMA Pai Foundation, and member of the board of management of Manipal University. He was the Chairman of Prasar Bharathi for some years.
• ·         Kamath held honorary directorship of the School of Communication of Manipal University since its inception in 1997. Kamath celebrated his 93rd birthday with the faculty and students of the school last month.
• ·         Awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2004, Kamath penned over 40 books, including "Gandhi - A Spiritual Journey", "Reporter At Large", and co-authored "Narendra Modi - The Architect of a Modern State" (2009).

• ·         India is among the top five contributors to the UN Ebola response with a contribution of U.S. $ 12.5 million, according to a fact sheet released by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry here.
• ·         The U.S. with U.S. $ 113.8 million tops the list to the UN Ebola response. It is followed by the European Union ($ 55.5 million), Canada ($ 31.9 million), Netherlands ($ 21 million) and India with $12.5 million.
• ·         At a joint news conference with his British counterpart Philip Hammond, Kerry lamented that not many nations have contributed to this global effort to fight the deadly disease.
• ·         The U.N. has identified US $ 1 billion in urgent needs, he said. “The World Bank has put in 22 per cent. The USA has put in 11 per cent. Private sector, 10 per cent,” he said.
• ·         The fact sheet presented by him showed that India has contributed a little over one per cent to this.

• ·         Seeing exponential growth potential for Facebook in India, its co-founder Mark Zuckerberg today said he will discuss with Prime Minister Narendra Modi ways to connect villages with the digital world.
• ·         The CEO of the California-headquartered firm, who is on his first visit to India, said he is excited to help the government in its ambitious Digital India programme.
• ·         “India is an amazing country with unlimited potential. It is a place of big ambitions and Facebook is deeply committed to the country. We see lot of growth for us here. Tomorrow I’m meeting the Prime Minister. He is committed to connecting villages online and we are excited to see how Facebook can help,” Zuckerberg said here.
• ·         India has about 243 million Internet users and have 100 million plus Facebook users, but there are over a billion people in the country who do not have access to the net, he added.
• ·         He is the third high profile CEO of a US-based firm, after Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, to visit India in the last few days.
• ·         Zuckerberg announced that Facebook is creating a $1 million fund to help developers develop apps for farmers, migrants and women. This will be a contest to drive new apps and services in local languages.
• ·         “Since 2007, Facebook has been working on new apps and services in local languages. About 65 per cent use Facebook in a language other than English, including 10 Indian languages,” he added.
• ·         On barriers in Internet penetration, he said: “There are three major barriers to connectivity network, affordability and content.”
• ·         Zuckerberg, counted among the youngest tech billionaires, said free basic internet access should be like dialing 911 in the US or 100 in India.

• ·         The Tobacco Board has added another feather in its cap by bagging the prestigious “2014 Golden Leaf Award” for its “most impressive public service initiatives” in the tobacco sector at an International conference held in West Virginia, USA, recently.
• ·         Tobacco Board Chairman Koothati Gopal received the award at a meeting of Global Tobacco Networking Forum (GTNF) held at Washington D.C. and West Virginia, U.S.A.
• ·         “I dedicate the award to 89,507 FCV tobacco growers and their family members involved in production of FCV tobacco in India,’’ said Mr. Gopal, after receiving the award.
• ·         In the past one year, the Tobacco Board has taken various initiatives relating to extension activities, Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), elimination of Non-Tobacco Related Material (NTRM) and elimination of pesticide residues and initiated a series of measures for achieving sustainability in the sector.
• ·         The implementation of electronic auction (E-Auction) system to ensure transparency and accountability in sale of tobacco leaves across the 30 auction platforms in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Other associated reforms initiated by the Board have caught the attention of global customers and organisers, Mr. Gopal said.
• ·         The GTNF was first launched in 2008 by Tobacco Reporter, a tobacco magazine. The GNTF helps bring various stake holders together to talk on wide range of topics and issues industry related to the industry.

• ·         The Centre will soon roll out the ‘Sardar Patel Urban Housing Mission’, which will ensure 30 million houses by 2022, mostly for the economically weaker sections and low income groups. On Thursday, Union Minister for Housing and Poverty Alleviation and the Urban Development M. Venkaiah Naidu said the
• ·         Mission is in keeping with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s direction of Har Parivar ko Ghar (a house for every family).
• ·         To be built through public-private-partnership, interest subsidy and increased flow of resources to the housing sector, these houses are also aimed at creating slum free cities across the country. “Government’s urban development and housing initiatives will aim at social inclusion so as to benefit all sections of urban residents including slum dwellers,” said the Minister, speaking at ‘World Habitat Day - Voices from Slums’ a programme, organised by the HUPA Ministry.
• ·         On the steps being initiated to replace slums with low cost houses, the Minister said the focus is on in-situ development of slums by encouraging vertical construction. “Slum dwellers are entitled to not only a roof over their heads but also, a safe and healthy environment, affordable transport and energy, safe and clean drinking water, employment and empowerment,” the Minister said.

• ·         French writer Patrick Modiano has won the Nobel Prize for Literature as "a Marcel Proust of our time," The Swedish Academy said on Thursday.
• ·         The academy said the award of 8 million Swedish crowns ($1.1 million) was "for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the occupation".
• ·         Modiano's works have centred on memory, oblivion, identity and guilt that often take place during the German occupation of World War Two.
• ·         "You could say he's a Marcel Proust of our time," Peter Englund, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, told reporters.
• ·         Some of Modiano's roughly 30 works include "A Trace of Malice" and "Honeymoon". His latest work is the novel "Pour que tu ne te perdes pas dans le quartier".
• ·         Literature was the fourth of this year's Nobel prizes. The prize is named after Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, and has been awarded since 1901 for achievements in science, literature and peace in accordance with his will.

• ·         Australian scientists have found what could be the world’s oldest figurative art in a cave in Indonesia, a report released on Thursday said.
• ·         The team’s discovery of cave art on the island of Sulawesi, estimated to be about 40,000 years old, challenges the idea that the oldest artwork had originated in Spain and France, Xinhua reported.
• ·         The team’s study dates the earliest image, a hand stencil, to be at least 39,900 years old, 900 years prior to the world’s oldest known cave painting, a red disc in Spain.
• ·         The series of Indonesian images discovered also includes pig-like animals painted more than 35,400 years ago, possibly older than the earliest known figurative rock art in western Europe - a painted rhinoceros in France, estimated to be between 35,300 and 38,800 years old.
• ·         The report said the sheer volume of ancient cave art in Europe had pointed to the theory that the human capacity for abstract thinking originated there, but the new discovery makes the case that this development was occurring in Asia at the same time.

• ·         Bollywood heartthrob Hrithik Roshan on Thursday joined the Indian Super League (ISL) bandwagon as he became a co-owner of FC Pune City, one of the eight franchises that will be competing in the tournament starting on Sunday.
• ·         The Rajesh Wadhawan Group-owned Pune franchise announced its association with the star in Mumbai.
• ·         Roshan said, “I am honoured to be associated with the Indian Super League (ISL), which represents India’s first effort at professional football. It is definitely the next big sporting brand in our country and will give young football talent a solid platform. I hope my partnership with FC Pune City adds further strength to the team and star players’ football expertise.”

Here is the PDF Link: Download PDF