Current Affairs Update – 9 Oct, 2014

Finance
1. Bilateral APA with
Japan to be inked soon, says Revenue Secretary Das
  • ·
    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.

2. Panel backs using
cash-rich PSUs to revive sick units
  • ·
    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.

India
3. Central govt officers need not submit
boarding pass to claim TA
  • ·
    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.

4. Veteran journalist MV Kamath passed away

  • ·
    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).

5. India among top 5 financial contributors
to Ebola response
  • ·
    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.

6. Facebook is excited to help govt in
Digital India programme: Zuckerberg

  • ·
    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.

7. Tobacco Board wins Golden Leaf Award

  • ·
    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.

8. Sardar Patel Urban Housing Mission:
Housing for all by 2022
  • ·
    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.

International
9. France’s Patrick Modiano wins Nobel Prize
for Literature

  • ·
    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.

10. World’s oldest rock art discovered in
Indonesia
  • ·
    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.

Sports
11. Actor Hrithik Roshan
joins FC Pune City as co-owner

  • ·
    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.”

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This post was last modified on November 27, 2017 9:04 am