Current Affairs Update – 9th August, 2015

Hello and welcome to ExamPundit. Here are the Important Current Affairs of 9th August, 2015. These are Important for the upcoming Insurance Exams and IBPS RRB 2015.

Finance
Govt notifies changes
in I-T rules to comply with FATCA pact
  • The Revenue Department has amended income tax rules to
    provide for reporting of information with regards to financial assets and
    accounts, a month after India signed a tax information sharing agreement with
    the US.
  • On July 9, India and the US signed tax agreement under the
    Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) that will enable automatic exchange
    of financial information between the two nations about tax evaders from
    September 30.
  • The rules define various terms such as financial asset,
    financial account, excluded accounts, participating and non-participating
    financial institutions, among others.
  • The norms prescribe information to be maintained by the
    reporting financial institution such as name, address, taxpayer identification
    number (assigned to the account holder by the country or territory of his
    residence for tax purposes) and date and place of birth (in the case of an
    individual) of each reportable person.
  • The rules prescribe reporting requirements on a staggered
    basis starting from earlier year 2014 and reporting of all details prescribed from
    calendar year 2017 onwards.
  • They also specify due diligence procedure for identifying
    reportable account and various forms.

India received $24 bn
in FDI from EU in last 3 years

  • Despite the Free Trade Agreement talks with the European
    Union being in limbo, India has received an impressive $24 billion in Foreign
    Direct Investment from the 28-nation bloc over the last three years.
  • As per official figures, India received $6.23 billion in FDI
    equity inflows from EU in 2012-13 which increased to $9.06 billion the next
    year.
  • The FDI inflow was $8.20 billion in 2014-15, which was a
    decline of $862 million compared to the year ago period.
  • In 2015-16, the amount in first two months of current fiscal
    was $1.39 billion.
  • In total, India received $24.91 billion in FDI equity
    inflows from EU between April 2012 and May 2015.
  • The EU has been India’s largest trading partner and the
    two-way trade is likely to swell significantly if the countries could firm up
    the long-pending Free Trade Agreement, officially called the Broad-based
    Investment and Trade Agreement (BTIA).

Govt to ship 10,000
tonne of rice bran oil this fiscal

  • Government is expecting to ship 10,000 tonne of rice bran
    oil this financial year after the government eased restrictions on its bulk
    sale, giving a boost to small rice millers, an industry body said.
  • The country was exporting about 2,000 tonne of rice bran oil
    last year mainly in consumer packs, according to data from the Solvent Extractors’
    Association of India (SEA).
  • Also rice bran oil is considered healthier and meets the
    recommendation of a well blended combination of SFA, MUFA and PUFA.
  • India was the highest producer of rice bran oil with an
    output of 9.5 lakh tonne in 2014-15, followed by China with 2 lakh tonne and
    Japan 80,000 tonne.
  • The country produces the best quality of rice bran oil with
    more than 150 solvent extraction units producing the edible oil.

India
Mysuru tops Swachh
Bharat rankings

  • Mysuru city in Karnataka topped the Swachh Bharat Rankings
    that were released on Saturday by the Ministry of Urban Development.
  • In a year-long survey, the researchers studied 476 first
    tier cities with two parameters: one, how “minimal” open defecation was in the
    city; two, how robust the municipalities were with the solid waste management
    system. And Mysuru was found impressive on both the counts.
  • Launched in October 2014 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Swachh
    Bharat Mission is the flagship sanitation programme of the NDA government,
    which aims to bridge gaps between sewerage and solid waste management and
    construct several million toilets in the urban centres.
  • With a Central funding of Rs.14, 623 crore, the government
    aims to build 1.4 crore household toilets, 2.5 lakh community toilets and 2.6
    lakh public toilets by 2019.
  • The second position was bagged by Thiruchirapalli in Tamil
    Nadu, followed by Navi Mumbai, Kochi (Kerala), Hassan, Mandya and Bengaluru
    from Karnataka, Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala), Halisahar (West Bengal) and
    Gangtok (Sikkim).
  • Damoh in Madhya Pradesh (MP) ranked the lowest, preceded by
    Bhind in M.P., Palwal and Bhiwani, both in Haryana, Chittaurgarh (Rajasthan),
    Bulandshahar (UP), Neemuch (MP), Rewari (Haryana), Hindaun (Rajasthan) and
    Sambalpur in Odisha.

Awards
Indian-Origin Scribe
Adrienne Batra Awarded ‘Best Journalist’ in Canada

  • An Indo-Canadian woman journalist has been awarded by Indian
    community members in Ottawa for her outstanding achievements in the field of
    journalism.
  • Adrienne Batra, the 41-year-old editor of Toronto Sun, was
    recognised as the ‘Best Journalist’ at this year’s Parvasi Awards, which
    featured India’s sports legend Milkha Singh as this year’s guest of honour.
  • Batra credits her time in the minefield of politics and her
    strong communication skills as “great stepping stones” to where she
    is today. She also acknowledged her strong Punjabi roots instilled by her
    parents to her success.
  • The Parvasi Awards, established in 2005 to honour the
    accomplishments of successful Punjabi Canadians in various fields, are
    typically presented to eight recipients based on different categories such as
    arts, business, sports, social service and lifetime achievement.


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This post was last modified on July 20, 2019 10:17 am