{Current Affairs} Daily News Notes: 2nd Dec, 2013

· The Supreme Court has issued notice to the Centre on a plea of the victim's father in the December 16 Delhi gangrape case. The petition says, the juvenility of an accused needs to be decided by the criminal court, not by the juvenile justice board. The petition sought re-trial of the juvenile in a fast track court under the provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure.
· In Madhya Pradesh, the Special Task Force-STF (which was already investigating pre-medical entrance test scam) has arrested three doctors, including an IAS officer’s son in the alleged pre-PG medical test exam scam. According to STF sources these doctors had paid a handsome amount and secured higher marks in the pre-PG medical test exam in 2012. Five separate FIRs had been registered and 143 names had been named in these cases. The STF has arrested more than 10 persons including examination controller of State Professional Examination Board Pankaj Trivedi and some other senior officials so far. Property worth more than 20 crore rupees have been recovered from the accused.
· Rajasthan has recorded the highest ever voter turnout of 74.13 per cent during assembly elections. 199 of the 200 constituencies went to polls yesterday to elect a new assembly.
· Debit card holders will from Sunday be required to punch in their PIN numbers every time they use the card, a move aimed at minimising frauds. In June, the Reserve Bank of India had extended the deadline for implementation of mandatory PIN punching at point-of-sales (PoS) and merchant outlets till November 30 following representation of banks. The PIN is another layer of security for the debit card. First, merchants will swipe the cards at a PIN enabled PoS terminal and punch in the transaction amount. That will be followed by customers entering their PINs to complete the transaction.
· Since banks are functioning on core banking platform, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has allowed banks to pay interest on rupee savings and term deposits at intervals shorter than quarterly intervals. The Reserve Bank has also extended the period for banks to exercise freedom to offer interest rates on incremental NRE (non-resident external) deposits with maturity of three years and above without any ceiling in order to pass on the benefit of exemption provided on such deposits from CRR (cash reserve ratio) and SLR (statutory liquidity ratio) requirements. The RBI has now said that the banks could have this freedom till January 31, 2014. Initially, banks have been given this freedom up to November 30.
· The Directorate General of Foreign Trade’s electronic Bank Realization Certificate (e-BRC) project has won the 2013 eASIA Award under Trade Facilitation category as announced by Asia Pacific Council for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (AFACT) in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam on November 29, 2013. e-BRC project launched on June 5, 2012 created an integrated platform for receipt, processing and subsequent use of all Bank Realization related information by exporters, banks, central and state government departments. It was made mandatory with effect from August 17, 2012. Bank Realization Certificate is required for discharge of export obligation and to claim incentives under Foreign Trade Policy. Earlier this certificate was issued by banks manually. BRC is also used by state government departments for refund of VAT. e-BRC project enables banks to upload Foreign Exchange realisation information relating to merchandise goods exports on to the DGFT server under a secured protocol. So far 89 banks operating in India, including foreign banks and cooperative banks have uploaded more than 64 lakh e-BRCs on to the DGFT server. This initiative has reduced the cost of transaction for exporters by eliminating their interface with bank (for issuance of BRC purposes) and enhanced the productivity of banks and DGFT. At the state level, Commercial Tax Departments of Maharashtra, Delhi, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh have signed MoU with DGFT for receiving e-BRC data for VAT refund purposes.
· The India-U.S. Police Chiefs conference will be held on 4th and 5th December, 2013 at New Delhi and inaugurated by Union Home Minister Shri Sushilkumar Shinde. The conference aims to open floor for the technology partners of both countries to evolve an institutionalized mechanism so as to work incessantly on sustainable technology up gradation for perceptible reduction in crime and providing more secure and livable environment to citizens. Cyber security and use of Forensic Science to determine accuracy of crime investigation will remain focal point of the conference.
· ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steel maker, and Japan’s Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal Corporation will jointly acquire ThyssenKrupp AG’s U.S. steel mill for $1.55 billion. ArcelorMittal will be responsible for marketing products on behalf of the joint venture.
· India today asserted that its public stockholding programme for food security must be protected from all challenges in the WTO as it is a sensitive issue as well as a critical social imperative. Speaking at the G-33 meeting at Bali in Indonesia ahead of the WTO Ministerial conference, Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma urged updating of WTO rules under the Agreement on Agriculture. Developed countries like the US and Canada have raised apprehensions that food stockpiling exercise of developing nations to implement food security plans will breach the 10 per cent subsidy cap under the WTO's Agreement on Agriculture.
· In Bangladesh, the 18-party BNP-led Opposition combine has extended the nationwide rail-road-waterways 72-hour blockade by another 49 hours till Thursday evening. The Opposition is demanding postponement of the January 5 parliamentary elections till an agreement is reached on an election-time government. Top BNP leaders have been sued for instigating violence, and police have arrested hordes of activists. Meanwhile UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillai has asked Bangladesh leaders to stop brinkmanship, whatever their differences, warning political chaos will lead the country to a dangerous state. At least 28 people have died and hundreds injured in two spells of blockades since November the 25th when elections were announced.
· The Afghan National Security Council (NSC) has accused the United States of pressurising it to sign the Afghan-US Bilateral Security Agreement. It alleged that the pressure tactics include cutting the fuel supplies to Afghan Army and the Police.
· The French Parliament is debating a controversial law that seeks to penalise persons who frequently go to sex workers — with fines of up to €1,500 — while giving residence papers and work permits to sex workers who have been trafficked and illegally brought by organised gangs. There are an estimated 40,000 sex workers in the country. The Bill has been tabled to curb violence against women. The issue of whether sex workers should be protected by law from pimps and predatory clients or whether they should be free to choose their profession has divided French society. Sex Workers’ Associations have opposed the law, saying it would not end prostitution but would just send it underground, increasing risks to women. Prostitution is legal in France. Sweden has a similar law and it brought down the number of men forcing women into the trade.
· China launched its first moon rover mission (Chang’e-3 rocket carrying the Jade Rabbit), the latest step in an ambitious space programme seen as a symbol of its rising global stature. The probe is due to land on the moon in mid-December to explore its surface and look for natural resources. It is the world’s third lunar rover mission following those by the United States and former Soviet Union decades earlier.
· India has officially not reacted to the developing tension between Japan and China, but former diplomats and academics here are hoping the parties to the dispute would step back before the situation took a turn for the worse. Last week, China set up an air defence identification zone (ADIZ) covering the international airspace over parts of the disputed East China Sea, triggering protest from Japan. The zone includes a chain of islands called Diaoyu (in Chinese) or Senkaku (in Japanese), which are also claimed by Japan. China experts wanted the world to look at the issue from a slightly broader perspective, especially after the revelation that Japan had established its own ADIZ in the same area in the late 1960s and sent military planes in recent years to shadow Chinese ones on grounds that they had entered Japan’s ADIZ. They described the emerging confrontation as an “unfortunate situation” due to China taking over Japan as the top Asian power and Tokyo seeking to reclaim its position. The first stone in stoking the dispute was cast by Japan when it bought the islands back but China’s “one-upmanship” in setting up the ADIZ a few days back “could prove tricky.”
· Carefully treading a line between ensuring the safety of U.S. commercial aircraft and its refusal to accept China’s announcement of an air defence identification zone ADIZ, the U.S. State Department has issued an advisory to airlines suggesting that they comply with instructions issued by Beijing. The latest official comments on the ADIZ come in the wake of two U.S. B-52 bombers flying through the ADIZ for two hours and 20 minutes on November 26, a move that some said the U.S. may have made to underscore its non-acceptance of China’s demarcation of the ADIZ. Throughout the duration of their flight, the U.S. military aircraft did not announce or otherwise identify themselves to Chinese authorities and no contact between the two occurred.
· The U.S. will destroy the most dangerous of Syria’s chemical weapon stockpile on a ship at sea (through a dilution process known as hydrolysis), said the world’s chemical weapons watchdog Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). The ship operation will destroy what is known as “priority chemical weapons”, the most dangerous of Syria’s total arsenal and ones that have to be out of the country by December 31 under an international deal agreed to avert military strikes on Damascus.