Current Affairs Questions & Answers - Feb 25, 2017

ANSWER: victims of sexual crimes

Explanation:
Union Women and Child Development Ministry has announced setting up of a compensation fund to provide financial help to children who are victims of sexual crimes under POCSO Act.

The finances for this fund will be drawn from Nirbhaya Fund.

Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act was formulated in 2012 to address sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children.

At present different states have different victim compensation schemes, many cover rape but not sexual offences against children.

States like Maharashtra, Odisha and Delhi have amended their scheme to include POCSO cases.

Nirbhaya Fund with corpus of INR. 1000 crores was announced by government for empowerment, safety and security of women and girl children.

POCSO Act: Know More

• The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO Act) 2012 was created in order to effectively address sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children.
• The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 obtained the President’s assent on 19th June 2012.
• It was notified in the Gazette of India as on 20th June, 2012.
• The Act defines a child as any person below 18 years of age.
• It defines different forms of sexual abuse, including penetrative and non-penetrative assault, as well as sexual harassment and use of child pornography.
• It deems a sexual assault to be “aggravated” under certain circumstances, such as when the abused child is mentally ill/unwell.
• It is also aggravated when the abuse is committed by a person in a position of trust or authority like a family member, police officer, teacher, or doctor.
• The Act also assigns the police in the role of child protectors during the investigative process.

ANSWER: 2018

Explanation:
Government has announced to bring high-speed broadband connectivity to every village by 2018.

Department of Telecom is working to achieve this target under the Universal Services Obligation fund (USOF).

In 2017-18 Union Budget speech, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had announced that Government will allocate INR. 10,000 crore to expand the Bharat Net project in 2017-18 for high-speed broadband.

Bharat Net aims to cover a total of 2.5 lakh village panchayats and is funded under the USOF.

It was rebranded from the earlier National Optic Fibre Network (NOFN) project in April 2015.

USOF was set up in 2012 to execute various digital infrastructure projects for providing telecom services in rural areas at subsidised rates.

The finance for this fund comes through a Universal Access Levy charged from the telecom operators as a percentage of various licenses fees paid by them.

USOF Funding: Know More

• The New Telecom Policy - 1999 (NTP'99) provided that the resources for meeting the Universal Service Obligation (USO) would be funded through a 'Universal Access Levy (UAL).
• This would be a percentage of the revenue obtained by the operators under various licenses.
• The Universal Service Support Policy came into operation from 01.04.2002.
• The Indian Telegraph (Amendment) Act, 2003 giving statutory status to the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) was assented by both Houses of Parliament in December 2003.
• The Rules for administration of the Fund called as Indian Telegraph (Amendment) Rules, 2004 were notified on 26.03.2004.
• According to the Indian Telegraph Act 1885 (as amended in 2003, 2006 and 2008), the Fund is to be utilized exclusively for meeting the Universal Service Obligation.

ANSWER: Series IV

Explanation:
The Union Finance Ministry has decided to issue Sovereign Gold Bonds 2016-17-Series IV. The applications for the bonds will be accepted from 27^th February to 3rd of March, 2017.

These will be sold through banks, designated post offices, Stock Holding Corporation of India Limited and recognised stock exchanges.

The bonds will be restricted for sale to resident Indian entities including individuals, Trusts, Hindu Undivided Families, Universities and Charitable Institutions.

The investors will be compensated at a fixed rate of 2.50 percent per annum payable semi-annually on the nominal value.

Sovereign Gold Bond scheme was launched in September 2015 with an aim to reduce the demand for physical gold by shifting it to gold bonds.

ANSWER: SKYREV360

Explanation:
The state-owned Airport Authority of India (AAI) along with International Air Transport Association (IATA) launched SKYREV360, an e-billing solution for airport operators across the world.

SKYREV360 will aid airport operators and air navigation services providers worldwide to overcome the issues of revenue leakages, besides reducing redundancies.

It will also help in the reduction in disputes, easy integration with all external systems and curtailing the debt collection period to the minimum.

It has been developed for the electronic billing solution for data, e-invoicing and collection of tariff from the airlines.

It is being used by the AAI for several years now.

IATA: Know More

• Headquarters: Montreal, Canada
• CEO: Tony Tyler (since 1 Jul 2011)
• Founded: 19 April 1945, Havana, Cuba
• Type of business: International trade association

ANSWER: UK

Explanation:
India and UK had held detailed deliberations on the legal processes and procedures on Extradition and Mutual Legal Assistance held in New Delhi.

Both sides have agreed to further strengthen their legal cooperation and expedite the pending requests. They also agreed to review further progress in these cases every six month through video conference.

The meeting was held pursuant to the decision taken during the official visit of British Prime Minister in November 2016 to India.

The decision was taken to expedite pending requests so that fugitives and criminals are not able to escape the law.

ANSWER: Australia

Explanation:
The Union Cabinet has approved signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between India and Australia for promotion and development of cooperation in civil aviation security.

The MoU will provide an opportunity to Indian aviation security authorities to share the expertise with their Australian counterparts and enhance in India’s overall aviation security environment.

It will also provide compliance of international obligation as well as enhance promotion in the area of security cooperation between the two countries.

Australia: Know More

• Capital: Canberra
• Code: +61
• Currency: Australian dollar
• Population: 23.13 million (2013) World Bank
• Prime minister: Malcolm Turnbull

ANSWER: Antyodaya

Explanation:
Antyodaya means uplifting of the weakest sections of the society. With this in mind, Indian Railways has unveiled the Antyodaya Express, a new train for the unreserved passengers.

Antyodaya Express was announced as a part of Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu’s Railway Budget 2016 speech and has been envisioned as a long-distance, fully unreserved, superfast train service that will be operated on dense routes.

This is a long-distance, fully unreserved, superfast train service, for the common man to be operated on dense routes.

The exterior of the new train has been given the colour scheme of red and yellow, with a design around the windows of the coaches.

After being impressed by the vinyl-coated colourful coaches of the Humsafar Express, the Railway Board instructed ICF to put patches of vinyl coating on the exterior of Antyodaya Express.

Antyodaya Express is similar to the Deen Dayalu coaches that Indian Railways had introduced in mid-2016.

The train aims to provide enhanced passenger comfort.

The seats of the Antyodaya Express are more comfortable compared to the general sleeper class ones.

Antyodaya Express boasts of modern amenities such as water purifiers, toilet occupation indication display boards, bio-toilets, fire extinguishers with anti-theft arrangement, cushioned luggage racks with coat hooks, LED lights, more mobile charging points and enhanced capacity dustbins.

The LHB-type (Linke Hofmann Busch) coaches have been manufactured at the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) in Chennai.

The interior panelling of the coaches has been done with aluminium composite panels, similar to Deen Dayalu.

The first Antyodaya Express is slated to start plying shortly between Mumbai and Tatanagar. Yet another route that has been identified for the new train is between Ernakulam and Howrah.

The fares of the Antyodaya Express will reportedly be around 10-15% higher than the regular rate.

Indian Railways has said that since the manufacturing cost of the Antyodaya Express coaches, with modern facilities, is higher so special higher fares will be applicable.

Indian Railways: Know More

• Customer service: 139
• Headquarters: New Delhi
• Number of employees: 1,335,000
• Founded: 16 April 1853
• Revenue: 1.709 trillion INR (2016–2017)
• Parent organization: Ministry of Railways

ANSWER: Karnataka Bank

Explanation:
Karnataka Bank has bagged two ‘IBA-Banking Technology’ awards.

The bank was the winner in ‘Best financial inclusion initiatives (small bank)’ category, and was runner-up in ‘Best use of digital and channels technology (small bank)’ category.

IBA-Banking Technology award recognises and rewards individuals, professionals and banks who have recorded noteworthy technology and business benefits in the previous year.

Karnataka Bank: Know More

• Headquarters: Mangalore
• CEO: Polali Jayarama Bhat (since 14 Jul 2009)
• Founded: 1924
• Motto: Your family bank. Across India
• Number of employees: 7,669

ANSWER: Ramkumar Narayanan

Explanation:
Ramkumar Narayanan, general manager and global head of monetisation products at eBay Marketplaces in India, has resigned from the firm.

He was primarily responsible for generating revenues for eBay.

Previously, he was the vice president of global product management at Yahoo and also worked with Microsoft in the past.

eBay has mainly two divisions in the country - a marketplace, which is based in Mumbai, and the development centre in Bengaluru.

The development centre is divided into two teams—core product and development, and analytics.

eBay Inc. entered India after acquiring an existing online site Bazee.com in 2004, much before Flipkart or Amazon started business in the country.

However, due to heavy investments from other competitors, the company could not thrive on its early-mover advantage in the country.

The Indian arm of US-based online selling platform reported a three-fold rise in revenue and a wider loss for the financial year 2015-16.

According to filings with the Registrar of Companies, eBay reported losses of INR 262 crore for the year ended March 2016 versus INR 172 crore in the same year-ago period. Revenues soared to INR 392 crore in 2015-16 from INR 132 crore in the previous financial year.

In November 2016, eBay dismissed nearly 30% of the product and technology team at its development centre in Bengaluru.

The work done by these teams was transferred to other global locations, the company had said.

The company has been trimming its global workforce since 2015 when it had laid off 350 people from its marketplace and payments entity PayPal, which it acquired in 2002.

ANSWER: Govind Rajan

Explanation:
FreeCharge CEO Govind Rajan has resigned from the company within 9 months of his appointment as payment subsidiary of online marketplace Snapdeal.

Snapdeal, run by Jasper Infotech Pvt Ltd, has been trying to independently raise funds for FreeCharge but the company has struggled to attract investors in the past six to 10 months.

FreeCharge, which provides digital payments services, was acquired by Snapdeal for $450 million in April 2015 and appointed Rajan as the chief executive in May 2016.

Govind has brought incredible energy and focus in growing FreeCharge. The pace of progress will continue with the strong team that he has built.

Jason Kothari will oversee the business operations of FreeCharge as part of his overall responsibilities of portfolio management as the chief strategy and investment officer of Snapdeal.

Rajan was initially hired as the chief strategy officer of Snapdeal, prior to which he was at Bharti Airtel Ltd as its chief marketing officer and chief executive of Airtel Money.

He also worked at Hindustan Unilever Ltd for over 15 years.

Numerous high-level exits at Snapdeal, include Sandeep Komaravelly, head of peer-to-peer marketplace Shopo; Tony Navin, head of partnerships and strategic investments; and Abhishek Kumar, head of corporate development, mergers and acquisitions and investments.

Backed by Japan’s Softbank Group, which holds close to 33% in the company, Snapdeal has also received funding from Kalaari Capital.

Other funders are Nexus Venture Partners, eBay Inc., Foxconn Technology Group and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

Co-founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal now have a stake of less than 6.5% in the company, which has raised around $2 billion since its inception.

ANSWER: Hassan Ali Khaire

Explanation:
Somalia's new President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed has chosen newcomer Hassan Ali Khaire, the latest entrant in politics from oil company business, as the country's new PM.

The 23^rd Feb 2017 appointment was announced before Mohamed known as Farmajo moved to Saudi Arabia for his first foreign trip since election. Somali citizens saw Mohamed take office after selecting him from 21 possible candidates.

A dual US Somali citizen known as a technocrat, he aims to tackle hunger, violence and corruption in Somalia mired in civil war for over 40 years.

Khaire is a dual Norwegian citizen who has worked as a Norway primary school teacher and for the Norwegian Refugee Council before joining British energy explorer Soma Oil and Gas.

The PM resigned from his job as ED for Africa to take up the post of prime minister, according to Soma Oil.

All shares in the firm have been given up.

The selection was seen as a balance of clan interests in the nation located in the Horn of Africa. Khaire is a member of the Hawiye clan as is former president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. Mohamed belongs to the Darod clan.

New president has vowed to make security in the country a priority. Armed group Al Shabab has carried out attacks in Mogadishu and elsewhere. Saudi King Salman aimed at discussing strengthening the relationship of the country in terms of security and aid for Somalia's drought.

The new Somali president has broken the long tradition of visiting Ethiopia known as the Mecca of Somali leaders.

The new president now favors alliances with Arab nations more than others. In another first for Somalia, the president announced his new selection for the post of PM via Twitter.

Nominee Hassan Ali Khaire is a 48-year old industry oil executive and former aid worker.

The nomination is subject to a confirmation vote by lawmakers.

Khaire was born in central Somalia and has received degrees from University of Oslo and Edinburgh Business School in Scotland.

He also worked as a regional director for the Norwegian Refugee Council and also as an ED for Soma Oil and Gas founded in 2013 for reviving oil exploration in Somalia.

The most pressing issue confronting the new government is the long running conflict in Somalia.

Somalia: Know More

• Somalia, officially the Federal Republic of Somalia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa.
• It is bordered by Ethiopia to the west, Djibouti to the northwest, the Gulf of Aden to the north.
• Capital: Mogadishu
• Dialing code: +252
• Currency: Somali shilling
• President: Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed
• Official languages: Somali, Arabic