Current Affairs Questions & Answers - Oct 21, 2016

ANSWER: Other Financial Services

Explanation:
In a move to attract foreign capital in the country, RBI has permitted 100 percent FDI in other financial services carried out by NBFCs.

• In consultation with the government of India, it has been decided to permit foreign investment up to 100 percent under the automatic routes in Other Financial Services
• These financial services include activities regulated by any financial sector regulator namely RBI, SEBI, IRDA, PFRDA, NHB or any financial sector regulatory body
• Such foreign investment would be subject to conditionality including minimum capitalisation norms
• Other salient features of the revised regulatory framework include downstream investment by any entity engaged in Other Financial Services and will be subject to extant sectoral regulations
• In the Budget 2016-2017 Speech, FM Arun Jaitley had announced about this liberation.
• Currently 100 percent FDI is allowed in 18 NBFC activities such as merchant banking, underwriting, portfolio management services, stock broking and financial consultancy
• In 2015-2016, FDI in India grew by 29 percent Y-O-Y to USD 40 billion.

ANSWER: INR 1 crore

Explanation:
RBI came out with a framework for penalising banks and payment systems operators for offences under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act with fines of up to INR 1 crore

• A framework has been put up for imposition of penalty/fine under section 30 of the PSS Act and compounding contraventions or offences under section 31 of the PSS Act
• Contravention of the provisions of the PSS act, non compliance of directions or orders made thereunder and violation of terms and conditions of authorisation will result in fines.
• Fines will be based on nature of offences or contraventions and there will be minimum penalty of INR 5 lakh which can go to INR 1 crore
• Entities which have been made to pay the fine will disclose the same in their annual financial statement
• RBI will also make the penalty public
• RBI will directly debit the current account while those not having the facility with the central bank will have to deposit the amount into designated RBI account within one week of the issue of written order
• Non payment will be dealt as per provisions of the PSS Act

ANSWER: ASPIRE

Explanation:
SIBDI has launched an INR 60 crore corpus ASPIRE Fund on 20th Oct 2016 to promote innovation, agricultural industry and rural entrepreneurship. SIDBI will focus on numerous angel/venture capital funds that will invest in start ups or early stage enterprises, based on value addition in the rural economy and job creation through social impact funding

• The INR 60 crore funds of funds falls under ASPIRE or A Scheme for Promotion of Innovation and Rural Entrepreneurship and Agro Industry
• This supports various venture capital funds registered with the market regulator SEBI for investing in startups in the agro and rural space
• Government initiatives such as ASPIRE are one of many steps for providing support to various venture capital for unleashing the potential of MSME
• ASPIRE has an aggregate corpus of INR 200 crore and SIDBI is also launching the India Aspiration Fund under which 35 funds have been extended aggregate support of INT 1211.75 crore

ANSWER: Infrastructure Investment Trusts

Explanation:
SEBI has placed disclosure norms in position for InvITs on 20th Oct 2016. The offer document will now contain financial information, related party transactions and past performances

• SEBI in the previous month decided to further relax InvITs norms in a bid to make the instrument more efficient for raising capital
• SEBI had notified InvIT regulations in 2014, permitting the setting up and listing of such trusts which are very popular in advanced markets
• No single trust has been set up yet as investors want further measures such as tax breaks to ensure instruments are more attractive
• SEBI said the official document will now contain financial information of past 3 financial years including balance sheet, profit and loss statement, income and expenditure and net assets and total returns.
• InvITs will also have to disclose commitments, contingent liabilities, earnings per unit, total debt, net worth and debt equity ratios before and after completion of issue
• Trust will have to make a statement about the history of interest and principal payments of InvIT and operating cash flow from the project for the past three years and interim period
• In the event of related party transactions involving acquisition or disposal of an InvIT asset, trust will have to part with information about the summer of the valuation report along with material obligations pertaining to the transaction and commissions got by any associates of the related party in relation to transaction.

ANSWER: Conserving Acres for Tigers

Explanation:
To protect and increase wild tiger population, close to one million acres of protected habitat in India and Bhutan will be covered under private conservation efforts

• Project C.A.T – Conserving acres for Tigers by Discovery Communications and WWF aims to conserve the wild tiger population
• The total number of wild tigers have dropped by 96 percent in the previous century to only 4,000 left in the wild due to pervasive poaching and habitat loss
• Planet Earth to Racing Extinction, many projects involve monitoring wildlife through a camera, Looking beyond the lens, scientists are now taking steps to protect this endangered species
• Transboundary partnership will permit rangers to more closely monitor tiger health, other key scientific data taking anti-poaching safeguards into account and maintaining land and corridors to improve conditions of wild animals
• Discovery will also leverage its channels to support the WWF effort which seeks to bring the number of tigers to 8000 by 2022

ANSWER: China

Explanation:
The world’s largest outdoor purifier has been launched by China to combat smog harming the capital city Beijing

• The seven-meter-tall tower, brainchild of Dutch designer Daan Roosegaarde, is undergoing last-minute checks in Beijing's 751 D Park art area.
• Called the Smog Free tower it will soon be opened to the public
• The tower can capture about 75 per cent of PM 2.5 and PM 10 tiny particles in its vicinity and then release purified air to create a "bubble" of fresh air around it.
• The tower can also clean 30,000 cubic meters of air per hour through its patented ozone-free ion technology.
• Beijing has been plagued with smog since October this year
• Average PM2.5 density of the small polluted particles crossed over 300 here.

ANSWER: Giant Metre Wave Radio Telescope

Explanation:
In a massive achievement, the Giant Metre wave Radio telescope in Pune’s Khodad area tracked the landing of the ESA spacecraft on a Mars mission
GMRT detected the weak signal from Schiaparelli EDM, all the way into the last phases of the descent of the module through the Martian atmosphere till 8.37 p.m. on Oct 19th

• For monitoring the entry and descent module of this spacecraft during this crucial phase, NASA has assigned GMRT to act as a receiver station for the mission on behalf of the ExoMars Project
• The EDM of the ExoMarch Project separated from the parent spacecraft, the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), on October 16 after a six-month journey from Earth.

ANSWER: Hydrogen

Explanation:
Using two of the world’s largest configurable telescopes, scientists have created the most detailed map of the hydrogen atoms in the Milky way

• It is called HI4PI map; it was produced using data from the Max Planck radio telescope in Germany and the CSIRO radio telescope in Australia
• The image was compiled by more than a million individual observations and 10 billion individual data points
• Researchers looked at the neutral atomic hydrogen– the most abundant element in the cosmos and the main component of stars and galaxies.
• Researchers have pointed out in their new study that the project improves the previous galactic map by a factor of two in terms of sensitivity and a factor of 4 in terms of resolution
• Creating the map came with its challenges.
• Radio “noise” caused by mobile phones and broadcast stations crept into the data, requiring the ICRAR researchers to develop a sophisticated computer algorithm that cleaned each individual data point.
• The new map with a clearer picture of hydrogen will enable astronomers to understand the chemical makeup of the galaxy and answer how the galaxy receives gas to build new stars and where dwarf galaxies might exist in the immediate neighbourhood.

ANSWER: David Cox

Explanation:
Sir David Cox has been named the inaugural recipient of the International Prize in Statistics

• This is considered the highest honour in the field much like the Fields Medal, Abel Prize, Turing Award and Nobel Prize
• The prize will be bestowed each year to teams/individuals using statistics to advance technology, science and human welfare
• Cox is a giant in the field of statistics
• The Cox model has been used in analysis of survival data and enables researchers to easily identify risks of special factors for mortality or other survival outcomes among groups of patients with disparate characteristics
• From disease risk assessment and treatment evaluation to product liability, school dropout, re-incarceration and AIDS surveillance systems, the Cox model has found widespread applications

ANSWER: Dalai Lama

Explanation:
Milan city council bestowed honorary citizenship on Dalai Lama on 20th Oct 2016 over the objections of the Chinese Embassy which indicated that the gesture will have negative effect on regional cooperation and bilateral relations

• Chinese embassy in Rome issued a statement indicating that the Dalai Lama had injured China and that it was voicing a strong protest and firm opposition against bestowal of the citizenship
• China accused the Dalai Lama of leading a campaign to split Tibet from China
• Exiled leader in turn has said that he wants Tibet to have a higher degree of autonomy under Chinese rule.
• Italy has been a favoured nation in the EU for Chinese firms looking for acquisitions
• Chinese firms purchased 14 Italian companies in 2015 and added USD 10.6 billion to Italian coffers.
• In Milan, the number of Chinese residents have doubled over the past decade to nearly 29,000 doubling the number of businesses
• Dalai Lama also met with the archbishop of Milan and the city’s mayor

ANSWER: Appirio

Explanation:
IT major Wipro has acquired USD 500 million worth Appirio, a US based services firm with a large offshore presence that enables corporates to implement cloud applications such as SalesForce

• This is the second biggest acquisition after Infocrossing by Wipro for USD 600 million in 2007
• Appirio was founded by Chris Barbin, Mike O’Brien, Glen Weinstein and Narinder Singh in 2006
• The 10 year old firm has revenue worth USD 200 million in 2015
• It has an Indian offshore base in Jaipur and customers include eBay, IBM, Sony and Facebook
• In the digital world, as consumer behaviours and expectations are reshaped by experiences, Cloud has acquired importance leading to this acquisition by Wipro.

ANSWER: Bhojpuri, Rajasthani

Explanation:
Bhojpuri (a language spoken in Bihar) and Rajasthani were given the status of official language by including them in the 8th schedule of the Constitution

This study has been conducted by the Central government

• The report of the official language commission has indicated that three languages including Rajasthani and Bhojpuri will be included in the 8th schedule of the constitution of India
• Rajasthan is a north Indian state bordering Pakistan and it is called Land of Kings because it is home to many kingdoms; it is the largest state in India by area.