1. Niti Aayog to replace 5-year plans with 15-year vision document
i. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has decided to replace the five year plans with 15 year vision documents.
ii. These will be framed to meet the country’s social goals without wavering from the sustainable growth agenda. The NITI Aayog has been directed to prepare a vision document at the earliest. It will be implemented after the 12th five year plan, as it is going to terminate in 2017.
iii. The first 15-year vision document will start from 2017-18, along with a seven-year National Development Agenda which will lay down the schemes, programmes and strategies to achieve the long-term vision. The National Development Agenda will be reviewed after a gap of every three years to ensure that it was aligned with financial needs and requirements. For the first Development Agenda, the review would be done in 2019-20, in line with the termination year of the 14th Finance Commission.
2. Cabinet approves India’s first IPR policy
i. The Cabinet has approved India’s first National Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Policy announced by FM Arun Jaitly.
ii. The policy is guided by seven objectives, including IPR public awareness, generation of IPRs, human capital development, and strong law enforcement. Further, the window for trademark registration will be reduced to one month by 2017.
iii. The IPR policy will also focus on enhancing access to healthcare, food security and environmental protection. The Industrial Policy and Promotion will be the nodal department to coordinate, guide and oversee implementation and future development of IPRs in India. The policy is aimed at creating and exploiting synergies between all forms of intellectual property (IP), concerned statutes and agencies.
3. Govt approves Rs 1,984-cr Delhi-Meerut Expressway stretch
i. The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has given its approval for development of 8 and 6 laning of Delhi-Meerut Expressway – Package-II on NH-24 in Uttar Pradesh.
ii. The cost is estimated to be around Rs 1984 crore including cost of land acquisition, resettlement and rehabilitation and other pre-construction activities.
iii. The project will help in expediting the improvement of infrastructure in Uttar Pradesh and reducing the time and cost of travel for traffic, particularly heavy traffic, plying between Delhi-Meerut on National Highway-24. It will also increase employment potential for local labourers for project activities.
4. TRAI penalty on Telecom companies for call drops illegal : SC
i. The Supreme Court of India has ruled that Telecom companies will not compensate mobile phone users for inconvenience caused by call drops. In this regard, the apex court has struck down the TRAI Regulation which made it mandatory for telecom companies to compensate subscribers for call drops from January 2016.
ii. The Ruling was given by the SC bench comprising Justices Kurian Joseph and R F Nariman on the appeals filed by Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI). SC Ruling SC struck down the TRAI regulation calling it as arbitrary, unreasonable and non-transparent.
iii. TRAI cannot punish telecom companies in the name of protecting consumer interests. Dismissed that telecom companies alone were to blame for call drops and were thus deficient in service.
5. Indian Air Force’s Electronic Maintenance Management System launched
i. Indian Air Force has launched its Electronic Maintenance Management System (e-MMS) Project, an automated military maintenance system. It was inaugurated by the Chief of Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha at the Air Force Station in Pune, Maharashtra.
ii. The e-MMS project is one of the largest Maintenance Repair Overhaul (MRO) IT implementation in the world. The project has been designed and developed by the Indian IT giant Wipro. IAF had signed the contract for the project e-MMS with Wipro as a System Integrator (SI) in 2013.
iii. The e-MMS system has a central console that will help IAF to get rid of paper works and heavy logbooks. It seeks to seamlessly connect squadrons, wings, commands, and Air Headquarters after its implementation. It will help to transform work environment of IAF to become more efficient and also help to monitor the operational availability of all fleets and systems in real time at various hierarchical levels.
6. Railways to constitute Mobility Directorate, Non-Fare Revenue Directorate
i. The Union Railways Ministry has decided to constitute two Directorates namely Mobility Directorate (MD) and Non-Fare Revenue Directorate (NFRD).
ii. They will be established for creation of cross functional directorates to focus on different areas in line with the Railway Minister’s budget speech.
iii. It will be constituted to focus on areas like speed enhancement. It will handle work such as identification and prioritization of train corridors for raising speed and identification of path for timetabled freight trains.
7. Sri lankan President on a two day India visit
i. President of Sri Lanka Maithripala Sirisena will arrive in capital today. He is on a two day visit to the nation.
ii. The visit is expected to contribute to further strengthening the close and cooperative relations between India and Sri Lanka.
iii. Sirisena will address the valedictory session at the Vaicharick Mahakumbh which is being held as part of the Simhastha Mahakumbh in Ujjain on the 14th of this month. He will also visit Sanchi where he will tour the World famous Sanchi Stupa and will also attend a function organised by the Mahabodhi Society of Sri Lanka during which he will unveil a statute of Angarika Dharmapala.
8. Delhi no longer the world’s most polluted city: WHO
i. World Health Organization has said that India is home to four of the five cities in the world with the worst air pollution.
ii. The dirtiest air was recorded at Zabol in Iran, which suffers from months of dust storms in the summer. The next four are all Indian cities – Gwalior, Allahabad, Patna and Raipur.
iii. From the No. 1 position in 2014, India’s capital New Delhi is the ninth worst city, measured by the amount of particulate matter under 2.5 micrograms found in every cubic metre of air.
9. India and five others countries sign agreement on tax info sharing
i. As per the report published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), India and five other countries have signed a multilateral pact for automatic exchange of information on tax issues and developing new tools to tackle the tax evasion.
ii. The signing ceremony of the agreement took place in Beijing, China.
iii. The pact allows all signatories to bilaterally and automatically exchange Country-by-Country Reports with each other. It will help to ensure that the tax administrations obtain a complete understanding of how the multinational enterprises structure their operations, while also ensuring that the confidentiality of such information is safeguarded.
10. India, Bangladesh hold security talks in Dhaka
i. India and Bangladesh began a five-day dialogue in Dhaka over a host of security issues, including drug trafficking and cattle smuggling across the border between the two neighbors.
ii. A 21-member delegation led by Border Security Force BSF Chief K K Sharma reached Dhaka to hold the talks with their counterpart Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB).
iii. The Indian team also includes officials from the Union Home Ministry. It will brief the BGB delegation about measures put in place to completely stop instances of cattle smuggling and other illegal substances across the boundary. A joint record of discussions will be signed between the two sides at the end of the Dhaka talks.
11. Cabinet approves pact between SEBI and FSRA of Abu Dhabi
i. The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has given its approval for signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between SEBI and Financial Services Regulatory Authority, Abu Dhabi for Mutual Co-operation and Technical Assistance.
ii. The agreement will promote further development of economic links and cooperation between the two signatories and will help create conditions for development of securities markets in the two countries.
iii. It would also contribute towards strengthening the information sharing framework between the two regulators.
12. RBI issues norms for prior approval of branch offices by foreign entities in India
i. The Reserve Bank of India has stated that entities from Pakistan, China, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Iran and Hong Kong or Macau will require its prior approval to establish branch office or project office or liaison office in India.
ii. The approval is also required if the applicant is a Non-Government Organisation (NGO), a Non-Profit Organisation, or a Body/ Agency/ Department of a foreign government.
iii. Apart from these, the permission of RBI will also be required for opening a BO/LO/PO in Jammu and Kashmir, North East region and Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The RBI approval will also be needed if the principal business of the applicant falls in the four sectors like defence, telecom, private security and information and broadcasting.
13. Central Asian state leaders inaugurated CASA-1000 power project in Tajikistan
i. Central Asian state leaders have inaugurated the Central Asia South Asia (CASA-1000) transmission line near Dushanbe in Tajikistan to link the four nations and to promote regional stability, security and prosperity.
ii. These countries are Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
iii. The CASA-1000 project comprises the development, financing, construction, ownership and operation of a 750-kilometer high voltage direct current (DC) transmission system between Tajikistan and Pakistan via Afghanistan. The estimated cost of the project is 1.2 billion dollars and is expected to be competed by 2018.
14. World’s largest cargo aircraft has landed in Hyderabad, India
i. Today, the world’s largest cargo aircraft – Antonov An-225 Mriya has made its first landing in India at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Hyderabad for refuelling. It will stay at the GMR-owned Shamshabad Airport for 20 hours.
ii. The aircraft has such a spacious cargo hold that a Boeing 737 aircraft could be accommodated. The aircraft is powered by six turbofan engines and is the longest and heaviest airplane ever built, with a maximum takeoff weight of 640 tonnes.
iii. It also has the largest wingspan of any aircraft in operational service.
15. Indian-American, Manjit Singh has appointed as member of President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based
i. US President Barack Obama has appointed an Indian-American engineer, Manjit Singh, as the member of President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
ii. The announcement came along with several other appointments made by the US President. Singh is the President of Agilious, a software technology consulting firm he founded in 2013. He is also the co-founder of the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, a national Sikh American media, policy and education organization.
iii. He has served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Guru Gobind Singh Foundation and also as a Member-at-Large of The Board of the Interfaith Conference of Metropolitan in Washington.
16. Parkash Singh panel submits report on Jat quota stir
i. In Haryana, Parkash Singh committee, headed by former DGP of Uttar Pradesh retired IPS Officer Parkash Singh has submitted its report on Jat Quota agitation to Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal.
ii. The committee was constituted to inquire into the omission and commission on part of all officers and officials of police and civil administration during Jat Quota agitation.
iii. The panel submitted its report in two volumes which run into about 450 pages. There is a mention of about 90 officers who have been found guilty.
17. Head of Sant Nirankari Mission passes away
i. The head of Sant Nirankari Mission and an Indian spiritual guru Hardev Singh has passed away in a road accident in Canada. He was 62 year old.
ii. The Sant Nirankari Mission is established in 1929 and also known as Universal Brotherhood Mission.
iii. He had been leading the organisation since 1980, after the assassination of his father, who was the previous head of the Sant Nirankari Mission. The Sant Nirankari Mission (SNM) is a spiritual and humanitarian movement with its headquarters in Delhi. The SNM has over 100 branches outside India in 27 countries, most prominently in Britain and North America.
18. Anil Kumble retained ICC Cricket Committee head, Rahul Dravid made member
i. Former India captain Anil Kumble has been re-appointed ICC Cricket Committee chairman for a second term of three years while his one- time team-mate Rahul Dravid was named member of the top panel. Kumble will now continue to head the panel until 2018.
ii. Another former India captain Dravid and ex-Sri Lanka skipper Mahela Jayawardene have been appointed to the ICC Cricket Committee for a three-year term.
iii. Former Australia off-spinner has been elected as current player representative, replacing Laxman Sivaramakrishnan, who has completed his three-year term. Richard Kettleborough, three-time ICC Umpire of the Year, has been appointed as umpires’ representative in the committee.
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