Ancient temples in Mandya district unearthed
- ASI have found five temple complexes defining Jaina identity at Chikkabetta of Artipura in Mandya district.
- These are now believed to be the oldest known archaeological find belonging to the Western Ganga dynasty.
- Although the Western Ganga dynasty is said to have thrived from the 4th century BC, the earliest archaeological evidence available was only from the 10th century inscriptions of Shravanabelagola in Hassan district.
- These structures have inscriptions that mirror the similarities of stone structures at Chandragiri in Shravanabelagola.
- Shravanabetta of Artipura already sports an age-old 10-feet statue of Gomateshwara, with one-side carving said to have been done earlier than the 60-ft Gomateshwara at Sharavanabelagola.
India moves up in ‘ease of doing business’ ranking
- India improved its rank from last year’s 134 by 4 places.
- This year it is ranked at 130 in World Bank Doing Business 2016 ranking.
- The WB Doing Business reports, started in 2002.
- It reviews business regulations and their enforcement across 189 countries.
- WB Global Indicators Group brings out the report.
Performance in each metric
- Just for understanding.
- India ranks in the top 10 in Protecting Minority Investors (8).
- The improvement in two indicators, ‘starting a business’ and ‘getting electricity,’ pushed India up the ladder.
- The number of days it takes to start a new business has gone up marginally from last year, from 28.4 to 29 this year.
- Singapore, New Zealand and Denmark occupied the first three spots in the list while South Sudan, Libya and Eritrea were ranked at the bottom three.
Income Tax Dept sets up panel to simplify tax law
- The Income Tax Department has set up a panel to help simplify the Income Tax Act, 1961, as part of the government’s move to improve the ease of doing business.
- The committee will be chaired by Justice R.V. Easwar, a former judge of the Delhi High Court and former president Income Tax Appellate Tribunal.
- The committee’s objective is to study and identify the provisions or phrases in the Act that are leading to litigation due to different interpretations, impacting the ease of doing business, and those that can be simplified.
- The committee is also tasked with suggesting alternatives to these provisions or phrases “to bring about predictability and certainty in tax laws”.
Six member panel formed to revise Companies Act 2013
E-sahyog
- Finance Minister introduced a pilot project of ‘e-sahyog’, an online portal set up by the Income Tax Department to help taxpayers resolve any mismatches in their returns without having to visit the department’s offices.
- Under this initiative the Department will provide an end-to-end e-service using SMS, e-mails to inform the taxpayers of the mismatch.
China furious over U.S. warship patrol
- Zhubi reef is part of the Spratly islands, which the Chinese call Nansha islands. China claims full sovereignty over the islands and its adjacent waters.
- U.S. warship, USS Lassen , had entered waters near Zhubi Reef.
- Washington said it doesn’t have to “consult with any nation when you are exercising the right of freedom of navigation in international waters.”
Side effects of Green Revolution
- Punjab is suffocating from its estimated 6,00,000-plus tractors. Tractor-ownership is viable only if they are operated for over 900 hours per year.
- Over exploitation of groundwater because of the free power provided to farmers has resulted in the water table falling to dangerously low levels.
- Augmenting the inadequate free power with diesel engines works out to be more expensive.
- Urea is sold at one-fourth the price of table salt today. But the excessive use of cheap urea destroys the soil and leads to more plant vegetative growth. An explosion of insect and pest populations is then inevitable.
- Indiscriminate, unregulated sale of pesticides and spurious products is leading to an ecological disaster.
UCC
- Minority women in India do not enjoy the same benefits as their counterparts in Bangladesh and Pakistan.
- Muslim countries like Turkey and Tunisia have modernised their Islamic personal laws and gender parity in these countries is much better than in India.
- UCC is the only solution to bring gender parity in not just minority communities but also in majority communities.
- The main opposition to UCC comes from muslim population who fear that UCC will impose a domination of Hindu culture over muslim culture.
- To ally fears and suspicion from certain communities, UCC must be framed based on logic and reasoning.
Read full post on UCC here
Blood banks can borrow from one another
- Till recently, National Blood Policy prohibited borrowing of blood from other blood banks.
- Despite getting most of our requirements from donors, the inability of the banks to lend each other surplus units is a major hurdle.
- Blood banks will now be able to borrow units from one another in case of a shortage.
- The decision was taken by Union Health Ministry.
- A shortage of blood units has been a problem since the Supreme Court banned paid donations in 1998.
- When the Supreme Court banned paid donation, the government was mandated, under the National Blood Policy (2002), to phase out replacement donation in five years. (hospitals ask family members of patients to donate blood so as to pre-emptively replace the blood withdrawn from the blood bank)
- The government has been encouraging voluntary donation ever since.
- National and State Blood Transfusion Councils were established in the 1990s to promote voluntary donations.
- There are three kinds of blood banks — government, private and those run by NGOs.
- India at present has 2,760 licensed blood banks.
- Other than the non-governmental blood banks, the rest are linked to hospitals.
- Only the NGOs or government-run banks are allowed to conducted donation camps.
- Titbit: In India, National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) implements the National Blood Safety Programme.
Sekhar Basu is the new chairman of AEC
- Sekhar Basu takes over as Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission and Secretary, Department of Atomic Energy, from R.K. Sinha.
- Played a key role in building the reactor for India’s nuclear-powered submarine called Arihant.
- AEC is headquarted in Mumbai.
- He was till now Director, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Trombay, Mumbai.
- He was responsible for developing the 80 MWt Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR) which propels Arihant.
- The PWR uses enriched uranium as fuel and light water as coolant and moderator.
- Land-based PWR prototype was being built at Kalpakkam.
- Mr. Basu played an important role in the development of the India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) slated to come up in Tamil Nadu. [This is Indian counterpart of CERN]
CERN
- The European Organization for Nuclear Research
- Also known as CERN (acronym for French name of The European Organization for Nuclear Research)
- Operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world.
- Based in a northwest suburb of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border.
- CERN's main function is to provide the particle accelerators and other infrastructure needed for high-energy physics research.
- CERN is also the birthplace of the World Wide Web.
India-Pak-USA
- American appreciated Pakistan’s anti-terror operations (lol).
- American pledges to provide eight F-16 aircraft to the Pakistan Air Force.
- Pakistan had acquired tactical and miniaturised battlefield nuclear weapons.
- President Barack Obama has extended to securing finances for the Diamer-Bhasha and Dasu dams in Gilgit Baltistan (part of Kashmir occupied by Pakistan)
Stagflation
- stagnation and inflation
- Situation in which the inflation rate is high, the economic growth rate slows, and unemployment remains steadily high.
- Most of the important economies are facing this problem in recent times.
- Indian economy is not suffering from stagflation due to encouraging internal demand (Unlike China and US we are not heavily dependent on foreign markets. But demand in foreign plays a significant role).
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