News highlights : 23 September 2016

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CURRENT AFFAIRS SEP 23, 2016

01. NTPC gets investors’ nod to raise Rs.15,000 crore via bonds :

State-run NTPC has received shareholders’ approval to raise up to Rs.15,000 crore through issuance of debentures/bonds on private placement basis. The funds would be raised in one or more tranches/series not exceeding 30, through private placement, in domestic market for capex, working capital and general corporate purpose according to the special resolution passed by its shareholders in its Annual General Meeting held on 20th Sept 2016, NTPC said in a BSE filing. The funds would be mobilised during the period commencing from the date (September 20, 2016) of passing of special resolution till completion of one year thereof or the date of next AGM in 2017-18 fiscal, whichever is earlier.

02. Modi government to rename new-look Indira Awaas Yojana to Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana :

The Modi government is renaming yet another welfare programme to remove its association with the Gandhi family. This time it's the Indira Awaas Yojana, which aims to build homes for the rural poor. It's to be renamed the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana. Cornerstone of the government's housing-for-all initiative, this is meant to mark the start of an overhaul. "The name is being changed and many upgrades being made to the scheme," a senior official said. "We are still discussing the inclusion of the word 'Grameen' in the name of the scheme," the official said. A Cabinet note amending the scheme has already been floated by the rural development ministry. This proposes that the homes get bigger and costlier. The unit cost of each house will nearly double to Rs 1.25 lakh from the current allocation of Rs 75,000 per household.

03. Government appoints 3 independent economists for RBI Monetary Policy Committee:

India’s government has picked three economists from the academic world for a new monetary policy committee to set interest rates, as the Reserve Bank of India gets ready for a landmark switch in the way it decides policy. They will join RBI Governor Urjit Patel and two senior officials from the bank’s monetary policy department. Patel, who took over the helm at the RBI earlier this month, will have the casting vote in the event of a tie. The non-RBI members named are Chetan Ghate, a professor at Indian Statistical Institute; Pami Dua, a director at the Delhi School of Economics; and Ravindra Dholakia, a professor at the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad, in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat. The new external MPC members will serve for a term of four years, “or until further orders, whichever is earlier,” according to a statement issued by the government’s personnel department.

04. Govt puts more products under fiscal incentive ambit :

The government extended fiscal incentives to more items such as marine products at higher rates under a scheme with a view to boosting exports, which remain in the negative zone. The total support extended by the government under the Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS) has been enhanced to Rs 23,500 crore per annum from the present Rs 22,000 crore, the commerce and industry ministry said in a statement.It said 2,901 additional products falling under different categories have been added under this scheme. The items include traditional medicines like Ashwagandha herbs, certain marine products, sea feed items, onion dried, industrial products such as engineering goods, fabrics, garments, chemicals, ceramics, glass products, newspapers, periodicals, silk items, tubes, pipes and the like. It also said rates of 575 items falling under 11 categories have been increased and those include products of iron and steel, handicraft, rubber, glass, auto tyres and tubes and industrial machinery.

05. SWIFT plans measures to help spot fraudulent bank transfers:

The SWIFT inter-bank messaging network plans to send daily reports to clients to help them more quickly identify unauthorised payment instructions like those used by hackers to steal $81 million from Bangladesh’s central bank in February. Trillions of dollars worth of inter-bank payments are made each day using SWIFT messages but the Bangladesh theft and others which came to light this year have knocked confidence in the supposedly super-secure system. SWIFT said in a statement that from December it would begin sending ‘daily validation reports’ to clients. These would list the messages sent from the client’s SWIFT terminal, thus allowing a bank to spot any payment instructions that it had not intended to send. The report will also contain a risk report aimed at showing whether transfer instructions deviated from the client’s typical payment patterns. In the Bangladesh heist and a $12-million theft from a Colombian bank last year, hackers covered their tracks by deleting records of fraudulent SWIFT messages they sent from the banks’ terminals. In both cases, it took days for the thefts to be discovered. The new reports will be sent to customers’ payments and compliance teams through a separate channel to the normal SWIFT terminal, so that even if hackers have gained access to the terminal, the reports will get through.

06. Modi government’s big labour law overhaul after GST; hiring and firing to be made easier :

Government is to make a renewed drive to overhaul labour laws, hoping to create millions of new jobs by making it easier to hire and fire, the labour ministry’s top bureaucrat said on 22nd Sept 2016. Modi made a shake-up of India’s labour market a part of his reform agenda after coming into office in 2014, but opposition from unions and a bruising battle to pass other crucial pieces of economic legislation have stalled those efforts. Two key bills, covering industrial relations and wages, would be sent to the cabinet this month. Subject to cabinet approval, the bills would be presented in parliament’s next session, beginning in November. A rule requiring firms to seek rarely granted government permission for laying off large numbers of workers, which employers say has discouraged permanent hiring and kept factories small, are among restrictions to be loosened. The government says freeing up labour markets will boost employment, lure foreign investment and encourage firms to expand. Under the reforms, 44 labour laws, some of them dating back to the end of British rule and as anachronistic as providing spittoons in the work place, will be grouped into four new labour codes.

07.India ranked 143 among 188 countries in health study :

A global study on a range of health indicators released has ranked India 143rd among 188 countries, citing various challenges, including mortality rates, malaria hygiene and air pollution. "Despite rapid economic growth, India was ranked 143rd, below Comoros and Ghana," the first annual assessment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) health performance published in the Lancet and launched at a special event at the UN General Assembly in New York said. India was placed just ahead of Pakistan and Bangladesh which were ranked 149th and 151st respectively. India's poor performance on hygiene, air pollution mortality are among factors that place it lower than countries like Bhutan, Botswana, Syria and Sri Lanka. For malaria, which was one of the health indicators assessed, India merely scored 10 points and remained in the red. Similarly for hygiene, the study gave India just eight points while for PM2.5, it scored just 18 points. For under-five mortality India scored 39 points while for Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) it scored 28 points.

08. Mumbai to Goa in just 6 hours soon: Nitin Gadkari

Travelling to Goa from Mumbai by road may soon take only six hours due to the construction of a new four-lane concrete highway, Union Minister for Roads Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari said. "It will soon take only six-hours to travel between Goa and Mumbai with the four-lane concrete highway we are building," Gadkari said, adding that the rate of road building by his ministry was 22 kms per day. He was speaking at a function on the occasion of signing a concession agreement between the Mormugao Port Trust and Goa Seaport Pvt Ltd for redevelopment of two berths and other barge berths at the central government facility. The minister also proposed to shift a port project in Goa's Betul village, which has faced local opposition, to either of the neighbouring states of Maharashtra or Karnataka, on account of a series of protests against it. He also said an eight km highway will be constructed, connecting the upcoming Mopa airport in North Goa, located 40 kms from Panaji, to the National Highway 17 at the cost of Rs 300 crore.

09. Center to monitor construction of rural roads via satellites :

In a bid to check corruption in construction of rural roads, the Center will do geo-satellite monitoring of the entire process of construction of rural roads in the country. Recently, a pilot project in this regard was carried out by the National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj (NIRDPR) under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY). The four-month pilot project was conducted in five states- Odisha, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Assam. It found that nearly one-third (31 per cent) of the village roads in 10 districts across India were shorter than the sanctioned length. “The Rural Development Ministry will sign an MoU with the National Remote Sensing Agency for geo-satellite monitoring of the construction of rural roads and also the roads which have been constructed,” a source said. The move comes after the pilot study revealed that there have been few cases where there is a mismatch between the sanctioned road lengths and the actual length constructed, the source said. The monitoring will be done for analysing the length and optimal alignment of roads along with cross-drainage structures over them, such as bridges. Overall the entire exercise will make the scheme more efficient and will help check misuse of funds, the source added.

10. All KYC data must be compliant with new format by March next: RBI

The RBI has said that all data related to KYC (know your customer) be made compliant as per CERSAI’s Common KYC (CKYC) format by March 31, 2017, according to sources. A meeting was held at North Block in the Capital to assess the implementation of CKYC, sources said. The government in November 2015 had mandated CERSAI (Central Registry of Securitisation Asset Reconstruction and Security Interest of India) to be the sole repository of KYC information related to financial sector regulators. Uploading of KYC data in CKYC format for accounts opened after October 15, 2016, will be a requirement. Existing KYC registration agencies regulated by SEBI have to provide a new structure in their existing modules and make it CKYC compliant by December 31. Then the data has to be exported to CKYC