Daily GK Updates: 7th August 2014

1.    18^th BASIC Ministerial Meeting begin from today 

i. Environment Ministers of BASIC countries will meet in New Delhi to discuss important issues relating to current United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations.

ii. The 18th BASIC Ministerial Meeting will be held on August 7-8, 2014 at New Delhi. 

iii. The two-day 18th BASIC Ministerial Meeting, to be held from tomorrow, will provide an important opportunity to BASIC countries (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) to enhance coordination on important issues under consideration in Climate Change negotiations and arrive at a common position

iv. Issues related to Warsaw COP, Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP), the Green Climate Fund (GCF), the Standing Committee on Finance, the Technology Executive Committee (TEC) and the Climate Technology Center and Network (CTCN) were discussed during the meeting. 

Note: i. The 17th BASIC Ministerial Meeting on Climate Change was held in Hanzghou, China in October last year. 

ii. India hosted the 14th BASIC Ministerial Meeting on Climate Change on in February 2013 at Chennai which was attended by representatives from Brazil, South Africa, India and China.

2.    Norms tightened for asset reconstruction companies

i. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has tightened norms for  asset reconstruction  companies to improve discipline and bring about transparency in the sale and purchase of bad loans.

ii. Now, asset reconstruction companies (ARCs) will have to pay upfront 15 per cent of the bid value of non-performing loans, against five per cent earlier.

iii. Also, those planning to buy bad loans will get more time (at least two weeks) to carry out due diligence before bidding for stressed assets. So far, banks have enjoyed complete discretion in deciding the timeframe for due diligence.

iv. RBI said ARCs would get up to six months to plan recoveries from the non-performing assets acquired. Currently, ARCs get about a year for this.

v. On the valuation of securities receipts, RBI said the initial valuation of these receipts should be carried out within six months of acquiring the asset, instead of the current one year.

vi. ARCs will have to mandatorily disclose the basis of valuations in case the acquisition value of assets is more than the book value. They will also have to disclose the details of the assets disposed of at substantial discount during a year and the reasons for this.

3.    Mizoram Governor Kamla Beniwal removed

i. Pranab Mukherjee, the President of India removed Kamla Beniwal the Governor of Mizoram on 6 August 2014. She was removed two months before her tenure was supposed to end. 
ii. The President directed that Beniwal shall cease to hold the office and gave additional charge of the office to Vinod Kumar Duggal, Governor of Manipur.

iii. Duggal will discharge the functions of the Governor of Mizoram in addition to his own duties, until some regular arrangement for the office of Governor of Mizoram is made.

4.    Aditya Vardhan Agarwal, new Vice-President of Indian Chamber of Commerce

i. Aditya Vardhan Agarwal, Director, Emami Group, has been nominated and appointed as the Vice-President of the Indian Chamber of Commerce.

ii. He is the Honorary Consul of the Republic of Ethiopia in Kolkata. Earlier, he served as an Executive Committee Member of Assocham and as a Director of the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation.

5.    Union Cabinet approved the Juvenile Justice Bill, 2014 to amend the Juvenile Justice Act, 2000

i. The Union cabinet on 6 August 2014 approved the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Bill, 2014 to amend the Juvenile Justice (JJ) Act, 2000. The Union government plans to introduce the bill in the Monsoon session of Parliament. 

Age of a Juvenile in the JJ Bill, 2014

i. The bill will treat minors above the age of 16 as adults, who are accused of heinous crimes like rape and murder. The JJ Act, 2000 treats any person below the age of 18 as juvenile.

ii. The bill empowered the Juvenile Justice Board to decide whether a minor would be tried in a regular court or sent to a correctional centre. 

iii. The bill provides that if a minor is sent to regular court, he would not be sentenced to life or death if found guilty. Currently, the maximum punishment under the Juvenile Justice Act is three years confinement at correctional homes.

The Provision for Children in conflict zones and Corporal punishment in the JJ Bill, 2014

i. The Bill proposes up to seven year rigorous imprisonment, 5 lakh rupees fine or both for militant groups who recruit child soldiers or use children for any purpose. 

ii. The Bill widens the definition of corporal punishment by including physical and verbal abuse.

iii. It proposes stringent punishment for those who subject "a child to corporal punishment causing hurt and emotional distress for the child". 

iv. Offenders could face jail term between six months on first conviction. Depending on the gravity of physical injury and mental trauma of the child, the offender could be punished with three to five years in jail and up to 1 lakh rupees fine.

v. If the offender is an employee of an institution dealing with children, he can be dismissed from service for repeat offence. Even the management of such institution can be sentenced to up to three year jail and 1 lakh rupees fine for non-compliance or non-cooperation in any probe. 

vi. Those ragging students within or outside an institution can be sentenced to up to three years in jail and fined up to 1 lakh rupee. Anybody found to abet or propagate ragging can land in jail, too. 

Note: If the Bill is passed in Parliament, India will join 40 other countries where corporal punishment is a penal offence. 

6.    Arijit Basu is new MD & CEO of SBI Life Insurance

i. Arijit Basu has taken over as Managing Director and CEO of SBI Life Insurance, from Atanu Sen, who retired on July 31, 2014, said the company in a release issued on Wednesday.

ii. A graduate in Economics and MA in History, Basu started his career with State Bank of India in 1983 as a Probationary Officer.

iii. He has over three decades of experience in the banking sector.

7.    Padho Pardesh scheme for minority community

i. Minority Affairs Minister Najma Heptullah has said the government has launched a scheme titled, Padho Pardesh, for providing interest subsidy on educational loans for overseas studies for students belonging to the notified minority communities like Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Parsis.

ii. She said the objective of the scheme is to award interest subsidy to meritorious students belonging to economically weaker sections of the notified minority communities so as to provide opportunities for higher education abroad and enhance their employability.

iii. The Minister said under the scheme, 100 per cent interest subsidy will be provided on the interest payable on the education loan availed for the period of moratorium, which includes the course period plus one year or six months after getting the job, whichever is earlier.

8.    Vladimir Putin signed decree baning imports of agricultural products from West

i. Russian President Vladimir Putin on 6 August 2014 signed a decree that bans imports of agricultural products from all countries that have imposed sanctions on Russia over the crisis in Ukraine. Major sanctions were made by the US and EU. 
ii. Putin by targeting the western food exports aims to ensure the safety of Russia and this move threatens to upset trade worth tens of billions of dollars. 
iii. Ban on the food imports, should continue for up to one year. The decree that immediately came into force asked the government to draw up a detailed list of products that would be banned.

iv. The decree stating ban on imports of agricultural products would have a heavy impact on Russia, as it hugely depends on imported foodstuffs of which making are from West. 

Background
The Western Nations like the US and European Union (EU) has imposed several sanctions on Russia after alleging that Russia is supporting the rebels of Ukraine. They imposed asset freezes and loan bans on a score of individuals and companies.

9.    8 injured in blast at NTPC plant

i. Eight persons, including two engineers, sustained burn injuries in a blast on Wednesday evening in a pipeline at one of the units of an NTPC plant in Korba district of Chhattisgarh, police said.

ii. The incident occurred at around 9 P.M. at Unit No.7 of the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) plant when labourers and engineers were at work there, a senior police official told reporters.

10.  Chandra Shekhar Ghosh, CMD of Bandhan won ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ award

i. Chandra Shekhar Ghosh, CMD of Bandhan, has received the ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ award from the All India Management Association (AIMA).

ii. Among the other awardees of the year were M G George Muthoot, Chairman, Muthoot Group (Emerging Business Leader of the Year), N Chandrasekaren, CEO & Managing Director, TCS (Indian MNC of the Year), Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, Film Producer, Director of Bhaag, Milkha Bhaag (Director of the Year) and S. S. Badrinath, Founder and Chairman, Emeritus of Sankara Nethralaya (Outstanding Institution Builder).

iii. The AIMA Managing India Awards 2014 were given away at a function in the Capital by Union Home Affairs Minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday.

iv. Every year, AIMA celebrates the achievements of outstanding companies, entrepreneurs and managers, who have made salutary contribution to nation building.

11.  SEBI gets powers to clamp down on fraudulent deposit schemes

i. The Securities Laws (amendment) Bill, 2014, which was approved unanimously by the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, allows SEBI to issue disgorgement orders.

ii. SEBI, in its little over two decades of existence, has issued disgorgement orders only on two occasions; once, in 2006, during the IPO irregularities issue, and for the second time in the Satyam Computer scandal.

iii. The money collected will now be parked in SEBI’s Investor Protection and Education Fund.

iv. This fund should not be confused with the Investor Education and Protection Fund that has been set up under the company law, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley clarified during a parliamentary discussion on the Bill.

v. “They are two separate funds. The IEPF under SEBI will have disgorged monies from the regulator’s directions. The other investor protection fund maintained under the company law is mainly unclaimed dividends,” Jaitley said.

vi. Over the last one year — since the promulgation of an ordinance to initiate action against illegal deposit-taking schemes — the IEPF under SEBI has garnered a corpus of ₹30 crore.

vii. “This move to explicitly empower SEBI to issue disgorgement orders is a big thing and augurs well for investor protection. So far, SEBI saw it only as an implicit power. Now that it will be explicit, SEBI will, in all its actions, first look at the possibility of disgorgement from the offenders,” MS Sahoo, Secretary, Institute of Company Secretaries of India, said

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