- Indian journalist Bobby Ghosh has been named the new editor of Time International.
- History was made in Pakistan on Saturday with its Lower House — the National Assembly — and Pakistan Peoples Party-led coalition government, both completing a full five-year term — a first in the 66-yearsof the nation’s existence. The National Assembly was scheduled to be dissolved late at night after a televised address to the nation by Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf.
- While India’s Grievance Redressal Bill was forged in the fire of public protest, Ethiopia chose to incorporate anti-corruption provisions in its criminal code(“Article 416 of the criminal code deals with Undue Delay of Matters").
- US is to continue to engage internationally with Iran.
- Sita temple construction to begin soon in Sri Lanka in Divurumpola.
- US has announced that it is abandoning a key part of its European missile defence plan - an interceptor that had been strongly opposed by Russia.
- Zimbabwe votes in a referendum on new Constitution.
- The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has listed Sarus Crane as ‘vulnerable’
- HDFC hires Deloitte to conduct forensic audit in accordance with money laundering case by CobraPost in sting Operation Red Spider.
- Sahara to launch Q shops(retail stores) in Maharashtra.
- Infosys Technologies has announced that it has been selected by the BMW Group as its worldwide partner for application-basis infrastructure management services.
- After phones and the Net, now hard drives go wireless.
- Ghulam Muntaqa, a senior photojournalist, died of a heart attack.He was a Karnataka Rajyotsava and Karnataka Media Academy award winner.Another one of his achievements was the nine-foot-long negative that included pictures of the Gateway of India and the Taj hotel in Mumbai in a single frame, shot with a rotating camera. It was one of the several innovations that Mr. Muntaqa came up with.
- EC to retain toll-free helpline for State polls.People can dial 1950 to register election-related complaints.
- The Mumbai police on Saturday inaugurated the country’s first ‘Social Media Lab’ to monitor the happenings on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
- The Revenue Department in Andhra Pradesh has been building a digitalised system for delivery of services in land and real estate transactions. The State stakes claim to being the first in facilitating land transactions through a Computer Aided Registration of Documents (CARD) project
- Bollywood director Kamal K.M. has been chosen for the 16 Gollapudi Srinivas National Award for his bilingual I.D.
- Mayanakollai festival comes to an end in Puducherry.
- Former Supreme Court Judge B. Sudershan Reddy was sworn-in as Goa’s first Lokayukta
- Kerela : Big boost for Health :
- Free generic drugs till taluk hospitals.
- De-addiction centers in all taluks.
- Medical Cities in Thiruvananthapuram,kochi and Kozhikode.
- New medical college in Thiruvananthapuram.
- CHIS for APL families also.
- All Airports alerted to prevent Italian Ambassador Daniele Mancini from leaving the country.
- Kallam Anji Reddy, Founder and Chairman of Hyderabad-based pharma major Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories (DRL) passes away.
- The first Satellite of Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) constellation, IRNSS-1 will be launched by PSLV-C22.IRNSS provides two basic services -- standard positioning service for common civilian users and restricted service for special authorised users.
- Infosys will facilitate India Post’s Rural Systems Integration (RSI) programme. This initiative will increase adoption of the department’s services, and enhance the reach of postal services to the country’s rural population, streamlining the distribution of social benefits.Project is a part of the ‘India Post 2012’ modernisation programme that aims to bring transparency, agility, flexibility and scalability to its business operations.
- Air Chief Marshal (retd.) S.P. Tyagi became the first IAF Chief to be booked by the CBI — along with 12 others — for alleged cheating, corruption and criminal conspiracy in the VVIP Chopper deal.
- The Office of Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks (CGPDTM) has launched the comprehensive online patent filing system with effect from 15th December, 2012.
- Papal Moniker : When Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio took the name Francis on being elected the 267th Pope of the Catholic Church.
- Haj Committee rules restrict male relatives, who had already performed the pilgrimage, from accompanying them.
- India provides new immigration system for Maldives.
- As per the Red Data Book of International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), five species of reptiles viz., Batagur baska (Four-toed Terrapin), Batagur kachuga (Red-crowned Roofed Turtle), Dermochelys coriacea (Leatherback), Eretmochelys imbricata (Hawksbill Turtle) and Gavialis gangeticus (Fish-eating Crocodile) are listed as critically endangered species.
- Transfer of defence land takes place only with the sanction of Ministry of Defence.
- 962-km roads to be laid in Visakha Agency area.(tribal area in Vishakhapatnam)
- 60th National Awards List.
- Cabinet clears revised food security bill :
- Entitlement cut from 7 kg to 5 kg a month under PDS
- entitlement of 35 kg under Antyodaya Anna Yojna to stay
- Centre to move resolution on Sri Lanka : DMK quits UPA
- India, Egypt sign seven pacts.
- Shri Dinsha J. Patel confers National Geoscience Awards-2011 .
- SC Diktat on admission to medical and dental colleges.
- Kerala to map marine biodiversity
Mar 20, 2013
16-22 Mar 2013
Mar 18, 2013
Short Terms : Mar 2013
Tax Residency Certificate (TRC)
- Section [90 A (4)] intends to say is, if you produce a TRC that is a complete answer to your status as a resident. But whether you are the beneficial owner is a separate issue.
- The TRC certifies that you are a resident. It does not certify you are a beneficial owner.
Indian Depository Receipt(IDR)
- IDRs are generally instruments denominated in rupees created by a Domestic Depository (custodian of securities registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India) nd allow overseas companies to raise funds from the Indian market.
- So far only the UK-based banking major Standard Chartered PLC was listed as an IDR.
Operation Red Spider
- Operation Red Spider is a sting operation of an online magazine, Cobrapost in which it released hidden video footage showing high ranking officials and some employees of top three Indian banks(ICICI , HDFC , AXIS)suggesting to an undercover reporter methods to launder money and offering safe deposit lockers to stash away the black money and offered to open accounts without adhering to Reserve Bank of India guidelines and use ‘benami’ accounts to facilitate the conversion of the black money and keep the identity of the depositor a secret.
- The editor of Cobrapost.com Mr. Aniruddha Bahal his brought these video footage into the public domain on March 14, 2013.
Jhum/Jhoom Cultivation
- Tribal groups in the northeastern states of India like Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland, and also in the districts of Bangladesh like Khagrachari and Sylhet refer to slash and burn agriculture as "Jhum" or "Jhoom cultivation".
- This system involves clearing a piece of land by setting fire or clear felling and using the area for growing crops of agricultural importance such as upland rice, vegetables or fruits. After a few cycles, the land loses fertility and a new area is chosen.
- It is typically part of shifting cultivation agriculture.
- Shifting cultivation is an agricultural system in which plots of land are cultivated temporarily, then abandoned.In shifting agriculture a plot of land is cleared and cultivated for a short period of time; then it is abandoned and allowed to revert to its natural vegetation while the cultivator moves on to another plot.
- Slash-and-char is an alternative to slash-and-burn that has a lesser effect on the environment. It is the practice of charring the biomass resulting from the slashing, instead of burning it as in the slash-and-burn practice.
Copyright Bill 2013
- The Copyright Rules, 2013 provide new rules for statutory licence for cover versions and broadcasting of literary and musical works and sound recording; compulsory licences for works withheld from public, unpublished and published works, for benefit of disabled; registration of Copyright Societies and Performer’s Right Societies; storage of transient or incidental copies of woks; making or adapting the work by organisations working for the benefit of persons with disabilities; importation of infringing copies and technological protection measures.
- The minimum fee has been increased for registration from Rs. 50/- per work to Rs. 500/- per work and the maximum fee has been increased from Rs. 600/- per work to Rs. 5,000/-.
Tourism
- The ‘Go Beyond’ campaign focuses on promoting lesser known destinations to domestic as well as international tourists
- “Find what you Seek”, targets the international tourists who imagine a need and find its realization in India.
AWARDS
- Best State/ UT Comprehensive Development of Tourism (Rest of India) :
Andhra Pradesh. - Best State/ UT Comprehensive Development of Tourism (North East, Jammu and Kashmir ) :Jammu & Kashmir.
- Best Heritage City : Warangal City (AP)
Labour and Employment
KaushalVikasYojana
- To set up 3000 new Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) & 5000 Skill Development Centres (SDCs) in Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode.
- To provide vocational training to the youth from socially & economically disadvantaged groups of society.
Mar 3, 2013
1-7 Mar 2013
- Syria crisis: Assad sends top aide Bouthaina Shaaban to meet Manmohan.
- Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has denied that the Army killed LTTE chief Prabakaran’s 12-year-old son Balachandran.
- President Barack Obama has signed an order authorising the government to begin cutting $85 billion from federal accounts.Mr. Obama has insisted on replacing the cuts, known as a “sequester” in government budget language, with tax increases and cuts spread out over time. Republicans have rejected any plan that included tax revenue.Affecting everything from military expenditure to school and hospital services.
- Dharamsala-based Tibetan Lhamo Je authored ‘self-immolation guide’: China
- U.S.-Russia compromise formula on defence co-operation ,pledging to cooperate on missile defences and not to use them against each other.
- Russia will re-establish its permanent naval presence in the Mediterranean, more than two decades after it withdrew from the region
- Maldives girl faces flogging (100 lashes i.e. whips)for premarital sex.
- Russia backs France’s Syria plans.
- Pranab visits Bangladesh amid violence
- Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline work to start on March 11 and agreements for opening two more border crossings at Gabd and Pasni and for setting up an oil refinery in Gwadar will also be signed .
- Demolition of Berlin Wall stretch stalled by protests.
- The Philippine President on Saturday urged members of a Muslim royal clan from the southern Philippines who occupied a village Lahad Datu in Sabah State in eastern Malaysia three weeks ago to surrender.The Filipino group is led by a brother of Sultan Jamalul Kiram III.
- Obama nominates Wal-Mart's Sylvia Mathews Burwell(President of the Walmart Foundation) as budget chief.
- FinMin said Tax Residency Certificate (TRC) would not be enough to claim benefits under the DTAAs (Double Taxation Avoidance Agreements).It is proposed to amend Sections 90 and 90A [of the Income-Tax Act] in order to provide that submission of a tax residency certificate is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for claiming benefits under the agreements referred to in Sections 90 and 90A.The amendments will take effect retrospectively from April 1, 2013.
- FinMin propose to levy a final withholding tax at the rate of 20 per cent on profits distributed by unlisted companies to shareholders through buyback of shares.Also proposed to increase the rate on payments by way of royalty and fees for technical services to non-residents from 10 per cent to 25 per cent.
- Proposed acquisition of majority stake by UK-based Diageo in UB group’s United Spirits Ltd.
- Malaysian carrier Air Asia announced it had sought the government’s nod to launch a new airline under a joint venture with Tata Group and an Indian investor.
- Importers must take permission from the Directorate General of Foreign Trade.The government has imposed restrictions on import of second hand goods and re-conditioned spares of personal computers and laptops, a decision that could boost domestic manufacturing.
- Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) on Friday issued detailed guidelines allowing shareholders to convert their Indian Depository Receipts(IDR) into equity shares of the issuer company and vice-versa.
- The German Parliament passed a law, which will force search engines such as Google and other news aggregators, to pay royalties to publishers for posting extracts of their articles.Still to be approved by upper house.
- Microsoft launched its Office 365 for businesses in India, which will provide seamless sharing of data across PCs and mobiles using cloud computing technology.
- The Government said that the one-man committee headed by former Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court Mukul Mudgal would submit its report on the alleged corruption charges against U.S. retail giant Walmart by April 2013
Mar 1, 2013
Feb 2013 : General Knowledge
- India has (DTAA ) with 84 countries.
- Tunisia Prime Minister : Hamadi Jebali
- Maldives President : Mohamed Waheed Hassan
- French President : Francois Hollande
- Finmeccanica SpA New CEO : Alessandro Pansa
- US Airways CEO : Doug Parker.
- TCS Chief Financial Officer : Rajesh Gopinathan
- World Wetlands Day : 2 Feb
- India is the fifth largest country in the world in terms of wind power installed capacity.
- Mauritius PM : Navin Ramgoolam
1-15 Feb 2013
- India signs 13th tax treaty(Tax Information Exchange Agreement) with Gibraltar (So far India has signed TIEAs with Bahamas, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Isle of Man, Cayman Islands, Jersey, Macau, Liberia, Argentina, Guernsey, Bahrain and Monaco).
- Cameron to host Afghan peace meet between Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai.
- Eminent jurist and former Chief Justice J.S.Verma and a Bar Association delegation were forced to cancel the visit to SriLanka as some inaccuracy in visa application.(They were to head an international fact-finding mission to assess the legal issues involved in the impeachment of Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake)
- Scotland plans for independence which would see the country become formally independent in March 2016 — severing its 300-year-old union with the United Kingdom (U.K.).
- Obama signs debt ceiling fix allowing the government to borrow to meet its needs until May 18(current 16.4 trillion dollar debt limit).The measure would also withhold pay from lawmakers starting in April unless a budget is passed.
- Ahmadinejad on historic Egypt visit participating in the OIC meeting as the current chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) .
- Death sought for Jamaat-e-Islami leader Abdul Quader Mollah, who was sentenced to life imprisonment by a war crimes tribunal in Bangladesh.
- U.S. govt. to sue S&P for ‘false’ mortgage ratings .
- Italy defence firm Finmeccanica CEO Giuseppe Orsi held on graft charge (He is alleged to have paid $670 million in bribes for the sale of 12 helicopters to the government of India).
- North Korea conducts third nuclear test(N Korea only patron China).
- Ravi Shankar wins best music album award at the 55th Grammys,a day after being honoured with a Lifetime Achievement award by The Recording Academy.(Pandit Shankar passed away on December 11 at 92)
- Pope Benedict XVI announces resignation(first time a Pope has decided to step down in 600 years.Pope Benedict XVI is the first German to be elected Pope since the eleventh century.His conservative views had earned him the nickname of “Pope John Paul II’s Rotweiler”.)
- Argo wins top Bafta(British Academy Film Awards) prize including Best Picture.
- Jordan's king Abdullah II inaugurates new parliament .
- Guatemala declares national coffee emergency over the spread of coffee rust, saying the fungus that has hit other Central American countries is affecting 70 per cent of this nation’s crop.
- Venezuela devalues its currency Bolivar by nearly half from 4.30 bolivars to the dollar to 6.30 bolivars to the dollar. (first devaluation to be announced by Chavez’s government since 2010).
- ‘End of Soviet Union’ document is missing .
- Tunisia Uprising after killing of Chokri Belaid, a fierce government critic.
- Maldives presidential elections in September 2013(first election after President Mohamed Nasheed was replaced by his Vice-President, Mohamed Waheed, on February 7 2012).
- U.S. Federal Reserve hacked, confidential data leaked.
- British parliament approves gay marriage.
- RBI moots levy to discourage cheque usage.
- Nasheed takes refuge at Indian High Commission.
- Pope(pontiff) Benedict XVI will stay at the summer residence Castel Gandolfo, outside Rome.
- Rocket( blue-fronted Amazon parrot), the polyglot parrot amazes.
- Ronald Dworkin dead (one of America’s most liberal philosophers and constitutional law experts celebrated) .
- French President Francois Hollande in India.
- Pak successfully tests nuclear-capable Hatf-II missile.
- Meteor rattles Siberian city,Russia.(video recorded from Ural Mountains.)
- Gabriel Kadiev (19), a Muslim football player whose signing with the Jerusalem club Beitar sparked a violent uprising by a hardcore group of racist fans, made his much anticipated debut recently to a rousing ovation.
- Finmeccanica SpA, Italy’s biggest defense contractor, has appointed Alessandro Pansa as the new CEO to succeed Giuseppe Orsi, who was arrested on charges of tax fraud and corruption including alleged pay-offs in the Rs 3,600 crore VVIP chopper deal with India.
- Australia cancels North Korea visit after nuke test but still plans to allow North Korea to re-establish its embassy.
- American Airlines and US Airways say they have agreed to merge in an $11 billion deal that would create the world’s biggest airline.
- Gold ETFs allowed to invest in Gold Deposit Schemes.
- Govt cuts import tariff values of gold, silver.
- Samsung takes on Nokia’s Asha with new Rex series (supports the TouchWiz user interface)
- Indian cricket team captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni has been appointed Vice-President of The India Cements Ltd. (ICL)
- Bank accounts of two Sahara firms(Sahara India Real Estate Corporation Ltd., and Sahara Housing Investment Corporation Ltd) frozen by SEBI.Click Here
- Petroleum Ministry raises ‘red flag’ over Nagaland inviting EoI for oil and gas blocks but it stated that Nagaland govt claimed to derive its powers for such an exercise under Article 371-A (1) (a) of the Constitution.
- Rajesh Gopinathan is new CFO of TCS
- Ratan Tata steps down as Director of Bombay Dyeing.
- Aircel launches ‘Mobile Money partnering with ICICI Bank and Visa similar to Vodafone’s M-Pesa service which first pioneered to great success in Africa.
- SEBI revises rules for amalgamation of companies :
- asked listed companies to place before its audit committee the valuation report obtained from an independent chartered accountant.
- Vasudeva Rao is new IGCAR Director(Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research)
- India has dropped nine places to 140 in the list of 179 countries in the 2013 World Press Freedom Index(topped by three European countries — Finland, Netherlands and Norway. Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea continue to be at the bottom)
- Loans to become cheaper as RBI cuts policy rate
- Lance-Naik Hemraj Singh and Lance-Naik Sudhakar Singh were beheaded by Pak soldiers in Jan 2013.
- 16th National Conference on e-Governance on 11 - 12 February, 2013 in Jaipur, Rajasthan.
- During visit of Prime Minister of Mauritius Navin Ramgoolam to India, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for strengthening collaboration in textiles sector was signed between the two Governments on February 7, 2012.
- Kashmir all girl rock band Pragaash receiving threaths.(Vocalist-guitarist Noma Nazir (16), drummer Farah Deeba and Guitarist Aneeka Khalid (both 15) are receiving threats and abuses.)
- Justice Verma Committee not only clearly defined what a sexual assault was, but also suggested the addition of new sections in the Indian Penel Code so that those committing the acts of voyeurism, stalking and acid attacks are penalised severely.
- Bharti Airtel has launched an emergency hotline which allows customers to alert family and friends through a predefined list of 10 numbers should they find themselves in a dangerous situation.
- Ordinance to ensure that those who commit crimes against women face far tougher sentences: (It spares police and armymen)
- The new law, government sources said, is likely to include the death penalty — or imprisonment for the rest of the perpetrator’s natural life — in the rarest of rare cases.
- enhances the seven-year sentence for those convicted of rape to 20 years
- criminalises public sexual harassment ranging from cat calls to groping, and provides more stringent punishment in specific cases of stalking and acid attacks.
- The word “rape” has been replaced by the expression “sexual assault”.
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