Webinar 5 on Current affairs October 1 st week National: 1. Union cabinet approves bill to protect HIV community from prejudice The Union Cabinet approved the long-awaited amendments to the HIV Bill, granting stronger protection to the country s HIV community. The Bill prohibits discrimination against people living with HIV (PLHIV) in accessing healthcare, acquiring jobs, renting houses or in education institutions in the public and private sectors. HIV AIDS NACO 2. Apex court stays commercial release of GM mustard - The Supreme Court stayed the commercial release of Genetically Modified (GM) Mustard crop for 10 days and asked the Centre to take public opinion on such seeds before releasing them for cultivation, even as the government approval is awaited. GM crops 3. SC blocks BCCI funds to State units The Supreme Court went for the financial jugular of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI)'s 25 State cricket associations, barring them from using BCCI funds till they accept the Justice Lodha Committee s reforms in letter and spirit. BCCI Justice Lodha committee recommendations
4. India to light up IEA s global lighting program The LED programme by EESL UJALA has been so successful that International Energy Agency is partnering with it to take the programme global. IEA said India, through its company Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), has performed exceedingly well in terms of vastly improving access to LED lighting while reducing their cost drastically. IEA EESL DELP World sustainable development summit International: 1. Indo Sri Lanka ECTA Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi and Sri Lanka Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe have decided to conclude an enhanced bilateral economic partnership by the end of 2016 to allow the free flow of services, investments and technology, in addition to the existing Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the two nations. FTA ECTA 2. Latin America marches towards Right It was not a banner day for Latin America s Leftists. Colombia, Brazil, Argentina and Peru - all marching towards Rightist political ideology. Colombia - Rejected a peace deal with Marxist rebels delivering a very public victory to Alvaro Uribe, the conservative former President who campaigned passionately against it. Brazil - Voters in Brazil handed a resounding defeat to the Leftist party that once controlled their country, knocking it down in municipal elections. Lawmakers impeached the leftist leader of Brazil.
Argentina - voters have thwarted the Leftist movement in Argentina Peru - elected a former investment banker as President of Peru 3. Santos, FARC scramble to save deal Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos opened a new national dialogue to seek peace with FARC rebels as both sides scrambled to revive a peace deal to end the halfcentury conflict. FARC 4. Nobel prize 2016 Nobel Prize in Medicine - The 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Yoshinori Ohsumi, professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology for his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy - a fundamental process for degrading and recycling cellular components. Nobel laureate in Medicine, Christian de Duve coined the term autophagy (meaning self eating) in 1963. Nobel Prize in Physics - British-born scientists David J. Thouless, F. Duncan Haldane and J. Michael Kosterlitz won the Nobel Physics Prize for deep new ideas in quantum theory of matter, using topology. The discovery opened the door on an unknown world where matter can assume strange states. They have used advanced mathematical methods to study unusual phases, or states, of matter, such as superconductors, superfluids or thin magnetic films. Nobel Prize in Chemistry It has been awarded to Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Sir J. Fraser Stoddart and Bernard L. Feringa for developing molecular machines. The Nobel Peace Prize for 2016 has been awarded to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos for his efforts to end his country's 50-year civil war. He negotiated a peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) guerrilla group but the peace deal was rejected by a narrow majority of
Colombians when it was put to referendum. The award should also be seen as a tribute to the Colombian people who, despite great hardships and abuses, have not given up hope of a just peace, and to all the parties who have contributed to the peace process. Economy: 1. DIPP to use pension and insurance funds to fuel start ups Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) said in order to boost start-ups the government will consider a slew of policies that could enable pension funds as well as insurance firms such as LIC to invest in start-ups. Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) had recently taken steps to increase their exposure in stock markets. So definitely their money needs to be leveraged for start-ups. DIPP, the nodal Central government department for start-ups and its related policy Start-up India DIPP Start up India 2. FOREX reserves touch record high As per the Reserve Bank data, India s foreign exchange reserves scaled a new high of $371.99 billion, up $1.223 billion for the week to September 30. The increase was on account of a $1.468-billion surge in the foreign currency assets. FOREX reserves of India 3. New regime at RBI The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) decided at its first policy review to reduce the benchmark repurchase rate by 25 basis points to 6.25 per cent. The Reserve Bank of India s key policy interest rate has now been cut to its lowest level since 2011.
Monetary policy committee of RBI