Current Affairs for IAS Exams

Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 16 December 2016

Fifteen lakh citizens opting to make cash-less payments for transactions between Rs. 50 and Rs. 3,000 through RuPay cards, UPI, the Aadhaar-enabled payment systems and USSD will get Rs. 1,000 in a cash-back incentive under a lucky draw scheme.
Calling the Lucky Grahak Y ojana a Christmas gift for citizens, NITI Aayog CEOsaid the scheme, to be launched on December 25, would cover all transactions made from November 8.
As money comes back into the system, we don't want to give rise to a new parallel economy with black money, so these schemes are meant to incentivise con-sumers to move away from cash.
Grand prize winners will get Rs. 1 crore, Rs. 50 lakh and Rs. 25 lakh at the end of of the programme's first phase, while there will be weekly prizes of Rs. 1 lakh, Rs. 10,000 and Rs. 5,000.
Transactions made through private banks' credit cards and e-wallets such as Paytm would not be eligible.

The SC banned States and Union Territories from granting licences for the sale of liquor along National and State highways across the country, noting that drunken driving was the main culprit behind a large number of road accidents in the country.
A Bench of Chief Justice of India T.S. Thakur and Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and L. Nageswara Rao said the licences of liquor shops across the highways will not be renewed after March 31, 2017.
The judgment ordered that the prohibition on sale of liquor alongside highways would extend to stretches of such highways that fall within limits of municipal corporations, city towns and local authorities.
The court prohibited signages and advertising of availability of liquor on high-ways and ordered the existing ones to be removed forth-with from both national and State highways.
It ordered that no shop for sale of liquor should be visible from the National and State highways.
Neither should they be directly accessible from the highways nor should they be situated within a distance of 500 metres from the outer edge of the highways or ser-vice lanes.
The judgment is a result of the deep concern the court had expressed recently on the 1.5 lakh fatalities annually in road accidents. It had blamed the Centre and the States for not doing enough as lives were lost on the roads.

An operation to evacuate thousands of civilians and fighters from the last rebel bastion in Aleppo was under way, part of a ceasefire deal that would end years of fighting for the city and mark a major victory for Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said the evacuation of around 200 wounded people had star-ted. Russia, a major ally of Assad, said 5,000 Syrian rebels and family members were being brought out of eastern Aleppo.
The convoy of 10 ambulances and at least 17 green buses with nearly 1,000 aboard drove from the Ramousah district next to the rebel-held area of Aleppo, which was besieged for months by Syrian government forces.
Rebel officials have said that civilians who wish to leave will also be able to do so as part of the ceasefire and evacuation deal. Footage of the buses appeared to show that most ofthose inside were young men.
Columns of black smoke could be seen rising from the rebel-held area, where residents hoping to departwere burning personal be-longings they do not want to leave for government forces to loot.
Syria had guaranteed the safety of rebels and their families, who would be taken towards Idlib, a city in north-western Syria which is out-side government control.
The evacuation agreement would include the safe passage of wounded from the Shia villages of Foua and Kefraya near Idlib that are besieged by rebels, accord-ing to a military media unit run by Hezbollah, a group al-lied to Mr. Assad.