Current Affairs for IAS Exams

Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 17 December 2016

The Supreme Court ordered the setting up of a five-judge Constitution Bench to test the validity of a November 8 demonetisation notification and the legality of the government's implementation of the policy.
A Bench said the issue of demonetisation was of public importance and has a far-reaching consequence, thus requiring a larger Bench to hear nine questions of law framed by the Bench.
The questions include whether the RBI notification and the “limited withdrawal” of one's own money were violations of Articles 14, 19, 21 and 300A (right to property) of the Constitution.
The court also wants the Constitution Bench to decide whether the very implementation of the notification suffered from “substantive and procedural unreasonableness.”
The court refrained from providing any drastic interim relief, including that banks were not honouring the notified Rs. 24,000 weekly withdrawal limit of money.
The Supreme Court said it trusted the government to be the best judge of its own economic and fiscal policies.
The court placed its faith in the government's assurances that the policy was triggered to weed out black money, counterfeit currency and choke terror funding.

The cash crunch being faced by people due to the demonetisation of high-value currency notes could be resolved by the middle or end of January 2017, with about Rs. 12 lakh crore in cash returning to the system by then, NITI Aayog CEO.
Mr. Kant also mooted an eventual move by the govt to a transaction ecosystem where there is no cost associated with digital transactions and cash holdings could attract a cess.
Digital payments by debit or credit cards, for instance, attract a Merchant Discount Rate of 0.75 per cent to 1 per cent that has been waived as a temporary reprieve for cash-starved citizens.
Around Rs. 3.5 trillion of the Rs. 17 trillion in circulation before demonetisation was pure black money and the increase in digital trans-actions will reduce the needfor cash by about Rs. 2 trillion.
So the economy needs Rs. 11-12 trillion in cash to finance normal transactions. This will be back in the system by mid-January or maybe the end of January.
Separately, the government is working towards linking more and more bank accounts to Aadhaar as it looks to push UID-based payment systems.

Buildings and real estate projects, between 20,000 and 300,000 sq. metres, will no longer need to be assessed for their environmental impact, by the Centre.
From now on, States can integrate the clearance process of such projects into their building by-laws to streamline environmental clearance to a significant chunk of building projects.
While areas less than 20,000 sq metres only need a self-declaration, those between 5,000 to 20,000 sq. metres need to follow environmental norms during construction and maintenance phase.
A new category of consultants, called Qualified Building Environment Auditorsand empanelled by the Union environment ministry, would assess and certify building projects.
Local authorities would now have to compulsorily constitute an Environmental Cell to support appraisal, compliance and monitoring of building projects.
Projects would be evaluated on their energy use, especially renewable energy sources, waste water management, waste segregation and tree plantation and maintenance.

A Chinese warship has seized an underwater drone deployed by a U.S. oceanographic vessel in the South China Sea, triggering a formal diplomatic protest and a demand for its return.
The incident, the first of its kind in recent memory, took place on December 15 about 50 nautical miles northwest of Subic Bay of the Philip-pines just as the USNS Bowditch, an oceanographic survey ship, was about to retrieve the unmanned, under water vehicle (UUV).
The Pentagon later con-firmed the incident at a news briefing. It said the drone used commercially available technology and sold for about $1,50,000. Still, the Pentagon viewed China's seizure seriously since it had effectively takenU.S. military property.
A U.S. think tank this week said new satellite imagery indicated China has installed weapons, including anti-air-craft and anti-missile systems, on all seven artificial islands it has built in the South China Sea.
The drone was part of an unclassified program to collect oceanographic data including salinity, temperature and clarity of the water.