Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 23 March 2017
:: National ::
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has defended the amendment to link Aadhaar with PAN
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has defended the amendment to the Finance Bill, cleared by the Lok Sabha, making an Aadhaar number mandatory for issuing a PAN card. The biometric security of Aadhaar, he said, would prevent individuals holding multiple PAN cards and evading tax.
“In a situation where it has come to light that one citizen has up to five PAN cards, to avoid that, we have linked the PAN to Aadhaar,” Mr. Jaitley said in the Lok Sabha.
About 98% of the adult population is covered by Aadhaar and 108 crore cards have been issued.
It is an anti-evasion measure and for the benefit of the country.”
He also sought to allay concerns in Parliament about aggressive and unwarranted searches and seizures by Income-Tax officials. The assessing officer, he said, could only make searches after recording the source of their information regarding undisclosed income.
Mr. Jaitley said the Central Board of Direct Taxes had so far identified 18 lakh names whose large bank deposits did not match their income profile. Communications had been sent to all the 18 lakh assessees and and 8.78 lakh people had already responded.
The fear is that there will be many searches and seizures under Section 132A, he said. “But before searching, the assessing officer has to get the information about undisclosed income. The source of the information and all other details have to be explained.”
The political verdict of the people on demonetisation was clear, the Finance Minister said alluding to the performance of the BJP in the recent Assembly elections in five States.
“One of the benefits of demonetisation is that the anonymity associated with cash has been hurt and this will have an effect on the economy. Crime does not end. But does cash incentivise crime? Experience from around the world has shown that more cash leads to more tax evasion and more crime.”
Mr. Jaitley said the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council was trying to implement the new tax regime by July 1,2017. “The GST Council has met 12 times so far and all the significant decisions were taken by consensus.”
Ceasefire violations and casualties reduced post surgical strikes
The Centre told the Rajya Sabha that ceasefire violations and casualties on the Indian side of the Line of Control (LoC) and the international border had come down after the surgical strikes..
It said this in reply to a question as to whether terrorist activities had increased after surgical strikes along the LoC.
The ceasefire violations by Pakistan have come down post-surgical strikes. There were 228 ceasefire violations at the LoC in 2016 and 221 at the IB [international border]. However, till February 2017, there have only been 22 ceasefire violations and six on the IB,” Minister of State for Home Affairs Hansraj Gangaram Ahir said.
The civilian casualties and injuries in 2017 have been zero at the IB and the LoC, whereas in 2016, there were 13 civilian casualties and 83 injured on the LoC and 8 casualties on the IB and 74 were injured. Five BSF jawans lost their lives and 25 were injured along the international border.
While Leader of the Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad accused the government of not giving the full reply, Home Minister Rajnath Singh disagreed with him.
Mr. Singh also put the onus on Pakistan for the resumption of dialogue, saying it should end cross-border terrorism. Pakistan should at least make a beginning and say it is willing to talk and end the terrorist activities Pakistan should take an initiative.
CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury asked why there was no movement on a dialogue with all stake-holders in Kashmir despite an all-party delegation led by the government calling for it.
Listing some of the initiatives, Mr. Singh said the selection process for the armed police forces was over and job opportunities for Kashmiri youth had increased.
Mars could once have had rings, and the Red Planet may regain them again
Mars could once have had rings, and the Red Planet may regain them again, according to a new study.
A new model developed by scientists at Purdue University in the U.S. suggests that debris that was pushed into space from an asteroid slamming into Mars around 4.3 billion years ago alternates between becoming a planetary ring and clumping together to form a moon.
According to one theory, Mars’ large North Polar Basin or Borealis Basin which covers about 40% of the planet in its northern hemisphere was created by that impact, sending debris into space.
That large impact would have blasted enough material off the surface of Mars to form a ring.
As the ring formed, and the debris slowly moved away from the planet and spread out, it began to clump and eventually formed a moon.
Over time, Mars’ gravitational pull would have pulled that moon towards the planet until it reached the Roche limit, the distance within which a planet’s tidal forces will break apart a celestial body that is held together only by gravity.
Phobos, one of Mars’ moons, is getting closer to the planet. According to the model, Phobos will break apart upon reaching the Roche limit, and become a set of rings in roughly 70 million years.
Depending on where the Roche limit is, Mr. Hesselbrock and David Minton believe this cycle may have repeated between three and seven times over billions of years. Each time a moon broke apart and reformed from the ring, its successor moon would be five times smaller than the last.