Uttarakhand
- Guarding the guardians: Uttarakhand to give Aadhaar-linked unique IDs to cow vigilantes.
- To keep “genuine” cow protection activists safe and also check violence by “self-proclaimed vigilantes”, the Uttarakhand Gau Seva Aayog, a government body for overseeing cow protection measures in the state, has decided to provide unique IDs to activists in the state.
- The IDs will be linked to their Aadhaar cards and the district magistrates of all the 13 districts have been told to zero in on such people by taking Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) in the loop within a month. The state has witnessed a surge in cases concerning cruelty against cows, with more than 150 FIRs registered in 2016-17, much more than in the past, according to data with the Aayog.
- Uttarakhand has 25 registered ‘gau sadans’ and 102 cow shelter homes that have been funded under the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority with the help of van panchayats of forest department.
INTERNATIONAL
- United States approves Sale of UAV Technology to India
- The United States cleared the sale of the state-of-the-art Guardian 22 unmanned Guardian flights to India.
- The deal to sell Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) flights to India is estimated to be worth $2 to $3 billion.
- The transfer of the state-of-the-art UAV technology to India will be the first significant progress after India’s entry into the exclusive Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) and after the US has designated India as a major defence partner.
- Last year, the Indian Navy requested for this Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) platform.
- United States to sell C-17 Globemaster Transport Aircraft to India.
- The United States of America (USA) decided to sell one C-17 transport aircraft to India.
- The sale of USD 366.2 million C-17 transport aircraft manufactured by Boeing also includes one Missile Warning System, one Countermeasures Dispensing System, one Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) Transponder and precision navigation equipment.
- The Boeing C-17A Globemaster III military airlift aircraft is one of the most flexible cargo aircraft of the US Air Force fleet.
National
- Venkaiah Naidu elected 13th Vice President of India.
- Former union minister Muppavarapu Venkaiah Naidu (68) was elected as 13th Vice President of India. He will succeed Hamid Ansari, who held the position for two consecutive terms of 5 years. With this victory, BJP has occupied top three constitutional posts of India- President, Vice-President and Prime Minister.
- Over 98% voting was recorded in the 2017 vice-presidential election. 98.21% polling was registered for the election with 771 out of 785 MPs casting their vote, 11 votes were found to be invalid. 381 votes was the quota set to win the polls. M. Venkaiah Naidu emerged victorious by winning 516 votes, whereas opposition nominee Gopalkrishna Gandhi has secured 244 votes.
Gk bit– Vice President Election in India
- The election for the Vice President is conducted through a secret ballot where only members of both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha get to vote. Members of Parliament will use special pens for marking their choice. Votes marked with any other pen are liable to be rejected. In the Presidential poll, elected members of all state legislative assemblies, including Delhi and Puducherry, also participate in the voting.
- A person needs to satisfy the following prerequisites to become a Vice-President.
1) Needs to be a citizen of India
2) Is at least 35 years old or above.
3) is qualified to become a member of the Rajya Sabha.
- A candidate’s nomination paper needs to be subscribed by at least 20 electors as proposers and at least another 20 electors as seconders. And a security deposit of Rs 15,000 will be collected from each candidate.
- As per the Article 324 of the Constitution read with the Presidential and Vice-Presidential Elections Act, 1952 and the Presidential and Vice-Presidential Elections Rules, 1974, the responsibility of the “superintendence, direction and control” the Vice-Presidential election lie with the Election Commission of India.
- According to the Election Commission, the Electoral College for this year’s election consists of the following members:
- From Rajya Sabha: 233 elected and 12 nominated members
and from Lok Sabha, 543 elected and 2 nominated.
- The total members in the Electoral College are 790.
- Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announces new ETF-Bharat-22.
- Finance Minister Arun Jaitley launched a new ETF under the name Bharat 22, which will comprise shares of 22 companies.
- The Finance Minister said that Bharat-22 ETF will comprise of the government’s holding in SUUTI, CPSE ETF and PSU banks.
- Among the 22 stocks, IOC, BPCL and NALCO will have 4.4 per cent weight each in Bharat-22. Power Grid will have 7.9 per cent weight, while Axis Bank (7.7 per cent), SBI (8.6 per cent) and Coal India (3.3 per cent) ITC (15.2 per cent), ONGC (5.3 per cent), NTPC (6.7 per cent) will have 3-15 per cent weightage in the ETF.
- It will help to speed up Government’s disinvestment programme budgeted to raise a record Rs 72,500 crores in Fy 2018.
Gk bit – ETF
- An exchange-traded fund (ETF) is an investment fund traded on stock exchanges, much like stocks. An ETF holds assets such as stocks, commodities, or bonds and generally operates with an arbitrage mechanism designed to keep it trading close to its net asset value.
- An ETF is a type of fund. It owns assets (bonds, stocks, gold bars, etc.) and divides ownership of itself into shares that are held by shareholders. The details of the structure (such as a corporation or trust) will vary by country, and even within one country there may be multiple possible structures.
- ETFs were started in 2001 in India. They comprise a portfolio of equity, bonds and trade close to its net asset value. These funds mainly track an index, a commodity, or a pool of assets.
- Safexpress sets up its largest south India logistics park in Hyderabad.
- New Delhi-based logistics player Safexpress Private Limited announced that it has set up its largest logistics park in the south on the outskirts of Hyderabad at an investment of Rs 30 crore.
- Spread over 4 lakh sft, the logistics park has the infrastructure to simultaneously load and unload 80 trucks at a time in all-weather conditions.
- On the impact of GST on the logistics sector, while the cost on the transportation front has shot up by 10-15% (as there is no GST on diesel and the road congestion too is adding to in efficiency), the cost on the inventory and warehousing side is expected to come down by 20-25% due to uniform taxation.