Current
Affairs Daily Updates: 13th Dec 2017
1. Union
Government sets aside Rs 10000 crores service tax demand notices on IT firms
- The new portal will help the
Ministry and CPSEs to assess their performance in the procurement process
according to the Procurement Policy, 2012.
- The Finance Ministry, as a
result, apprehensions about the negative effects on the software industry
are without basis.
- The government's move came a day
after IT companies raised the issue of tax demand with Finance Minister
Arun Jaitley during the pre-budget consultations.
- The tax department had slapped
service tax demand notices on about 200 information technology and
IT-enabled services companies.
2. USA President Donald signs USD 692 billion
defence budget
- US President Donald Trump signed
a 692 billion dollar defence budget, which among other things gives
funding to provide legislative authority to implement his South Asia
strategy and authorises critical missile capabilities to confront threats
posed by North Korea.
- The National Defence
Authorisation Act (NDAA) authorises 626 billion dollars of the base budget
resources for the Department of Defence and the national security programs
of the Department of Energy, providing an additional 66 billion for
Overseas Contingency Operations.
3. Nakul Chopra Elected as BARC India Chairman
- Nakul Chopra, President of AAAI
and Senior Advisor, Publicis Communications elected as the next Chairman
of BARC India.
- He succeeds Viacom18 Group CEO
Sudhanshu Vats.
- Nakul will be the third Chairman
of BARC India. He had joined the BARC India Board in September 2016.
4. Second UNWTO/UNESCO World Conference on Tourism
and Culture Held in Muscat
- The second UN World Tourism
Organization/UNESCO World Conference on Tourism and Culture was held in
Muscat, Capital city of Oman.
- The Minister of State for
Culture (Independent Charge) and Environment, Forest & Climate Change,
Dr Mahesh Sharma led the Indian delegation.
- The conference was focused on
sustainable development, culture and tourism as a factor of peace and
prosperity; tourism development and protection of cultural heritage.
5. Rajasthan is First state in India to Offer
e-mail IDs in Hindi
- Rajasthan becomes the first
state in the country to launch free email addresses in Hindi (in
Devanagari script) for its residents, as per the state IT department
Principal Secretary Akhil Arora.
- The initiative aims to ensure
maximum participation of people towards e-governance and that maximum
facilities are available in the vernacular language.
- The first e-mail ID was created
for CM Vasundhara Raje.
6. India to Host 3rd Annual Meeting of Board of
Governors of AIIB
- India will host the 3rd Annual
Meeting of the Board of Governors of Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank
(AIIB) at Mumbai in June 2018.
- The Theme of the Annual Meeting,
2018 will be “Mobilizing Finance for Infrastructure: Innovation and
Collaboration”.
- The Government of India and AIIB
Secretariat signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to delineate the
duties and responsibilities of major stakeholders who would be involved in
organizing the aforesaid Annual Meeting.
7. Dhammapiya Elected as New Secretary General of
IBC
- Buddhist monk Dhammapiya from
Tripura elected as the new secretary general of the International Buddhist
Confederation (IBC).
- He was elected to the post at
the second general assembly of the IBC. The IBC is a global Buddhist forum
for preservation and development of heritage sites of the religion in
India and other parts of the world.
8. Shubhankar Sharma Wins Joburg Open
- 21-year-old Indian Golfer
Shubhankar Sharma claimed European Tour victory in the Joburg Open, in
South Africa. He has defeated South Africa’s Erik Van Rooyen.
- This was a maiden European Tour
win for Shubhankar Sharma. He has five victories on the professional tour
of India and he now has a European Tour title to add to his list of
achievements. England’s Marcus Armitage was the top British finisher in
Joburg.
9. Bihar Government launches Safe City
Surveillance scheme for Women Safety
- The Bihar government has
launched Safe City Surveillance Scheme for checking crime against women.
It aims to bring all major public places under watch of close-circuit
television (CCTV) cameras and improve overall crime control in the state.
- The scheme has been launched in
a phase-wise manner, will commence from capital city Patna.
- It has specially launched for
checking crime against women.
10. Karnataka government to introduce digital
platform for hassle-free governance
- In order to strengthen the
ecosystem for government services, Karnataka State government will be
launching a digital platform to address the issues of the common citizen.
- The state cabinet ratified the
proposal of "Seva Sindhu," a common citizen platform to fine
tune the delivery system of government services.
- He also noted that the
interactive platform would provide all useful information about local
events, employment opportunities, and others.
- The portal will provide services
like income, domicile, caste, birth, death certificates, ration card,
approval of social welfare schemes and other administrative work.
