VisionIAS
07:47
Click Here to Like our Facebook page for latest updates and free ebooks
Click Here to Like our Facebook page for latest updates and free ebooks
Thursday, October 01, 2020
CAG Report on Defence Offsets
VisionIAS
06:46
Why in news?
The latest CAG report on the implementation of defence offsets has been released.
What does it reveal?
- It has brought into sharp focus the broader subject of developing India’s domestic industrial base.
- It also raises concerns of some bureaucratic incapacity.
- This is in contrast with an unambiguous political vision of turning India into a strong and vibrant powerhouse via Atmanirbhar Bharat.
Is the report on defence offsets new?
Growth Prospects
VisionIAS
06:38
What is the issue?
- Global growth prospects for 2020 have been projected by many multilateral institutions and rating agencies including that for India.
- India’s growth in the first quarter of 2020-21 at (-) 23.9% showed one of the highest contractions globally.
What are the forecasts for India?
Wednesday, September 30, 2020
Vision IAS Monthly Current Affairs August 2020 [Hindi Medium] pdf Download
VisionIAS
19:13
Vision IAS Monthly Current Affairs August 2020 [Hindi Medium] pdf Download
Click Here to download Vision IAS Monthly Current Affairs August 2020 [Hindi Medium] pdf
Click Here to Like our Facebook page for latest updates and free ebooks
Daily Current Affairs, 30th September 2020
VisionIAS
19:00
1) International Translation Day: 30 September
•International Translation Day is observed on 30th September every year. The day aims to celebrate the work of language translation professionals which facilitates dialogue, understanding and cooperation, contributing to the development and strengthening world peace and security. The day also marks the feast of St. Jerome, the Bible translator who is considered the patron saint of translators.
•International Translation Day 2020 theme: “Finding the words for a world in crisis”.
2) NABARD to undertake Sanitation Literacy Campaign in Karnataka
•The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development will begin a Sanitation Literacy Campaign (SLC) in Karnataka to promote literacy on ‘WASH’ (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) in 2,000 villages covering one lakh rural population. The objective of the campaign is to focus on inculcating significant behavioural changes towards adapting good hygiene and sanitation practices.
•The campaign will start from October 2 and continue till January 26, 2021. In the past, NABARD also supported the construction of 3.29 crore household toilets disbursing 27,298 crore rupees across the country.
3) NITI Aayog & Embassy of the Netherlands signs Statement of Intent
•NITI Aayog and Embassy of the Netherlands, New Delhi, has signed a Statement of Intent (SoI) to support the decarbonization and energy transition agenda for accommodating cleaner and more energy. The focus of the partnership is on co-creating innovative technological solutions by leveraging the expertise of the two entities.
•Through this collaboration, NITI Aayog and the Dutch Embassy seek a strategic partnership to create a platform that enables a comprehensive collaboration among stakeholders and influencers, including policymakers, industry bodies, OEMs, private enterprises, and sector experts.
4) Sonu Sood honoured with Special Humanitarian Action Award by UNDP
•Bollywood actor, Sonu Sood has been conferred the prestigious SDG Special Humanitarian Action Award by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on 28 September 2020 during a virtual ceremony. He has received the award for selflessly extending a helping hand and sending lakhs of migrants, stranded students across geographies abroad, back to their homes. Besides that, he has also been providing free education and medical facilities to young children and has been creating free employment opportunities to the needy in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
•With this prestigious honour, Sood joins the likes of Angelina Jolie, David Beckham, Leonardo DiCaprio, Emma Watson, Liam Neeson, Cate Blanchett, Antonio Banderas, Nicole Kidman and Priyanka Chopra who have been similarly honoured by different UN bodies.
5) Filmmaker Shekhar Kapur named FTII governing council chairman
•Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has announced Shekhar Kapur as the new President of Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) Society and Chairman of FTII Governing Council. His tenure will be till March 3, 2023.
•Kapur, known for films like Masoom (1983), Mr India (1987), Elizabeth (1998) and Bandit Queen (1994), will replace television producer BP Singh. Singh’s tenure had ended in March 2020 but he was given an extension owing to the coronavirus situation.
6) Vakrangee gets RBI approval to set up BBPS unit
•The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has granted in-principle approval to Vakrangee Ltd to set up Bharat Bill Payment Operating Unit (BBPOU) to handle payment services related to bills. With in-principle authorisation from RBI, Vakrangee Ltd will set up and operate BBPOU under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 and will now be able to directly handle payment and aggregation of payment services relating to bills under the scope of BBPS (Bharat Bill Payment System).
•The company offers banking, insurance, money transfer services, e-commerce, e-governance and other digital services on behalf of its partner banks, insurers, government agencies, e-commerce players among others through its branches mostly located in rural and semi-urban areas.
7) BrahMos Missile featuring Indigenous Booster successfully flight tested
•BrahMos surface-to-surface supersonic cruise missile featuring indigenous Booster and Airframe Section along with many other ‘Made in India’ sub-systems was successfully flight tested from ITR, Balasore in Odisha. It is one more major step in enhancing the indigenous content. The BrahMos Land-Attack Cruise Missile (LACM) was cruising at a top speed of Mach 2.8.
•The successful flight testing of BrahMos surface-to-surface supersonic cruise missile featuring indigenous Booster has paved the way for the serial production of the indigenous booster and other indigenous components of the powerful BrahMos Weapon System realising Atmanirbhar Bharat pledge.
8) IDBI Bank becomes 1st bank to enable document embedding feature on SFMS
•Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI) become the first to implement the new feature of document embedding facility with Letter of Credit (LC) / Bank Guarantee (BG) messages over SFMS (Structured Financial Messaging System) platform of Indian Financial Technology and Allied Services (IFTAS). The process would be conducted via a middleware application “i@Connect-SFMS (CSFMS) developed by IDBI Intech.
9) Rajnath Singh launched a book titled ‘A bouquet of flowers’
•Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has launched a book titled ‘A bouquet of flowers’ written by Dr Krishna Saksena. Dr Krishna Saksena is the first lady to get a PhD, in 1955 from Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh. The book has been designed to allow the readers to travel their own journey and arrive at their own very personal realization and be inspired by it.
The HINDU Notes – 30th September 2020
VisionIAS
15:57
📰 The perils of state overreach
If the government is serious about wooing foreign investment, it should comply with the Vodafone ruling
•The Vodafone Group has just won one of the most high-stakes legal battles involving a foreign investor and the Indian state under international law. An Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) tribunal, constituted under the India-Netherlands bilateral investment treaty (BIT), has ruled that India’s imposition of tax liability amounting to Rs. 22,000 crore on Vodafone is in breach of India’s BIT obligations.
Shaking the faith of foreign investors
•This case arose after the Indian Parliament in 2012 amended the Income Tax Act declaring that income deemed to be accruing to non-residents, directly or indirectly, through the transfer of a capital asset situated in India is taxable retrospectively with effect from April 1, 1962. Obnoxiously, this amendment was carried out to override the Supreme Court ruling in favour of Vodafone. The Court held that Vodafone didn’t owe any tax to the Indian state on account of acquiring a 67% stake in Hutchison Essar through an offshore transaction. At that time, the likes of Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairperson of the Planning Commission, counselled against amending the law retrospectively, but the then Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, the architect of this law, ignored this sane advice. This amendment dented India’s reputation as a country governed by the rule of law, and shook the faith of foreign investors.
•The BJP, which was in the opposition, vehemently criticised the retrospective amendment calling it “tax terrorism”. Thus, when the Modi government assumed office in 2014, many believed that the law would be amended and made prospective. Given the Modi government’s enormous political capital, this was attainable. But the government did nothing to change the law. Like the United Progressive Alliance government, it strenuously pursued the act of fiscal plundering hoping to mobilise sizeable revenue.
Key lessons
•While a detailed legal analysis of the case will have to wait until the arbitral award is available, there are several points worth noting. First, the tribunal has ordered India to reimburse legal costs to the tune of more than Rs. 40 crore incurred by Vodafone in fighting this case. In other words, the taxpayer’s money will be used to pay Vodafone. So, the important lesson is that all the three organs of the Indian state — Parliament, executive, and the judiciary — need to internalise India’s BIT and other international law obligations. These organs need to ensure that they exercise their public powers in a manner consistent with international law, or else their actions could prove costly to the nation.
•Second, India should learn that being a country that values the rule of law is an important quality to win over the confidence of foreign investors and international goodwill. Unleashing tax inspectors to extract money out of foreign investors by constantly changing the rules of the game is not an attribute that a liberal democracy should be proud of.
Honouring international law
•Third, it is likely that the government might challenge the award at the seat of arbitration or resist the enforceability of this award in Indian courts alleging that it violates public policy. If the government indeed follows these options, there’s a long, gruelling road ahead for Vodafone. The government would be ill-advised to go down this road because it would mean that India does not honour its international law obligation. It would send a deleterious signal to foreign investors reaffirming the sentiment that doing business in India is indeed excruciating. Fourth, this ruling might have an impact on the two other ISDS claims that India is involved in with Cairn Energy and Vedanta on the imposition of taxes retrospectively. Fifth, it is quite possible that India might use this award to further harden its antagonistic stand against ISDS and BITs. As is well known, India unilaterally terminated almost all its BITs after foreign investors started suing India for breaching BITs. The belief in the Indian establishment is that the ISDS regime unduly intrudes into India’s sovereignty. Thus, this decision might be used to strengthen this populist narrative, oblivious of the fact that this case and several others are a result of bad state regulation.
•Finally, this decision shows the significance of the ISDS regime to hold states accountable under international law when in case of undue expansion of state power. The case is a reminder that the ISDS regime, notwithstanding its weaknesses, can play an important role in fostering international rule of law. If the Modi government is serious about wooing foreign investment, India should immediately comply with the decision.
📰 A wage code that is a hasty composition
OCEANGRAPHY PDF BY EDEN IAS
VisionIAS
08:10
ENVIRONMENTAL GEOGRAPHY PDF BY EDEN IAS
VisionIAS
08:01
ENVIRONMENTAL GEOGRAPHY PDF BY EDEN IAS
Click Here to download ENVIRONMENTAL GEOGRAPHY PDF BY EDEN IAS
