National
Union Cabinate approves India’s first IPR policy:
i. In a major step towards enhancing ease of doing business, Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Cabinet has approved the National Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Policy, that will lay the future roadmap for intellectual property in India.
ii. The Finance minister, Arun Jaitely said the policy is guided by seven objectives, including IPR public awareness, generation of IPRs, human capital development, and strong law enforcement.
The IPR policy lays down the following seven objectives:
a) IPR Awareness: Outreach and Promotion – To create public awareness about the economic, social and cultural benefits of IPRs among all sections of society.
b) Generation of IPRs – To stimulate the generation of IPRs.
c) Legal and Legislative Framework – To have strong and effective IPR laws, which balance the interests of rights owners with larger public interest.
d) Administration and Management – To modernize and strengthen service-oriented IPR administration.
e) Commercialization of IPRs – Get value for IPRs through commercialization.
f) Enforcement and Adjudication – To strengthen the enforcement and adjudicatory mechanisms for combating IPR infringements.
g) Human Capital Development – To strengthen and expand human resources, institutions and capacities for teaching, training, research and skill building in IPRs.
Union Cabinet gave its assertion to India, UAE Renewable Energy Cooperation Agreement:
i. The Union Cabinet has apprised of a General Framework Agreement (GFA) on Renewable Energy Cooperation between India and United Arab Emirates (UAE).
ii. The GFA was signed in February 2016 in New Delhi during the official state visit of Crown Prince of UAE to India.
Key insights:
a) The GFA aims at boosting bilateral cooperation between India and UAE in the field of new and renewable energy technologies.
b) It will provide opportunity for exploring potential renewable energy projects for investments; cooperation in the International Solar Alliance (ISA) and explore avenues of cooperation in R&D in renewable energy.
Union Cabinet gives its nod to India, Mauritius agreement on cooperation in Cooperatives:
i. The Union Cabinet has given its approval for signing of an Inter-Governmental Agreement between India and Mauritius on cooperation in cooperatives and related fields.
ii. The Agreement provides for promoting cooperation between both countries through short and medium term programmes within the framework of the joint activities.
iii. It will be valid for duration of five years after which it can be automatically extended for another five years.
Railways will constitute Mobility Directorate, Non-Fare Revenue Directorate:
i. The Union Railways Ministry has decided to constitute two Directorates viz. Mobility Directorate (MD) and Non-Fare Revenue Directorate (NFRD).
ii. They will be established for creation of cross functional directorates to focus on different areas in line with the Railway Minister’s budget speech.
Key insights:
a) Mobility Directorate: It will be constituted to focus on areas like speed enhancement. It will handle work such as identification and prioritization of train corridors for raising speed and identification of path for timetabled freight trains.
b) Non-Fare Revenue Directorate: It will be constituted to focus on areas for enhancing revenues by 10% to 20% from Non-Tariff sources.
SC upholds constitutional validity of penal laws on defamation:
i. The Supreme Court has upheld constitutional validity of penal laws on defamation as the right to life under Article 21 includes the right to reputation.
ii. Ruling in this regard was given by two-judge SC bench of Justices Dipak Misra and Justice Prafulla C Pant on combined petitions filed by a number of politicians and public figures.
Indian Air Force’s Electronic Maintenance Management System launched:
i. Indian Air Force has launched its Electronic Maintenance Management System (e-MMS) Project, an automated military maintenance system.
ii. It was inaugurated by the Chief of Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha at the Air Force Station in Pune, Maharashtra.
Key Characteristics:
a) The e-MMS project is one of the largest Maintenance Repair Overhaul (MRO) IT implementation in the world.
b) The project has been designed and developed by the Indian IT giant Wipro. IAF had signed the contract for the project e-MMS with Wipro as a System Integrator (SI) in 2013.
c) It will help to transform work environment of IAF to become more efficient and also help to monitor the operational availability of all fleets and systems in real time at various hierarchical levels.
Business & Economy
ICICI Bank unveils country’s 1st contactless credit card with Jet Airways for SMEs:
i. India’s largest private sector bank ICICI Bank has launched country’s first contactless business credit card in association with Jet Airways for small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs).
ii. The card has been christened as the ‘Jet Airways ICICI Bank Business Advantage Card’.
iii. The card is powered by ‘VISA payWave’ contactless technology. The card can also be used by dipping or swiping at non-contactless merchants.
iv. It offers dual advantage of reward programme on the expenses and repayments of the credit card.
v. With this ICICI Bank became the first bank globally to offer a dual advantage reward programme.
Reliance Unveils JioMoney Wallet service:
i. Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Jio Infocomm has launched digital wallet service, named JioMoney Wallet, for Indian consumers.
ii. JioMoney is a semi-closed prepaid wallet that aims to enable mobile-based transactions. Using it customers can store money and use it for purchasing goods and services.
Key features of the wallet:
a) The service will enable customers to make bill payments, mobile and DTH recharges, send/receive money and insurance premium payments, as well as for online shopping.
b) The wallet service allows consumers to use barcode scan to pay at physical stores.
The service was launched after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had given licence to Reliance Payment Solutions for its JioMoney service in November 2015.
International
India, China, Israel and 3 other nations sign pact on sharing tax info:
i. India and other 5 countries viz. Canada, Iceland, Israel, New Zealand and China have signed OECD’s (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement in Beijing (China).
ii. The multilateral agreement aims at boosting automatic exchange of information on tax issues and developing new tools to tackle the tax evasion.
Key insights of the pact:
a) The pact allows all signatories to bilaterally and automatically exchange Country-by-Country Reports with each other.
b) It is designed to provide tax administrations with information needed to combat tax avoidance through transfer pricing.
c) It will help ensure that the tax administrations obtain a complete understanding of how the MNCs structure their operations by safeguarding confidentiality of such information.
d) The multilateral agreement seeks to give effect to standards developed in G20/ OECD base erosion profit shifting (BEPS) project. The project is concerned with transfer pricing documentation and country-by-country reporting.
Appointments & Resignations
Union Government appoints four Supreme Court judges:
i. The government on Wednesday appointed four judges to the Supreme Court of India, Union law minister D. Sadananda Gowda said.
ii. The four—D.Y. Chandrachud, chief justice of the Allahabad high court, Ajay Manikrao Khanwilkar, chief justice of the Madhya Pradesh high court, Ashok Bhushan, chief justice of the Kerala high court and senior advocate L. Nageswara Rao—had been recommended by the Supreme Court collegium.
iii. The fresh appointments will take the number of Supreme Court judges to 29 from 25, still two short of its approved strength. The maximum number of judges can be appointed are 31 including the chief justice.
iv. These are the first set of appointments to the top court since it declared the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) Act, 2014, as unconstitutional and an infringement on judicial independence.
v. In October last year, a five-judge constitution bench struck down the Constitution (Ninety-ninth Amendment) Act, 2014.
Note: Under the collegium system, a group of the five most senior Supreme Court judges appoints other judges to the higher judiciary—the high courts and the Supreme Court. Articles 124 and 217 of the Constitution stipulate that judges will be appointed by the president of India after “consultation” with the chief justice of India and other judges.
SEBI approves Ashok Chawla as National Stock Exchange chairman:
i. Ashok Chawla, the former chief of fair trade regulator Competition Commission of India (CCI), has become the chairman of the National Stock Exchange (NSE).
ii. Capital market watchdog SEBI has approved the appointment and Mr. Chawla’s tenure as chairman would be till March 27, 2019.
About Ashok Chawla:
a) An experienced civil servant, Mr. Chawla retired as Competition Commission of India (CCI) chairman in January after being at the helm for nearly five years. He has also served as Finance Secretary and Civil Aviation Secretary, among other posts.
b) In February, Mr. Chawla was appointed as chairman of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) and as Additional Director by Yes Bank in March.
c) Last month, the leading bourse had inducted Mr. Chawla into its board as a Public Interest Director.
Sports
Shashank Manohar elected unopposed as ICC’s first independent Chairman:
i. Veteran cricket administrator Shashank Manohar (58) was elected unopposed as ICC’s (International Cricket Council) first independent Chairman.
ii. He was the sole nominee for the position and the ICC Board has now unanimously supported his appointment. He will have tenure of two years.
iii. He had twice served as the President of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), from 2008 to 2011 and from November 2015 to May 2016.
About International Cricket Council (ICC):
ICC the international governing body of cricket. Responsible for the organisation and governance of cricket’s major international tournaments including Cricket World Cup.
Headquarters: Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Established: 1909 as Imperial Cricket Conference by representatives from England, Australia and South Africa. It took up its current name in 1989.
Kumble reappointed as ICC Cricket Committee head:
i. Former India captain Anil Kumble was on Friday re-appointed ICC Cricket Committee chairman for a second term of three years.
ii. Also, former Indian captain Rahul Dravid and former Sri Lankan skipper Mahela Jayawardene on Friday were appointed to the ICC Cricket Committee for a three-year term.
iii. The ICC Cricket Committee is representative of all stakeholders in the modern game, including players, umpires and the media. It is empowered to make recommendations on cricket playing issues to the Chief Executives’ Committee (CEC).
Short News
I. London-based Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) has launched the first ‘Official Laws of Cricket’ mobile application on Android and iOS. It explains all 42 laws of the game categorised into eight sections.
II. The world’s largest cargo plane, the Antonov An-225 Mriya, landed for the first time in India. The plane, which has a maximum takeoff weight of 640 tonnes, arrived from Turkmenistan and landed at Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Airport.
III. Kerala has been awarded the best family destination in the Lonely Planet Magazine India Travel Awards 2016. The decision was taken by an expert panel, based on votes of travellers and readers of the magazine.
IV. The Maharashtra Ex-servicemen Corporation (MESCO) – a Government of Maharashtra undertaking – has opened a unique new tourism initiative called “Veer Yatra”. The initiative, which will give civilians a glimpse of the evolution and daily life of the Indian Military, began today.
V. Uttar Pradesh Cabinet has given its approval to develop over 197 km long ‘bicycle highway’ from Agra up to the lion safari in Etawah to encourage eco-tourism in vicinity of Taj Mahal.
VI. US President Barack Obama has honoured an Indian-American elementary teacher Revathi Balakrishnan from Texas at the White House. She was honoured for her excellent work in the field of education as part of the ‘National Teacher of the Year Programme.
VII. President Pranab Mukherjee has presented the National Florence Nightingale Awards to 35 nursing personnel from across the country on the occasion of International Nurses Day (12 May). The award is founded by Union Health Ministry to honour the selfless services rendered by Nurses with devotion, sincerity, dedication and compassion.