Current Affairs Assam – August 2018
( Covers all important Assam Current Affairs & GK topics for the month of August 2018 )
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August 5
Banks collect Rs 5,000 Crore as Minimum Balance Penalty
21 public sector banks and three major private sector lenders collected a whopping Rs 5,000 crore from customers for non-maintenance of minimum balance in their accounts in 2017-18 .
SBI, which re-introduced the penalty on deposits going below monthly average balance basis from April 2017, collected nearly half the amount raised by the 24 banks put together of Rs 4,989.5 crore.
HDFC Bank Ltd charged its customers Rs 590.84 crore in 2017-18. Axis Bank Ltd. collected Rs 530.12 crore while ICICI Bank Ltd. charged Rs 317.6 crore in the last fiscal.
Minimum Balance Penalty – According to the RBI norms, banks are permitted to levy service/miscellaneous charges. Customers opening accounts under Basic Savings Bank Deposit scheme as well as PradhanMantri Jan DhanYojna are not required to maintain any minimum balance.
Foreign Portfolio Investors’ net inflow at Rs 2,300 Crore in July
Foreign investors poured in over Rs 2,300 crore in the Indian capital markets in July month, after pulling out funds for three months in a row. The latest inflow comes after investors had taken out over Rs 61,000 crore from the capital markets (equity and debt) during the April-June period. Prior to that, FPIs had invested Rs 2,662 crore in March.
Foreign portfolio investors pumped in a net sum of Rs 2,264 crore in equities in July, Rs 43 crore in the debt market, and withdrew Rs 43 crore from hybrid investments.
India has underperformed the emerging market index from the beginning of 2015 to June 2018 by 400 basis points.
This underperformance served as a good foundation for investors to come back. Interestingly, in the last 10 years, FPIs in India have never pulled out material capital for more than three months in a row.
Overall, so far this year, FPIs have withdrawn nearly Rs 4,100 crore from equities and over Rs 38,000 crore from the debt markets.
Foreign Portfolio Investment (FPI) – consists of securities and other financial assets passively held by foreign investors. It does not provide the investor with direct ownership of financial assets and is relatively liquid depending on the volatility of the market. Foreign portfolio investment differs from foreign direct investment (FDI), in which a domestic company runs a foreign firm, because although FDI allows a company to maintain better control over the firm held abroad, it may face more difficulty selling the firm at a premium price in the future.
Foreign portfolio investment is part of a country’s capital account and shown on its balance of payments (BOP). The BOP measures the amount of money flowing from one country to other countries over one monetary year. It includes the country’s capital investments, monetary transfers, and the number of exports and imports of goods and services.
Central Govt proposes to make FASTag compulsory
The Centre is proposing to make FASTag compulsory for all commercial vehicles; trucks, taxis and buses seeking a national permit.
FASTag, radio frequency identification device (RFID), automatically deduct toll charges from the chip embedded system mounted on the windshield of a vehicle when it crossed toll plazas on the country’s highway network.
The electronically operatable tag, which was rolled out in April 2016, is mounted on the windscreen of the vehicles.
At present all new cars and trucks have been fitted with FASTag from the factory itself since December 1, 2017. By making mandatory installation of radio frequency tag commercial for old commercial vehicles, the government wanted to promote the usage of FASTag.
The Ministry also prevailed upon toll plazas managing companies to make more lanes for FASTag for smooth passage of vehicles instead of collecting cash from vehicle users.
FACTFILE: FASTag
- It is an electronic toll collection system in India, operated by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI).
- It employs Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology for making toll payments directly from the prepaid or savings account linked to it.
- It is affixed on the windscreen of the vehicle and enables to drive through toll plazas without stopping for transactions.
- The tag can be purchased from official Tag issuers or participating Banks and if it is linked to a prepaid account, then recharging or top-up can be as per requirement.
- As per NHAI, FASTag has unlimited validity. 7.5% cashback offers were also provided to promote the use of FASTag.
- Dedicated Lanes at some Toll plazas have been built for FASTag.
August 6, 2018
Centre to bring back FRDI Bill in new form
The Union Government will bring back the Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance (FRDI) Bill for financial institutions in a recised form. The current Bill is being withdrawn from Lok Sabha in view of public concerns over the safety of bank deposits. It created a lot of controversies as many stakeholders felt that the ‘bail-in’ clause had the potential to harm deposits in the bank.
Like the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) was brought in to deal with the issues related to stressed firms other than financial companies, the FRDI Bill also envisaged as a separate bankruptcy law to deal with insolvency and bankruptcy in financial sector companies. It covered service providers such as banks, non-banking finance companies (NBFCs), microfinance institutions and insurance companies.
The government, however, decided to withdraw the FRDI Bill following apprehensions expressed by people with regard to its ‘bail-in’ clause to resolve failing banks and inadequacy of the deposit insurance cover, the protection extended to the depositors’ money in case of bank failure.
There is a requirement to revive the insurance limits substantially from the current limit of Rs 1 lakh and for application of resolution framework for public sector banks.
The proposal to create an authority with extraordinary powers to take decisions in bank failures also became controversial.
FACTFILE – The Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance (FRDI) Bill
- The bill seeks to establish a Resolution Corporation to monitor financial firms, anticipate risk of failure, take corrective action, and resolve them in case of such failure.
- The Corporation will also provide deposit insurance up to a certain limit, in case of bank failure
- It will take over the management of a financial firm once it is classified as ‘critical’ and will resolve the firm within one year, which may be extended by another year.
- It will create law for the creation of an independent resolution corporation to carry out speedy and efficient resolution of financial firms in distress, providing deposit insurance to consumers, monitoring of important financial institutions and protecting the consumers to the extent possible.
P V Sindhu wins Silver in BWF World Championship
P V Sindhu finished second in a major tournament final as she went down tamely to Carolina Marin in the World Championships’ women’s singles.
Carolina Marin thus became the first woman player to win the world title three times. She was champion in 2013 and 2014.
With this second silver meant Sindhu is the only Indian to have four World Championships podium finishes. She had won two bronze medals at the 2013 Guangzhou and 2014 Copenhagen editions.
The 2018 BWF World Championships was a badminton tournament which was held from 30 July to 5 August at Nanjing Youth Olympic Games Sports Park Arena in Nanjing, China. Nanjing was the only bidder for 2018 edition of championships.
President assented to the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, 2018
President Ram NathKovind has given his assent to a bill that will allow the seizure of domestic assets of those whom a court rules to be fugitive economic offenders
The bill will replace an ordinance promulgated by the government in April 2018, after billionaire jewellerNiravModi and his uncle MehulChoksi fled the country in January, after allegedly defrauding the Punjab National Bank of over Rs 13,000 crore. The Lok Sabha and the RajyaSabha had passed the bill last month.
Highlights of The Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, 2018
- The Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, 2018, allows the formation of a special court under the money laundering law to declare a person a fugitive economic offender.
- Courts or tribunals can also bar such offenders or their associated companies from filing or defending civil claims before it.
- Fugitive economic offenders are those against whom arrest warrants are issued in connection with economic offences and have left India in order to avoid being prosecuted.
- Offences involving amounts of at least Rs 100 crore will attract the provisions.
- Existing criminal laws are inadequate in dealing with such offenders as they do not allow the enforcement agencies to impound the property of defaulters.
India becomes third country to get STA-1 status
India has become the third Asian country after Japan and South Korea to get the Strategic Trade Authorization-1 (STA-1) status after the US issued a federal notification to this effect, paving the way for high-technology product sales to New Delhi, particularly in civil space and defense sectors.
India is the 37th country to be designated the STA-1 status by the United States. The Trump Administration made an exception for India, which is yet to become a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).
Traditionally, the US has placed only those countries in the STA-1 list who are members of the four export control regimes: Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), Wassenaar Arrangement (WA), Australia Group (AG) and the NSG.
India is a member of three of the four multilateral export regimes. By placing India in the STA-1 list, the United States has acknowledged that for all practical purposes India adheres to the export control regimes of the NSG.
India was earlier listed in STA-2 category along with Albania, Hong Kong, Israel, Malta, Singapore, South Africa and Taiwan.
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