UPSC 2017: Comprehensive News Analysis - July 02

In news:

• Money parked by Indians in Switzerland’s banks nearly halved to 676 Swiss francs (about Rs. 4,500 crore) in 2016 to hit a record low.
• In comparison, the total funds held by all foreign clients of Swiss banks somewhat rose to CHF 1.42 trillion or about Rs 96 lakh crore (from CHF 1.41 trillion a year ago).
• The total money of Indians fell by 45 % during 2016 to CHF 675.75 million, marking the biggest ever yearly decline in such funds.
• Swiss banks have also said Indians have “few deposits” in Swiss banks compared to other global financial hubs like Singapore and Hong Kong amid stepped-up efforts to check the black money menace.

Automatic exchange of information:

• A new framework for automatic exchange of information between Switzerland and India, to help check the black money menace.
• Adopting the dispatch on introduction of the AEOI, a global convention for automatic information exchange on tax matters, the Swiss Federal Council said on June 16 that the implementation is planned for 2018 and the first set of data should be exchanged in 2019.
• There have been several rounds of discussions between Indian and Swiss government officials on the new framework and also for expediting the pending information requests about suspected illicit accounts of Indians in Swiss banks.

Possible transfer:

• SNB’s official figures also do not include the money that Indians, NRIs or others might have in Swiss banks in the names of entities from different countries.
• There is a view that the Indians alleged to have parked their illicit money in Swiss banks in the past may have shifted the funds to other locations after a global clampdown began on the mighty banking secrecy practices in Switzerland.

In News:

• The base year of the new GDP series has been fixed at 2017-18
• The current base year is 2011-12

Why revision?

• It is necessary to review the base year every five years or so
• Change of base year to calculate GDP is done in line with the global exercise to capture economic information accurately
• This ensures capturing latest information and hence accurately reflects the current economic situation in the country
• The new series is compliant with the latest United Nations guidelines in System of National Accounts-2008

Context: Demonetisation.

In news:

• The government has cancelled the registration of one lakh companies.
• These companies had suspicious and questionable operations, identified on the basis of data mined from the deposit of bank notes following last November’s demonetization policy of the govt.

Who has the power to cancel the registration?

• The Registrar of Companies has removed these one lakh companies

Quote: Quoting Chanakya, the Prime Minister held out a sombre warning to accountants: “After the time to do the right thing has passed, time itself consumes those who didn’t act.”

Basic information:
The Registrar of Companies
The Registrar of Companies (ROC) is an office under the Indian Ministry of 
Corporate Affairs that deals with administration of the Companies Act 1956 
and Companies Act, 2013.

There are currently 22 Registrars of Companies (ROC) operating from offices in 
all major states of India.

Some states, such as Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, have two ROCs each. Section 609
of the Companies Act, 1956 tasks the ROCs with the primary duty of registering 
companies and LLPs- limited liability partnership, floated in the respective 
states and the union territories under their administration.

Administrative control: 
The Union Government maintains administrative control over ROCs through Regional Directors. 
There are 7 Regional Directors, and they supervise the functioning of ROCs within their respective 
regions.

Function: The Registrar of Company takes care of company registration (also known 
as incorporation) in India, completes reporting and regulation of companies and 
their directors and shareholders, and also oversees government reporting of 
various matters including the annual filling of various documents.

In news:

• Novel approach: Scientists have developed a new non-toxic material that uses solar energy to degrade harmful synthetic dye pollutants which are released at a rate of nearly 300,000 tonnes a year into the world’s water.
• The novel, non-hazardous photocatalytic material removes dye pollutants from water, adsorbing more than 90% of the dye and enhancing the rate of dye breakdown by almost ten times using visible light. 

Technical details: (not required)

• Catalyst synthesis: By heating the reaction mixture at high pressures inside a sealed container, the composite is synthesised by growing ultrathin “nanowires” of tungsten oxide on the surface of tiny particles of tantalum nitride.
• The composite provides a huge surface area for dye capture(incredibly small size of the two material components- typically less than 40 billionths of a metre in diameter)
• The material then proceeds to break the dye down into smaller, harmless molecules using the energy provided by sunlight, in a process known as “photocatalytic degradation.”
• Having removed the harmful dyes, the catalyst may simply be filtered from the cleaned water and reused.

iBobbly app :

• Developed by researchers at Black Dog Institute, a mental health organisation in Australia, and launched in the country in 2014.
• The world’s first suicide prevention app

Target group:

• The app is specially targeted at young people from the indigenous communities, who are at four times the risk of suicide compared to the rest.
• iBobbly doesn’t need the Internet to be accessed once downloaded. 

How does it operate?

• It allows a person to keep a ‘mood diary’ after self-assessment, and teaches the user to manage thoughts — especially suicidal thoughts — and feelings and create a personalised action plan with tools to monitor progress.
• The programme maintains patient confidentiality and is password-protected.

Results:

• Participants from the Kimberley region in Western Australia who used the app over a six-week period reported a 42% reduction in symptoms of depression, 30% reduction in suicidal ideation and 28% reduction in distress.

iBobbly app and Lessons for India:
Key fact:

• As per World Health Organization’s (WHO) latest suicide data, nearly 1,00,000 people commit suicide.
• The country’s suicide mortality rate is 20.9 per 1,00,000 people, among the highest in the world, with majority of the vulnerable groups not able to get the help they need.
• The use of technology has increased among youth and the app allows mental experts to reach them anonymously

‘Atmiyata’:

• Similar project like iBobbly in India
• Meaning: Compassion in Sanskrit.
• This project involves using short films loaded on a basic Android app as a training tool to enable a bunch of villagers to identify mental health disorders.
• The project was rolled out in the Peth block of Nashik district, Maharashtra, in December 2013, making mental health care accessible to many in this part for the first time.

Context:

• Truenat MTB is being tested in 100 microscopy centres in 10 States
• It’s validation and operational feasibility testing is being done by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)

What is Truenat MTB?

• Truenat MTB, a chip-based nucleic acid amplification test which uses sputum samples for diagnosingMycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB)

What is its speciality?

• It’s a cheaper and indigenously developed molecular diagnostic test for TB.
• The samples were also tested for resistance to the drug rifampicin which is an antibiotic used chiefly to treat tuberculosis and leprosy
• It is a battery-operated, hand-held machine allows detection of TB in approximately one hour
• In Truenat MTB only about 0.5 ml sample is required compared to it’s counterpart GeneXpert in the US which requires 1ml sample.

Truenat MTB V/S GeneXpert.

• Truenat MTB is 50% cheaper than GeneXpert
• Truenat MTB is chip-based and will be more environment-friendly compared  to GeneXpert which is cartilage-based
• Truenat MTB can be expanded to primary health centre level, which cannot be done using GeneXpert which needs uninterrupted power supply and air conditioning

Question 1: As per the Agreement on Consular Access between India and Pakistan, lists 
of nationals lodged in jails are to be exchanged.

Question 2: ‘Atmiyata’ was in news recently, it is

Question 3: The Registrar of Companies which deals with registration of companies, comes 
under which ministry

Question 4: The Rashtriya e-market Services Ltd. (ReMS) is a

Question 5: Consider the following statements:

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