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Obama ends ‘wet foot, dry foot’ immigration policy

United States President Barack Obama has ended a two-decade-old “wet foot, dry foot” immigration policy that allowed Cuban migrants who reach the American soil illegally to to stay and become legal residents, a significant step towards normalising relations with its former Cold War foe.
●    The repeal of the long-standing immigration policy, coming in the last days of the Obama administration, is effective immediately.
●    Effective immediately, Cuban nationals who attempt to enter the United States illegally and do not qualify for humanitarian relief will be subject to removal, consistent with U.S. law and enforcement priorities.
●    The decision follows months of negotiations focused in part on getting Cuba to agree to take back people, who had arrived in the U.S.
●    The “wet foot, dry foot” policy mostly allows Cubans who reach U.S. soil to stay in the country. Those caught at sea are returned to Cuba.
●    The Cuban government praised the move. 
●    The decision is expected to weigh upon the strategy of President-elect Donald Trump, who had vowed to renegotiate ties with Cuba.
 

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India Rise to 129 in FIFA Rankings, Best Ever Position in a Decade

India jumped six places to the 129th spot, their best football ranking in over a decade, according to world governing body FIFA on Thursday.
●    It is India’s best ever ranking since December, 2005, when they were at the 127th spot. 
●    They have now improved 42 places in less than two years up from 173rd in March, 2015, according to a release.
●    India won nine of their last 11 international matches. A 4-1 win against Puerto Rico, ranked 114, in September last year, has been the highlight of the surge.
●    The top 34 positions remain unchanged with Argentina, Brazil and Germany still holding first, second and third place respectively.
●    National Coach Stephen Constantine said “I think we have had a really good couple of years during my time and while results have been mixed, we have achieved what we said we would. Our ranking is at its highest since 2005 which is obviously great for Indian football.”
 

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Aakhiri Ahuti, Free-of-cost service to ferry remains of NE people, launched

Delhi Police and budget carrier IndiGo in January 2017 launched ‘Akhiri Ahuti’ a humanitarian initiative under which the bodies of the North-east residents who die in Delhi will be carried to their homes.
●    Under the initiative, the Gurugram (Gurgaon) based airline will ferry the bodies to their homes, without levying any charge. 
●    The service would be available only on the recommendation of the Delhi police.
●    The initiative was ideated by Robin Hibu, a joint commissioner of Delhi police and the nodal officer for Northeast people after he faced several incidents in which people from the North-eastern states were cremated or buried in Delhi in absence of their family or friends.
●    Financial constraints of the relatives of the deceased didn’t allow them to take back the body or come to Delhi and cremate the body.
●    At present, Indigo flies to five airports in North-East India from Delhi and they are Dibrugarh Chabwa, Dimapur, Guwahati, Imphal Municipal airport and Agartala.
 

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Central government employees to get Rs.9000 minimum pension

The minimum pension has been increased to Rs9,000 per person besides a two-fold hike in ex-gratia amount for central government employees, union minister Jitendra Singh said on Thursday.
●    Addressing the 29th meeting of the Standing Committee of Voluntary Agencies (Scova) in the city, he said almost 88% of pension accounts have been seeded to Aadhaar. 
●    There are about 50-55 lakh pensioners in the country, said Singh, minister of state in Prime Minister’s office.
●    He further said that minimum pension has been increased to Rs9,000 per person and ex-gratia amount has been increased from Rs10-15 lakh to Rs25-35 lakh, as per a release issued by personnel ministry.
●    He said the retired employees are a healthy and productive workforce for India and we need to streamline and channelise their energies in a productive direction. 
●    DoP&PW should be reoriented in such a way that pensioners become a part of nation building process.
 

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India's first Madame Tussauds Museum to open in Delhi in June

The first wax museum attraction Madame Tussauds will debut in Delhi this June with its operator Merlin Entertainments foraying into India with an investment plan of 50 million pounds over the next 10 years. 
●    UK-based Merlin Enterprises runs 116 attractions in 24 countries and the company will be foraying into the Indian market with the launch of Madame Tussauds in the national capital.
●    Merlin Entertainments India General Manger and Director Anshul Jain said: “We are looking at bringing in other brands but our priority is to launch Madame Tussauds in Delhi. We plan to invest 50 million pounds over the next 10 years.”
●    The company has made in opening its first Madame Tussauds attraction in India, Jain said: “We cannot give specific details but we are launching India with 50 figures with a minimum investment of Rs 1.5 crore for each figure.”
●    The museum will be housed in the Regal Cinema building at Connaught Place and will be spread over two floors.
 

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Bilateral Advance Pricing Agreement signed by CBDT

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) entered into a Bilateral Advance Pricing Agreement (BAPA) on the 13th of January, 2017 with Indian subsidiary of a Japanese trading company. 
●    Recently, the CBDT has also modified an existing Bilateral APA with another Indian subsidiary of a Japanese company to include rollback provisions. 
●    Thus, total three Bilateral APAs are now signed with Indian subsidiaries of Japanese companies all including rollbacks. The total number of bilateral APAs entered into by the CBDT is now eight.
●    The APA Scheme was introduced in the Income-tax Act in 2012 and the “Rollback” provisions were introduced in 2014. 
●    Signing of bilateral APA is an important step towards ascertaining certainty in transfer pricing matters of multinational company cases and dispute resolution. 
●    Under BAPA, certainty in tax treatment is provided for the next 5 years while rollback provides dispute redressal for a maximum of four past years preceding APA years.
●    A BAPA may be preferred by multinational companies since finalisation of the same involves reaching an understanding between the tax administrations of the two countries and for the transfer pricing adjustment done in the hands of the Indian entity, corresponding adjustment is available in the hands of related foreign entity, thereby relieving economic double taxation. 
●    The progress of the APA Scheme strengthens the Government’s mission of fostering a non-adversarial tax regime.  The CBDT expects more BAPAs to be concluded and signed in the near future.
 

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18 million Indians to be jobless by 2018 : ILO

The number of unemployed people in India is expected to rise by 1 lakh in 2017 and another 2 lakh in 2018, according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
●    The ILO predicted that the number of jobless will increase from 17.7 million in 2016 to 18 million by 2018 even though the country’s unemployment rate is expected to go down from 3.5 per cent to 3.4 per cent in 2017.
●    Globally, the ILO reckons that the number of jobless people will increase by 3.4 million in 2017, in its report on World Employment and Social Outlook for 2017 released late Thursday, with projections based on econometric modelling carried out in November 2016. 
●    The global unemployment rate is expected to rise modestly from 5.7 to 5.8 per cent in 2017 as the pace of labour force growth outstrips job creation.
●    Vulnerable forms of employment, which include contributing family workers and own account workers, are expected to stay above 42 per cent of total employment. 
●    About 1.4 billion people are likely to be engaged in such employment in 2017, with the number rising by 11 million per year, with Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa being the most affected.
 

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SC directs Union Government to submit NGOs’ audit report by March 2017

The Supreme Court (SC) on 10 January 2017 directed the Union Government and the Council for Advancement of People’s Action and Rural Technology (CAPART) to complete auditing of NGOs (Non-Governmental Organisation) and voluntary organisations and submit its report by 31 March 2017.
●    The ruling was made by a bench of Chief Justice JS Khehar and justices NV Ramana and DY Chandrachud. The court rebuked the government over its failure to work out a regulatory mechanism to monitor the public money that is given to the 32 lakh NGOs, societies and voluntary organisations in the country.
●    The bench ruled that 'mere blacklisting' of these organisations cannot be sufficient. Moreover, civil and criminal action should be initiated against these organisations for misappropriation of public money received by them from the centre.
●    The government was also directed to explain the manner in which it will maintain the accounts, conduct the audit, the process of recovery and methodology of recovery of the amount in case of misappropriation and criminal proceedings. 
●    It directed the competent authority to come out with guidelines for a regulatory mechanism by March 2017. The bench also asked whether General Financial Rules 2005 were complied with or not as the Rules 210-212 provide for a regulation mechanism for NGOs.
 

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TCS CEO N Chandrasekaran appointed Tata Sons chairman

Tata Sons on 12 January 2017 appointed Natarajan Chandrasekaran as its Executive Chairman. With this appointment, Chandrasekaran becomes the first non-Parsi person to head Tata group. 
●    He will take charge of the company on 21 February 2017.
●    The Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Chandrasekaran, will succeed Cyrus Mistry, who was removed as group Chairman of Tata Sons in October 2016. In absence of Cyrus Mistry, Ratan Tata was looking after the company as the interim chairman.
●    The 53-year-old old businessman is only the third non-Tata after Nowroji Saklatwala and Cyrus Mistry to be named as Tata Sons chairman.
●    The decision to appoint Chandrasekaran was as per the unanimous recommendation of the Selection Committee and was finalised at the company’s board meeting in Mumbai.
●    An official release from the company read, “This is as per the unanimous recommendation of the Selection Committee. Chandrasekaran shall take charge from February 21, 2017”.
●    The Board of Directors of Tata Sons believes that Chandrasekaran will inspire the entire Tata group worth of the 103-billion US dollar.

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Thaawarchand Gehlot Inaugurates Silver Jubilee Celebrations of NBCFDC

Shri ThaawarchandGehlot, Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment inaugurated the Silver Jubilee celebrations of National Backward Classes Finance & Development Corporation (NBCFDC), a Govt. of India Undertaking under the aegis of Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, here today. Shri RamdasAthawale, Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment, Smt. Latha Krishna Rao, Secretary, M/o SJ&E and many dignitaries were present.
●    Shri Gehlot distributedthe performance Awards to the Channel Training partners of NBCFDC and launchedthe pilot of Loan & Employee InformationAutomation Project (LEAP) system. He released a short film “HamariKahani” based on the experiences of beneficiaries of NBCFDC and a book entitled “Safalata Ki Kahaniyan” brought out by NBCFDC on the success stories of the beneficiaries on the occasion.
●    In his address, Shri Gehlot said that the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment is working through channelizing agencies and banking institutions in all States for the welfare of Backward classes. He said that all Corporations under his ministry are working very effectively in the service of needy persons. 
●    M/o Social Justice and Empowerment organizes Job Fairs regularly through its Corporations for providing Jobs to the youths of these classes. He opined that Training improves the personality. He said that without “People’s participation”, such schemes can’t succeed. He called upon people to take advantage of various schemes of these corporations of Ministry of social Justice and empowerment.
 

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