GK and Current Affairs Updates

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has liberalised norms for angel funds to invest in early-stage entities as part of its attempts to facilitate fund-raising for start-ups.
●    The capital markets regulator also enhanced the scope of investment of foreign investors in unlisted debt securities.
●    The board in its meeting decided to amend the SEBI (Alternative Investment Funds) Regulations, 2012 based on the recommendations received from the 'Alternative Investment Policy Advisory Committee' that was constituted under the chairmanship of N. R. Narayana Murthy.
●    The regulator has increased the upper limit for number of angel investors in a scheme from forty nine to two hundred.
●    Angel Funds will also be allowed to invest in start-ups incorporated within five years instead of the earlier norm of three years.
●    The requirements of minimum investment amount by an angel fund in any venture capital undertaking has been reduced from Rs.50 lakh to Rs.25 lakh. 
●    Further, the lock-in requirements of investment made by angel funds in the venture capital undertaking has been reduced from three years to one year.

Acclaimed high energy particle physicist and an institution builder of Indian science  Prof. M G K Menon passed away. 
●    He was 88. He was Scientist, Science & Technology policy-maker, scholar, parliamentarian, Cabinet Minister. 
●    He has been described as one of India’s most eminent “statesmen of science” About M.G.K. Menon Mambillikalathil Govind Kumar Menon was born on 28 August 1928 in Mangalore, Karnataka. 
●    He was famously known as MGK or Goku. He was awarded a Ph.D. at a relatively young age of 25 by University of Bristol, UK in 1953. 
●    He had joined TIFR (Tata Institute of Fundamental Research) in 1955 at invitation of Homi Bhabha. 
●    In 1966, he was appointed Director of TIFR after death of Homi Bhabha. 
●    In 1971, he was appointed Secretary in the Department of Electronics. 
●    In 1978 he was appointed Secretary, Department of Science and Technology and Director-General of the CSIR. 

The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has approved the ratification and entry into force of the third Protocol to the Convention between India and New Zealand for the avoidance of double taxation and the prevention of fiscal evasion with respect to taxes on income (Convention). 
●    The Protocol was signed on 26th October, 2016.
●    The Protocol will stimulate the flow of exchange of information between India and New Zealand for tax purposes which will help curb tax evasion and tax avoidance. 
●    It will also enable assistance in collection of tax revenue claims between both countries.
●    Article 26 on 'Exchange of Information' of the existing Convention has been replaced with a new Article in the Protocol which is in line with the international standard for exchange of information.
●    A new Article on ‘Assistance on Collection of Taxes' has been added in the Protocol.
●    The Protocol shall enter into force on the date of notification of completion of the procedures required by the respective laws of the two countries for entry into force of the Protocol.

The National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA) on 20 November 2016 launched the highly advanced geostationary weather satellite Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R (GOES-R).
●    It will boost the weather observation capabilities of the US, leading to more accurate and timely forecasts, watches and warnings. 
●    It will be into the operations within a year after undergoing testing and validation of new instruments including the first operational lightning mapper in geostationary orbit. 
●    Its primary instrument Advanced Baseline Imager will provide images of Earth’s weather, oceans and environment with 16 different spectral bands. 
●    It is also first satellite to carry a lightning mapper instrument to geostationary orbit.
●    It will photograph lightning activity throughout Western Hemisphere about 200 times every second.
●    There are four satellites in the GOES series: GOES-R, GOES-S, GOES-T and GOES-U
●    This will extend NOAA’s geostationary coverage through 2036 and GOES-R.

India has stepped up rebuilding activity in Afghanistan in line with its commitment to propel the wartorn nation back on the development track. 
●    The move comes just days ahead of a mega multilateral meet that the Narendra Modi government is hosting in Amritsar to contribute to Afghan stability. 
●    Ahead of the December 4 Heart of Asia Conference on Afghanistan, India has come forward to restart a factory in Mazar-e-Sharif, build a runway at Balkh airport and assist the Afghan government in harnessing the economic potential of Salma Dam, which was built with India’s assistance. 
●    A tiles factory in Afghanistan’s northern Mazar-e-Sharif city will resume production soon with India’s support, said people familiar with the development. 
●    India’s Ambassador to Afghanistan Manpreet Vohra recently met Balkh province governor Atta Mohammad Noor to finalise the project. 
●    Noor, who had helped thwart a terror attack on the Indian consulate in Mazar earlier this year, is a strong proponent of Afghanistan-India ties. 

India and Switzerland signed a Joint Declaration for implementation of Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) between the two countries. 
●    The declaration was signed in respect to accounts of Indians held abroad and vice versa. The deal was inked on 22 November 2016 in New Delhi.
●    With this, India had joined a list of select countries with which Switzerland will exchange all financial information automatically. It will be done on a reciprocal basis for tax purposes.
●    The Joint Declaration was inked by Chairman of Central Board of Direct Taxes Sushil Chandra and Deputy Chief of Mission of Swiss Embassy in India, Gilles Roduit.
●    It will make possible for India to receive the financial information of accounts held by Indian residents in Switzerland for 2018 and subsequent years, on an automatic basis.
●    The exchange will begin from September 2019.
●    The data will be shared annually.
●    As per the declaration, details about accounts held before 2018 will not be shared.

The government of India’s demonetisation drive has come as a boost for mobile wallet players like Paytm, MobiKwik, FreeCharge and others. 
●    Now RBI has increased the monthly wallet limit for users to Rs 20,000 from the earlier Rs 10,000 and to Rs 50,000 for merchants. 
●    The move is being hailed by wallet players as one that will help out users and sellers who have adopted these wallets due to the demonetisation move.
●    In a circular dated November 22, RBI has said it will increase “enhancement in issuance limits for Pre-Paid Payment Instruments (PPIs) in India,” along with special measures for merchants. 
●    While earlier the limit for mobile wallets was Rs 10,000 for non-eKYC compliant account, it has now been increased to Rs 20,000. 
●    RBI’s circular says “The total value of reloads during any given month shall also not exceed 20,000,” which means per month people can upload up to Rs 20,000 in their mobile wallets.

Google is on a spree to strengthen its cloud offerings after it combined its cloud and corporate software divisions under a single entity. 
●    This time around, Google has acquired yet another firm called Qwiklabs that deals in end-to-end cloud platform services and training on how to use them. 
●    The acquisition will provide a lab learning on Google's Cloud Platform, G Suite and other products for the developers. 
●    The acquisition deal amount has not been disclosed. Separately, it invested in AI research at the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms, and is also opening an AI research group at its Montreal office.
●    Qwiklabs, founded in 2012, has been into the cloud training business with Amazon Web Services also as its client. 
●    "It's been an incredible rocket ride, and joining Google gives us more fuel to power the continued journey to realize our vision," said the company in its blog post. 
●    The company also details that the existing customers and subscribers will continue to access the libraries with tutor-led sessions still running as before.

India on 21 November 2016 became an Associate Member State of European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) by signing an agreement with the organisation. 
●    The participation of Indian scientists in CERN dates back to early 1960s and it became stronger with the support of Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and Department of Science and Technology (DST). 
●    In 1991, DAE signed a formal agreement with CERN which exists till today. 
●    In 2003, India was awarded the Observer status of CERN and was subsequently invited to join CERN as an Associate Member
●    India made significant contributions to the construction of Large Hadron Collider (LHC), in the areas of design, development and supply of hardware accelerator systems and its commissioning. 
●    India is also one of the leading partners in the ALICE experiment which is about to unearth the physics of quark-gluon plasma (QGP).
●    Indian scientists played a very important role in the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiments, which is one of the two large experiments that have led to the discovery of the Higgs Boson. 

India today successfully test-fired its indigenously developed nuclear capable Prithvi-II missile twice in quick succession as part of a user trial by the army from a test range at Chandipur in Odisha.
●    A similar twin trial had been conducted on October 12, 2009 from the same base where both tests were successful.
●    The missile is thrusted by liquid propulsion twin engines.
●    It uses advanced inertial guidance system with manoeuvring trajectory to hit its target, they said.
●    The missile trajectory was tracked by the DRDO radars, electro-optical tracking systems and telemetry stations located along the coast of Odisha. 
●    The downrange teams on board the ship deployed near the designated impact point in the Bay of Bengal monitored the terminal events and splashdown.
●    Inducted into Indian armed forces in 2003, the nine-metre-tall, single-stage liquid-fuelled Prithvi-II is the first missile to be developed by the DRDO under the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme, defence sources said.