GK and Current Affairs Updates

PV Sindhu on 20 November 2016 won the 700000 US dollars China Open badminton tournament. 
●    This was the first Super Series Premier title for the Indian Olympic silver medallist and two-time bronze medallist at World Championship.
●    In the summit clash that lasted for an hour and nine minutes, Sindhu defeated Sun Yu of China 21-11, 17-21, 21-11. The final was played at Fuzhou, China.
●    With this win, she also became the third non-Chinese woman to win the title. The previous two winners were Malaysia’s Wong Mew Choo (2007) and India’s own Saina Nehwal (2014).
●    Men’s Singles: Jan O Jorgensen of Denmark won the men’s singles title. In the final clash, he defeated Chen Long 22-20 21-13. This was first World Super Series title for Jorgensen in over 28 months.
●    Women’s Singles: PV Sindhu of India won the women’s singles title. This was a first World Super Series title for Sindhu.

After nailing a four-tier rate structure of 5, 12, 18 and 28 per cent, the GST Council yet again on Friday failed to arrive at a consensus over which category of assessees should be governed by the Centre and which by states, a disagreement that threatens to derail the April 1 target for rollout of the new indirect tax regime.
●    Jaitley, who had previously stated that he hoped for all modalities for the GST to be finalised by November 22, was still hopeful of getting the supporting legislations during the ensuing Winter Session of Parliament from November 16.
●    Differences on the issue of cross empowerment to avoid dual control arose with states demanding control over 11 lakh service tax assessees, and Centre proposing to do away states having exclusive control over all dealers up to an annual revenue threshold of `1.5 crore -- an issue which was settled in the first meeting of the GST Council.
●    The GST Council meetings, earlier called for November 9 and 10, have been scheduled to meet on November 24 and 25. 
●    Speaking on the draft CGST , SGST and IGST legislations, the minister said, Jaitley said it will be sent to states after November 15 and the GST Council in November 24-25 meeting will approve them. 

Scientists have discovered a new ‘super Earth’ planet with a mass around 5.4 times that of the Earth, orbiting a very bright star near to our Sun. 
●    The exoplanet, GJ 536 b, is not within the star’s habitable zone, but its short orbital period of 8.7 days and the luminosity of its star make it an attractive candidate for investigating its atmospheric composition. 
●    The star, GJ 536, is a red dwarf which is quite cool and near to our Sun.
●    During the research, a cycle of magnetic activity similar to that of the Sun has been observed, but with a shorter period, three years.
●    To detect the planet, the researchers had to measure the velocity of the star with an accuracy of the order of a metre per second. 
●    The planet was detected in a joint effort between the IAC and the Geneva Observatory, using the HARPS spectrograph on the 3.6M ESO Telescope at La Silla in Chile and HARPS North, on the Telescopio Nacional Galileo at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, Garafia in Spain. 
●    The finding appears in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.

India's mega exercise to contribute to the political and financial stability in Afghanistan — Heart of Asia Conference — will begin in Amritsar on December 4. 
●    Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani, foreign ministers and senior officials of key global and regional powers, including Russia, China and Iran, are expected to attend the global meet. 
●    The Modi government is hoping that the event will strengthen India's antiterror narrative in the region.
●    This edition of the 'Heart of Asia' meet, organised for the first time in India, will deal with the challenges of terrorism, rise of Islamic State, cultural and civilisation similarities and cooperation in the educational sector, indicated persons familiar with the matter. 
●    Highlight of the exercise could be the presence of Pak Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz. Hinting at Aziz's participation, senior Pakistani officials hoped that it would help defuse tensions with India. 
●    External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had attended the previous edition of the 'Heart of Asia' meet, held in Pakistan in December. 

Several leaders at a major international summit in Peru called Saturday on the United States and other nations not to abandon global trade deals.
●    At a time when Americans and European voters are electing politicians who are deeply skeptical that the trade deals actually benefit their own citizens, leaders at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit urged countries not to back away from freer trade.
●    Chinese President Xi Jinping, who held bilateral talks with U.S. President Barack Obama on Saturday, urged countries to embrace economic openness.
●    Obama praised the two countries' on their effective partnership on such global challenges as preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapon, opposing North Korea's nuclear provocations and trying to end the Ebola epidemic.
●    China wants regional countries to embrace an economic trade pact known as the FTAAP. 
●    That plan is widely seen as a competitor to the U.S.-backed Trans-Pacific Partnership, which now must be ratified by the 12 countries that negotiated the deal.

The demonetisation of high-value currency notes has brought in revenue windfall for the GHMC (Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation). 
●    The city’s civic body has topped in tax collection among 22 other cities in the country in the month of November. 
●    While the tax collection of GHMC was Rs 8 crores in November 2015, it rose to Rs 188 crore this year in the first 19 days of the month.
●    The payments picked up pace after the government announced on November 10 that taxes and utilities bills can be paid with the banned notes. 
●    On November 11, the GHMC received 3,2549 transactions worth Rs.54.52 crore. 
●    Some of the corporations which were analysed include Agra, Ahmedabad, Kakinada, Vijayawads, Indore, Vishakapatnam, Guahati, Ranchi, Faridabad, Coimbatore, Jaipur, Chennai and Lucknow. 
●    While the combined property tax collection in November 2015 of these corporations was Rs.274 crore, an amount of Rs.855 crore during this year has already been collected. 

Scientists have successfully tweaked the process of photosynthesis to make it more efficient and increase plant productivity by raising the level of three proteins involved in the process.
●    Many years of computational analysis and laboratory and field experiments led to the selection of the proteins targeted in the study. 
●    Researchers used tobacco plants as it can be easily modified.
●    The researchers targeted a process plants use to shield themselves from excessive solar energy.
●    Plants protect themselves by making changes within the leaf that dissipate the excess energy as heat. 
●    This process is called non-photochemical quenching (NPQ).
●    Researchers used a supercomputer to predict how much the slow recovery from NPQ reduces crop productivity over the course of a day.
●    Researchers suggested that boosting levels of three proteins might speed up the recovery process.
●    The researchers grew seedlings from multiple experiments, then tested how quickly the engineered plants responded to changes in available light.
 

Universal Children’s Day was observed across the globe on 20 November 2016. 
●    The day is observed with an aim to promote the ideals and objectives of the United Nation’s Charter and the welfare of the children of the world.
●    20 November is the day when UNGA adopted the declaration of the Rights of the Child in 1959. 
●    On 14 December 1954, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) recommended all countries should institute a Universal Children’s Day, which will be observed as a day of the worldwide fraternity to understand children.
●    20 November also marks the day on which, in 1989, the UNGA adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child.  
●    The Convention that ratified international human rights treaty also sets out a number of rights for children. 
●    These children rights include the right to life, to education, to health, to play, the right to family life as well as to be protected from violence, and not to be discriminated, and to have their views heard.

Micro-finance institutions (MFIs) and non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) could face challenges in mobilising monthly collections from their small retail customers after the government’s move to withdraw Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. 
●    MFIs lending to rural customers without access to bank branches and post offices may see some near term difficulty in collections.
●    NBFC-MFIs and small finance banks (SFBs) may not be significantly impacted in the long term considering the cash flows of the borrower segment are usually in the smaller denomination. 
●    NBFCs catering to self-employed segments, SMEs and other small businesses which transact primarily in cash, may experience near term delays in payment due to difficulties by these customers in converting their holdings within the stipulated time. 
●    Housing finance companies (HFCs) catering to the self-employed segment, particularly in small ticket loans may also experience payment delays.
●    Similarly, loan against property (LAP) business faces asset quality risk because of aggressive lending practices of many banks and NBFCs. 
●    In this case, unaccounted income is taken into consideration while deciding on income eligibility and loan amount for a borrower.

Centre on Saturday held a sensitisation workshop for over 400 officials on the new indirect tax regime.
●    The workshop, was held to discuss administrative control issues, was organized to sensitize these officers about the key features of the Goods and Services Tax (GST). 
●    GST is an important milestone in the concept of cooperative federalism where the Centre and States have come together to address an important national issue of present complex indirect tax regime in the country.
●    The successful implementation of GST can lead to this model of cooperative federalism being replicated in other spheres.
●    GST reform process would lead to a move from the regime of tax exemptions in various sectors of economy to a regime of seamless flow of credit and payment of tax.
●    The seminar was also addressed by the Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia. 
●    A presentation on the salient features of GST was made by Chairman CBEC, Najib Shah.