GK and Current Affairs Updates

Microsoft's Bill Gates was the unsurprising leader of the first Forbes list of the richest global tech billionaires, while Amazon founder Jeff Bezos saw his personal fortune surge.The Forbes survey released on August 5 found US-based tech magnates made up 51 of the 100 richest people in technology, with 33 from Asia and eight from Europe.The net worth of the 100 people amounted to $842.9 billion, according to the magazine. The minimum net worth to make the top 100 was $2 billion.
Gates, who has long been at or near the top of the world's richest individuals, led the group with an estimated worth of $79.6 billion, trailed by Oracle founder Larry Ellison at $50 billion.The surprising number three was Bezos, who saw a gain of some $13 billion in his fortune this year with the rise of Amazon shares, and is now worth $47.8 billion, Forbes said.Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg snared the number four position with a net worth of $41.2 billion, followed by Google founders Larry Page ($33.4 billion) and Sergey Brin ($32.8 billion).Alibaba founder Jack Ma was number seven with a worth of $23.2 billion, the wealthiest of 10 Chinese billionaires on the list.Former Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer came in eighth at $22.7 billion, while Laurene Powell Jobs, widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was number nine at $21.4 billion, and computer company founder Michael Dell was tenth with a worth of $19.4 billion.Jobs was the richest of the seven women on the list. The average age is 53, or a decade younger than the average of all billionaires, Forbes said.The youngest is Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel, who at age 25 is worth an estimated $2.1 billion. The oldest is Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, 86, whose estimated worth is $6 billion.Forbes said 94 of the tech moguls created their own companies, while three inherited their wealth, and three others inherited fortunes but have expanded them.

 In order to bring certainty in tax liability and avoid disputes in taxation with the multinationals operating in India, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) for the first time has entered into an Advance Pricing Agreements (APAs) with ‘Rollback’ provision with the two US MNCs. Advance Pricing Agreements (APAs) with ‘Rollback’ provision facilitates tax liability for future transactions for five years and transactions of previous four years that now provide tax certainty to applicant for nine years altogether, which was mere five regular years of APAs initially. Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) had entered into this APAs with US MNCs is first ever since the Finance Ministry made announcement in March 2015. Over all CBDT has signed14 APAs of which 13 are unilateral APAs and one is a bilateral APA but did not had facility of rollback provision.

Advance Pricing Agreements (APAs)

It is an agreement between a taxpayer and the tax authority that settles transfer prices and of setting prices of international transactions in advance and normally covers multiple years.

Conclusions
It provides certainty to taxpayers regarding transfer pricing that aim to avoid disputes between taxpayer and tax regulator.
 This will introduce certainty in tax law reduces compliance costs and makes tax regime investment friendly. 
It will give a boost to the Indian economy as the investors will adopt this APA route with rollback provision to reduce litigation and to business with ease.

 Government has decided that Aadhaar enrolment of Non-Resident Indians, Persons of Indian Origin and Overseas Citizen of India should be eventually allowed to help them authenticate their identity digitally, The government has decided that a longer term goal should be to expand Aadhaar enrolment activities in order to ensure that all persons on the Indian soil (Resident Indian, NRIs, OCI/PIO and visa holding visitors) shall be empowered with a unique identity/identifier that can authenticated on a digital platform any time anywhere. At present, all residents including Indian national and foreigners with valid visas can be enrolled and provided Aadhaar number by the UIDAI.
Under the Aadhaar project, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is providing a unique identity numbers to residents, which can be digitally verified using the database.
As per the official sources, UIDAI is working on the policy for Aadhaar enrolment of NRIs, PIOs and OICs after receiving a direction from the government on the issue.
However the minister said in its reply that no timeframe has been formulated at this stage for achieving the goal.
The Aadhaar number helps in availing various services and benefits provided by the government.It is a valid know your customers (KYC) document for various services including banking, telecom, cooking gas subsidy, vehicle registration driving licence, government scholarships, pension and public distribution system.
The UIDAI was set up in January 2009 to issue Aadhaar numbers. It has generated 89.43 Aadhaar numbers so far as per the information provided on UIDAI’s website.

Tripura Assembly has passed a resolution to request the Union Government to amend Section 302 of the IPC to abolish capital punishment. The resolution is apparently fallout of recent hanging of Yakub Memon, prime accused in Mumbai serial blasts. Chief Minister Manik Sarkar rose to strongly oppose capital punishment terming it a murder of somebody for committing a murder. Leader of opposition Sudip Roy Burman quoted Mahatma Gandhi to raise his objection to death sentence. The adopted resolution would be sent to union government and the Law Commission for consideration. It requested for necessary amendment in IPC Section 302 for commuting death sentence.
About  Death Penalty In India
India retains capital punishment for a number of serious offences . The Supreme Court of India has allowed the death penalty to be carried out in five instances since 1995. official government statistics claim that only 52 people had been executed since independence. In December 2007, India voted against a United Nations General Assembly resolution calling for a moratorium on the death penalty. In November 2012, India again upheld its stance on capital punishment by voting against the UN General Assembly draft resolution seeking to ban death penalty.

To safeguard the interest of domestic industries of India, government on 6 August extended anti-dumping duty on import of all forms and grades of Vitamin C from China for the period of five years. Earlier in 2009 government had imposed the anti-dumping duty which was later extended till June 2015 and now further extended to five more years with the duty of USD 3.74 for per kg of Vitamin-C import from China. This move was taken following the findings of Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) which concluded that imports of Vitamin-C have caused injury to the domestic industry. As per the notification by Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) anti-dumping duty is applicable to all grades and forms Vit-C which includes L-3-Ketothreohexuronic Acid Lactone substrates, 3-Oxo-L-gulofuranolactone, L-Xyloascorbic Acid, Ascorbic acid, etc.

What is Anti-Dumping Duty?
It is a trade duty imposed by any government on imported products which have prices less than their normal values in their domestic market. Usually countries initiate anti-dumping probes to check if domestic industry has been hurt because of a surge in below-cost imports. 
Anti-Dumping Duty is imposed under the multilateral WTO regime and varies from product to product and from country to country. In India, anti-dumping duty is recommended by the Union Ministry of Commerce (i.e. Directorate General of Anti-Dumping Duty-DGAD), while the Union Finance Ministry imposes it.

PM Mr Narendra Modi declares August 7 as National Handloom Day to mark Swadeshi movementTo commemorate the 1905 Swadeshi movement the Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced August 7 as ‘National Handloom Day’ at the function held in Chennai. At the event PM Modi also launched the ‘India Handloom’ brand to help weavers with brand for global markets. The day 7 August was selected to commemorate the 110 year old Swadeshi Movement, which promoted use of domestic products over British products. The motto behind observing National Handloom Day is to honour the handloom weavers and to carter an impetus to India’s handloom industry. Whereas launching of ‘India Handloom’ brand aims to promote handloom of India in the global markets as a genuine good quality international product.
About Handlooms 
Commissioner for Handlooms was set up as an attached non-participating office on 20th November, 1975 under the Ministry of Commerce. At present it is functioning under the Ministry of Textiles. The Office of the Development Commissioner for Handlooms is headed by an officer of Joint Secretary level having its headquarters at Udyog Bhawan, New Delhi

Egypt has launched a major expansion of the Suez Canal. It was inaugurated by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in a lavish ceremony held at port city of Ismailiya ( located on west bank of canal).

Suez Canal expansion project
The project was started in August 2014 for the expansion of the Ballah Bypass from 61 metres to 312 metres. The project was dubbed as the New Suez Canal. 
Expansion aims to increase the traffic handled by the canal in order to boost Egypt’s economy and global standing by turning the Suez Canal zone into a global logistics and trade center.
 Completed in one year span with an estimated cost of US 8 billion dollars.
 It comprises 72km of new channel and bypasses which has deepened the main waterway. 
It allows ships especially larger vessels to transit the canal in both directions simultaneously, thus increasing canal traffic and revenue. 
The expansion is expected to double the ship capacity of the Suez Canal from 49 to 97 ships a day by 2023.

About Suez Canal
 Suez Canal is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt.It links the Mediterranean with the Red Sea through Isthmus of Suez. It was first opened in 1869 after a decade of construction. Strategically and economically it is one of the most important waterways in the world providing the shortest sea link between Asia and Europe. 
Its opening had provided alternative route to sea voyage between Europe and India. It had reduced the sea voyage distance between these two regions by about 7,000 kilometres without navigating around Africa.The canal was nationalised by Egypt in 1956 after brief war against the UK, France and Israel.The canal has been a significant income source for Egypt since then.

Senior IPS officer Ashok Prasad has been appointed as Secretary of Home Ministry’s Internal Security division.Prasad is a Andhra Pradesh cadre IPS offocer of 1979 batch. He was appointed as Special Secretary (Internal Security) in Home Ministry on December 31, 2014. Prior to that, Prasad was posted as Special Director in Intelligence Bureau.
The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved the proposal for re-designation of the post held by Prasad as Secretary (Internal Security).
The Internal Security division deals with police, law and order and rehabilitation besides analysing threats emerging from terror, Maoists and other anti-national groups

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has taken decision to allow banks to merge, shift or close branches in urban areas on their own discretion. In this regard, RBI has issued a notification that mention detailed provisions of above decisions. This move will give banks greater operational freedom but it won’t be valid for rural areas.
As per RBI notification 
Merger, shifting or closure of any rural branch as well as a sole semi urban branch will require prior approval of the District Level Review Committee (DLRC) or District Consultative Committee (DCC). 
Banks making changes should inform customers of its  branch time before actual merger, shifting or closure of the office. 
The banking activity, which include deposit or loan business should not be maintained at both places. In case of new location as part shifting should be located within 1 km of the existing location. 
The banks should ensure that they continue to fulfill the role entrusted to these branches under the Direct Benefit Transfer Schemes (DBTS) and other government sponsored programmes.
 It should be noted that the apex bank has allowed banks to shift their some branch in any centre due rent or space constraints without seeking prior approval of RBI.

Retired Colonel Harwant Singh, a World War-II veteran and hero passed away in Patiala, Punjab. He was 95. He was commissioned in 2nd battalion of the Sikh Regiment of then British Army in September 1941. During the World War (WW)-II he had served in Palestine, North Africa, Iraq, Cyprus and Italy for the British Army. In 1944, he was awarded with the Military Cross (highest award of the British Army) for gallantry during an offensive against the German forces on the Gothic Line in Italy. During the first Independence Day celebration of 1947, he was officer in charge of the flag-hoisting ceremony held at Princess Park on August 15 and Red Fort on August 16. In October 1947, during the outbreak of hostilities with Pakistan in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir he was one of the leading company commanders on the field. For his role in these hostilities he was felicitated as one of the saviours of Srinagar. Later he took over command of 4 Sikh in the Kashmir valley and was transferred to the Rajputana Rifles in December 1951. He had commanded 6 Rajputana Rifles, 18 Rajputana Rifles and the Rajputana Regimental Centre.