Current Affairs 12th June 2017

Current Affairs 12th June 2017 - Important Points

• Blanket loan waiver announced by - Maharashtra government
• England defeated Venezuela to win - FIFA U-20 World Cup for first time
• SATH Program launched by - NITI Aayog
• 10th French Open Men’s Singles title won by - Rafael Nadal
• Tele Law to provide legal aid in rural areas via video conferencing launched by - Union Government
• 18 Sectoral Groups for smooth implementation of GST constituted by - GST Council
• GST Rates of 66 items reduced by - GST Council
• Theresa May unveils new Cabinet, appointed - Damian Green as ‘deputy'
• Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Lucie Safarova win - 2017 French Open Women's Doubles title

Current Affairs 12th June 2017 - Details

Blanket loan waiver announced by - Maharashtra government

The Maharashtra government announced a loan waiver for farmers on 11th June 2017. Govt. also decided to form a committee to decide the criteria for debt relief, after which cultivators called off the protests. The decision was taken after a meeting between the representatives of farmers and the panel of ministers. The move is expected to help 1.07 crore farmers in the state having land holdings of less than five acres. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis tweeted the decision of loan waiver for farmers. After this, Maharashtra became the first state to offer loan waiver to farmers.

Important Highlights

• The loans of the small and marginal farmers were waived with an immediate effect.
• The decision was made that the benefits of the waiver will be provided only to those farmers who are dependent only on farm products.
• The benefits of the loan waiver will not apply for political leaders, businessman and salaried people. 
• In addition to that, the ministers’ group has decided to restart fresh loan disbursal to farmers from 12th June 2017.

England defeated Venezuela to win - FIFA U-20 World Cup for first time

England lifted the FIFA U-20 World Cup for the first time ever on 11th June 2017. England beat Venezuela 1-0 in the summit clash held in Suwon in South Korea. At the Suwon World Cup Stadium here carried the signature of Everton striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin 34 minutes in the game. After doing this, they became the fifth consecutive incumbent title holder to fail to qualify for the subsequent tournament.

More about FIFA U-20 World Cup

• The FIFA U-20 World Cup is the football world championship for male players below the age of 20.
• Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) organizes this World Cup.
• The tournament was known as the FIFA World Youth Championship until 2005.
• The Championship has been awarded after every two years since the first tournament in 1977 held in Tunisia.
• The 2017 FIFA U-20 World Cup was hosted between 20th May and 11th June 2017 by South Korea.
• South Korea became the third nation to have hosted all of FIFA Men's international competitions, namely the 2002 FIFA World Cup, the 2001 Confederations Cup and the 2007 FIFA U-17 World Cup along with Japan and Mexico.

SATH Program launched by - NITI Aayog

NITI Aayog launched SATH Program for providing ‘Sustainable Action for Transforming Human capital (SATH) to the State Governments on 10th June 2017 with an aim to initiate the transformation in the education and health sectors and also aims to address the need for technical support from NITI Aayog towards the states.

Key Highlights

• SATH program focuses to identify and build three future ‘role model’ states for health systems.
• NITI Aayog will work in close collaboration with the state machinery to design a robust roadmap to develop a program governance structure, set up monitoring and tracking mechanisms and provide support on a range of institutional measures to achieve the end objectives.
• NITI along with McKinsey & Company and IPE Global consortium, who were selected through a competitive bidding process will be implementing this.
• NITI defined a three-stage process – presentations by the states, expression of interest and assessment of commitment to health sector reforms.
• Sixteen states expressed their interest, out of which fourteen made their presentations including  Assam, Bihar, Chandigarh, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh,Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Punjab, Telangana,Jharkhand, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh.
• Out of these fourteen states, five were shortlisted and subsequently, three will be selected on the basis of objective assessment and further evaluations.
• After the signing of MoUs, the program will be launched in the three selected states.

10th French Open Men’s Singles title won by - Rafael Nadal

Rafael Nadal set a record winning his 10th French Open title. No other player has ever won 10 championships at the same event on 11th June 2017. Nadal beat Stan Wawrinka to grab the historic win. Novak was the defending champion in the Men's Singles, but he lost in the quarter-finals to Dominic Thiem.

More about Rafael Nadal

• Born on 3rd June 1986 and called as "The King of Clay" , Rafael Nadal is a Spanish professional tennis player.
• He has won 14 Grand Slam singles titles, 29 titles in ATP World Tour Masters 1000 events, the 2008 Olympic gold medal in singles and 17 ATP World Tour 500 tournaments.
• He became the seventh player in history to achieve the Career Grand Slam at age 24 in 2010.
• He is the second male player to complete the singles Career Golden Slam after Andre Agassi.
• French Open is a major tennis tournament which held for more than two weeks between May second half and June first half held at the Stade Roland-Garros in Paris in France.
• This tournament is also called as Roland-Garros, named after the French aviator Roland Garros.

Do you know?

Rafael Nadal was named the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year in 2011.

Tele Law to provide legal aid in rural areas via video conferencing launched by - Union Government

To provide legal aid for the people living in rural areas, the Union Government launched 'Tele Law' service on 11th June 2017. The legal aid will be provided through video conferencing to marginalised communities in rural areas under this servicE, launched by IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.

Key Highlights 

• The Tele-Law portal will be available across the CSC network connecting the citizens to legal service providers in this scheme.
• The portal will connect voluntary service providers, District Legal Service Authorities,law school clinics and Non-Government Organisations working on legal through the CSCs.
• NALSA (The National Legal Services Authority's) panel of lawyers from state capitals will also provide legal advice and counselling to the applicants.

Veteran Telugu poet, writer C Narayana Reddy passed away on - 12th June 2017

Noted Telugu and Urdu poet and writer C Narayana Reddy passed away on 12th June 2017 in Hyderabad. He wrote more than 80 publications including essays,poems, songs, ghazals,lyrical dramas, travelogues and literary criticism.

More about C Narayana Reddy

• Born on 29th July 1931 in anumajipet, Karimnagar District, Hyderabad state (now in Telangana), Reddy was one of the most distinguished Telugu poets of his generation.
• He was Telangana Saraswatha Parishath president.
• He received the Jnanpith Award, the Indian literary award for outstanding contribution towards literature in the year 1988 for his poetic work, Viswambara.
• He was honored with Padma Shri award in 1977 and the Padma Bhushan in 1992.
• He was also awarded an honorary Kala Prapoorna award by Andhra University in 1978 and the Raja-Lakshmi Award by the Sri Raja-Lakshmi Foundation in 1988.
• In Aug 1997, He was also nominated to the upper house of the Indian Parliament- Rajya Sabha.

18 Sectoral Groups for smooth implementation of GST constituted by - GST Council

The GST Council constituted 18 Sectoral Groups representing various sectors of the economy to ensure smooth implementation of GST by timely responding to the issues and problems of the respective Sector on 9th June 2017.

These 18 Sectoral Groups represent various economy sectors and contain the Union and State Governments senior officers.

GST Rates of 66 items reduced by - GST Council

The GST Council reduced the GST Rates of 66 items including insulin, pickles, printers, agarbattis, school bags, and cashew nuts on 11th June 2017. Although, the GST rates for telecom services, marbles, granite and spectacles were retained. The GST Council, headed by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, went beyond the equalisation principle of maintaining the current tax incidence in couple of the cases. Under the GST regime, all goods and services are broadly placed in five tax slabs — 0, 5, 12, 18, and 28 percent.

Update on Revised GST Rates of few Goods and Services

• The GST Rates on insulin, cashew nuts and agarbattis were lowered to 5 percent from 12 percent proposed earlier.
• The GST Rates of school bags and computer printers will now be 18 percent rate against 28 percent decided earlier.
• The rate of children's exercise books was fixed to Nil from 12 percent proposed earlier.
• The GST rate for movie tickets under Rs 100 was reduced to 18 percent, while tickets priced above Rs 100 will be taxed at 28 percent.
• Kitchen use items like pickles, mustard sauce, and morabba will attract 12 percent GST as against 18 per cent proposed earlier.
• Packaged food items like ketchup, toppings, instant food mixes will be charged 12 percent GST now.
• Cutlery, tractors and CCTV cameras will cost less now as their tax is now fixed at 12 percent.

 Theresa May unveils new Cabinet, appointed - Damian Green as ‘deputy'

Theresa May appointed her close ally Damian Green as her first secretary of state, effectively her deputy prime minister on 11th June 2017. The cabinet reshuffle follows the shock results of UK general elections 2017, that saw Conservatives lose their majority status forcing May to form a minority government.

Important Highlights

• May has brought back former Justice Secretary Michael Gove whom she ousted in 2016, as the new Environment Secretary.
• She has also shifted Andrea Leadsom, former department secretary to the post of leader of the House of Commons.
• James Brokenshire has been appointed as the Northern Ireland minister and Karen Bradley as the new Minister of media, Culture and sports.

Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Lucie Safarova win - 2017 French Open Women's Doubles title

Top seeds Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Lucie Safarova won the Women's Doubles title in the French Open tennis championships on 11th June 2017. The Czech-United States pair beat the unseeded Australians Ashleigh Barty and Casey Dellacqua 6-2, 6-1 in the final to grab the title.

Important Highlights

• Bethanie Mattek-Sands is a professional tennis player from U.S.
• She is ranked No. 1 in the women's doubles rankings at present.
• She is an Olympic Gold Medalist in mixed doubles too and won five Grand Slam titles in women's doubles and two in mixed doubles.
• Lucie Safarova is a professional tennis player from Czech.
• She has seven WTA tour singles titles and thirteen doubles titles and reached her first Grand Slam semifinal at the 2014 Wimbledon Championships and her first Grand Slam final at the 2015 French Open.
• She also won 2015 French Open, the 2015 Australian Open, 2016 US Open and 2017 Australian Open women's doubles titles partnering with Bethanie Mattek-Sands.