Daily Current Affairs including static notes - 8 JUNE

The Hindu -

Singapore signs 2 MoUs with A.P. ( IR)

  • Singapore and Andhra Pradesh have signed a MoU regarding the construction of the Andhra capital Amravati.
Details
Singapore Minister of Trade and Industry has expressed confidence that significant progress would be achieved in the construction of Amravati in six months, starting with the seed capital, consequent to the signing of two MoUs.

The MoUs are the Concession and Development Agreement (CADA) and the Shareholder Agreement (SHA). The SHA was signed by the Amravati Development Corporation (ADC) and Singapore Amravati Investment Holdings Ltd. (SAIH) and the CADA by the AP Capital Region Development Authority, Amravati Development Partners (ADC and Ascendas Singbridge & SembCorp Industries) and SAIH.
These pacts were essential to legally secure the many visions and plans and contracts worked out during the journey so far and they were part of the broader engagement between the Singapore and A.P. governments.
With the signing of the MoUs, the zero date had begun and development would be visible in the seed capital over the next 3 months to one year.
Amravati:
 Amravati is the capital city of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It is a newly planned city which derives its name from the ancient Amaravathi town located in Guntur district. Amravati along with neighboring Vijayawada, Guntur and Tenali form the metropolitan region of Amravati, namely Andhra Pradesh Capital Region, which is the largest populated region of Andhra Pradesh state with a population of 5.8 million as of the 2011 census, and is governed by APCRDA.

NGT tells tanneries to pay up for treatment plants (Env)

  • The National Green Tribunal has directed tanneries in Kanpur to contribute 25% of the total cost towards establishing common effluent treatment plants.
Details: Rapping tanneries in and around Kanpur for not setting up common effluent treatment plants, the National Green Tribunal has directed them to contribute 25% of the total cost towards establishing such plants.
A Bench headed by NGT Acting chairperson Jawad Rahim further told the tanneries based in Unnao, Banthar and Jajmau that “appropriate action” would be passed against them if they failed to comply with the order.
The directions came after the counsel appearing for the State pollution control board submitted that 23.50 crore in the ratio of 60:40 would be required to remove the waste that had been dumped.
Advocate M.C. Mehta, who had moved a plea in the green panel seeking cleaning of the Ganga, submitted that close to 60,000 tonnes of chromium waste was lying in Kanpur leading to environmental pollution.
Common Effluents Treatment Plants:
 Junking Uttar Pradesh government’s proposal to displace Kanpur’s tanneries, the Union water resources ministry had decided to commission a common effluent treatment plant there to address pollution from tanneries, said to be the biggest source of industrial pollution to the Ganga.
There is already such a treatment plant in the city. However, it can at most treat 9 million liters per day (MLD) of sewage and this was based on sewage calculations of 1986. The old plant will be junked and a new one, costing about 400 crore, will be commissioned.
In 2017 the Uttar Pradesh government had said that all tanneries would be shifted to a new location away from the Ganga and new land had been identified for the purpose.
The tannery clusters at Jajmau — a Kanpur suburb — employs over two million people and for long, tannery managers have argued that the new-technology effluent treatment plants are expensive.
The Central Pollution Control Board had informed the NGT that the Ganga, running 543 km between Hardwar and Kanpur, was affected by 1,072 seriously polluting industries that were releasing heavy metals and pesticides. At present, 823.1 MLD of untreated sewage and 212.42 MLD of industrial effluent flow into the river, while three of the four monitored sewage treatment plants do not comply with the set standards.

India not ready to sign the Hague treaty (Soc Jus)

  • The government is not yet ready to sign the Hague treaty on inter-country abduction of children by parents fleeing a bad marriage.
Details:
 There has been immense pressure from the U.S. on the government to sign the treaty though the government has long held the view that the decision could lead to harassment of women escaping marital discord or domestic violence.
The Hague Convention is a multinational treaty that seeks to protect children wrongfully removed by one of the parents from the custody of the other parent.
A committee constituted by the Centre to examine legal issues involved in international parental abduction submitted its report in April, opposing a central provision of the Hague Convention. It said that the criterion of habitual residence of the child, which is used to determine whether the child was wrongfully removed by a parent as well as to seek the return of the child to the country of habitual residence, was not in the best interest of the child.
It also recommended setting up of a Child Removal Disputes Resolution Authority to act as a nodal body to decide on the custody of the child as well as a model law to deal with such disputes.
However, the government is contemplating assigning the National Commission for Protection of Children the responsibility to adjudicate on such cases along with a judicial expert. While the government had decided in late 2016 that it will not sign The Hague treaty, later it appointed a panel to prepare a report indicating that there was some rethinking within the government on the matter.
The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction: 
It is an international treaty that establishes procedures that provide for the prompt return of children wrongfully retained or removed from their habitual residence. Although the ministry for women and children took a decision not to have India sign the treaty for good reasons, there is now some reported rethinking.
It would be disastrous for many reasons for India to sing the Convention. The Convention deals with what has come to be known as “international child abduction”. The Law Commission of India has recently addressed the issue, and the first and most important point made by the Commission is that the word “abduction” when used by a parent is misplaced as no parent can ‘abduct’ her own child. The Commission recommends the passing of a domestic law and the signing of the Convention. The recommendation is surprising since the report itself notes that it is mainly women who are compelled to return to a foreign country to fight lonely battles for custody with no support.
Although the discussion whether or not to sign the Convention is taking place in gender-neutral terms, the fact is that as the Commission itself notes, 68% of the taking parents were mothers; 85% of these respondent mothers were primary caregivers of their children and 54% had gone home to a country in which they held citizenship.
Indian law does not automatically recognize foreign judgments. By signing the Hague Convention, we will be compelled to recognize a foreign judgment regardless of the justness of the decision on custody under Indian law or whether was delivered ex-parte.

Consortium to help women entrepreneurs (Eco)

  • The UN India Business Forum and the Women Entrepreneurial Platform of NITI Aayog on Thursday formed a consortium to reduce gender disparities in startup investments by providing mentorship and networking opportunities and accelerating financial and market linkages for women entrepreneurs.
Details: 
UN India NITI Aayog Investor Consortium for Women Entrepreneurs will bring together key ecosystem stakeholders, including venture capitalists and impact investors, international donor and funding agencies, private sector partners and state governments.
The consortium aims to strengthen women’s entrepreneurship by creating an enabling ecosystem for investments.
Women entrepreneurs will be identified through key partners, including WEP, UN Women, and UNDP. The consortium secretariat will then connect entrepreneurs with relevant members.
In “full potential” scenario when women participate in the economy, equally to men, it could add $2.9 trillion to India’s GDP by 2025.
However, Indian women entrepreneurs continue to face challenges in accessing investors and raising capital. Sustainable development has the potential to open up markets worth $12 trillion around the world by 2030.
It is estimated that up to $5 trillion is needed in a year to implement UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) worldwide. Return on investments on implementing the SDGs could be about $30 billion a year.
Key partners for finance include HDFC, ICICI Bank, State Bank of India, Ambuja Cement, Tata Housing and LinkedIn while for health and nutrition companies such as Cadila Pharmaceuticals, Philips India, and Tata Chemicals have enrolled.
About UN India business forum:
 It is an initiative of the UN Resident Coordinator’s Office which aims to build a tangible long-term partnership of ideas and solutions for sustainable development.
The intention of the UN India Business Forum is to identify India’s most pressing developmental problems, commercially viable business models which can help us address them, and solutions that can be scaled up.

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