News : 1 Aug 2013

1. The juicy Nagpur orange, the famous tribal Warli art, Dharmavaram saris and Kerala’s Kaipad rice have been cleared for inclusion in Geographical Indications (GI) registry in the country. The logo for Leather Toys of Indore (already a GI product) was also approved.
2. The U.K. government took step to take £3,000 bond for issuing visas to people of certain countries, including India.
3. The Ministry of Steel under Government of India has become the first Central Ministry to be awarded ISO 9001:2008, Quality Management System certification. ISO 9001 is quality management system which codifies quality standards in every area of organization’s functioning.
4. Bhutan, especially its 12 per cent poor, will heave a sigh of relief after India decided to restore the subsidy on cooking gas and kerosene a month after it was discontinued
5. Over 617 national parks and wildlife sanctuaries that are home to several critically endangered species like the Great Indian Bustard and the Snow Leopard get a mere Rs 75 crore or Rs 1 lakh each per month, on an average, while the 43 reserves for the big cat get a whopping Rs 165 crore.
6. The Bihar government has amended the Bodh Gaya Temple Act of 1949, allowing for a non-Hindu to head the temple committee.As per Section 3 (3) of the Act, the district magistrate (DM) is the ex-officio chairman of the temple committee and has to be a Hindu. If the DM is a non-Hindu, the Act requires the government “to nominate a Hindu as Chairman of the committee for the period during which the DM is a non-Hindu.”
7. Easing FDI norms :
   Insurance sector, it was decided to raise the sectoral FDI cap from 26 per cent to 49 per cent under automatic route under which companies investing do not require prior government approval. A bill to raise FDI cap in the sector is pending in the Rajya Sabha.
   Allow 49 per cent FDI in single brand retail under the automatic route and beyond, through the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) route.
   In case of PSU oil refineries, commodity bourses, power exchanges, stock exchanges and clearing corporations, FDI would be allowed up to 49 per cent under automatic route as against the current routing of the investment through FIPB.
   In basic and cellular services, FDI was raised to 100 per cent from the current 74 per cent. Of this, up to 49 per cent would be allowed under automatic route and the remaining through FIPB approval.
   FDI of up to 100 per cent was allowed in courier services under automatic route. Earlier, similar amount of investment was allowed through FIPB route.
8. Ireland adopted a long-awaited law to allow abortion under limited circumstances after President Michael D. Higgins gave his assent to the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill passed by Parliament recently.
9. National Security Agency whistleblowers Edward Snowden left the transit zone of a Moscow airport and entered Russia after authorities granted him asylum for one year.
10. NSA’s XKeyscore surveillance programme has servers in India