Current Affairs 22nd December 2017

Current Affairs 22nd December 2017 - Important Points

• Sahitya Akademi Awards 2017 announced on - 21st December 2017
• Cabinet approves new Consumer Protection Bill on - 20th December 2017
• Union Government launches Project Darpan on - 21st December 2017
• UN General Assembly rejects US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital on - 21st December 2017

Current Affairs 22nd December 2017 - Details

Sahitya Akademi Awards 2017 announced on - 21st December 2017

India's national academy Sahitya Akademi on 21st December 2017 declared its yearly awards, recognising the literary works of 24 writers in 24 various Indian languages. 7 novels, 5 poetries, 5 short stories, 5 literary criticism, and 1 play and 1 essay grab the Sahitya Akademi Awards 2017.
The awards will be distributed upon the winners during a ceremony on 12th February 2018.
Awardees

• English: Mamang Dai was given in English language for his novel The Black Hill. 
• Hindi: Ramesh Kuntal Megh secured the award in Hindi for his literary criticism work Vishw Mithak Sarit Sagar. 
• Sanskrit: Niranjan Mishra was presented for his Sanskrit novel Gangaputravadanam
• Malayalam: KP Ramanunni secured Daivathinte Pusthakam in Malayalam
• Punjabi: Nachhattar was granted for his Punjabi novel Slow Down.
• Poets: Udaya Narayana Singh -Maithili, Shrikant Deshmukh -Marathi, Bhujanga Tudu -Santali, Inqulab -Tamil and Devipriya -Telugu. However, Tamilian poet Inqulab’s family declined to accept the award for his collections of poems titled - Kaandhal Naatkal.
• Short Stories: Shiv Mehta -Dogri, Autar Krishen Rahbar -Kashmiri, Gajanan Jog -Konkani, Gayatri Saraf -Odia and Baig Ehsas -Urdu.
• For Literary Criticism: Ramesh Kuntal Megh -Hindi, TP Ashoka -Kannada, Urmi Ghanshyam Desai -Gujarati, Bina Hangkhim -Nepali and Neeraj Daiya Rajasthani.
• Essay: Jagdish Lachhani -Sindhi was given award for his essays.
• Play: Rajen Toijamba -Manipuri awarded for his play.
• The award prize contains a casket and an engraved copper-plaque, a shawl, and a cheque worth Rs 1 lakh.
  Sahitya Akademi Translation Prize 2017 
• The academy declared the names of the 24 winners of the Sahitya Akademi Translation Prize 2017.
• The reward carries a cash reward of Rs 50000.

Sahitya Akademi'sFestival of Letters; 

• The academy also declared the subject for Sahitya Akademi's next edition of Festival of Letters's70 years of Indian Independence.
• A national symposium will also be held on ‘70 Years of Indian Independence – Literary Portraits.

Cabinet approves new Consumer Protection Bill on - 20th December 2017

The Union Cabinet on 20th December 2017 passed a new Consumer Protection Bill that looks forward to establish an  authority to protect consumer's rights and has planning for penalty and jail terms in case of adulteration and misleading advertisements by companies.
According to the new bill, the celebrities countersigning misleading advertisements will also be responsible for a fine and restriction up to 3 years.

Did you know?

• In the month of August 2015, the Centre had initiated the Consumer Protection Bill in the Lok Sabha to repeal the 30-year- old Consumer Protection Act, 1986.
• The latest bill has been initiated by the consumer affairs ministry to replace the 2015 bill, as there were many alterations to the bill.
  A Parliamentary Standing Committee had also deposited its recommendations on the similar in April last 2016.
  Provisions of the Bill
• The latest bill looks forward to enlarge the scope of the present law and make it more effective and purposeful.
• It also looks forward to establish a Central Consumer Protection Authority to safeguard consumer rights.
• It has planning for post-litigation stage mediation as an alternate dispute resolution process.
• It also provides for product liability activity.
  The Penalty
• In case of the 1st offence, the penalty would be a fine of up to Rs 10 lakh and a 1-year restriction on any endorsement.
• For the 2nd offence, the penalty would be a fine of up to Rs 50 lakh and a 3-year- restriction on endorsements.
• For producers and companies, the fine would be up to Rs 10 lakh and up to 2 years of jail term for the 1st offence.
• For any following offence, the producers and organizations would have to pay a fine of Rs 50 lakh and get a jail term of five years.
• The bill also provides fine up to life term jail sentence in case of adulteration.

Union Government launches Project Darpan on - 21st December 2017

Union Minister Communications Manoj Sinha on 21st December 2017 inaugurated Project DARPAN – “Digital Advancement of Rural Post Office for A New India” to upgrade the quality of service and add value to facilities for rural customers.
The project has an estimate of 1400 crore rupees and expects to provide a low power technology answers to each Branch Postmaster. This will facilitate all 1.29 Lakhs Branch Post Offices to upgrade the level of services being recommended to rural customers across all the states. 
Presently, 43171 Branch Post Offices have moved under the “DARPAN” project with the objective of financial inclusion to rural population. 
More on Project Darpan-

• Project Darpan focuses to achieve financial inclusion of un-banked rural population.
• The Project will expand the rural reach of the Department of Posts and enable BOs to expand traffic of all financial remittances, Cash Certificates, savings accounts and Rural Postal Life Insurance.
• It will upgrade mail operations processes by permitting for automated booking and delivery of accountable article.
• It will grow revenue using retail post business, provide 3rd party applications and make payments for social security schemes such as MGNREGS.
• The project is decided to be completed by March 2018.

IT modernization project of Department of Posts

• As part of IT modernization project, the Department of Posts has carried out business process reengineering across various functional sectors.
• As an achievement, Department of Posts has confirmed 991 ATMs across the nation and the common people were directly rewarded with the broad network of Department of Posts especially in rural areas. 
• Till date, 11285217 transactions have been done on the DOP’s ATMs out of which 7024214 transactions have been carried out by the non-DOP users.

UN General Assembly rejects US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital on - 21st December 2017

The UN General Assembly resolution, announcing US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital as ‘null and void’, was approved with an overwhelming majority on 21st December 2017.
The resolution moved by Turkey and Yemen was approved despite US President Donald Trump’s threats to cut funding to US help recipients who voted in favor. Overall, 128 countries including India voted in favor of the resolution, 9 voted against and 35 abstained from voting.
The symbolic vote by the UN General Assembly is not, however, legally binding.
The UN General Assembly resolution

• The draft resolution disapproving the US move was passed to the General Assembly after it was vetoed by the USA at the Security Council on 18th December, although all other 14 council members voted in favor.
• The resolution highlighting on the fact that Jerusalem is a final status matter that requires being settledresolved through negotiations.
• It demands that all States comply with Security Council resolutions regarding Jerusalem, and not recognize any actions opposing to those resolutions.
• The resolution was drafted following Trump’s declaration of shifting the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, officially recognizing the old city as the capital of Israel.
  US’s reaction
• Trump declares during a cabinet meeting on 10th December, “Let them vote against us, we don't care. But this is not like it used to be where they could also vote against you and then you pay them 100s of millions of dollars.
• Strongly favoring Trump's decision, US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley notified that the US may strip funding of those nations that voted in favor of the UN resolution.
• She stated that no vote in the UN will make any difference on the US resolution to move its embassy to Jerusalem, which will go ahead because it is the correct thing to do.