Current Affairs of 17 August

1. Gogoi seeks PM’s help to resolve Naga boundary row
 Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Saturday sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intervention for restoration of peace in the Uriamghat area in upper Assam’s Golaghat district along the disputed Assam-Nagaland border where raids by armed groups from Nagaland on August 12-13 left 11 dead and seven injured and forced over 10,000 people to take shelter in 13 relief camps.
The Chief Minister, in a letter, also requested the Prime Minister for deployment of 10 additional companies of the Central Reserve Police Force along with setting up of security pickets in the eight villages.


2. States will soon be allowed to form own export promotion panels, Modi says
The states will soon be allowed to form their own export promotion councils, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday as he underscored the need for the Centre and states to work in tandem to give a fresh thrust to exports.
He also stressed upon the need for swift removal of obstacles stalling the special economic zones (SEZs).

3. Oriental Bank of Commerce pledges support for Swachh Bharat
Hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi stressed on the need to
 transform India into a ‘Swachh Bharat’, Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC) announced a new CSR initiative towards this end.
This public sector bank has earmarked Rs. 2 crore to construct 200-plus toilets for girls and boys in various government primary schools in villages under its CSR activities. This activity will be undertaken by the 34 regional offices of the bank across the country, SL Bansal, Chairman and Managing Director, OBC, said on Friday.
He also announced fresh initiatives taken by the bank including facility of stop payment of cheque through SMS and e-filing of income tax return through the bank’s net banking system.
A new facility to undertake advance searching of branches/ATMs/e-lounges was also announced.

4. UPSC asks examinees to leave English comprehension section unanswered
 Notifying the new marking scheme for Civil Services Preliminary Examination 2014 in line with the government's decision not to count the marks for English comprehension section of Paper II for gradation, the UPSC on Saturday asked the examinees to leave the questions in this section unanswered as they would not be evaluated. The two-hour duration of the paper, however, would remain unchanged.
"The maximum marks for Paper II would be '200 minus the marks earmarked for the English language comprehension skills (Class X level)'," the UPSC said in a press release. The English comprehension skills section, with its 8-9 questions, carries 22.5 marks.

5. Move to scrap Planning Commission raises Constitutional questions
rime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to scrap the Planning Commission has raised administrative and Constitutional questions that the Centre will have to address in the coming days.
The first of these is what happens to the ongoing 12th Five Year Plan? Will this Plan, which was adopted by the National Development Council (NDC) that comprises not only the Centre but also States, including Gujarat, be junked or be allowed to run its course till 2017?
“The 12th Plan is an ideologically-neutral, NDC-approved, growth policy document with inclusion and sustainability as its pillars and technically the Centre cannot on its own decide to junk it,” a high-level source said.
Second, since indications are that the role of making plan allocations to States for development spending will be transferred to the Finance Ministry, there are likely to be implications of this for India’s federal system.