Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 07 January 2017

:: National ::

GDP growth to be lower than expected

• India’s gross domestic output is expected to grow at a slower pace of 7.1 per cent in 2016-17 compared to the 7.6 per cent clocked in the previous year, Chief Statistician said.

• But this doesn’t factor in the impact of the Centre’s decision to scrap high-value currency notes on November 8.

• Stressing that this estimate, which is in sync with the Reserve Bank of India’s economic growth forecast, is largely based on data from the first seven months of the year.

• In the absence of data, there are only two options: you can stay with existing structures and forecast them or, as a lot of people have done, make assumptions about what the structures are.

• The gross value added (GVA) is estimated to grow 7 per cent in 2016-17 compared with a growth rate of 7.2 per cent in 2015-16.

• The agriculture sector saw significant growth with its GVA estimated to grow 4.1 per cent in 2016-17 up from 1.2 per cent in the previous year.

• The service sector in aggregate is expected to grow 7.9 per cent in 2016-17, slower than the 8.1 per cent seen in the previous year.

• Manufacturing, on the other hand, is expected to witness a slowdown, with the sector’s GVA to grow 7.4 per cent in 2016-17 down from 9.3 per cent in 2015-16.

• The projection also factors in a huge jump in Government Final Consumption Expenditure, which is expected to grow 23.8 per cent in 2016-17 compared with 2.2 per cent in 2015-16, part of which could be on account of rise in wage and salary payments.

Aadhaar made mandatory for EPS

• The subsidy, equivalent to 1.16 per cent of the employee’s salary up to Rs. 6,500, paid by the Centre towards EPS, will no longer be credited till the Aadhaar number is shared with the authorities.

• At present, the minimum pension under EPS is Rs. 1,000 A month and an employee can receive pension only after a minimum 10 years of service.

• Till a subscriber gets enrolled for Aadhaar, the government will provide pension subsidy under the scheme only after certain documents are produced, including ID certificate issued by the employer and a copy of the request made for Aadhaar enrolment.

• These documents will have to be submitted to the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation or EPFO along with either of the following documents: voter ID card, passport, PAN card, driving licence or a certificate of identity approved by a gazetted officer.

• Employees are automatically enrolled under EPS if they are members of the Employees’ Provident Fund scheme.

RBI has agreed to provide Rs. 1 billion in Rs. 100 notes to the Nepal Rastra Bank (Register and Login to read Full News)

:: International ::

British Prime Minister Theresa May is set to visit the U.S.

• British Prime Minister Theresa May is set to visit the U.S. and meet President-elect Donald Trump shortly after his inauguration this spring.

• The visit — coming just months after her less-than-successful visit to India — will test the appetite of the world’s largest economies for a post-Brexit Britain.

• The enduring partnership between the two countries — famously described many decades ago by Winston Churchill as a “special relationship” — has gone through peaks and troughs.

• The Obama administration prioritised relations with other European nations such as Germany, describing Chancellor Angela Merkel last year as his “closest international partner” over the past eight years.

• Attempts to forge a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) also reflected the U.S.’s eagerness to broaden its relations with Europe beyond Britain.

• However, with the future of TTIP looking decidedly dim even before the U.S. election and the election of Mr. Trump, 2017 will throw up new opportunities — and challenges — for the relationship.

• The May administration has been eager to distance itself from the stance of former Prime Minister David Cameron, who was less-than-complimentary about the then-presidential candidate.

• Britain has already made a number of concessions to the U.S. when it comes to foreign policy: while Britain supported last year’s UN resolution condemning Israel’s expansion of settlements in occupied territories.

• While Britain is eager to position itself as open to building trade relationship outside the EU, Mr. Trump has adopted a protectionist tone on many issues.

:: Science and Technology ::

India’s Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope found black hole

• Astronomers, using data from India’s Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT), have discovered a supermassive black hole and the collision of giant galaxy clusters about two billion light years from Earth.

• The two phenomenon have combined to create a stupendous cosmic particle accelerator.

• By combining data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, GMRT in Pune and other telescopes, researchers found what happens when matter ejected by a giant black hole is swept up in the merger of two enormous galaxy clusters.

• This cosmic combination is found in a pair of colliding galaxy clusters called Abell 3411 and Abell 3412 located about two billion light years from Earth.

• The two clusters are both very massive, each weighing about a quadrillion — or a million billion — times the mass of the Sun.

• The comet-shaped appearance of the X-rays detected by Chandra is produced by hot gas from one cluster ploughing through the hot gas of the other cluster.

• First, at least one spinning, supermassive black hole in one of the galaxy clusters produced a rotating, tightly—wound magnetic funnel.

• The powerful electromagnetic fields associated with this structure have accelerated some of the inflowing gas away from the vicinity of the black hole in the form of an energetic, high-speed jet.

A solar-panel powered coach, the first of its kind in Jan Shatabdi (Register and Login to read Full News)

:: Business and Economy ::

Indian Railways to get more than six per cent increase in gross budgetary support

• The Finance Ministry may grant the Indian Railways a more than six per cent increase in gross budgetary support to Rs. 48,000 crore, a figure that the operator of the world’s fourth largest railway network wants raised further.

• The Finance Ministry has pegged the budgetary support at Rs. 48,000 crore for 2017-18.

• The Budget, which is likely to be presented on February 1, will be the first time that the state-owned Railways will have its allocation announced in the Union Budget as the colonial-era practice of a separate Railway Budget has been dispensed with.

• While the public utility had sought Rs. 60,000 crore for the coming fiscal to rev up investments, the Finance Ministry had pointed out that the Railways won’t have to pay any dividend from the coming year.

• The GBS will, however, be more than six per cent higher than Rs. 45,000 crore provided by the Finance Ministry in 2016-17.

• The increase in budgetary support is significant as the Indian Railways will no longer be required to pay dividend to the Finance Ministry for the capital invested in it following the Budget merger from 2017-18.

• The dividend waiver will allow the Railways to step up investment towards track renewal, maintenance, station improvement and passenger amenities.

• In 2016-17, Indian Railways is budgeted to pay Rs. 9,731 crore as dividend, whereas the subsidy claimed by the Railways towards loss-making routes is estimated at Rs. 4,301 crore.

• As a result, the net dividend payment to the Finance Ministry is estimated at Rs. 5,430 crore in 2016-17 against the gross budgetary support of Rs. 45,000 crore.

• The Indian Railways meets its planned expenditure through a combination of GBS, market borrowings and internal revenue generation.

• Over the last five years, the GBS provided to the Railways has been substantially lower than its actual requirement.

• While the Railways had sought from the Finance Ministry budgetary support of Rs. 2, 29,399 crore from 2012-13 to 2016-17, the actual GBS (including diesel cess) was 25 per cent lower at Rs. 1, 67,511 crore.

Plantation Labour Act (PLA), 1951 to be amended

• The Centre is planning to amend the Plantation Labour Act (PLA), 1951 in a major way to exclude ‘in –kind’ components being regarded as wages.

• It may be mentioned here that under the PLA 1951, plantation workers get various benefits either subsidised or free. These include rations, housing, education, firewood and medical facilities.

• Accordingly, a large section of the mainstream tea industry bears the cost of providing these services. The industry does not pay statutory minimum wages, saying that the monetised value of the facilities provided compensates for this.

• The tea industry , which is the largest among the plantation sectors (which includes coffee, rubber and spices), pays Rs. 137 in cash in Assam and Rs. 132 in West Bengal.

• In 2014, Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had come down hard on the tea industry for not paying minimum wages.

• The proposed amendment is now seeking to “exclude from the definition of wage the in-kind benefits that were being hitherto included,” an industry source told The Hindu .

• The Central and State governments rolled out a clutch of social sector schemes which can be implemented in the tea estates. This, they felt, would obviate the need for the industry to extend these benefits.

• The Centre now wants the plantation industry to share this cost with the government under the amended PLA.

• A 2009 Report of a Committee on the Cost Competitiveness of India Tea Industry, too had pointed out that the PLA had added to production costs and lowered competitiveness.

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