Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 13 September 2016

:: National ::

The Union Cabinet approved the setting up of the Goods & Services Tax (GST) Council and its Secretariat.
The Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers on the GST could cease to be the forum at which the discussions between the Centre and States would take place, the Centre said after announcing the creation of the Council.
The Empowered Committee is headed by Amit Mitra, Finance Minister of West Bengal, a State that is yet to ratify the constitutional amendment enabling the roll-out of the GST.
Each State is to nominate as a voting member a minister, who may or may not be holding the finance or the taxation portfolios.
The Centre will have two representatives on the Council: the Union Finance Minister will chair it and Union Minister of State in-charge of Revenue, will be a member.

As Bengaluru and parts of Karnataka were gripped by large scale violence and arson, one person died and two were injured in police firing.
Mobs set vehicles on fire and attacked businesses with Tamil names after the Supreme Court ordered that Cauvery water continue to flow to Tamil Nadu.
Soon after the court declined to accept Karnataka’s appeal to freeze its September 5 order on release of water, hundreds of protesters took to Bengaluru’s streets, burning vehicles with Tamil Nadu registration numbers.
Prohibitory orders under Section 144 were imposed in Bengaluru and Mysuru, areas around four reservoirs in the Cauvery basin, and Pandavapura in Mandya district.

China and Russia began their first naval exercises in the South China Sea (SCS), setting the stage for a deeper military and political engagement, reinforced by the meeting at Hangzhou between the two heads of state.
Russians and the Chinese had come to an understanding that the exercises would not be held in disputed waters.
Russians have been sending a dual signal. While they are conveying to the United States that they stand by the Chinese, they are also preserving their strategic relationship with Vietnam.
The eight-day Joint Sea-2016 exercise is the largest naval drill conducted by the two countries since their annual naval manoeuvres began in 2012.
Russian President said during this month’s G-20 summit in Hangzhou that Moscow supported China’s rejection of the ruling by an international arbitration tribunal at The Hague that had rejected Beijing’s territorial claims in the SCS.

The Union Cabinet approved a move for exchange of tariff concessions under the Asia Pacific Trade Agreement (APTA), towards expanding trade ties with five nations in the region, including China.
Since this is a preferential trade agreement, the basket of items as well as extent of tariff concessions are enlarged during the trade negotiating rounds from time to time. Till date, three rounds of trade negotiations had taken place.
India is likely to benefit from offers of China and South Korea for duty concessions in sectors including textiles, chemicals and iron and steel, according to government sources.
Indian industry had not gained much from APTA so far, especially in textiles.
India in return has offered duty concessions on rail rolling stock, nuclear reactors and fissile material to boost the ‘Make In India’ initiative.

India’s industrial output slowed drastically led by a decline in manufacturing and an almost 30 per cent contraction in capital goods production, signalling a slump in investments.
Retail inflation on the other hand slowed significantly, spurring expectations that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) would likely reduce interest rates later this year to support economic growth.
The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) contracted 2.4 per cent in July, compared with a growth of two per cent in June, mainly on account of weakness in manufacturing, which contracted 3.4 per cent.
Inflation based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was 5.05 per cent in August, slower than 6.07 per cent in July, according to official data.
The slowdown in industrial activity comes at a time when the April-June GDP growth rate eased to a 15-month low. Within the CPI, the food category witnessed an inflation rate of 5.8 per cent in August, down from the blistering 8 per cent seen in July.
The electricity sector grew 1.6 per cent in July, lower than 8.3 per cent in June, while the mining sector grew 0.8 per cent, down from 5.3 per cent.
However, there are problems with relying on the IIP as an economic metric, owing to its dated base year and its variance from the present methodology for calculating economic growth.