Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 17 June 2016

:: National ::

Inaugurating the two-day RajasvaGyan Sangam, Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked senior tax officials to aim for widening the tax net from the present 5.4 crore households to 10 crore households.
The PM’s message was clear: the approach has to be to make it very easy to pay taxes and very difficult to avoid paying them.
In his address, Mr. Modi gave a five-point charter to tax administrators embodied in the word ‘RAPID.’ These are: revenue, accountability, probity, information and digitisation.
He pointed out that while nearly 92 per cent of India’s tax revenue comes from self-assessments, advance tax payments and tax deducted at source, the 42,000 taxmen raise barely 8 per cent through assessments and scrutiny of returns.
Prime Minister asked the officers to ensure their behaviour is “soft” and “sober” and change their attitude so that the “fear of harassment” is erased from the minds of taxpayers.
Mr. Modi said the query “how to pay taxes in India” throws up seven crore responses on Google. Similarly, the search engine gives 12 crore responses to the query “how not to pay taxes in India.”

The three women, in their early 20s, are set to create history as India’s first women fighter pilots when they will be commissioned.
Flight Cadets Avani Chaturvedi from Madhya Pradesh, BhawanaKanth from Bihar and Mohana Singh from Rajasthan are currently undergoing Stage-II training on Kiran Intermediate Jet Trainers at Hakimpet Air Force station in Hyderabad.
Once they pass out at the Combined Graduation Parade Spring Term 2016, the three will begin advanced training on advanced jet trainer Hawks.
It will take another 145 hours on the Hawks for almost a year before they would actually get into the cockpit of a supersonic fighter.
Last October, the government decided to open the fighter stream for women on an experimental basis for five years.

Eurogroup head JeroenDijsselbloem said that the Eurozone was ready for any of the negative effects of a vote by Britain to leave the European Union.
But, he added: “We have the capacity to deal with any shocks that might occur.”
The 19 Eurozone ministers were meeting in Luxembourg for talks with IMF head Christine Lagarde, but the threat of a vote by Britain to leave the European Union dominated concerns.
French Finance Minister Michel Sapin warned that a British exit from the EU would mainly affect the British people.
The high-octave EU referendum campaign in the United Kingdom ground to a halt with news of the shocking murder of the charismatic Labour Member of Parliament, Jo Cox.
Ms. Cox, a first-time MP, was a vocal supporter of Britain remaining in the European Union (EU).

Domestic information technology (IT) spending in the government sector is expected to grow 3.1 per cent in the year 2016, fuelled by a ‘Digital India’ initiative.
According to a report released by global IT research and advisory firm Gartner the government will spend about Rs.4,700 crore ($7 billion) for various IT products and services.
The forecast by the firm includes expected spending by various governments including State, Centre and local governments in the country.
The IT spending for the year includes internal services, software, IT services, data centres, devices and telecom services.
Gartner predicted that the growth of the software market will be led by growth in the infrastructure.

The subsidy provided by the Centre to airlines under the regional connectivity scheme (RCS) may be tapered if the passenger load factor increases to a decent level, according to the new civil aviation policy.
Continuance of VGF [viability gap funding] for a particular route will be subject to appropriate passenger load factor continuously for a prescribed period.
The Centre will subsidise the losses incurred by airlines by flying on the regional routes in a bid to allow them to charge Rs.2,500 to passenger for an hour’s flight.
The Centre will create a regional connectivity fund through a small levy on departure of each flight, as per the policy. While Centre will contribute 80 per cent for the viability gap funding, the rest 20 per cent will come from the states.
In a bid to boost the cargo volumes the freight industry has also been offered a slew of incentives such as zero airport charges and waiving off terminal navigation landing charges.
However, the cargo industry will not be entitled to viability gap funding from the government.
The aviation policy gives a level of comfort to the states by allowing them to charge service tax on 10 per cent of the ticket costs to passengers flying in and out of the airports falling under the scheme.
The draft policy had said that service tax on tickets will be exempted from the RCS.

India’s hopes of qualifying for the title clash hung in the balance after a 4-2 loss to world champion Australia in their last league outing of the Champions Trophy.
India’s goals came from V.R. Raghunath and Mandeep Singh, but it was too late to threaten Australia, which had gained a stranglehold through strikes from Trent Mitton, Aran Zalewski, Flynn Ogilvie and Tristian White.
Australia topped the league standings with 13 points from five matches, while India finished on seven points, and now awaits the result of the Great Britain-Belgium encounter to know if it will feature in the final or in the bronze-medal match.
Britain, on five points, will bag second spot if it beats Belgium while a victory for the latter will see it draw level with India on points. Then the goal difference will come into play.
A draw will leave the Indians in second place, giving them a place in the final.