Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 31 August 2014

EC mulls de-linking Assembly polls in 4 states

The Assembly elections in four states are being de-linked with Maharashtra and Haryana likely to go to polls first in the third week of October.
The other two states — Jammu and Kashmir and Jharkhand — may witness elections in late December-early January.
The Election Commission is working on the schedules and may announce the programme for Maharashtra and Haryana by the middle of September, highly placed sources said.
Hectic discussions are on between the Commission and the Union Home Ministry on assessing the requirement of forces and their allocation.
Sensitive and hyper sensitive constituencies are being identified so that adequate forces can be deployed to ensure free and fair polls without violence.
The tenure of the 288-member Maharashtra Assembly comes to an end on November 8, while that of the 90-member Haryana House will end on October 27.

The Government is likely to approve a hike in dearness allowance (DA) to 107 per cent from the existing 100 per cent, benefiting around 30 lakh Centre’s employees and its 50 lakh pensioners including dependents.
“The average rate of retail inflation for industrial workers from July 1, 2013 to June 30, 2014 works out to be 7.25 per cent. Thus the Central government will hike dearness allowance for it employees by 7 per cent,” an official said.
He said the Finance Ministry will now put a Cabinet proposal for approval of 7 per cent DA hike from July 1 this year as the revised Consumer Price Index-Industrial Workers data for June was released by Labour Ministry on Saturday.
With increase in DA, the pensioners will also gain as the benefit provided to them as dearness relief will be hiked to 107 per cent of basic pay.
The previous UPA government had increased DA to 100 per cent from 90 per cent with effect from January 1, 2014, on February 28 on the basis of agreed formula for revision of the allowance.

Veteran journalist Padma Bhushan Balraj Puri passed away after prolonged illness at a Government Medical College here .
Mr. Puri was conferred the Padma Bhushan for his contribution in the fields of Literature and Education in 2005 and also the Indira Gandhi award for national integration on October 31, 2009.
He was an author and co-author of about 40 books and approximately 1,000 articles for various dailies in India and abroad.

Sources: Various News Papers & PIB

NEW! UPSC IAS COMPLETE NOTES