Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 24 December 2016

:: National ::

The government think tank NITI Aayog rolled out a ‘Performance on Health Outcomes' index that will rank various States on the basis of their performance on measurable health indicators.
The index has been developed over several months, with inputs from domestic and international experts, including academicians and development partners as well as feedback from States. The indicators in the index have been pre-tested in two States.
This initiative is envisioned to bring about the much required improvements in social sector out-comes, which have not kept pace with the economic growth in this country.
The health index will assist in State-level monitoring of performance, serve as an input for providing performance-based incentives and improvement in health outcomes.

The Goods and Ser-vices Tax Council has moved a significant step closer to finalising the draft CGST and SGST laws that must be passed in Parliament — along with two other laws — to bring the GST into implementation.
The Council will meet again on January 3 and 4 to discuss the contentious issue of cross-empowerment, the only major issue that is lack-ing consensus.
At the next meeting, the CGST and SGST laws would be be-ing framed in legal language and placed before the States.
Regarding the compensationlaw, a few issues were left to be settled, such as the source of the compensation fund. Compensation to States for the loss of revenue, if any, from the GST rollout, would be paid every two months.
The most contentious issue of ‘dual control' or ‘cross empowerment' is to be discussed in the next meeting in early January. If there is an agreement on the issue, then GST laws can be passed in the budget session.

Italian police shot dead the prime suspect in the Berlin Christmas market attack, ending a frantic four-day hunt for Europe's most wanted man.
But just as German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed relief that suspected attacker Anis Amri no longer posed a threat, she pledged a "comprehensive" analysis of how he was slipped through the net in the first place.
Amri, a 24-year-old Tunisian, is believed to have hijacked a lorry and used it to mow down holiday revellers at the market on Monday, killing 12 and wounding dozens more.
The Islamic State jihadist group has claimed responsibility and released a video on Friday in which Amri is shown pledging allegiance to Islamic State chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
He had been missing since escaping immediately after the attack, but his time on the run was cut short thanks to a combination of luck and the quick reflexes of rookie Italian police officer Luca Scata.

Amid tight supply of wheat in the domestic market, govt ruled out the possibility of import of the grain on government ac-count saying there is ad-equate buffer stock to meet the requirement under the Public Distribution System (PDS).
The government has recently scrapped import duty on wheat to boost domestic supplies and curb price rise.
The private players have imported more than 1.7 million tonnes of wheat so far and more shipments are expected at zero customs duty.
As on December 1, state-owned Food Corporation of India had 27.55 million tonnes of foodgrains, of which wheat was 16.4 million tonnes and rice was 11 mil-lion tonnes, he said.