Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 04 January 2016

:: NATIONAL ::

Terrorist operations still going on in Pathankot

Centre’s eagerness to claim credit for what it said was a successful coordinated response to the terrorist attack on the Pathankot airbase lay in tatters on Sunday morning with the discovery of two more terrorists in action, death of a seasoned NSG commando and injury to many of his colleagues.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi landed in the national capital on Sunday evening, and directly went into a huddle with senior officials including National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar and others to discuss the terror strike.
The morning began peacefully in Pathankot airbase, and there was no inkling of the dramatic events that were to unfold over the next several hours.
Around 10 a.m., Lieutenant Colonel Niranjan Kumar and his team from the National Security Guard were examining the body of a terrorist killed the previous evening, and probably trying to defuse an explosive attached to it, when the device detonated, killing him and injuring the others.

Second terrorist attack in two days, this time in Indian consulate

Even as the operation against terrorists at the Pathankot airbase continued on Sunday, the Indian consulate in Mazar-e- Sharif in Northern Afghanistan came under attack from four armed terrorists.
The commandos of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) force, which guards the consulate building, were the first to engage with the terrorists for almost an hour and were able to thwart the attack.
Firing was directed at the consulate from an adjacent building and there were at least four armed men.

Biggest military helicopter manufacturing complex inaugurated in Tumakuru, Karnataka

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the 610- acre military helicopter manufacturing complex that would come up here would be big leap towards achieving self-reliance in the defence sector.
Mr.. Modi said it was expected to produce 600 helicopters over the next 15 years for the armed forces.
The small village would have a role in keeping the nation secure. Defence public enterprise HAL plans to manufacture its Light Utility Helicopter for reconnaissance and surveillance; the Light Combat Helicopter for battlefield offence; and subsequently add a range of heavier and advanced rotary products.
The Rs. 5,000-crore copter complex — easily the biggest investment in this backward region would boost the government's ‘Make in India’ agenda. It would also provide 4,000 jobs.

:: INDIA and WORLD ::

Sahyog-Kaijin will start from chennai coast

The latest edition of ‘Sahyog-Kaijin,’ the Indo-Japan Coast Guard Joint Exercise, will begin in the Bay of Bengal of the Chennai coast on January 12.
The five-day event would witness seminars and exercises involving strategic assets of both the countries, besides meeting of high-level officials in Delhi and Chennai, sources said.
While one ship would represent the Japanese side, five to six ships are expected to participate from the Indian Coast Guard.
The Commandant of the Japan Coast Guard would also meet his Indian counterpart in Delhi and later arrive in Chennai.
This would be the second time in the last three months that a ship from Japanese military is participating in an exercise with India in the Bay of Bengal.
During the visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to India last month, he said that Japan would be a permanent partner in the Malabar naval exercise along with India and U.S. navies.
Japan is also likely to send its maritime assets to participate in the International Fleet Review to be conducted at Visakhapatnam next month.
Sahyog-Kaijin is held once in two years and the venue would shift between India and Japan on alternate occasions. India’s ICGS Samudra Paheredar participated in the 2014 edition held at Yokohama in Japan.

India seeks to lead developing nations at WTO

Starting with a proposed visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Africa in February, India plans to play a leadership role at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations to boost the trade prospects of the developing and poor nations.
To forge strong alliances on the “development agenda” of the WTO’s ongoing Doha Round of talks, the government will, in the coming months, also hold a series of “strategy workshops” of stakeholders, inter-ministerial and Centre- state discussions in addition to summits with African countries and other developing country groups.
The move comes in the backdrop of widespread criticism by the Opposition and civil society groups that the NDA government had failed to protect the interests of India and the developing world at the Ministerial Conference (WTO’s highest decision making body) held in Nairobi last month for negotiations on an agreement to lower global trade barriers.
The Nairobi Ministerial Declaration reaffirmed the pre-eminence of the WTO as the global forum for trade rules setting and governance, but noted that there was a lack of consensus on the part of the WTO’s 162-member countries on the way to take forward the Doha Development Agenda (DDA).
The Ministerial Declaration only said: “We recognise that many members reairm the DDA, and the Declarations and Decisions adopted at Doha and at the Ministerial Conferences held since then, and reaffirm their full commitment to conclude the DDA on that basis.”
This includes ensuring that the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA), aiming to ease customs rules and expedite trade flows, does not come into effect till all the Doha Round issues are sorted out.
The TFA, which is being pushed mostly by rich countries, will come into effect only when two-thirds of the WTO’s members or 108 of the 162 member countries, ratify it. As of now, 63 countries have done so. India is yet to ratify the TFA.

:: BUSINESS and ECONOMY ::

CEO’s from top companies to be present for start up India

Chief Executives of companies such as Google’s Sundar Pichai, Tesla’s Elon Musk and Apple’s Tim Cook, who met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in San Jose last September, are among the 2,000 startup invitees expected for unveiling the government’s Start Up India initiative on January 16.
Prime Minister Modi is expected to address the concluding session of the work-shop, where he will unveil the government’s action plan for promoting such enterprises based on a slogan he coined in his Independence Day Address last year — Start Up India, Stand Up India.
Indian startups received $9 billion in funding in 2015, which is half the total amount they could raise in the five years preceding 2015.
Among the various initiatives that the PM could announce include a new law that makes it easier to start and ex- it a venture and additional support for ‘innovative startups’.

PMO consults economists for increasing growth

The Prime Minister’s office, in a bid to arrest an economic slowdown in the country, is seeking inputs from government economists to reassess both the fiscal and monetary policy issues.
There has been a slowdown in India’s nominal GDP growth with latest estimates from the Central Statistics Office suggesting that the growth declined from 13.5 per cent in April-September 2014 to 7.4 per cent in the corresponding period of 2015.
Real GDP growth is slowing too. But not as sharply. It rose mar- ginally from 7.2 per cent to 7.5 per cent.
Industrial credit has “slowed dramatically” -- its growth rate has remained un- der 5 per cent.
Growth in capital goods imports, which partially proxies for investment, has decelerated sharply from about 12 per cent in April 2015 to a barely positive territory.
The PMO’s move to gain insight into the state of the economy is expected to lead to corrective changes such as in the monetary policy agreement the government signed with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in February 2015.

:: SPORTS ::

India wins SAFF Suzuki cup

Sunil Chetri scored one of the most important goals of his career when his 101st-minute strike snatched an unlikely win for India in the final of the SAFF Suzuki Cup football tournament against Afghanistan.
The Indian skipper cashed in on some poor defending by the Afghans to squeeze the ball into the net past goalkeeper Azizi in the 11th minute of extra-time.
The Indians then withstood a barrage of attacks to lift the trophy for the seventh time, and after a gap of four years.