Current Affairs for SSC CGL 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.

The Centre approved the enhancing of buffer stock of pulses to 20 lakh tonnes so as to stabilise the prices and encourage farmers to scale up production.
The government said the specific variety of pulses and their quantities for the buffer stock would be decided on the price and the availability.
The release of pulses from the buffer stock and procurement in the subsequent year will be based on the prevailing pulse [production] scenario as well as the buffer stock position.
The requisite funds for this operation will be provided to the price stabilisation fund scheme (PSFMC) of the department.
To create the buffer stock, domestic procurement would be done by the Food Corporation of India, the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India and Small Farmers Agriculture-Business Consortium.

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.

The Centre’s indirect tax collections increased more than 27 per cent in the April-August 2016 period, helped by a 49 per cent jump in excise receipts, according to data released by the Ministry of Finance.
The government also reported a 15 per cent increase in direct tax collections.
Till August 2016, 22.3 per cent of the Budget Estimates of direct taxes for financial year 2016-17 has been achieved.
The increase in tax collection, however, may not be enough to help the government meet its fiscal deficit target since the target this year is even stricter than that of last fiscal.
A separate government statement said indirect tax collections up to August stood at Rs.3.36 lakh crore, 27.5 per cent higher than the amount collected during the year-earlier period.
Within direct tax, the government said that corporate tax refunds during April –August — amounting to Rs.77,080 crore, up 22.2 per cent from the same period last year.
The Centre will likely increase capital expenditure after the monsoon, and the 7th Pay Commission impact would also begin to kick in, leading to a challenging fiscal deficit situation.
In indirect tax, central excise collections stood at Rs.1.53 lakh crore during April-August, up 49 per cent from the year earlier period. Service tax collections were Rs.92,696 crore, witnessing an annual increase of 23.2 per cent.
Customs duty collections were up 5.7 per cent at Rs.90,448 crore.